There’s an engaging exhibit at the Oakland Museum of California located in the Gallery of California Art that juxtaposes contemporary sculpture with traditional Japanese Suiseki. Associate Curator of Painting and Sculpture Christina Linden curated the exhibition, UNEARTHED: Found+Made. The intermixed pieces are creations of Oakland-born, LA-based contemporary artist Jedediah Caesar and two local amateur clubs—California Suiseki Society and San Francisco Suiseki Kai.
Suiseki is a traditional Japanese practice where natural stones are collected and displayed on carved wooden platforms. Most of the stones are metamorphic; they’ve been altered by heat and pressure at the bottom of the ocean within the last fifty million years. There are 21 pieces exhibited by the club members juxtaposed with Jedediah’s 6 latest works. In his work, natural geological processes are mimicked and used to produce sculptures. Visitors get to see what happens to material he takes from the urban environment when it’s cast in resin and sliced in half.
For some, it will have you questioning how you view art. Do you see more value in Jedediah’s work because it’s intended to be art? Would you appreciate the natural stones the same if you saw them in nature than in a protected case? There’s art all around us if you take the time to look, feel, appreciate or mold into something else you envision.
About Jedediah Caesar
Jedediah Caesar received his BFA from the Museum School, Boston/Tufts University, and his MFA from UCLA. He has exhibited widely including solo shows at the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, TX, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Bloomburg Space in London, UK, D’Amelio Terras Gallery in New York and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects. He has been included in numerous group exhibitions including the 2008 Whitney Biennial, and Abstract America: New Painting and Sculpture, at the Saatchi Gallery, London, UK. Writing about his work has appeared in Mousse Magazine, Art in America, Frieze Magazine and Artforum. He is currently the director/curator of the Todd Madigan Gallery at California State University, Bakersfield.
About the San Francisco Suiseki Kai
The San Francisco Suiseki Kai’s primary activity is stone collecting, hosting several group collecting trips each year to various northern California locations. They also organize base-making workshops, meetings featuring lectures on suiseki and related topics, and group critique and lively discussion of stones collected by members. They hold regular meetings at the Lake Merritt Garden Center in Oakland, and an annual exhibit at the Japan Center in San Francisco. San Francisco Suiseki Kai was founded in 1981 by a group of issei (first-generation) Japanese-Americans. Their first teacher, Keiseki Hirotsu, helped to introduce suiseki to California in the 1960s. Several members of the original group of Japanese speakers continue to participate, but the membership also includes native speakers of a variety of languages including English, Mandarin, Russian, Tagalog, Taiwanese, and Vietnamese, and the club now conducts all activities in English. sfsuisekikai.wordpress.com
About the California Suiseki Society
The California Suiseki Society was founded in 1993 to bring together individuals who shared a passion for suiseki. Originally, the California Suiseki Society was the only local club to hold all meetings in the English language, playing an important role in helping to spread enthusiasm for suiseki to a diverse group of Californians, as did the book Suiseki: The Japanese Art of Miniature Landscape Stones, which was written by its founder and longtime instructor, Felix G. Rivera. Through group stone collecting trips and with monthly meetings and annual exhibits at the Lake Merritt Garden Center in Oakland, California, the Society seeks to educate those who are new to landscape stones and build camaraderie among longtime enthusiasts. facebook.com/CaliforniaSuisekiSociety
About The Oakland Museum of California (OMCA)
The Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) brings together collections of art, history, and natural science under one roof to tell the extraordinary stories of California and its people. OMCA’s groundbreaking exhibits showcase multiple voices, often drawing on first-person accounts by people who have shaped California’s cultural heritage. Visitors are invited to actively participate in the Museum as they learn about the natural, artistic, and social forces that affect the state and investigate their own role in its history and future. With more than 1.9 million objects, OMCA is a leading cultural institution of the Bay Area and a resource for the research and understanding of California’s dynamic heritage.
Plan Your Visit
The exhibit ends on April 24, 2016.
Address: 1000 Oak Street, at 10th Street.
Museum admission: $15.95 general; $10.95 seniors and students with valid ID, $6.95 youth ages 9 to 17, and free for Members and children 8 and under.
Getting there: OMCA offers onsite underground parking and is conveniently located one block from the Lake Merritt BART station, on the corner of 10th Street and Oak Street. The accessibility ramp is located at the 1000 Oak Street main entrance to the Museum. museumca.org
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