2024 Exhibitions

Charles Lee: Restitution & Recuperation 
MarinMOCA Novato | Second Floor Gallery
Opening Reception October 26, 2024

In June of 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed what became known as the G.I. Bill of Rights. This bill provided Veterans with funding for housing, job training, education, business loans and unemployment insurance. The G.I. Bill is often credited with creating the American Middle Class. Unfortunately, the dream of socioeconomic equity went largely unrealized for Black Veterans, including both of my grandfathers.

The benefits of the G.I. Bill were extended to the Korean War. Both my maternal and paternal grandfathers were Korean War Veterans. They returned home from the war to the shadow of Jim Crow. Neither of them were able to get a loan to buy a house. Here were two men that laid their lives on the line in the name of a country that didn’t recognize them as equals. Even in the face of discrimination and death, they persisted and were able to ascend to middle class with hopes of sharing their slice of this American pie with their progeny. They fought for perceived freedoms that they themselves were not allowed to partake in, imposing a military presence on other persons of color.

When my grandfather and family arrived in San Francisco in 1966, the West Coast was still an active military outpost. By that time, many Black people had migrated from Southern states to escape Jim Crow and to work at the shipyards and other military installations. Black Men and Women largely contributed to the work forces that supported the military. Over 600,000 Black women were “Rosies,” many working in the shipyards from Richmond down to Long Beach. This history is largely unknown to many current Californians nor are they aware of the major socioeconomic and ecological implications as a result of the military industrial complex’s stronghold in the state of California. Most of these military bases and shipyards have been closed, many due to their negative environmental impact. Others because the threat of war on our home turf was no longer present. Some sit with empty homes and inaccessible land with manicured landscaping, like Alameda Naval Base, while others are marked for commercial development, like Treasure Island, Point Molate in Richmond and the Naval Shipyards of Hunter’s Point.

According to the Senate’s Summit Committee, in 2020, California had the highest number, 11,401, of homeless Veterans in the nation. That’s 31% of the U.S. total population of homeless veterans. 70% of these veterans were unsheltered, meaning they reside in places that are not meant for human habitation. This is also the highest percentage in the nation. According to HUD, California’s Black veterans represent 33% of unsheltered veterans despite representing only 12% of all veterans in the state.

Restitution and Recuperation is an exhibition that underscores matters from the categorical denial of G.I. benefits for many Black soldiers, to the irony of vacant housing on California’s decommissioned military bases and the state possessing the highest homeless veteran population in the nation, to the ecological damage caused by the military industrial complex. These issues are as social as they are political. Using archival documents and contemporary color landscape photographs and visceral sculptures, video montages and installations, this exhibition is a call to action that aims to evoke critical dialogue surrounding solutions, ideas of financial reparation and recompense, and environmental restoration.

Bio: 

Charles Lee (b. 1983) is an interdisciplinary artist hailing from Honolulu, Hawaii and raised in Richmond, California. His work, spanning installations, collage, assemblage, photography, film, sound, and text, delves deep into the impacts of external viewpoints and obscured histories and iconography on the individual self and the collective. Through the use of personal archives, narrative storytelling, healing practices and the confrontation of the internal shadows, Lee seeks to cultivate heightened self-awareness and empathy. Central to his practice is an emphasis on the significance of intrapersonal awareness, community, and our shared journey towards healing and mutual comprehension, all in service of forging a more equitable future. 

Lee holds an MFA in Fine Arts from California College of the Arts, and a BA in Business with a focus in Marketing from Bowie State University. His work has been exhibited broadly including Berggruen Gallery (SF), the Kemper Art Museum in St. Louis, Casemore Gallery, SF Camerawork and 1014 Gallery in London. His work is held in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College and Recology.

Image Credit:

1. Band of Brothas, 2024. Pigment print. Courtesy the artist

2. Flags of Our Fathers, 2024. Archival pigment prints on cotton fabric. Courtesy the artist

3. Untitled (headlands), 2024. Pigment print on vinyl. Courtesy the artist

4. Never Forgotten, 2024. Archival pigment print on canvas. Courtesy the artist

5. Band of Brothas II, 2024. Archival pigment print on rice paper. Courtesy the artist

October 5 - December 21, 2024
Opening reception: October 5th 2-4pm | 1210 Fifth Ave. San Rafael, CA.
Curated by Natasha Boas and Asha McGee
 

On October 22, 1965, Beat Poets Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and Philip Whalen ceremonially circumambulated Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California. Inspired by the Buddhist practice of Pradakshina – the religious rite of circling clockwise around a sacred object – the poets hiked a 15-mile route around the mountain in a performative prayer and meditation. In the poets’ words, they were “opening the mountain” – a ritual of respect for their local bioregion.

Inaugurating MarinMOCA San Rafael, Opening the Mountain will pay tribute to the Beats’ journey with a dynamic, transgenerational group exhibition that ties Marin’s present to its past as a hotbed of imaginative thinking. Opening the Mountain celebrates the specificities of place and contemporary counter-cultural aesthetics by bringing together a vibrant group of artists who practice near, at the base of, or in the expansive metaphorical shadow of Mount Tamalpais.

Featuring artists: Saif Azzuz, Teresa Baker, Ashwini Bhat, JB Blunk, Annabel De Vries, Lucia Dillman, Nick Gorham, July Guzman, Tennessee Hildebrand, Johanna Jackson, Chris Johanson, Adeline Kent, Stella Kudritzki. Margaret Kilgallen, Ruby Neri, Tucker Nichols, McIntyre Parker, Jesse Schlesinger, Alice Shaw, Martha Shaw, Daisy Sheff, Studio AHEAD, Nina Venezia.

Image Credit: 

Adaline Kent
Untitled (Mountain Meadow), c. 1944
Ink and crayon on paper
17 x 13 7/8 in
43.2 x 34.9 cm

Photography by Ron Jones

© The Adaline Kent Family
Courtesy of the Adaline Kent Estate and Altman Siegel, San Francisco

ART FWD Party | Art All Around Us
featuring MarinMOCA's Inagural Northern California Open & More!

July 13, 2-4pm
Exhibition Opening Reception & Silent Auction Kick-off

July 13-September 28
Exhibition Silent Auction 

September 28
Live Auction & ART FWD Party 

Celebrate with us as you view and bid on artworks selected by an esteemed panel of jurors: Facundo Arganaraz, Mariah Nielson, Lawrence Rinder, Mari Robles, and Donna Seager.

September 28th Party Program:

ART FWD Party & Live Auction: Art All Around Us, featuring MarinMOCA's Inaugural Northern California Open & more

4:00 pm: Galleries & Silent Auction; Music and Performances by Marin School of the Arts Students

4:30 - 5:30 pm: Pop-up Art Happenings & Hands-on Art Activities; Libations & Bites Served

5:00 - 6:00 pm: Marin-style Barbecue, Grilled Seafood and Poultry with an Array of Seasonal Vegetables and Fruits

6:00 - 7:00 pm: Main Stage Performances, Live Auction, and More

'Til Dawn A Cappella from Youth in Arts
Alonzo King LINES Ballet at Dominican University of California
Marin Youth Poet Laureate and Ambassadors from Marin Poetry Center
Live Art & Experience Auction
7:00 - 8:30 pm: The Headliners, Music by Kelly McFarling and Matt Jaffe & the Distractions

ART FWD Party will be a festive event celebrating the visual arts and all art forms for people of all ages. In addition to viewing and bidding on exceptional artworks in the Northern California Open, an array of musical, dance, and theatrical performances from the best of Marin will be featured. Hands-on art activities and yummy food will be enjoyed by all.

The Journey Before Me: Etel Adnan, Michelle Blade, Kristy Luck
April 13 - June 22, 2024
Main & Ron Collins Gallery
Members’ Preview: April 13 | 1 - 2 pm

Public Opening Reception: April 13 | 2 - 4 pm

A cross-generational conversation, this three-artist exhibition features writings and images by renowned poet, essayist, and visual artist Etel Adnan, a longtime resident of Marin County, as well as new works by California-based painters Michelle Blade and Kristy Luck. Shown together for the first time, the three artists share a keen attentiveness to the natural world, a deep interest in color’s emotive power, and a continual exploration of the relationship between place, memory, and the poetic ambiguity of visual expression.

Image Credits:

1. Untitled, 2013. Oil on canvas. Courtesy McEvoy Family Collection

2. Michelle Blade, Untitled, 2023. Acrylic and ink on poplin. Image courtesy Micki Meng

3. Kristy Luck, Hidden (Dedication to Etel), 2024. Oil on linen. Image courtesy Philip Martin Gallery, photo by Jeff McLane