Berkeley Art Center is closed from April 21st through May 3rd for install/deinstall. Please refer to our upcoming exhibitions.

ALSO ON VIEW

WORKS ON SITE

Untitled

Jeffrey Cheung

Wall mural, 2020

JEFFREY CHEUNG’s paintings are a joyful celebration of queer nude bodies. Commissioned during the pandemic, his mural at BAC is full of cheeky humor and a discovery for visitors to the gallery. Born and raised in the Bay Area, Cheung graduated form UC Santa Cruz and has shown at spaces throughout the Bay Area, as well as in New York, LA, Paris, and Copenhagen. Jeff is the founder of Unity Skateboarding, a queer skating collective, and he plays music in local punk bands Meat Market and Unity. He lives and works in Oakland.

SANCTUARY CITY PROJECT

Sergio de la Torre and Chris Treggiari

Banners, 2020

SANCTUARY CITY PROJECT is an engagement platform created by artists Sergio de la Torre and Chris Treggiari to collect and share research with the public. Their latest project investigates the state of undocumented immigrants since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sanctuary City Project realized these banners during COVID, public space has also become essential. Outdoor spaces allow engaging more safely and responsibly and offer a sense of normalcy in a very un-normal time. These banners are a way for Sanctuary City Project to expand the engagement strategies they have been developing for the past 12 years, and to encourage public conversations about the injustices surrounding undocumented immigrants and COVID-19.

ISIS

Peter Voulkos

Bronze, limited edition set, 2001

Artist and educator PETER VOULKOS reinvented ceramic art in the 1950s and ‘60s, influencing generations of artists with his focus on performativity and chance as a part of sculptural practice. In this piece, he deconstructs the conventional and utilitarian chimney form to evoke a maternal archetype in the Egyptian mother goddess Isis. Emotional and physical distress — a body penetrated, broken, distorted, and reassembled — blends with the intensity of the creative process.

Mega Magic Hecksagon

Kristin Farr

Latex paint, 2016

KRISTIN FARR’s work is directed by color and influenced by folk art practices, a combination evidenced in this piece. Commissioned as part of I Look for Clues in Your Dreams, a 2016 exhibition at BAC dedicated to exploring forms of spirituality associated with the American West, Mega Magic Hecksagon harnesses color patterns associated with psychedelic experiences. Like much of Farr’s work, the experience of colors in this piece is itself evocative of magic and deeper meaning.

Seated woman with horns

Stephen de Staebler

Bronze and patina, 1982

Sculptor STEPHEN DE STAEBLER studied under Voulkos at UC Berkeley in the 1960s and is best known for works in clay and bronze that reimagined the human figure, often as totemic and fragmented. Seated Woman With Horns is composed of human limbs in abstract form. Body parts are rearranged and reach upward toward the sky, suggesting the possibility for spiritual transcendence within the bounds of the body and the possibilities that exist within even the most intransigent realities.