Lunchtime Curator Talk | California Current: Art and Histories from the Bay Area

Join Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander, the Robert M. and Ruth L. Halperin Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, on this special tour of California Current: Art and Histories from the Bay Area.

RSVP here.

How does a community stay rooted in a region that’s constantly changing? California Current invites you to consider this question and others through its more than 60 works — many on view for the first time — that explore the interplay between Bay Area history, art, and artists over the past century.

Titled after the major cold-water current that runs the length of the West Coast of North America, California Current brings together paintings, sculptures, works on paper, photographs, and time-based media by Bay Area artists from the twentieth century to the present. The exhibition traces a series of interconnected currents — ecological, infrastructural, technological, personal, creative, and political — that have shaped both artistic production and everyday life in Northern California.

Arranged thematically across time and media, California Current places historical works in conversation with contemporary ones, emphasizing both continuity and change. Together, they ask: What has drawn so many people to this region? What has allowed communities and creative practices to take root here? And what continues to keep so many of us — despite the Bay Area’s contradictions, pressures, and constant reinvention — deeply connected to this place? Presented as part of the Further Triennial, this exhibition features works by artists Pacita Abad, Saif Azzuz (Libyan-Yurok), Robert Bechtle, Bernice Bing, Kota Ezawa, L. Frank (Tongva, Rarámuri), Lynn Hershman Leeson, Mildred Howard, Amalia Mesa-Bains, Chiura Obata, among others.

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Parking

Paid visitor parking is available along Lomita Drive as well as on the first floor of the Roth Way Garage Structure, located at the corner of Campus Drive West and Roth Way at 345 Campus Drive, Stanford, CA 94305. From the Palo Alto Caltrain station, the Cantor Arts Center is about a 20-minute walk or there the free Marguerite shuttle will bring you to campus via the Y or X lines.

Disability parking is located along Lomita Drive near the main entrance of the Cantor Arts Center. Additional disability parking is located on Museum Way and in Parking Structure 1 (Roth Way & Campus Drive).

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Accessibility Information or Requests

Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University is committed to ensuring our programs are accessible to everyone. To request access information and/or accommodations for this event, please complete this form at least one week prior to the event: museum.stanford.edu/access.

For questions, please contact disability.access@stanford.eduor fukunaga@stanford.edu.

Image credits: Bernice Bing (American, 1936–1998). Blue Mountain No. 4, 1966. Oil and acrylic on canvas, 75 x 68 1/8 in. Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University gift of Alexa Young. Funding for the conservation of this artwork was generously provided through a grant from the Bank of America Art Conservation Project, 2020.14. © Alexa Young