Texas-based Carter creates compelling images that speak to the inherent beauty in the people, places, and things we see every day. This exhibition featured 65 black-and-white photographs by this master photographer and was organized by the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film. In addition, SJMA augmented the exhibition with a selection of photographs by Carter drawn from the Museum’s permanent collection.

This mid-career survey of work by Los Angeles–based artist Long Nguyen included 15 paintings from his monochromatic Tales of Yellow Skinseries, as well as six contextual paintings and a selection of his sculpture and works on paper.

McManis Faulkner & Morgan was the lead sponsor of the exhibition and catalogue. Aspect Communications was a corporate sponsor of the exhibition, and Viet Mercury was the media sponsor.

This exhibition documented a compelling range of work produced by more than 90 women artists working in California during the last half of the 20th century. It was the first survey exhibition to highlight the historical implications of the period and included a range of artists diverse in age, background, and formal training.

The works presented in Part I reflected the impact of a direct engagement with technology by some of California's most inventive and adventurous women artists, including Margaret Crane, Sharon Grace, Theresa Hak Kyung-Cha, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Sharon Lockhart, Sherrie Rabinowitz, Jennifer Steinkamp, Christine Tamblyn, and Victoria Vesna. The exhibition included video documentation of performances, as well as historic, single-channel video works from the 1970s and 80s.

Part II of the exhibition focused on painting, sculpture, and mixed media. It included seminal works by artists such as Ruth Asawa, whose intricate woven wire shapes, created in the 1950s, reconcile aspects of nature and geometry. Also on view were works from the late 1950s and early 1960s by such early trailblazers as Vija Celmins, Karen Carson, Jay DeFeo, Mary Lovelace O’Neil, and Deborah Remington, all of whom broke the prevailing mold of male-dominated and accepted formalist theories.

Eye-Contact is an exhibition that spotlights exceptional photographs drawn from SJMA’s expanding permanent collection. The majority of the stunning works on view, which are the gift of Bay Area collector Arthur Goodwin, demonstrate the expressive potential of the human eye and hand. Captured in compelling black-and-white images, simple gazes and gestures reveal powerful emotions within the context of a variety of subjects. The exhibition comprises approximately 15 works by renowned contemporary artists such as Eve Arnold, Keith Carter, Ruth Bernard, Walker Evans, and Sebastião Salgado. 

Organized by Hillary Helm, former SJMA Curatorial Assistant 

Only five years old, Paulson Press has already established itself as one of the top-tier print ateliers in the nation specializing in intaglio prints. The term "intaglio" encompasses a nearly infinite variety of techniques from traditional etching and drypoint to airbrush ground manipulation and silkscreen acid resist. This exhibition marks the first museum showing of prints by Paulson Press, and will feature a range of works by notable artists such as Mari Andrews, Radcliffe Bailey, Lynn Beldner, Ross Bleckner, Christopher Brown, James Brown, Squeak Carnwath, Greg Colson, Caio Fonseca, Salomon Huerta, Amy Kaufman, Margaret Kilgallen, Hung Liu, and Deborah Oropallo.

This mid-career survey included approximately 50 paintings by Oropallo, who has achieved national renown for her remarkable ability to transform mundane objects into striking images of poetic resonance.

Traveled: Museum of Glass: International Center for Contemporary Art, Tacoma, WA, November 10–February. 2, 2003 and Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs, CA, April 2–June 29, 2003