Public Texts: A Californian Visual Language

About

The visual output of Californian artists has, for over half a century, embraced the written word as the site for aesthetic play, assertions of identity, and as a storytelling device that reflects the unique cultural space of the Golden State. Working across painting, drawing, and printmaking, artists rooted and residing in the state have embraced the written word as image, incorporating language as a central component of their visual practice. Through a lyrical, playful, and colorful use of text, their artworks revel in local and regional influences, including hand-painted advertising, graffiti, Hollywood and automobile culture, gentrification, migration, activism, and technology. Over the past half-century, these practitioners have developed an aesthetic that stands in stark contrast with the cool, san-serif deadpan of their East Coast counterparts.

Public Texts: A Californian Visual Language is a multifaceted initiative to bring work by text-based visual art practitioners with a connection to California to the University of California, Santa Barbara. Focusing on the legibility of text-based artistic practices and how they are uniquely positioned to engage with various publics beyond studio and gallery walls, this hybrid project consists of three main elements: a public art initiative, a museum exhibition at the Art, Design & Architecture Museum, and interdisciplinary pedagogical space inside the AD&A Museum designed to support multiple forms of instruction.

Public Texts: A Californian Visual Language is organized by the Art, Design & Architecture Museum and curated by Alex Lukas, Associate Professor of Print & Publication Arts. The exhibition is made possible thanks to the support of the University of California Santa Barbara's Art Equity Commons (a UCoP Advancing Faculty Diversity Initiative), the AD&A Museum Council, and the Academic Senate. Professor Lukas' curatorial research has been supported by a University of California Regent's Humanities Faculty Fellowship. 

Artist list:

American Artist, Tauba Auerbach, John Baldessari, Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, Rose D’Amato, Emory Douglas, Ana Teresa Fernandez, Alfonso Gonzalez Jr. , Ozzie Juarez, Corita Kent, Christine Sun Kim, Kate Laster, Los Jaichackers, Barry McGee, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Devin Reynolds, Guadalupe Rosales, Glen Rubsamen, Ed Ruscha, Ben Sakoguchi, Georgina Treviño, Wes Wilson