Past Exhibitions

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, Rotunda Gallery and North Reading Room
It All Adds Up: Celebrating Twenty Years of Exhibitions
On view June 26 - July 31, 2010
Opening Reception + Athenaeum Secret Sale, Friday, June 25, 6:30-8:30pm

Time flies - twenty years and more than two hundred exhibitions! The Athenaeum's galleries have evolved into one of the most respected art venues in San Diego.  Invitations, artists’ portraits, exhibition photos, reviews, and internal staff notes from past shows, never before seen by the public, will be on display June 26 through July 31.

Athenaeum Secret Sale

The Athenaeum invites you to our first ever Athenaeum Secret Sale. Professional artists who have exhibited with us in solo or small group shows have been asked to create a 8 x 10" piece of art. Each newly commissioned, one-of-a-kind piece will be priced at $200. The “secret” is that all artwork in the show will be displayed unnamed. Take a look at the album below for a sneak preview. To learn the identities of each artist and their releated works, click through the chart below.

THE SECRET IS OUT!
Click on the artists' names below to reveal their artwork.

NOTE: If you have trouble opening the links above, please try refreshing your internet browser.

Main Gallery
Ellen Salk: Shaker Loops
On view May 22 - June 19, 2010
Opening Reception with Ellen Salk on Friday, May 21, 6:30-8:30 PM
Free Admission

Local artist Ellen Salk explores repetition, pattern, and movement in her beautifully rendered drawings and paintings. Her exhibition titled Shaker Loops, "recalls both a tendency towards simplicity and ecstatic movement within the Shaker sect and also references the composition of John Adams of the same name." - Ellen Salk.

A special dance and musical performance featuring Bay Area artists Ellen Webb, dance, Scott Walton, bass, and Cecilia Engelhart, voice, will take place in the Main Gallery at 7 p.m. Please join us.

Shaker Loops Generation #10, 6' x 7', oil on canvas (2010)

Rotunda Gallery
8th Annual San Diego State University Art Council Scholarship
On view May 22 - June 19, 2010
Opening Reception, Friday, May 21, 6:30-8:30 PM
Free Admission

The Athenaeum presents for the eighth consecutive year an exhibition of artwork by scholarship winners of the San Diego State University's (SDSU) Department of Art, Design, and Art History. Students from the upper division of the undergraduate or the graduate programs have bene selected, based on scholarship applications, by the SDSU Art Council. Each student receives a monetary award and the opportunity to present their artwork in this exhibition.

This year's show features the works of five students: Lucy Eron, Barbara Knuth, Jaime Lyerly, Dewi Mertha, and Rachel Shipock.

Rachel Shipock, Toast Bracelet Group, 2008

North Reading Room Gallery
Selections from the Athenaeum's Erika and Fred Torri Artists' Books Collection: Fischli/Weiss
On view May 22 - June 19, 2010
Opening Reception, Friday, May 21, 6:30-8:30 PM
Free Admission

Renowned Swiss contemporary artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss - Fischli/Weiss - have made a name for themselves by transforming the familiar into something new and unexpected, and often wickedly funny. Their forms of expression include photography and film, sculpture, and multimedia installations, but it is their artists' books from the Athenaeum's Erika and Fred Torri Artists' Books Collection that will be on display in the North Reading Room Gallery.

Main and Rotunda Galleries
Zandra Rhodes: Verdi's Aida Through the Eyes of Zandra Rhodes
On view April 10 through May 15, 2010
Opening Reception with Zandra Rhodes on Friday, April 9, 6:30-8:30 PM
Free Admission

Get a behind-the-scenes look at the sketchbooks, costume drawings and outfits that Zandra Rhodes created for Giuseppe Verdi's opera Aida. The internationally acclaimed, famed fashion designer was commissioned by Opera Pacific, in 2004, to design the sets and costumes for their production of Aida, directed by John Demaine Maine. Zandra's concept originated from a trip she made to Egypt in 1986. She became fascinated with Egypt's color palette of turquoise, gold, orange and ultramarine; the spectacular jewelry and the pleated figure hugging dresses of the pharaohs. This sneak preview highlights a portion of the more than 150 costumes that took Zandra over two and a half years to complete!

Zandra Rhodes, hand-drawn sketch of Aida set design

Watch the Zandra Rhodes online interview with
the San Diego Union-Tribune.

North Reading Room Gallery
Selections from the Athenaeum's Erika and Fred Torri Artists' Books Collection: Leonard Baskin
On view April 10 through May 15
Opening Reception, Friday, April 9, 6:30-8:30 PM
Free Admission

Leonard Baskin was an artist in possession of enormous literary and visual vocabularies. Sculpture, children's book illustrator, watercolorist, printmaker, and master of artists' books, his lifetime body of work is truly impressive.

Main Gallery
David Adey: John Henry
On view February 27 through April 3, 2010
Reception Friday, February 26, 6:30-8:30 PM
Free Admission

"David Adey's installation is off-the-shelf--and over the top."
- Robert L. Pincus, San Diego Union-Tribune, March 11, 2010
Click here to read the full review featured in the SD Union-Tribune's Night + Day

Rising San Diego artist David Adey gets down to the basics of things, observing, “All art is made out of things. All things are made out of stuff. All stuff is made from other stuff.” Adey will transform the Main Gallery space, in a tribute to some of the Athenaeum’s favorite “stuff,” books. David is the proud recipient of this year's 2010 San Diego Art Prize.

David Adey, John Henry, 2010, installation made of books,
clamps, wooden sawhorses, metal braces, variable dimensions

Watch the entire installation process in time lapse video.
Music by Scott Wheeler of Cuckoo Chaos  

Rotunda Gallery
Charlie Miller: Anything but Rehab
On view February 27 through April 3, 2010
Reception Friday, February 26, 6:30-8:30 PM
Free Admission

Los Angeles-based artist Charlie Miller will exhibit Anything but Rehab, a new series of paintings. Miller is currently working on these in his Sherman Heights studio, a former pharmacy which came replete with two decades of medical ephemera from the 1950s and 60s. He uses acrylics, collaged with vintage prescriptions and modern advertisements.

Charlie Miller, Anything But Rehab, 2009, mixed media on canvas, 30" x 40"

North Reading Room Gallery
Selections from the Athenaeum's Erika and Fred Torri Artists' Books Collection: Mary Ellen Long
On view February 27 through April 3, 2010
Reception Friday, February 26, 6:30-8:30 PM
Free Admission

Mary Ellen Long is an artist and bookmaker from Durango, Colorado who has exhibited previously in the Main Gallery, in 1993 and 1997. She has created a prolific body of work including limited-edition books, maps with text, installations, and sculptural interventions inspired by her forest environment in Durango.