Globalize This!
International Graphics of Celebration and Dissent
September 3 – October 20

This exhibition of political graphics, organized by the Center for the Study of Political Graphics in Los Angeles, demonstrated the ways in which grassroots protests against globalization have used the visual arts to educate, mobilize, and inspire. On every continent and in every nation, activists and artists are speaking with clarity and coherence about a range of critical issues.

Including over 40 posters from as many countries, with images ranging from haunting to humorous, the exhibition offered a powerful reminder of worldwide struggles for peace and justice. Graphic statements dealing with such issues as racism, AIDS, child labor, reproductive choice, nuclear proliferation, global warming, and the increasing indebtedness of developing nations, offered sobering messages while reclaiming the power of art to inspire people to action. More...

Goya to Cage: Pomona Collects
September 3 – October 20

Celebrating the continuing growth of the College’s permanent collection, this exhibition presented a selection of recent acquisitions by the Pomona College Museum of Art. In the past four years, the Museum has made three of the most important acquisitions in its history. In 1998, a superb first edition of Francisco de Goya’s La Tauromaquia was purchased, and in 2000, 17 preparatory drawings by José Clemente Orozco for his Prometheus mural in Frary Hall were acquired. In the spring of 2002, the Museum added to the collection the first graphic work produced by avant-garde composer and artist John Cage. The complex piece, entitled Not Wanting to Say Anything About Marcel, was published in 1969. Cage, who attended Pomona College from 1929 to 1930, used his famous “chance operations” technique to create this seminal work which includes two lithographs along with a series of layered Plexiglas constructions imprinted with image and text fragments.

The artistic and conceptual range seen in these three major acquisitions is further broadened in other recently acquired works by such artists as Kim Abeles, Mowry Baden, Barbara Benish, Joe Goode, Don Normark, Ed Ruscha, Elizabeth Saveri, June Wayne, William Wegman, and William Wendt. The media represented were equally diverse, including painting, photography, sculpture, drawing, etching, and mixed-media construction.

Project Series 15: Jason Rogenes
September 3 - October 20

Rogenes created a new site-specific sculptural installation, project 9.03g, that combined a high-tech aesthetic with low-tech packing materials. The artist’s sophisticated accumulations merge ideas of industrialization and space technology with a sense of fantasy and wonder. More...

Body Projections:
New Video Sculpture by Denise Marika
November 3 - December 15

This exhibition of new video installations was the first presentation of Denise Marika’s work on the West Coast. One of Pomona College’s most distinguished alumni in the arts, Marika (class of ’77) has exhibited in a number of venues including New York’s Museum of Modern Art; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston; and the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln Massachusetts.

Throughout her career as an artist, Marika has focused on the medium of video installation, using her own body to bring private rituals and gestures into public spaces. She centers her artistic vision in the repetitive and mundane, encouraging the viewer to meditate upon the poetics of ordinary gesture. Contrasting a rigorous formal simplicity with deeply emotional intensity, Marika produces complex, layered studies dealing with themes of power, vulnerability, and privacy. Organized by Rebecca McGrew, “Body Projections” was presented in conjunction with “TV or Not TV,” a citywide festival of video and new media sponsored by L.A. Freewaves. More...

Project Series 16: Mark Bradford
November 3 - December 15

Interested in process, permanence, and temporality, Mark Bradford presented new site-specific piece, Don't Be Fooled by the Rocks that I Got, that explores the relationships among class, culture, and identity. Using material associated with the beauty industry. Bradford’s work incorporates the sticky processes of Black hair styling played against the jittery components of a grid. More...