Torrance Art Museum (TAM) December Exhibitions

Opening Reception: Saturday, December 7 from 6-9pm

Artist Walkthrough: Saturday, December 14 from 1-3pm

Closing Event: Saturday, December 21 from 1-3pm

Torrance Art Museum (TAM) closes out the year with a run of special exhibitions from December 7-21. TAM’s Main Gallery hosts Adjacent, Adjacent, a culminating exhibition of FORUM 2019, a 10-month mentorship program with a cohort of fourteen art professionals. Gallery Two hosts Plaza Mirage II, featuring brand new works by artists Zach Trow and Theresa Sterner. The Dark Room features a series of video and document clips pertaining to FORUM 2019 events.

Main Gallery – Adjacent, Adjacent
Adjacent, Adjacent is a reflection on relationships between the participants of the FORUM 2019, some of whom will carry forward beyond the exhibition as the art collective Museum Adjacent. The exhibition provokes the artists to consider where they are (both in location and career trajectory) and how that relates to what they make.

FORUM is an annual 10-month mentorship residency for emerging artists, curators, gallerists and writers who wish to build a career in contemporary art. This empowering program is designed as a practical guide to navigating the art world via Q&A sessions with successful professionals (artists, curators, critics and gallerists), culminating with an exhibition in the Main Gallery of the Torrance Art Museum, with the program’s participants. More information about the program and applications for FORUM 2020 are now available at www.TorranceArtMuseum.com/forum.

 The FORUM 2019 participants are: Henderson Blumer, Leslie Foster, Kim Garcia, Sharon Levy, Kim Marra, Hagop Najarian, Larissa Nickel, Dakota Noot, Amoral Poem (Devion Law & Joshua Ross), Molly Schulman, Christina Shurts, Josh Vasquez, and Surge Witrön.

Gallery Two –  Plaza Mirage II
In Plaza Mirage II, Zach Trow and Theresa Sterner work collaboratively to articulate the landscape of Isamu Noguchi’s commissioned public plazas through fragments and facsimiles, exploring themes of leisure vs. labor, maintenance as ritual, and the void.  They are interested in the functional life these public spaces serve to the surrounding community as well the evidence of daily use. Through images and observations, an installation of sculptures are presented that tow the line between model, monument, and utilitarian object.

This project was made possible with support from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant and Yucca Valley Material Lab.

Dark Room – Sprouts, sown days ago
The Dark Room features a series of video works pertaining to the participants of FORUM 2019 events and activities leading up to Adjacent, Adjacent: documentation from previous exhibitions, event openings, conversations between curators and artists, and clips of previous works by the artists involved in FORUM 2019.

Exhibition run from December 7 – 21, 2019

PREVIEW of TAM 2020

TAM is ready for a thrill-ride in 2020 starting with DEATH CULT from January 18 – March 14. Skulls. Motorcycles. A moment of impact. Join us for the Opening Reception on Saturday, January 18 from 6-9pm. The obsession with Death has always been a fundamental pivot for much of art throughout history and across geographical boundaries. As Western contemporary culture moved into a period of youth sub-cultures in the mid-1950s the skull took on various signifiers for myriad groups and has maintained that tradition. From the early bikers, often soldiers returning home from World War Two, with a drive for excitement and camaraderie – with Heavy Metal, Punk and other musical genres along the way – through to todays skateboarders, making use of the human skull as signifier for risk taking youthfulness and rebellion.

This exhibition focuses on the ubiquitous skull and relates it to these sub-cultures, with a particular focus on the motorcycle world lifestyle, as they have one of the highest mortality rates amongst these sub-cultures. A death wish, a rage against the dying of the light, or the instinctive aligning of danger and excitement in a world that many see as too bland and corporate?

CO/LAB 5 features artists-run gallery/spaces from around the world (from as far away as Johannesburg, Stockholm, and Seoul to name just a few) working with Los Angeles based gallery/spaces to create 8 mini-exhibitions from April 4- May 16, Opening Reception on Saturday, April 4 from 6-9pm.

In the third iteration of STUDIO SYSTEM, the museum gallery space becomes the working studio for artists. Experience them creating throughout the month of June, culminating in a Closing Reception where you can see the exciting results of the process on Saturday, June 27 from 6-9pm