Updated January 10, 2024: This summer, the San José Museum of Art (SJMA) will present two new exhibitions, drawn primarily from the Museum’s collection: Liliana Porter: Actualidades / Breaking News opening on July 28 and Nuts and Who’s: A Candy Store Sampler opening on August 11. 

"The San José Museum of Art is deeply committed to bringing contemporary art, in all mediums, to the Bay Area. We are thrilled to present these two new, compelling shows that demonstrate different ways that artists can shape and influence contemporary artistic conversations,” says S. Sayre Batton, Oshman Executive Director. “Even though these artists practiced during different decades, both shows are strong examples of how one’s artwork can be a tool for expressing personal views on the world and society.”

Liliana Porter: Actualidades / Breaking News 
July 28, 2023–February 18, 2024

Liliana Porter: Actualidades / Breaking News will be the artist’s first solo presentation at a museum on the West Coast. For this presentation, Porter’s Actualidades / Breaking News will be contextualized with a small selection of related artworks. In the video, Porter uses newspaper section headings, such as “Arts and Leisure” and “World News,” to string together fragmented and absurd “situations” that break with traditional notions of linear narrative. Set amid placeless, monochromatic backgrounds and accompanied by a dramatic score composed by Sylvia Meyer, the disjointed scenes acted out by toys, figurines, and tchotchkes present reality as both urgent and atemporal. Together the video, photograph, and assemblage works will evoke questions about representation and the circulation of images within a cultural landscape where politics, spectacle, and everyday life are in constant collision.

Liliana Porter: Actualidades / Breaking News is organized by Juan Omar Rodriguez, assistant curator.  

Nuts and Who’s: A Candy Store Sampler  
August 11, 2023 –February 18, 2024

Nuts and Who’s: A Candy Store Sampler highlights the cross-fertilization of ideas between California’s Funk and Nut art and Chicago’s Hairy Who in the Bay Area, and their convergence around the Candy Store Gallery, from 1968 to 1985. Founded by Adeliza McHugh in Folsom, California in 1962, the Candy Store Gallery was a site of convergence and exchange for University of California, Davis and California State University, Sacramento (then Sacramento State College) art faculty and students and other like-minded artists. The new exhibition will bring together works by artists who contributed to this “regional attitude” at the Candy Store, including Robert Arneson, Luis Cruz Azaceta, Clayton Bailey, John Buck, Roy De Forest, David Gilhooly, Irving Marcus, Tony Natsoulas, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, Ed Paschke, Maija Peeples-Bright, Sandra Shannonhouse, Peter VandenBerge, William T. Wiley, Franklin Williams, Karl Wirsum and others.  

Nuts and Who’s: A Candy Store Sampler is organized by Nidhi Gandhi, curatorial and programs associate.

 

PROGRAMMING
Opening Celebration | Liliana Porter + Nuts and Who’s
Friday, August 18, 6–9PM | Free.
Celebrate the opening of two new exhibitions Liliana Porter: Actualidades / Breaking News and Nuts and Who’s: A Candy Store Sampler. Galleries are open late with local musical acts. Stop by El Cafecito by Mezcal Restaurant for a light bite and cash bar. Members receive a commemorative button along with other special perks.  

Gallery Talk on Liliana Porter: Actualidades / Breaking News 
Friday, August 18, 12:30PM | Free with Museum admission. 
Tour the exhibition Liliana Porter: Actualidades / Breaking News with Juan Omar Rodriguez, assistant curator.   

Gallery Talk on Nuts and Who’s: A Candy Store Sampler
Friday, September 15, 12:30PM | Free with Museum admission. 
Tour the exhibition Nuts and Who’s: A Candy Store Sampler with Nidhi Gandhi, curatorial and programs associate.

 

SUPPORT
Liliana Porter: Actualidades / Breaking News is supported by the SJMA Exhibitions Fund. 

Nuts and Who’s: A Candy Store Sampler is supported by the SJMA Exhibitions Fund.  

Operations and programs at the San José Museum of Art are made possible by generous support from SJMA’s Board of Trustees, a Cultural Affairs Grant from the City of San José, the Lipman Family Foundation, the Adobe Foundation, the Richard A. Karp Charitable Foundation, Sally Lucas, Yvonne and Mike Nevens, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Yellow Chair Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Brook Hartzell and Tad Freese, the SJMA Director's Council and Council of 100, the San José Museum of Art Endowment Fund established by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and the William Randolph Hearst Foundation. 

SAN JOSE MUSEUM OF ART

The San José Museum of Art (SJMA) is a contemporary art museum dedicated to inclusivity, new thinking, and visionary ideas. Founded in 1969 by artists and community leaders, its dynamic exhibitions, collection, and programs resonate with defining characteristics of San José and the Silicon Valley—from its rich diversity to its hallmark innovative ethos. The Museum offers lifelong learning for school children and their educators, multigenerational families, creative adults, university students and faculty, and community groups. SJMA is committed to being a borderless museum, essential to creative life throughout the diverse communities of San José and beyond.

SJMA is located at 110 South Market Street in downtown San José, California. The Museum is open Thursday 4–9pm; Friday 11am–9pm; and Saturday–Sunday 11am–6pm. Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors, and free to members, college students, youth and children ages 17 and under, and school teachers (with valid ID). Admission is free from 6–9pm on the first Friday of every month. Starting July 1, admission for adults will be $15 and seniors will be $12. Admission is free from 6–9pm the first Friday of every month. For up-to-date information, call 408.271.6840 or visit SanJoseMuseumofArt.org. 

Visitors 2 years and older are encouraged to wear a mask. SJMA will carefully and continually monitor the efficacy of these guidelines in real time and make further adjustments as needed.