WASHINGTON, D.C.- On tour from the San Jose Museum of Art (SJMA) in California, this exhibition examines the interconnected history of art and politics since the Cold War with a focus on art from the West Coast, where protest politics and countercultural activities have been particularly pronounced. Free speech, Vietnam, black power, gay rights, Chicano liberation, the environmental movement, poverty, immigration, and nuclear war are among the issues explored and reflected in paintings, sculptures, works on paper, mixed-media pieces, interactive videos, and an outdoor installation of knotted fabric on the museum's façade by Helene Aylon. The exhibition comes with a 300-page book by Berkeley art historian Peter Selz, who lectures on the exhibition May 25. It is organized by Susan Landauer, SJMA's chief curator, who gives a Gallery Talk on June 4. Drawn almost entirely from the socially-based contemporary art collection of SJMA, the exhibition premiered in San Jose in November 2005 and appears at the AU Museum for its only East Coast showing.

Part 1: Against War and Violence—Ariel, Robert Arneson, Helène Aylon, David Best, Enrique Chagoya, Binh Danh, Conner Everts, Al Farrow, Rupert Garcia, Wally Hedrick, Frank Lobdell, Erle Loran, Long Nguyen, Irving Norman, Manuel Ocampo, Dinh Q. Le, the team of Tamiko Thiel and Zara Houshmand.

As part of "Against War and Violence," the museum exterior features Helène Aylon's ongoing Bridge of Knots II, derived from Bridge of Knots I (now a permanent installation at the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, NY), in which Ms. Aylon and other women filled pillowcases with earth gathered from Strategic Air Command military sites and traveled them across country in an “Earth Ambulance” for the United Nations Disarmament Rally of 1982. Aylon's project was generated by fear of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union, which was particularly keen in the Reagan era.

Six months later, Aylon delved deeper into this theme by traveling to the Soviet Union where she asked women in four cities to write personal dreams and nightmares regarding nuclear war on their own pillowcases. In 1983, the artist launched a similar project among women protesting escalation of defense systems at the Seneca Army Depot in New York State. In 1985, Aylon went to the twin symbols of nuclear horror, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where a dying-out generation of survivors, in Japanese, also wrote dreams and nightmares on their own pillowcases.Bridge of Knots II presents these three projects as one piece. This showing at the Katzen marks its first façade installation since 1995 and its first ever in the mid-Atlantic region. The artist likens its effect to escaping from a burning building.

Part 2: On Racism, Discrimination and Identity Politics—the team of Anthony Aziz and Sammy Cucher, Judith Baca, Hung Liu, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Lari Pittman, Tino Rodriguez, Travis Somerville, M. Louise Stanley, Salvador Roberto Torres. Part 3: Toward a Sustainable Earth—Chester Arnold, John Buck, Edward Burtynsky, Rene de Guzman, Helen and Newton Harrison, Masami Teraoka. Part 4: Contemporary Politics—Sandow Birk, Hans Burkhardt, Robbie Conal, Clinton Fein, Llyn Foulkes, Bruce Hasson, Evri Kwong, William Wiley.