n/a, 43rd & West St, Oakland | Bay Area Now 7 (BAN7)
Channel: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Date: 13/08/2014

See more at http://ybca.org/ban7

Visiting BAN7 exhibition partner organization, n/a, in Oakland.

n/a is an Oakland-based exhibition space with a focus on queer experience in contemporary art practice. Founded in May 2013, n/a has already supported over 100 artists, performers, filmmakers, photographers, poets, curators, and scholars with exhibition opportunities and funding. An apartment gallery, working with a network of independent spaces in Oakland, n/a acts as an intimate locus for interests that might otherwise fall outside of more normative platforms of presentation. Through exhibitions, artist residencies, publications, partnerships, and off-site collaborations, n/a continues to seek new opportunities for emerging artists and inter-disciplinary queer and contemporary art dialogues. 

http://www.na-oakland.com

Through the work of artists who capture the spirit of "now," YBCA's signature triennial, Bay Area Now, brings to life current perspectives for both this art center and the regional art scene. In its seventh edition, BAN7 is experimenting with a new approach to curating that highlights collaborations with our region's artists and arts organizations and pushes beyond presentation toward a multidisciplinary celebration of the diversity of artistic practices in the Bay Area.

BAN7's core idea is to decentralize the curatorial process, and centralize the public presentation of some of the most exciting artistic voices in the region today.

As a common shared site for the presentation of works, BAN7 aims to create a lucid web of creative activity in the Bay Area. Our vision to create a platform for new work and experimentation is rooted in the belief that a decentralized curatorial process will open up an opportunity for a wider range of voices and create spaces for dialogue beyond the arts.

The visual arts component of Bay Area Now 7 has been reconceived through an open and rigorous selection process. By inviting noncommercial, small- to mid-size regional visual arts organizations to curate site-specific projects with Bay Area artists in YBCA's galleries, we are making visible the rich complexity of our many arts communities. Using an art fair style format in which the selected participants curate projects for specific locations throughout an exhibition space, BAN7 celebrates visual arts organizations as vital players in the local arts ecology. The exhibition aims to foster increased appreciation for Bay Area art, artists, and organizers, and to promote a greater understanding of the vast range of practices and individual visions that make the Bay Area such a vibrant center for contemporary art.