PAST EXHIBITIONS 1970–1979

archive highlights

BETYE SAAR was a crucial part of the Black arts movement who challenged myths and stereotypes about Black artists. Her work makes audiences aware of an individual’s own identity through self-reflective elements and incorporates found objects. Black Girl's Window was created during a pivotal time in Saar’s artistic development, as she began working with iconography that alluded to her heritage, personal biography, and astrology. It was shown as part of a solo exhibition at BAC in 1972.

1970

Slides: Tidd, Renfro, Wagner, Pernish, Iusi & Schneider, January 8 – February 12

Boyd Allen: Painting, February 19 – March 26

Russell T. Gordon: Painting, Drawing & Prints, April 9 – May 14

Fletcher Benton: Kinetic Sculpture, May 18 – July 5

Joe Overstreet: Stretch Paintings, September 3 – October 11

Harold Paris: An Unforgiven Vision, October 22 – November 29

Vaea: Immediats a L'Etat Brut (ceramic sculpture), December 17, 1970 – January 14, 1971

1971

Shadows: Sculpture by Alan Eaker, January 21 – February 25

Three Views of Phoenix, March 11 – April 25

Four Years: A Slide Retrospective, May 5 – June 15

Jim Suzuki & Emmy Ozaki (paintings, drawings, and sculpture), June 16 – June 30

Dome: Rick Meyer (an inflatable light and sound environment), July 15 – August 8

Don Rich & John Pearson (metal sculpture), September 2 – September 30

Three Rhythms: Jerrold Donti, October 14 – November 18

A Delicate Balance of Soul: Philip Lindsay, December 2, 1971 – January 9, 1972

1972

Thomas Akawie: Paintings from the ‘60s & ‘70s, January 27 – March 2

Processed, a slide environment, March 9 – April 9

Fiber, April 20 – May 26

Guy John Cavalli & James Grant (painting and sculpture), June 8 – July 16

Raymond Barnhart: Reliefs & Constructions, July 28 – August 31

Eight Women, September 15 – October 22

David Anderson, November 3 – December 3

Betye Saar: Black Girl's Window, December 15 – January 25

1973

Joe Slusky & C.G. Simonds (sculpture), February 9 – March 11

Lenny Silverberg & Paul Kalbach (paintings), March 23 – April 22

Images from the Eikon: 15 Monterey Peninsula Photographers, May 4 – June 3

Dome II: Rick Meyer with John Barnaby, June 20 – July 15

Larry Fuente & Karen Breschi (sculpture), July 27 – August 26

Sonya Rapoport & Rus Michelsen (painting and sculpture), October 19 – November 25

Berkeley City Limits: A Slide Survey, December 6 – January 13

1974

Metal Arts (jewelry and sculpture), January 21 – March 3

The Sacred Art of Tibet: Nyingma, March 8 – April 7

Four from C.C.A.C., April 19 – May 19

James Prestini (sculpture), May 31 – June 30

Florence Hogoboom & Bella Feldman (sculpture), July 12 – August 11

Jerrold Hines & Hirofumi Hiyama (paintings and sculpture), August 23 – September 22

Five from Berkeley, October 4 – November 10

Karen Ezekiel & Karla Moss Freeman (sculpture and wall hanging), November 22 – December 29

1975

Kitsch Surrealism, January 9 – February 16

Water Works, February 28 – April 6

John Battenberg (sculpture), April 17 – May 25

Fiber Space, June 5 – June 13

2 + 2: Four Women (prints and sculpture), July 25 – August 31

Horace Washington: Mask Series (sculpture), September 12 – October 12

Neon.Argon: Joseph Rees (neon sculpture) October 23 – November 23

Berkeley Photographers, December 11, 1975 – January 18, 1976

1976

Mary Keane & Bill Geis (painting and sculpture), February 5 – March 14

Colorspace: Pat Browning, Elizabeth Hutchinson, Suzanne Perkins, March 26 – April 18

Softspace: Margret Elliot, Alex Gunst, James Wayson, April 23 – May 16

Berkeley People & Places: Mary Snowden, Michael Beck, Carole Peel, May 28 – July 3

Votices: Michael Bradley (fetish objects and paintings), July 16 – August 22

Price/Sultan/Dumas (paintings and sculpture), September 4 – October 17

New Directions in Leaded Glass, November 11 – December 19

1977

An Environmental Work, January 4 – February 6

Robert Loberg (paintings and drawings), February 18 – March 20

Bay Area Women Artists Crafts Exhibit, April 1 – May 8

Beyond Books, May 21 – July 1

Three Allegorical Painters: Carleen Jimenez, Paul Pratchenko, Bobby Ross, July 15 – August 24

Barbara Spring (sculpture), September 8 – October 16

Arte, October 28 – December 11

1978

Frank Allinger & Ted Odza (paintings and sculpture), December 29 – February 5

The Outdoor Studio: Jerome Carlin, Anthony Holdsworth & Terry St. John, February 17 – March 26

Berkeley Centennial Exhibit, April 4 – May 21

Mixed Media on Paper: 30 East Bay Women Artists, June 1 – July 9

1979

Beyond Print, August 1 – September 1

Personal Calligraphy, September 7 – October 14

Harold Paris: An Unforgiven Vision showed the extent to which clay could be used as a means of creative expression without utilitarian function. In the late ’60s, HAROLD PARIS, PETER VOULKOS, and DAN HASKIN formed a collective known for producing avant-gardist sculpture in a foundry along the Berkeley waterfront.

In this piece, Cross-Ties (Tracks), ALAN EAKER collaborated with artist ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG to represent objects with clay. Artforum wrote of Eaker’s 1971 Shadows exhibition at BAC that “it took advantage of the gallery’s many corners,” suggesting how the sculptures “looked far better as an environment at the Berkeley Art Center” than in other, larger museum settings.

Born in 1923, SONYA RAPOPORT was an acclaimed conceptual and digital media artist who moved to Berkeley in 1947, where she began an influential artistic career that would span the next several decades. Working with abstract figures in her early years, Rapoport began exploring graphic forms and “the pictorial language of shapes” in the ‘70s. In 1976 she also began incorporating technological media into her work, placing her at the vanguard of what would later be called New Media Studies. Pictured: Mercury (detail), 1978, hand-colored electrostatic photocopy.

JOE REES was a pioneer in the use of neon in fine art in the early 1970s and a groundbreaking video artist. His neon sculpture ranged from the depiction of ordinary objects to 3D crucifixes, mixed media stalactite-inspired visions, and text-based works. Using one of the earliest portable video backpacks available, Rees shot some of the most entertaining and lasting punk rock footage known, documenting Devo, the Screamers, the Stranglers, Iggy Pop, and others.

Bay Area artist and filmmaker ELIZABETH SHER, whose Kitchen Still Life is pictured above, curated the 1978 exhibition Mixed Media on Paper: 30 East Bay Women Artists. The development of photocopiers and other cheap and accessible printing technologies encouraged artists to cross barriers of traditional materials, and women were at the forefront of experimentation.