The Diana Berger Art Gallery hosted the closing ceremony for “The Art of Skate: Activism, Art and Design” on Nov. 20, with a special appearance by Apache Skateboards to round out their over two month show on campus.
With a large emphasis on the Equity Speaker Series this semester, presented with support from the Diana Berger Art Gallery, Equity Center, First Peoples Native Center, Pride Center and Associated Students, many of the artists showcased in the exhibition were able to speak to students about their art practice and role in activism.
While SAC Media was not in attendance at the closing event, Kirk Peterson, Director of the Diana Berger Art Gallery and art professor, said that “we really expanded the concept of the closing by Apache Skateboards being there.”
It was directly after Apache’s speaking event that they joined the Mt. SAC community for the closing event, which helped to drive traffic to the closing.
Broadening visibility is a key strategy for Peterson and The Diana Berger Art Gallery. Their emphasis on their partnership with the Equity Center, specifically for the Equity Speaker Series, has helped to make “this small gallery up in the corner of campus, that frankly nobody knew about,” a common name among faculty, students and the Mt. SAC community as a whole, Peterson said.
Having brought in speakers before, “we after [the first time] learned that we didn’t really market it enough, and [the Equity Center] knew that on their end too. So we did the low rider event, where we brought cars on campus,” Peterson said. “And it connected to one of the alumni in the show.” This helped to solidify the possibilities of cross-campus collaboration.
As both the Equity Center and Diana Berger Art Gallery have strengthened their partnership, the Equity Speaker Series has increasingly featured artists on display at current exhibitions. Both groups feel that this has been their most successful partnership since.
Andrea Garcia Gonzalez, the Program Specialist for the Equity and Multicultural Center, played a large part in the success of the exhibition programming that took place outside of the gallery. With such a successful exhibition, “The first word that comes to mind is honored to be able to work with the [Diana Berger] art gallery,” Gonzalez said. “To have been seen as a central partner to really amplify the message of the exhibition.”
On top of helping to expose community college students, who are typically overlooked by the “art world”, the Equity Center “wanted to do two things,” Gonzalez said. “One, bring the art gallery to the rest of campus. And I think we’ve done that particularly well with the Equity Speaker Series by highlighting and featuring particular artists, and giving them an expanded platform. But we also want to then inspire folks who come to these events to return to the [Diana Berger] art gallery.”
With entire classes sometimes attending speaking events from featured artists in the Multicultural Center, or Peterson going out of his way to ensure classes could view the gallery, sometimes outside of open hours, the support of the art space on campus has continued to grow.
“I just feel so deeply that our students deserve the best,” Gonzalez said. “And when I think about art, I think not just about showcasing talent and ‘the best’, but really about bringing art, elevating artists that reflect the stories, histories and cultures of our students.”
And as the exhibition came down, “there’s a slight letdown because so much has been achieved, and then there’s just a psychological shift,” Peterson said. “But this let down is not a disappointment of the achievements of the show, more so part [of the] cycle that is inherent to exhibition production.”
With major names such as Douglas Miles Sr., being active in the show and online, the gallery’s reach was “expanded with ‘[Douglas Miles Sr.]’ being so active on social media, that the two of us could collaborate frequently on posts and we would go from 100 likes to 300-400,” Peterson said. “Our one post is over 1,100. And it was 30,000 views.”
The “Art of Skate” came together by “allowing [the show] to shift,” Peterson said. “The original idea, it came from Ben Harper, Ground on Down. That video, that was the initial inspiration.”
Over time, through Peterson’s exposure to Peggi Oki and her environmental activism, Ocea Lei and her human and LGBTQ+ rights activism all the way to Apache Skateboards and their connection to Indigenous rights, “Art of Skate” found more of its exhibitional themes: activism. This variety of artists, who are outwardly political, meant that “this show became a lot about that,” Peterson said.
For both the exhibition itself and the Equity Speaker Series, such popular and meaningful programming would not have been possible without “funding [that] came from Associated Students … That’s super important,” Peterson said.
For Peterson research and intuition are the two main drivers when helping to bring an exhibition together. But “whether or not it’s 50/50 is really not the point,” Peterson said. “The fact that there is a combination of I know these people, I researched [them] … With Douglas [Miles Sr.] because it was the phone calls we had that took the instinct – it’s no longer about instinct. I know he’s the real deal.”
With the help of the Equity Center and the exhibitional direction of Peterson, community is something that was felt for artists on display, staff and students.
“I’ll never forget it … [A student] walked up and she said ‘Mr. Peterson, I can really feel community in this show.’ And I was like oh my… it got me,” Peterson said. “The fact that it wasn’t one time I heard that, but multiple times that I heard that. And to me, that was a big part of the show, but it wasn’t prompted that way.”
And for all of the people involved, community isn’t just the artists on display or the people pulling everything together.
“If you were inspired by this piece, inspired because you came to an event, inspired because you saw what the art gallery and its team created, see yourself as a contributor to the community that we’re building … It takes all of us,” Gonzalez said.
Despite its corner location and lack of vending machines, “I want everyone to know we have a gallery .. We’re really serious about what we do, we’re operating at a high level and I’m proud of that,” Peterson said. “I just want people to know we’re here.”
Looking forward, the gallery is repaired and reset to make room for the Art Faculty Exhibition that will run from March 12 through April 9 in the spring. Following that, the 75th Student Art Exhibition will be up from May 14 through June 4, with Peterson encouraging students to submit work on April 11, 14 or 15 to be included in the student jury’s selection pool. The Diana Berger Art Gallery’s Instagram is where Peterson recommends people get in touch with questions.
