Monday, January 16, 2012

Sonya Rapoport - Retrospective -Mills College


January 17, 2012 Art and
Education
jan16_mills.jpg
Sonya Rapoport, Objects on My Dresser phase 4: Exhibition in Print, 1981. 
Mills College Art Museum

Spaces of Life: The Art of 

Sonya Rapoport

January 18–March 11, 2012 
Opening:Wednesday, January 18, 2012, 6–8pm 
Curated by Terri Cohn and Anuradha Vikram
Mills College Art Museum
5000 MacArthur Blvd.Oakland, CA 94613
www.mcam.mills.edu 
Museum Hours:
Tuesday–Sunday, 11am–4pm, Wednesday 11am–7:30pm
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Spaces of Life: The Art of Sonya Rapoport presents a group of Rapoport's
interactive works, created between 1979–2011 that function in the intersection
between questioning and inviting. 
Recognized for her early embrace of computer technology, in the mid 1970's,
and participatory web-based works, Rapoport presents new works alongside
earlier ones in an all encompassing installation that fuses the spaces of the
museum with the energy of the artist's Berkeley home and studio. Rapoport's work has long operated as a bridge between the public sphere of intellectual curiosity and scholarship and the domestic one of spiritual inquiry and nurturing.
Central to the installation of Rapoport's work at the Mills College Art Museum
is Objects on My Dresser (1979–1983), an 11-phase work intended as a kind
of conceptual visit to the artist's home and studio. The titular dresser, which has
occupied Rapoport's foyer for decades, is installed along with the original objects
that sparked her investigation of the connections between symbols, words and ideas.
Documentation of "netweb plots" created by Rapoport and by visitors to installations
of previous project phases is included along with new plots created with Mills students
nd museum visitors. Rapoport's work continues to be influenced by a range of disciplines
including technology, biochemistry, anthropology, psychology, and feminist studies.

Visitors to Spaces of Life are encouraged to engage in ongoing, distributed performance
actions that draw on these influences and related imagery.

Sonya Rapoport's sixty-year career spans painting, works on paper, interactive
installations and digital works. Rapoport's approach to art-making is naturally
diverse, underpinned by her pioneering use of scientific and social science research
as the basis for a conceptual practice. Her work reveals deep philosophical and
psychological perspectives, humor, expression, and creativity, which she brings
to such topical concerns as gender, religion, politics, bioengineering, and the role
of technology in contemporary life explored through interactive processes, systems and media.
This exhibition is supported by the Agnes Cowles Bourne Fund for Special Exhibition
and the Hezel Family Foundation.

Related Public Programs
Opening Reception & Curator Walk-ThroughWednesday, January 18, 2012, 6–8pm 
Objects on My Dresser: Artist Talk and PerformanceSunday, February 12, 2012, 1–3pmWith Sonya Rapoport, Dr. Revathi Vikram, psychiatrist, and gallery visitors. 
Pre-Release Book LaunchPairing of Polarities: The LIfe and Art of Sonya Rapoport, edited by Terri CohnWednesday, March 7, 2012, 7pmWith Malcolm Margolin of Heyday Press.

About the Mills College Art Museum (MCAM)
Founded in 1925, The Mills College Art Museum is a forum for exploring art and ideas and a laboratory for contemporary art practices. Through innovative exhibitions, programs, and collections, the museum engages and inspires the intellectual and creative life of the Mills community as well as the diverse audiences of the Bay Area and beyond.

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