Open call for local artists’ works
As part of the ongoing celebration of the 125th anniversary of the M.H. de Young Museum, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco has plans for a juried opensubmission exhibition featuring the work of Bay Area artists.
The exhibition is titled “The de Young Open” and it will indeed be open to artists from any of the nine Bay Area counties, FAMSF announced Monday. Director and CEO Thomas P. Campbell said he is hopeful that the exhibition will be ready whenever the state’s coronavirus shelterinplace order is lifted and the museum can open its doors again.
The exhibition was originally planned for next spring, Campbell said. But then the coronavirus pandemic upended the museum’s schedule.
“Since we were having to postpone some of the exhibitions on our calendar, we realized we could accelerate this project and do it right now,” he told The Chronicle in a phone interview. “The idea is to give people something to celebrate and have something for artists to work toward.
“When you look at what’s going on here and across the country, many different people are suffering. And one segment of society that’s especially challenged and close to our hearts is the artist community.”
The exhibition’s theme is “On the Edge” and comes from a phrase in a traditional Ohlone song: “I am dancing. On the edge of the world I am dancing.”
“This was a phrase that caught all of our imaginations,” Campbell said. “We thought it lent itself to interpretation in a variety of ways.”
Artwork for the exhibition, which will be on view in the de Young’s Herbst galleries, will be selected by a jury led by Timothy Anglin Burgard, distinguished senior curator and curatorincharge of American art. Also on the panel will be Claudia Schmuckli, curator of contemporary art and projects, and Karin Breuer, curatorincharge of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts from the Fine Arts Museums, as well as selected local artists and other cultural leaders.
Campbell said that he expects information about applying to be made public on the museum’s website in the coming weeks. One goal, he said, is to include as much art as possible from artists of diverse backgrounds.
“We will be hanging this ‘Academy style’ — not a polite onepictureatatime,” he said. “We’re going to pack the walls like a collage, in an effort to get in as many pictures as we can.”