Exhibitions are presented in three gallery spaces: the Main Gallery, the Rotunda Gallery, and the North Reading Room. Approximately eight exhibitions per year are presented in each. Exhibitions in the Main Gallery focus on nationally and internationally recognized artists. The Rotunda Gallery emphasizes community partnerships or emerging regional artists. Art in both galleries are related to the Athenaeum’s other focuses, namely books or music. Works have included limited edition artists' books, drawing, painting, site-specific installations, photography, sculpture, collage, mixed media, architecture, and calligraphy.

The North Reading Room, opened during the library’s expansion in 2007, is devoted to showcasing the Athenaeum’s Erika and Fred Torri Arists’ Books Collection. For each exhibition, one artist or press from the collection is highlighted.

Exhibitions have given deserved recognition to San Diego artists including Joyce Cutler-Shaw, Patricia Patterson, Manny Farber, Italo Scanga, Zandra Rhodes, Russell Forester, Ernest Silva, Faiya Fredman, Jean Lowe, Viviana Lombrozo, Becky Cohen, Nina Katchadourian, Ethel Greene, Robin Bright, Raul Guerrero, Ellen Phillips, James Hubble, Jo Ann Tanzer, Christine Oatman, Roberto Salas, Marie Najera, Kim MacConnel, Teddy Cruz, Adam Belt, Jim Lee, Jay Johnson, and Philipp Scholz Rittermann. Artists from across the U.S. and around the world have included Harry Sternberg, Mauro Staccioli, Marcos Ramirez (ERRE), Nathan Gluck, William Wegman, Faith Ringgold, Ming Mur-Ray, Rolf Händler, David Teeple and Peter Dreher.

The Rotunda Gallery features annual collaborations with the La Jolla Historical Society, the San Diego State University Art Council, and Children’s Hospital. Other community projects have included a fundraising exhibition for the Pacific Rim Parks Project.

The Athenaeum’s Annual Juried Exhibition, and Biennial Artists’ Book Juried Exhibition are among the most prestigious in the San Diego area, and the most sought-after by entering artists.

The Athenaeum Music & Arts Library’s art exhibitions are on view during library hours, Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and Wednesdays until 8:30 p.m. There is no charge for admission. Opening receptions, lectures and artist’s walk-throughs are also free of charge.

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Main and Rotunda Galleries
XIX Annual Juried Exhibition
On view August 7 - September 4, 2010
Opening Reception, Friday, August 6, 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Free admission

The Athenaeum’s annual juried exhibition, now in its nineteenth year, is recognized as one of the most prestigious juried shows in all of San Diego. Open only to artists who live, work, or have exhibited in San Diego, the show provides both artists and art lovers the opportunity to sample the finest selection of contemporary works from the thriving local art community.

The show features two and three-dimensional works by 35 local artists. This year's juror is John Wilson, Executive Director of the Timken Museum of Art.

CONGRATULATIONS TO THIS YEAR'S WINNERS!

1st Place - K.V. Tomney

2nd Place - Lea Dennis

3rd Place - Elena Lomakin

North Reading Room Gallery
Selections from the Athenaeum's Erika & Fred Torri Artists' Book Collection:
Brighton Press
On view August 7 - September 4, 2010
Opening Reception, Friday, August 6, 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Free admission+

Investigating both the traditional and the unconventional use of materials and form, San Diego-based publisher Brighton Press has been creating often-poetic limited edition artists' books since 1985. The Athenaeum has several carefully handcrafted works by Brighton Press - highly sought after by art collectors, bibliophiles, and print collectors - in its permanent collection.

Main Gallery
Appellations: Gail Roberts and Sondra Sherman
On view September 25 - November 6, 2010
Opening Reception, Friday, September 24, 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Free admission

'Appellations' is an exhibition of paintings by Gail Roberts and jewelry objects by Sondra Sherman in which  the respective works have been inspired by books.

Gail Roberts is exhibiting paintings that are an extension of her Accumulations series in which piles of found materials are depicted as memorials to the amassing of ordinary items.  In her new paintings, Roberts focuses on her diverse and valued collection of paperback novels.  The images of books and book titles are vehicles to convey her ongoing reflections on culture and the immediate environment.  

Sondra Sherman will be showing works from the series Found Subjects. Sherman has often used literary references and wordplay to enhance an interpretive viewing perspective of expressive jewelry. In this series alluding to the artistic strategy of incorporating found objects, she inverts the process by interpreting a 'found' title. Each piece responds to the title and binding of an old book which has then been altered to create a presentation box for the jewelry.  

by Gail Roberts

by Sondra Sherman

Rotunda Gallery
Shawnee Barton
Occupation: Housewife:
On view September 25 - November 6, 2010
Opening Reception, Friday, September 24, 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Free admission

San Diego interdisciplinary artist Shawnee Barton uses humor, humility, and her art practice to cope with being unemployed during the worst economic downturn our country has seen in sixty years. Using hand-embroidery and a varietyof other media, she addresses subjects related to her inability to get a job including job titles, time-management, arts policy, and her ongoing existential crisis.

by Shawnee Barton

North Reading Room Gallery
Selections from the Athenaeum's Erika & Fred Torri Artists' Book Collection: Roni Horn
On view September 25 - November 6, 2010
Opening Reception, Friday, September 24, 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Free admission

Roni Horn is a multimedia American artist who has chosen to focus her art on Iceland, which she first visited as a graduate student. Several of her books are in the Athenaeum’s Erika and Fred Torri Artists’ Books Collection stored in the Fredman Family Vault. Her chosen muse, Iceland, resonates with the artist’s exploration of identity, mutability, and the mundane. Her series To Place uses Iceland’s geography and elements to express these themes. Three of volumes in this ongoing series, Becoming a Landscape, Haraldsdóttir, and Verne's Journey, the last of which gives visual weight to Journey to the Center of the Earth, thus making fact of fiction, are in the Athenaeum’s holdings, and will be on view with her other books in our collection, from September 25 to November 6, 2010, in the gallery of the North Reading Room.

Main and Rotunda Galleries
Passions: Anne Labovitz
On view November 13- December 31, 2010
Opening Reception, Friday, November 12, 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Free admission

Join us for a special walk-through with the artist on Saturday, November 13, 11 AM

This exhibition will explore three dominant themes in artist Anne Labovitz's work–self portraits, nature, and artists' books.

by Anne Labovitz

North Reading Room Gallery
Selections from the Athenaeum's Erika & Fred Torri Artists' Book Collection: Richard Long
On view November 13- December 31, 2010
Opening Reception, Friday, November 12, 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Free admission

Please check back later for more details about this exhibition. Thank you.