SAN JOSE, CA.- The San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) is proud to present Eureka!, an exhibition featuring the 2005-2007 recipients of the Eureka Fellowship Award. A remarkable sampling of the vitality and distinctive character of the Bay Area’s visual arts community, Eureka! will be on view from August 1 through September 20, 2008. The ICA will host an opening reception for the artists on Friday, August 1 from 6 – 8pm.
Sponsored by the San Francisco-based Fleishhacker Foundation, the Eureka Fellowship Award is the Bay Area’s largest cash prize for individual artists. Since 1986, Eureka Fellowships have recognized artistic excellence through these one-year awards. The awards are not tied to creating specific projects, but rather, help artists continue making art by supporting more uninterrupted creative time.
The ICA is honored to collaborate with the Fleishhacker Foundation on the presentation of this exhibition and the publication of an accompanying catalogue. Eureka! reflects the ICA’s shared commitment with the Fleishhacker Foundation to support Bay Area artists. The twelve fellowship winners were among 142 artists who applied from a candidate pool created by 60 local visual arts organizations, serving as nominators. The exhibition will include work by fellowship recipients Chester Arnold, Thomas Chang, Amy Franceschini, Paul Kos, George Kuchar, Josh Lazcano, Mads Lynnerup, Lourdes Portillo, Rigo 23, Claire Rojas, Philip Ross, and Christopher Sollars. Their creativity represents a wide range of the region’s artistic talent, with work that is enormously varied in approach, subject and medium and reflects a broad cultural and stylistic diversity.
The extraordinary talent of these recipients was recognized by a panel of three nationally-known arts professionals who judged the artists’ works, including Bill Horrigan, Media Arts Curator, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus; Eungie Joo, Gallery Director and Curator, The Gallery at REDCAT, Los Angeles; and Lydia Yee, Senior Curator, The Bronx Museum of the Arts. The panel met in November 2004 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
