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Debra Disman

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Alma Ruiz

“Building Networks of Empathy”

October 23, 2020 By Debra Disman

I am honored to participate in:

“Building Networks of Empathy”

at the Airport Gallery of 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica, CA

October 26  – December 15, 2020 

The exhibition Building Networks of Empathy is the second of a two-part show that asks us to consider the ways in which art empowers not only the artist, but its viewers to transform their most difficult experiences into enlightened outcomes. The first part of the show is an ongoing online-only exhibition entitled Facing Darkness, which encouraged artists in our community to reflect internally on our current moment of pandemic, isolation, and structural inequity laid bare.

For this second part, which will be physically installed in 18th Street Arts Center’s spacious Airport campus hangar galleries, artists were asked to respond to how they have changed as a result of their inner reflections on darkness, and to imagine new futures and societal structures as we see our way out of crisis. Each artist grapples as well with the role that art can play in social reflection, expression, and cultural paradigm shifts as a result of a deeper understanding of each other, and the empathy that follows. The exhibition sees empathy not only as a way to share and understand what others are going through, but also as a natural and endless resource that we can all rely on when crisis and emergency hit, with hopes that we can turn this moment of collective fear into a sublime experience.

Debra Disman, Chromatic Interactions: The Golden Thread, 2020. File cards, pencils, crayons, thread. Installation. 76 x 90 inches. Photo by Debra Disman. Courtesy of the artist.
Debra Disman, Chromatic Interactions: The Golden Thread, 2020. File cards, pencils, crayons, thread. Installation. 76 x 90 inches.
Photo by Debra Disman. Courtesy of the artist.

“I was commissioned to create an interactive book for Craft Contemporary’s 2017 exhibition, Chapters: Book Arts in Southern California, which opened shortly after the 2016 presidential election. Visitors could choose file cards in an array of colors, draw and write on them, and insert them into the pocketed pages of the book. A range of feelings, responses, and concerns were expressed through the cards, which the Museum Staff saved and gave to me at the end of the show. I stitched them together grouped loosely by theme, to express the network of empathy they depicted, held together by golden thread.”

This exhibition may be viewed by appointment only. Please visit here to sign up to visit the exhibition!

Participating artists include: Alexandra Dillon, Deborah Lynn Irmas, Luigia Gio Martelloni, Rebecca Setareh, M Susan Broussard, Julia Michelle Dawson, Lionel Popkin, Ameeta Nanji, Siru Wen, Elham Sagharchi, Debra Disman, Luciana Abait, Sheila Karbassian, Daniela Schweitzer, Joan Wulf, Loren Harris-Heller, Nung-Hsin Hu, and Susie McKay Krieser.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a live Zoom panel featuring Alma Ruiz and Karen Sherman, moderated by Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, on November 12, 2020 at 12pm. For this panel discussion, curators, artists, activists, advocates, and scholars are invited to meet virtually  to reflect on the public opening of Facing Darkness, and consider how the show renders a public crisis and artists’ circumstances evident and knowable. Moderated by artist-scholar Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, with talks by curator Alma Ruiz and dancemaker Karen Sherman, (Inter)facing Darkness will frame a dialogue on how artists are operating as second responders, as thought leaders, and resource gatherers at this time. Participants will be invited to speak on their experience of the show at this moment. Register here.

Filed Under: ARTISTS, Exhibitions, New Work, Presentations, Work Tagged With: "Building Networks of Empathy", 18th Street Airport Gallery, 18th Street Arts Center, Alexandra Dillon, Alma Ruiz, Ameeta Nanji, and Susie McKay Krieser., Art and Empathy, Art in the time of Covid, Artists, Artists Respond, Artists Respond to Pandemic, Daniela Schweitzer, Deborah Lynn Irmas, Debra Disman, Elham Sagharchi, Frida Cano, Group Show, Joan Wulf, Julia Michelle Dawson, Karen Sherman, Lionel Popkin, Loren Harris-Heller, Luciana Abait, Luigia Gio Martelloni, M Susan Broussard, Nung-Hsin Hu, Online Exhibition, Paul Bonon-Rodriguez, Rebecca Setareh, Response to Pandemic, Sheila Karbassian, Siru Wen

Exhibitionista: on “Brand”

October 3, 2019 By Debra Disman

So thrilled to be part of the Brand Library and Art Center‘s Brand 47 Works On Paper show, current iteration of this concept.

Juried by Alma Ruiz, former curator at MOCA.

I showed Burning Bush, 2018, 7.5 x 11 x 5.5″, board, sewing thread, mulberry paper, linen thread

 

Gratitudes.

Filed Under: ARTISTS, Artists' Books, BOOKS, Exhibitions, Work Tagged With: Alma Ruiz, ARTIST'S BOOKS, Brand 47 Annual National Juried Exhibition of Works on Paper, Brand Library and Art Center, Sculptural Artists' Book, Works on and of and incroporating PAPER, Works on paper

Sharing Shows 3: “BRAND 47”

July 4, 2019 By Debra Disman


I am excited and honored to be included in a number of current and upcoming shows across the US, and will be sharing about them in blog form, as well as in the EVENTS  section of my website, as a way of further describing and chronicling my practice, honoring colleagues, and sharing gratitude for these opportunities and the people, organizations and institutions that make them happen. Shout out to Bernard Wolf, Photographer extraordinaire who took the last two photographs below of “Burning Bush“,


which will be shown in:

The 47th Annual National Juried Exhibition of Works on Paper

Exhibition: September 7th – October 25th
Brand Library & Art Center
1601 West Mountain Street
Glendale, CA 91201

Brand Library & Art Center announces its 47th Annual National Juried Exhibition of Works on Paper.

This year  Alma Ruiz, an independent curator, Senior Fellow at Sotheby’s Institute of Art/Claremont Graduate University and a member of the Advisory Committee for the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation in Miami as our juror.

Ruiz brings a wealth of experience to Brand 47 as a former senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles who has also curated internationally in Mexico, Argentina, Israel and Guatemala. Ruiz has acted as a juror for numerous exhibitions and biennials in the United States and Latin America and is the author of numerous essays and articles.  Alma Ruiz reviewed more than 1000 submissions, of which 93 were selected for the exhibition.

Brand 47 is organized by the Associates of Brand Library & Art Center, an all-volunteer 501(c)3 non-profit that raises funds to support the extensive free and public events offered at Brand, including exhibits in the gallery, classical and popular music performances, film screenings, and dance performances. This year marks the 50th Anniversary of the Associates, a milestone which will be celebrated throughout 2019. Entry fees and sales from Brand 47 and every Annual Works on Paper Exhibition are utilized by the Associates to continue the important cultural programming that Brand Library & Art Center brings to the community.


“Burning Bush”, Interior/Open


“Burning Bush”, Exterior/Open

I am thrilled and humbled to be participating in this Brand (new for 2019) show and continuing tradition at this venerable institution of Southern California. 

 

Filed Under: ARTISTS, Artists' Books, Exhibitions, Work Tagged With: Alma Ruiz, Artists' Book/s, Bernard Wolf, Books made From hand, Brand 47 Annual National Juried Exhibition of Works on Paper, Brand Library & Art Center, Exhibitions, Group Exhbition, Group Shows, Handmade Books, Sculptural Books, Shows, Works on or using paper

Brand 47 Annual National Juried Exhibition of Works on Paper

June 5, 2019 By Debra Disman

I am honored to participate in the upcoming:

Brand 47 Annual National Juried Exhibition of Works on Paper on view at Brand Library and Art Center in Glendale, California from September 7 through October 25, 2019.

You are invited to the public opening from 7:00-9:30  on Saturday, September 7!

Brand Library & Art Center in Glendale, California announces its 47th Annual National Juried Exhibition of Works on Paper.

The Juror is Alma Ruiz. an independent curator, Senior Fellow at Sotheby’s Institute of Art/Claremont Graduate University and a member of the Advisory Committee for the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation in Miami as our juror. Ruiz brings a wealth of experience to Brand 47 as a former senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles who has also curated internationally in Mexico, Argentina, Israel and Guatemala. Ruiz has acted as a juror for numerous exhibitions and biennials in the United States and Latin America and is the author of numerous essays and articles.

Brand 47 is organized by the Associates of Brand Library & Art Center, an all-volunteer 501(c)3 non-profit that raises funds to support the extensive free and public events offered at Brand, including exhibits in the gallery, classical and popular music performances, film screenings, and dance performances. This year marks the 50th Anniversary of the Associates, a milestone which will be celebrated throughout 2019. Entry fees and sales from Brand 47 and every Annual Works on Paper Exhibition are utilized by the Associates to continue the important cultural programming that Brand Library & Art Center brings to the community.

Tagged With: Alma Ruiz, Brand 47 Annual National Juried Exhibition of Works on Paper, Brand Library and Art Center, Works on and of and incroporating PAPER, Works on paper

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