SAN JOSE, California (August 31, 2011)—Photographer Bill Owens, whose work is featured in the current exhibition Bill Owens: Ordinary Folks, will speak at the San Jose Museum of Art on Thursday, September 15, 2011, from 6 to 8 p.m. The program, part of SJMA’s “Creative Minds” series, will feature Owens in conversation with collector Robert Hirshorn Shimshak and Susan Krane, Oshman Executive Director. The program marks the 40th anniversary of the publication of Owens’s landmark book Suburbia. Owens will sign copies of the book (available for purchase at the Museum Store) from 6 to 7 p.m. The speaking program will begin at 7 p.m. The galleries will be open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on September 15. Tickets are $10 ($6 for Museum members) and are available online at artsopolis.com. Advance purchase is recommended.
“Creative Minds: Bill Owens and Robert Harshorn Shimshak” is presented in honor of Elizabeth Yount in gratitude for her years of service as a trustee.
Suburbia will be available in the Museum Store for $29.95. Visitors may reserve their copy in advance by calling 408-271-6878.
Bill Owens: Ordinary Folks is on view through February 5, 2012. The exhibition comprises 40 photographs recently given to the Museum by Shimshak and Marion Brenner. Included are photographs from Owens’ “Suburbia” and “Working” series, many of which depict the Bay Area in the 1970s. Born in San Jose in 1938, Bill Owens was raised on the outskirts of Sacramento. He took up photography after studying auto mechanics at California State University and serving in the Peace Corps. A photojournalist for the Independent newspaper in Livermore, Owens spent weekends documenting his surroundings and his friends and neighbors. These images were published in his seminal series, “Suburbia” (1972), and its sequel “Our Kind of People.”
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. 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.
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., and open evenings on the third Thursday of each month. 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 Margaret A. Cargill Foundation, the Adobe Foundation; and the Koret Foundation; the MetLife Foundation; and a Cultural Affairs grant from the City of San Jose.