Opening Reception: Wednesday, April 7, 5:00-7:00pm
Conversation with: Alex Kopps and Jonathan Steinberg, 6:30pm
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UCSC Sesnon Gallery presents Displacement: We have Come to Ruin Your Surfing by Bay Area artist, filmmaker, and surfer Alex Kopps. Kopps will create a site-specific installation, combining aspects of his visual practice with artifacts, video clips, and elements of his upcoming film, Displacement. Kopps describes his mixed media installations as “a garage sale of texture and emotion.”
Excerpts from Kopps film, Displacement, combine 1970s super8 surf footage by Steve Krajewski and a DIY (do it yourself) approach to contemporary mixed media by the artist. The film is based around an obscure surf subculture inspired by the designs of George Greenough in the 60s and later refined by Greg Liddle in his displacement hulls, or what its proponents call “stubbies.” Stubbies refers to a special breed of surfboards combining qualities of long and shortboards to create a round-bottomed board that sits lower in the water rather than on top of it.
The exhibition is in conjunction with the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History’s presentation of Surf City Santa Cruz: A Wave of Inspiration running March 27–July 25, 2010 showcasing surf-related work of local artists and technical innovators (http://www.santacruzmah.org/). Support for the Sesnon Gallery exhibition was made possible by the Charles Griffin Farr Fund.
Surf film series curated by Jonathan Steinberg
Films by:
Tiffany Morgan Campbell and Andria Lessler
Gigi Goldeen
Jeff Hutson and John Reynolds
Sean Reynolds
Alex Kopps attended the California College of Arts in San Francisco. He now lives and works in Oakland, CA. Alex's visual art consists of paintings with gouache on wood and paper, and subject matter that is largely nonobjective but aesthetically has strong ties to the natural world. In his installations, he uses diverse materials such as live grass, scrap wood, and sewn together US currency that he cuts into silhouette form or more recently has sewn into makeshift clothing.
Select shows: Museum Het Domein (Sittard, The Netherlands), Monster Children Gallery (Sydney, Australia), New Image Art (Los Angeles, California), Gallery AD (San Jose, California), Orange County Museum of Art (Newport Beach, California), SuperDeluxe (Minato-ku, Japan), 21 Grand (Oakland, California) and The Luggage Store (San Francisco, California).
Artist information: http://alexkopps.com/
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