Yerba Buena Cen­ter for the Arts Presents:

Occupy Bay Area

Many of our favorite Rock Poster Artists will be fea­tured in a new exhibit at the Yerba Buena Cen­ter for the Arts titled Occupy Bay Area at YBCA run­ning July 7 – Octo­ber 14, 2012 in Gallery 3.

$10 Admis­sion, $8 Stu­dents & Seniors
FREE for YBCA Mem­bers & YBCA:You
FREE first Tues­day of each month • noon – 8 pm

Since its incep­tion in Sep­tem­ber 2011, the Occupy Move­ment has gen­er­ated both praise and con­dem­na­tion. A direct response to the finan­cial insta­bil­ity, sub­prime mort­gage cri­sis and the decline of trust in the government’s abil­ity to effec­tively address the prob­lems in the labor mar­ket, it con­tin­ues to res­onate in the Amer­i­can con­scious­ness. In response to the sig­nif­i­cant out­put of art and doc­u­men­ta­tion pro­duced in sup­port of the Occupy Move­ment in Oak­land and San Fran­cisco, YBCA has put together an exhi­bi­tion of works that have proven to be par­tic­u­larly effec­tive in sup­port­ing the goals and aspi­ra­tions of the Move­ment. Impres­sively, var­i­ous polit­i­cal poster artists devoted their tal­ents to mes­sag­ing the pol­i­tics and cul­ture of the move­ment by cre­at­ing iconic images — designs that were a call to action, or posters announc­ing an upcom­ing event. In many ways these works, by twenty-five Bay Area artists, carry for­ward the region’s long tra­di­tion as a leader in polit­i­cal strug­gles, from the Free Speech Move­ment of the 1960s, to strug­gles by com­mu­ni­ties of color in the 1970s, to AIDS activism in the 1980s. The exhi­bi­tion also includes a selec­tion of pho­to­jour­nal­is­tic and doc­u­men­tary pho­tog­ra­phy and video that serve as a record of the events around the Occupy Movement.

Occupy poster by Alexan­dra Fischer

Addi­tion­ally, to con­nect to ear­lier move­ments and pro­vide a his­tor­i­cal con­text for the project, the exhi­bi­tion includes posters and pho­tographs from other polit­i­cal strug­gles, includ­ing the Black Pan­ther Party, I-Hotel in Mani­la­town (1968–77); the ARC/AIDS Vigil at City Hall (1985–95); the Occu­pa­tion of Alca­traz (1969–71); the Free Speech Move­ment at UC Berke­ley (1964–65); and the San Fran­cisco State Uni­ver­sity protests, to gain an Eth­nic Stud­ies pro­gram and Black Stu­dent Union demands (1968–69).While these ear­lier move­ments cer­tainly dif­fer in ways from Occupy, they all are the result of a deep desire for mar­gin­al­ized peo­ples to be rep­re­sented and treated fairly.

Occupy poster by Chris Shaw

This exhi­bi­tion is not meant to rep­re­sent a fully exe­cuted social his­tory, but is a tes­ta­ment of the power of images to evoke the emo­tional expres­sion of pop­u­lar and wide-spread sen­ti­ments. By local­iz­ing our efforts, we also pay spe­cial trib­ute to the role that Bay Area artists have played in giv­ing voice to the 99% and uti­liz­ing art as an effec­tive vehi­cle for social change.

Artists

• Chuck Sperry
• Chris Shaw
• Win­ston Smith
• Alexan­dra Fischer
• Polit­i­cal Grid­lock (Jon-Paul Bail)
• Emory Dou­glas
• Jesus Bar­raza
• Melanie Cer­vantes
• Favianna Rodriguez
• Eric Drooker
• Robert Bech­tle
• R. Black
• D. Ross Cameron
• Ray Chavez
• Ser­gio de la Torre
• Zer­ena Diaz
• Can­non Dill
• Kota Ezawa
• Dave Gar­cia
• & many more.

Occupy poster by Win­ston Smith

Occupy Bay Area Night

July 7, 2012 6:00pm
Grand Lobby – FREE

An evening of live per­for­mances, music and com­mu­nity dis­cus­sion and inter­ac­tion through the mar­riage of art and activism as seen by the Occupy move­ments of the Bay Area. YBCA’s Room for Big Ideas will fea­ture art­works and per­for­mance by artist Annie Dan­ger, Jes­sica Tully and the Oakland-based hip-hop artist Do D.A.T. and his friends will shut us all down.