NOVEMBER 16, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA AWARDEES announced for Artadia Awards 2007

New York, NY – Artadia: The Fund for Art and Dialogue is very pleased to announce 10 Awardees of the Artadia Awards in the San Francisco Bay Area. For three intensive days (November 8-10), three internationally prominent curators-- Daniell Cornell (Director of Contemporary Art Projects, de Young Museum of Art, San Francisco), Sylvie Gilbert (Interim Director, Visual Arts Program, Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada), and Mary Jane Jacob (Chair, Department of Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago)—conducted studio visits with the short-listed 15 Finalists in all parts of the Bay Area, selecting three artists for $15,000 grants, and seven artists for $1,500 grants.

Applications for the Artadia Awards were open to visual artists in all media at any stage of their career, who are working and living in the San Francisco Bay Area. The application was available online for three months during the summer through July 31, 2007. The three first round jurors--Daniell Cornell (Director of Contemporary Art Projects, de Young Museum of Art, San Francisco), Lauren Cornell (Executive Director, Rhizome.org), and Silvia Karman Cubina (Director, The Moore Space, Miami )--reviewed a record number 520 applications and selected the 15 Finalists in late September in New York, NY.

Artadia has partnered with local foundations and private patrons of the arts who recognize the importance of providing unrestricted funding to visual artists at the local level. San Francisco Bay Area partners include the San Francisco Foundation. This is the sixth cycle of Artadia Awards in the Bay Area. Artadia also administers successful programs and awards in Boston, Chicago, and Houston.

Artadia Awards 2007 San Francisco Bay Area--$15,000 Awardees

The Center for Tactical Magic engages in extensive research, development, and deployment of the pragmatic system known as Tactical Magic. A fusion force summoned from the ways of the artist, the magician, the ninja, and the private investigator, Tactical Magic is an amalgam of disparate arts invoked for the purpose of actively addressing Power on individual, communal, and transnational fronts. In 2004, the CTM’s Ultimate Jacket appeared in MassMoCA’s exhibition “The Interventionists.”

Ultimate Jacket, 2004
interactive installation
variable; life-size

Sergio De La Torre has worked in a variety of media including photography, video, and installation. As both a collaborative and an individual artist, his goal is to document the ways in which citizens reinvent themselves. His video and photographic work invite the viewer to look critically and intimately at topics such as housing, immigration, and labor. De La Torre currently teaches at California College of the Arts.

(Don Bergfors) Waiting for Gabriel Orozco, San Diego Airport, 2006
C-Print
48" x 60"

Chris Sollars engages in public situations to bring attention to unobvious and peculiar acts that subvert social political and individual constructs. He uses a variety of media including photos, video, and drawings which often result in full-room installations. Sollars is a graduate of Bard College ’s Graduate School , and has exhibited both in the U.S. and internationally.

Pile of Trash: San Francisco Fountain, 2005-2006
Trash Bag Action

Artadia Awards 2007 San Francisco Bay Area--$1,500

David Hevel uses pop culture as a central theme in his artwork. He juxtaposes middle-American aesthetics of taxidermy and floral arrangement with the gossip, glamour, and glitz of Hollywood royalty. Hevel has a MFA in Film/Video Performance from California College of the Arts.

Smile With Your Eyes (Tyra Banks), 2006
Giraffe taxidermy form, mixed
132" X 60" X 72"

Desirée Holman constructs worlds of make-believe using handcrafted wearable full-body forms and masks. Holman is interested in fantasy play as a means of discovery, and examines the media representations of family through her videos. She received a MFA from the University of California at Berkeley in 2002.

"The Magic Window," 2007
3 Channel Video Work
15 Minute Run Time

Michael Light received a MFA in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute. Light is concerned both with the politics of the environment and the seductions and strategies of landscape representation. He challenges the way aerial photography is most generally seen--as mere pattern and design. Light recently received a John Simon Memorial Foundation Guggenheim Fellowship.

Barney's Canyon Goldmine, Part of Earth's Largest Human Excavation, Bingham Canyon, UT, 2006
21-image book/tripod
36" x 24"

Trevor Paglen is an artist, writer, and experimental geographer. His work involves deliberately blurring the lines between social science, contemporary art, and a host of even more obscure disciplines in order to construct unfamiliar, yet meticulously researched ways to interpret the world around us. In much of his recent visual work, Paglen uses a unique photography technique he calls "Limit Telephotography" which allows him to photograph landscapes from up to 60 miles away.

Control Tower (Area 52); Tonopah Test Range, NV; 11:55 a.m.; Distance ~ 20 miles, 2006
C-Print
30" x 36"

Catherine Wagner employs a scientific and intuitive approach to her work. Her photographs unveil new narratives which form a hybrid history and allow the viewer fictive possibilities for interpretation. Wagner’s current body of work records the historical classification of light bulbs.

Columbus, Penelope, Delilah, 2005
Lambda print
49.5" x 68"

Hank Willis Thomas produces art to reflect the complex world around us. After 9/11 he developed a colorful cast of characters to comment on the concerns, fears, and worries of everyday life. The world is a dangerous place, according to Thomas, and his work reflects his dark humor towards society.

Ode to the C.M.B. "folks say 'take that chain off boy ya blindin' me"
"Am I not a man and brother?"
"Lucy is a slave with Diamonds," 2006/2007
Medium 14k Gold and Cubic Zarconia
Dimension roughly 5" x 3" each

Living in a warehouse in San Francisco ’s Mission District, Amy Wilson Faville was surrounded by construction projects, junkies, and the homeless. Fascinated by the way the homeless move through life with their blanket-shrouded structures, Wilson Faville began to photograph them. Her work combines collage with graphic drawing. She hopes to convey the paradoxical nature of her subject: the accidental splendor in the midst of squalor.

Caravan, 2007
mixed media on paper
30" x 40"