Press Release - A Conversation With The Muse by Mildred Howard
pt.2
A Conversation With The Muse
a solo exhibition by
Mildred Howard
Opening - September 14, 6-9pm
Closes - October 26, 2024
pt.2 Gallery
1523b Webster St.
Oakland, CA 94612
A key figure in the Bay Area art scene for over 50 years, artist Mildred Howard will launch “Collaborating with the Muses Part One” in September of 2024, a series of overlapping exhibitions at multiple venues over a six month period. This ambitious project reflects the variation and scope of Howard’s multidisciplinary practice, to which large-scale sculptural installations, public artworks, and assemblages are central but which includes a wide range of mediums including print and film. A major theme uniting the various exhibitions is the dialogue and interplay between different artistic disciplines, particularly the important role of music — whether as an unseen part of a work’s genesis behind the scenes (as when an artist listens to music while creating in the studio, for example) or as an identifiable element incorporated into the final work.
“Collaborating with the Muses Part One” kicks off on September 7 at Anglim/Trimble Gallery in San Francisco, who have represented Howard for more than three decades, with an exhibition centered around a selection of large-scale photographic prints; The Time and Space of Now, Moving Stills. Next, Howard will show her 2021 film “The Time and Space of Now” at 500 Capp Street, paired with a partial excerpt of the large-scale installation work that accompanied the film’s premiere at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art. At Oakland’s pt.2 Gallery, Howard will debut a new installation inspired by “Peace Piece,” one of her favorite compositions by eminent jazz pianist Bill Evans; Howard has also selected internationally known Bay Area musicians to take part in this work. Finally, a new installation on the theme of the Black Cowboy will premiere at Insite in San Francisco’s historic Fort Point in February, continuing through the fall of 2025.
“This is the first project of its kind,” notes Howard: “I’ve deliberately chosen both nonprofit and commercial venues to highlight their shared goals — namely, their commitment to supporting artists — and their overlapping audience bases. The directors of these institutions also represent a range of ages and ethnicities that reflects the demographics of the Bay Area. I hope this project will serve as a touchstone for other arts organizations and institutions in the future. Whether spotlighting an individual or surveying a broader cultural moment, the rich, multifaceted variety of artists’ output cannot always be conveyed within the bounds of a single gallery or venue. Not only the Bay Area, but the entire West Coast is uniquely positioned to highlight local artists across disciplines, movements, and generations; to adequately reflect the innovations and achievements of California’s influential artists, musicians, dancers, etc, we need to think big.”
Performances
Chris Brown, Piano - September 28th at 2pm
Jon Jang, Piano - October 5th at 2pm
Allison Lovejoy, Piano - October 12th at 2pm
Marcus Shelby, Bass - October 19th at 5:30pm
Exhibitions
The Time And Space of Now, Moving Stills
September 7, 2024
Anglim/Trimble
A Conversation With The Muse
September 14, 2024
pt.2 Gallery
Excerpts from The Time and Space of Now
September 21, 2024
500 Capp Street
Allison Lovejoy is an extraordinarily exciting and versatile pianist. Specializing in early 20th century repertoire, she also plays the music of the masters with insight and passion. She began studying piano at age 5, and has been in demand as soloist and collaborator throughout her conservatory and professional careers.
Composer Jon Jang became the first American born Chinese to compose a symphonic work that honors Chinese American history. Commissioned by the Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra and Oakland East Bay Symphony, Jon Jang composed The Chinese American Symphony which pays tribute to the Chinese immigrant laborers who built the first transcontinental railroad in United States. For nearly four decades, composer and pianist Jon Jang give a musical voice to a history that has been silent. A majority of his works represents a chronology of Chinese American history in San Francisco such as Island: The Immigrant Suite No. 2 for the Kronos Quartet.
Chris Brown, composer, pianist, and electronic musician, makes music with self-designed sonic systems that include acoustic and electroacoustic instruments, interactive software, computer networks, microtonal tunings, and improvisation. His compositions are designs for performances in which people bring to life the musical structures embedded in scores, instruments, and machines.
Marcus Anthony Shelby is a composer, bassist, bandleader, and educator who currently lives in San Francisco, California. His work focuses on the history, present, and future of African American lives social movements and music education. In 1990, Marcus Shelby received the Charles Mingus Scholarship to attend Cal Arts and study composition with James Newton and bass with Charlie Haden. Currently, Shelby is the Artistic Director of Healdsburg Jazz, an artist in residence with the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, and a past resident artist with the San Francisco Jazz Festival and the Healdsburg Jazz Festival.
BIOGRAPHY
Mildred Howard (b. 1945, San Francisco, CA) is best known for her multimedia assemblage work and installations. Her large-scale works have been installed at sites including Creative Time in New York; InSITE in San Diego, CA; the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA; the National Museum of Women in the Arts; the New Museum in New York; throughout the City of Oakland; and in the San Francisco International Airport.
Works by Howard are included in the permanent collections of the Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA; the de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; the
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA; the Museum of Glass and Contemporary Art, Tacoma, WA; the Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA; SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA; and the San Jose Museum of Art San Jose, CA, among others.
Howard’s numerous awards and honors include the Adaline Kent Award from the San Francisco Art Institute (1991), a fellowship from the California Arts Council (2003), the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award (2004/5), the Nancy Graves Grant for Visual Artists (2017), and the Douglas G. MacAgy Distinguished Achievement Award at San Francisco Art Institute (2018). In 2015, she received the Lee Krasner Award in recognition of a lifetime of artistic achievement. Most recently, she received honorary doctorate degrees from the California College of the Arts and California State University, East Bay in 2023.
Howard completed her Associates of Arts Degree & Certificate in Fashion Art at the College of Alameda, Alameda, CA in 1977 and received her MFA from Fiberworks Center for the Textile Arts at John F. Kennedy University in Berkeley, CA in 1985.