Last night I attended the opening of the Long Beach City College Art Gallery. We had lost the gallery last year in one of the seemingly endless rounds of cuts to education. It was hard for the school to both justify and understand the importance of the gallery to our Art Program - but (with the help of many behind the scenes) we were able to negotiate its return.
There was an interesting air of hope and excitement last night and I watched the students crowd the space to see the work. Our returning curator, Habib Kheradyar, started with a faculty show, this image is actually as the crowd was starting to thin. Habib is both an artist and the founder of Post "a subversive venue for contemporary art" in Los Angeles and we're very fortunate to have him back. You can follow the gallery on Facebook.
What I've learned is that, for a gallery (and maybe art) to survive, it's important to find ways to make everyone care about it - not just the artists involved. It seems like so much of art is about exclusion, you often have to know about art just to understand what you're looking at - and I have no problem with that - but it occurs to me that the flip side is a public that does not value art or its institutions. So, my goal is to create a stronger culture of art at LBCC and to find ways to make the gallery valuable to the entire school.
The following image is from an installation that's behind the far wall you see in the above image. This work is by Gretchen Potts, one of our faculty members. I was so taken by the quality of the light she created. I'd love to see this on an even larger scale.
