San Francisco Center
for the Book, August 8 – October 31, 2008,
300 DeHaro Street, San Francisco, California
African American
Museum & Library at Oakland, September 5 - December
31, 2008 659 14th Street, Oakland, California
These two institutions are holding an exhibition
titled Banned & Recovered: Artists
Respond to Censorship. The show is
curated by Hanna Regev and Steve Woodall. Events
such as
panel discussions, and films
will be coordinated with other Bay Area Art of Democracy
venues.
Banned and Recovered: Artists Respond to Censorship,
an exhibition co-sponsored by the San Francisco Center
for the Book and the African American Museum and
Library at Oakland in August-December 2008, will
present work by Bay Area artists in response to books
that have been repressed or censored. Banned and
Recovered opens in two stages, first at SFCB on August
8, then at AAMLO in September 5.
We see this is a wonderful opportunity for visual
and literary artists to come together in common cause,
and create a work of art for the exhibition. The
work of 50 artists in all, representing 50 banned
books will be on display the two venues. Artists
who have already committed to the project include
Raymond Saunders, Sandow Birk, Naomie Kremer and
Enrique Chagoya.
The main objective of Banned and Recovered... is
to raise awareness of censorship as a constant and
continuing threat to intellectual freedom and freedom
of expression in our schools, communities and around
the world. We feel that the attack on freedom of
expression has real consequences for our culture
for it undermines the core values of the American
way of life and society. This exhibition is an invitation
to artists to counter the threat to the right of
freedom of expression and move the public beyond
complacency.
Hanna Regev holds Master of Arts degrees in Museum
Studies and Modern European History from San Francisco
State University. She works with many cultural organizations
and art galleries in San Francisco and the Bay Area,
producing public programs in history, art, and museum
practice. Regev serves on the board of the First
Amendment Project, and is a past president of the
Northern California Council of the National Museum
of Women in the Arts.
Steve Woodall has been with the Center for the Book
since its founding in 1996, first as Education Director
and since 2004 as Artistic Director. SFCB has become
one of the premier venues in the United States for
exhibitions of book art.
This is an invitational show curated and organized
by Hanna Regev and Steve Woodall.
