Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum - Home Show

Courtesy: Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum

Last week I decided to docent for Santa Barbara's contemporary art museum, Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum (CAF) Home Show, Revisited.  The site-specific show breaks down to the notion of exhibiting work in a traditional white cube art museum  -- and, instead, displays art in people's homes. The curators of the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum invited 10 Los Angeles-based contemporary artists to "reconsider the societal and cultural notion of “home” by creating site-specific installations in residences throughout Santa Barbara."

The Home Show includes works by internationally-known artists Piero Golia, Evan Holloway, Bettina Hubby, Florian Morlat, Kori Newkirk, Jennifer Rochlin, Ry Rocklen, Kirsten Stoltmann, Stephanie Taylor, and Jennifer West. The exhibition has been reviewed in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and the Santa Barbara Independent.

The exhibition is kind of like a treasure hunt, asking visitors to traverse homes in Santa Barbara all the way to Carpinteria to see artworks. The Home Show inhabitants must welcome visitors into their homes every weekend  from 11a.m. - 5p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays through July 17.

As an art appraiser I'm often asked to visit private homes to appraise artworks, so I thought the exhibition was an interesting concept to invite strangers into peoples homes. By inviting the public into private homes, these ten artists explore concepts of privacy, voyeurism, and status.

I served as a docent in the home of art dealer Candice Assassi’s contemporary loft in Carpinteria, California.  Assasi's home looks out onto a beachfront campground populated by summertime campers.  Artist Kori Newkirk decided to play with the exchange of viewership and voyeurism.  Newkirk mounted a neon sign to a roof beam facing the campground that reads “No Visible Neurosis.” Written backwards, viewers must look at it with a mirror from the front porch.  While looking out toward the campers, the viewer must also look at oneself in the mirror, while viewing the the neon sign. The artpiece attempts to make a commentary on a visitor's judgement of a stranger's home -- and perhaps the person in the mirror as well.

Art appraisers often seen great paintings, sculpture, and drawings hidden away in private collections. While it's interesting to see art on museum walls it is magical to see how people live around art in their everyday lives. This exhibition is a great way of inviting visitors into the personal spaces of those who surround themselves with art.