SUPER-SILLY-US: Barbara Stauffacher Solomon with Nellie King Solomon
March 25 – June 4, 2023
Opening Reception April 1, 2023 | 5 – 7pm
Details and ticket information coming soon!
SUPER-SILLY-US, celebrates the work of nonagenarian Barbara Stauffacher Solomon in dialogue with that of her daughter, Nellie King Solomon. Their shared training in architecture speaks to the artists’ expansive and playful approach to visual art which challenges the boundaries of established rules or frameworks.
San Francisco-based artist Barbara Stauffacher Solomon (b.1928, San Francisco), perhaps best known for her pioneering Supergraphics (oversized graphics created in response to the scale of architecture first produced at 1960s Sea Ranch), has worked across disciplines in graphic design, architecture, landscape architecture, drawing, writing, and more. Her original training in dance and painting, coupled with rigorous study of Swiss graphic design, has allowed her to establish an approach to art making uniquely her own.
Los Angeles-based artist Nellie King Solomon (b.1971, San Francisco) is an essential collaborator for her mother and an accomplished abstract painter in her own right. While the two remain distinct in their formal approaches to art making, presenting their work in proximity demonstrates their shared influences and interests across architecture, movement, and the body. A selection of King Solomon’s recent paintings will be included in the exhibition.
The presentation features a suite of never-before-exhibited drawings from Stauffacher Solomon’s hand-made book SUPER-SILLY-US, as well as new Supergraphic installations created in response to the historic architecture of MarinMOCA’s 1933 Hamilton Field building, spanning the museum’s Main Gallery and Ron Collins Lobby Gallery. (The lobby installation will remain on view through 2023.)
The MarinMOCA exhibition is one of many across the world rediscovering the art of Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, including recent installations at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; LAXART, Los Angeles; Graham Foundation, Chicago; and St. Moritz, Switzerland (commissioned by the Serpentine Gallery, London).
Critic and curator Peter Frank will write an essay to accompany the exhibition contributing important new scholarship to the artistic legacy of our region. Public program details will be announced in early 2023.
For more information visit: https://marinmoca.org/exhibitions/event/164/
