Piece by Piece: Collage & Assemblage at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art

The artworks in this exhibition are assembled from parts: sometimes scavenged, sometimes made by the artist, sometimes bought, and sometimes given. Originating in the early 20th century, collage and assemblage—the term for sculptural collage—were revolutionary because they could be made from anything. Art no longer had to be precious or refined.

Mario Giacomelli: La Gente, La Terra

Photography was a lifelong experiment for Giacomelli. Through innovative development techniques, he depicted both people and the landscape with sharp black and white contrast and psychological intensity. The anxieties, travails, and hopes of post-war Europe swirl around his subjects. The hills and vineyards of Southern Italy become akin to Abstract Expressionist canvases.

By Achilles’ Tomb: Elliott Hundley and Antiquity @ SBMA 

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art is organizing a mid-career solo exhibition with Elliott Hundley and has also invited him to rethink the display of Greco-Roman antiquities in SBMA’s Ludington Court. 

By Achilles’ Tomb juxtaposes the Museum’s renowned collection of antique sculpture and glassware with Hundley’s sculptures, paintings, and newly made collages. 

Modern Life: A Global Artworld, 1850-1950

We live with linked economies and global instantaneous communication. Change is constant. People are on the go. Modern life with its incessant movement began in the mid-19th century, as undersea telegraph cables, railroads, steamships, and colonial powers encircled the world. These same changes created a global art world with centers in cities such as Paris, Mexico City, and New York.

Portrait of Mexico Today

Portrait of Mexico Today is one of the only intact murals painted by David Alfaro Siqueiros while he was a political exile in Los Angeles in 1932.

Highlights of East Asian Art

The refreshed and newly configured Sterling Morton, Campbell, and Gould Galleries next to Ludington Court showcase a selection of works from China, Japan, and Korea, drawn from the Museum’s extensive permanent Asian Art collection and organized by SBMA Elizabeth Atkins Curator of Asian Art Susan Tai.

Highlights of South and Southeast Asian Art, Himalayas

Made from a variety of materials: clay, wood, metal, stone, textile, and paper, these works provide a broad view of the artistic expressions and devotional practices in India and their development and transformation in the Southeast Asian countries of Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, and the Himalayan lands of Nepal and Tibet.