Sew Hoy collaborating with GreenMouse Recycling and Bay Area Glass Institute to create new installation made from Silicon Valley’s e-waste.
SAN JOSE, California (August 12, 2011)—The second installation in the San Jose Museum of Art’s experimental exhibition gallery “Beta Space” will be new work by Anna Sew Hoy. Beta Space: Anna Sew Hoy will be on view August 27, 2011, through February 26, 2012. Sew Hoy is collaborating with San Jose’s GreenMouse Recycling and the Bay Area Glass Institute (BAGI) to create a new group of sculptural works entitled “Nothing All Day” (2011). The installation will incorporate custom-blown glass vessels made by BAGI artists and recycled e-waste such as computer keyboards, mice, and DSL cords. Sew Hoy will discuss her work at the Museum on Saturday, August 27, at noon, as part of SJMA’s “Creative Minds” series. Admission to the Creative Minds program is free with Museum admission.
Like the legendary Silicon Valley garage, Beta Space serves as an experimental laboratory for artists, collaborative ventures, and catalytic ideas. Upon selecting Sew Hoy for Beta Space, the Museum asked her to visit and respond to San Jose and Silicon Valley’s technology culture as she conceived her new work.
“When asked to consider Silicon Valley, it made sense to look at e-waste,” said Sew Hoy. “As start-up companies go boom and bust, offices are equipped with keyboards, monitors, chairs, and printers, and then must be cleared out. GreenMouse Recycling saves the useful stuff. This work deals with cycles of obsolescence. It memorializes DSL cords and corded computer mice: things which are mass produced and become useless."
Sew Hoy also wished to highlight the handmade in “Nothing All Day,” and thus collaborated with BAGI to create large glass vessels to contain the electronic detritus. Glass artists Dean Benson, Kevin Chong, Shaun Griffiths, Jon Scally, and Treg Silkwood and assistants Karin Ericsson, Johnathon Schmuck, and Thor Wilbanks worked on the hand-blown vessels.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Born in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1976, Anna Sew Hoy now lives and works in Los Angeles. Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Sikkema, Jenkins & Co, New York; Renwick Gallery, New York; and the Karyn Lovegrave Gallery, Los Angeles. Group exhibitions at such institutions as the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach, California; the Blaffer Art Museum in Houston, Texas; the Aspen Art Museum, Colorado; and the Hammer Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles, have included her work. Works by Sew Hoy are included in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Hammer Museum, and the Altoids Collection, New York.
ABOUT BETA SPACE
Beta Space sprung from the Museum’s 2010 strategic plan, which calls for the Museum to more closely connect its audiences with artists and with the artistic process; to showcase the cross-disciplinary interests of many contemporary artists; to foster timely community collaborations; to take advantage of community resources; and to reflect the diversity and innovative spirit of Silicon Valley. Beta Space features new work by a variety of artists commissioned by the Museum. The artists are encouraged to experiment and venture into new areas. The first iteration (March 26-August 14, 2011) featured work by Kevin Appel and Ruben Ochoa.
Beta Space: Anna Sew Hoy is sponsored by the James Irvine Foundation, University Art, and Theres and Denis Rohan.
ABOUT GREENMOUSE RECYCLING
GreenMouse Recycling is a San Jose-based company that provides free computer-recycling services to businesses, community, and residential consumers throughout the Bay Area. Founded in 2004 by Evelyn O'Donnell, GreenMouse uses recycling to help support community jobs programs and fundraising for non-profit arts and theatre groups.
ABOUT THE BAY AREA GLASS INSTITUTE
The Bay Area Glass Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting and educating glass artists, students, and the community. BAGI offers a wide range of glass-making opportunities for all levels of glass art enthusiasts at their San Jose-based studio. Various types of classes taught at BAGI include glassblowing, fusing, and torchworking.
ABOUT THE SAN JOSE MUSEUM OF ART
The San Jose Museum of Art is a distinguished museum of modern and contemporary art and a lively center of arts activity in Silicon Valley. The leading institution in the area dedicated to the art of our time, SJMA is committed to providing access for its extraordinarily diverse populations and to pioneering new approaches to interpretation. Established in 1969, SJMA presents art ranging from modern masterpieces to recent works by young, emerging artists. SJMA’s permanent collection of more than 2,000 twentieth- and twenty-first-century works of art, including paintings, sculpture, installation, new media, photography, drawings, prints, and artist books, has a special focus on West Coast art, seen in a national and international context. SJMA is the largest provider of youth arts education in Santa Clara County and serves more than 37,000 students annually through curriculum-based arts programs and integrated technology.
The San Jose Museum of Art is located at 110 South Market Street in downtown San Jose, California. The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $8 for adults, $5 for students and senior citizens, and free to members and children under 6. For more information, call 408-271-6840 or visit www.SanJoseMuseumofArt.org.
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Programs at the San Jose Museum of Art are generously supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, by operating support from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation; the James Irvine Foundation; the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation; the Adobe Foundation; and the Koret Foundation; the MetLife Foundation; and a Cultural Affairs grant from the City of San Jose.