You Are Breathing In It! Alternative Art Practices

Exhibition: July 14 - September 22, 2012
Reception: July 14, from 7:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.

The group exhibition, You Are Breathing In It! Alternative Art Practices, is an investigation of alternative artistic processes in contemporary art, highlighting artists from: Riverside; Los Angeles; San Jose; Chicago; Tijuana, Mexico; and San Juan, Puerto Rico. The exhibition features photographs, installations, films, music, drawings, and sculptures. This groundbreaking exhibition at the Riverside Art Museum examines and redefines the concept and space of the ‘artist’s studio’ as a unique platform for developing dialogues, relationships, and greater community involvement through questions relating to: public space, education, civic engagement, violence, identity, and community. While many situate the site of artistic production in a traditional studio art space, these artists redefine the concept and use the streets, apartments/homes, nightclubs, or vehicles. Other artists in the exhibition appropriate spaces such as restaurants, storefronts, and other public spaces of gathering to make art, intervene, and lead discussions.

An expansive two-gallery exhibition with ongoing activities and companion events, You Are Breathing In it! presents a selection of varied and interactive media that travel far beyond the realm of formal aesthetics. The underlying objective of the works in the exhibit is to serve as a vehicle for engaging discussion, diversification, and cultivating meaningful relationships and experiences in an art context that is at once playful and commanding. Accompanying events and activities during the exhibition’s run will include:

student-led discussions with Puerto Rican artist Christopher Rivera and his co-curatorial-based project, “Cave In,” that showcased artists inside a cave;
a student-based curatorial internship project;
art, writing, and performance workshops, such as Evelyn Serranos’ collective, NOMAD Lab, a community-based art project which designs and implements free art workshops that address the rise in criminal activity;
a film screening and panel discussion by Tijuana-based media art collective Bulbo and their appropriation of a space and the twelve-step program format of the Alcoholics Anonymous group to lead discussions;
an interactive mural hosted by Mobile Mural Lab;
We Woke The World Festival, a living monument to the many faces of liberty, initiated by Ari Kletzky and centered on a participatory sing-along of a historic Suffragist-era song, and an installation for Islands of LA, an ongoing project that explores traffic islands as public space; and
an interactive listening workshop by Elana Mann based on her project in collaboration with musician Juliana Snapper, The People’s Microphony Camerata (PMC), an experimental choir exploring ideas of listening through sound, voice, and body.

Participating Artists include:

Radames “Juni” Figueroa
Cynthia HerreraEvelyn Serrano and NOMAD Lab
Elana Mann
Ari Kletzky
Bulbo
Mobile Mural Lab
Angelica Muro
Juan Luna-Avin
Juan Angel Chavez
…with a special site-specific outdoor installation by Martin Sanchez, Riverside-based artist and founder of Tio’s Tacos

Accompanying Summer Educational Events Hosted by RAM:

Saturday, July 14, 2012
Opening Reception and Mobile Mural Lab Youth Workshop
Reception: 7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Free and Open to the Public (Advanced sign-ups required for Mobile Mural Lab workshop, space is limited. Please call 951.684.7111 or email RAM to sign up.)
The opening Reception for the exhibition will be complemented with a collaborative mural workshop led by Mobile Mural Lab. Artists Roberto Del Hoyo and David Russell will lead youth through an all-day collaborative mural painted on their van, as well as an interactive digital projection onto the front of the museum.

Saturday, July 28, 2012
1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
NOMAD Lab’s Rag Doll-Making and Writing Workshop
Free and Open to the Public (Advanced sign-ups required, space is limited. Please call 951.684.7111 or email RAM to sign up.)
Artist project conceived by Evelyn Serrano
Workshop led by Ebony Williams
This workshop is a class that is currently taught in the Valle De Oro Community apartment complex in Valencia, California as part of the NOMAD Lab project. This class asks students to make dolls and write about them as a way to discuss issues surrounding stereotypes and identity.

Thursday, August 2^nd, 2012
6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Ears’ Out! Listening Workshop with Elana Mann
Free and Open to the Public during Arts Walk (6:00 – 9:00 p.m.)
Participants will construct large ear-shaped signs to promote active listening, as well as invent devices to aid in the act of listening. Tubes, ear horns, and acoustical mirrors will be produced and used in order to listen to different environments. Open up your ears and tune into new information and knowledge about the spaces and people around you!

Thursday, August 23, 2012
6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Film Screening of “Tijuaneados Anonymous” by Art Collective Bulbo
Free and Open to the Public
This film by Tijuana-based media art collective, Bulbo, documents the artists’ appropriation and implementation of a discussion and community-led group in Tijuana, Mexico. In the middle of a violent drug-related murdering chaos, the collective and community members use the 12-step program format of Alcoholics Anonymous as a platform for dialogue. Tijuaneados Anonymous is the first group in its kind to exist in Tijuana.

Sunday, August 26, 2012
1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
“We Woke The World Festival, A Living Monument to Liberty” Conceived by Ari Kletzky
Open to the public, $3 per person suggested donation
RAM announces a unique opportunity to help build a living monument to the many faces of liberty called We Woke The World. Everyone is invited to celebrate the 92nd anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which established women's right to vote in America, and the 31st anniversary of Women's Equality Day. Festivities include a sing-a-long and live recording of a 1917 group song as well as a historical paper hat and feather making activity. This is also an inaugural event, which "breaks ground" on We Woke The World, a living monument to the many faces of liberty.

Friday, September 21, 2012
6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Closing Panel Discussion and Reception; Art and Public Space
Free and Open to the public
A panel discussion with Puerto Rican Artist Christopher Rivera and students from the Riverside Art Museum Student Curatorial Council (RAMSCC), a team of highly talented students of varying backgrounds who have curated small sections of the museum in response to the ideas explored in You Are Breathing In It! Christopher Rivera received his MFA from Hunter College in New York City and will discuss his work with students and his co-curatorial project, “Cave In,” an exhibition that takes place in Puerto Rico this summer. Closing reception festivities will follow.

Curated by: Karla Diaz

Karla Diaz is a celebrated curator, artist, writer, and co-director of Slanguage Studio, an artist space and art collective based out of Wilmington, California. Diaz has presented work and coordinated exhibits at renowned local venues, including: The Getty Museum, MOCA, and LACMA, as well as internationally, throughout Spain, Egypt, and Mexico.

You Are Breathing In It! Alternative Art Practices is made possible by: