California Current: Art and Histories from the Bay Area

How does a community stay rooted in a region that’s constantly changing? California Current: Art and Histories from the Bay Area invites you to consider this question and others through its more than 60 works—many on view for the first time—that explore the interplay between Bay Area history, art, and artists over the past century.

Titled after the major cold-water current that runs the length of the West Coast of North America, California Current brings together paintings, sculptures, works on paper, photographs, and time-based media by Bay Area artists from the twentieth century to the present. The exhibition traces a series of interconnected currents—ecological, infrastructural, technological, personal, creative, and political—that have shaped both artistic production and everyday life in Northern California.

Arranged thematically across time and media, California Current places historical works in conversation with contemporary ones, emphasizing both continuity and change. Together, they ask, “What has drawn so many people to this region? What has allowed communities and creative practices to take root here? And what continues to keep so many of us—despite the Bay Area’s contradictions, pressures, and constant reinvention—deeply connected to this place?” The exhibition features works by artists Pacita Abad, Saif Azzuz (Libyan-Yurok), Robert Bechtle, Bernice Bing, Kota Ezawa, L. Frank (Tongva, Rarámuri), Lynn Hershman Leeson, Mildred Howard, Amalia Mesa-Bains, Chiura Obata, among others.

California Current: Art and Histories from the Bay Area is curated by Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander, PhD, Robert M. and Ruth L. Halperin Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art and Co-Director of the Asian American Art Initiative; Maggie Dethloff, PhD, Assistant Curator of Photography and New Media; Joanna García Cherán (P’urépecha), Phyllis Wattis Assistant Curator of Native American Art; and Jorge Eduardo Sibaja, former Curatorial Assistant.