{"id":701699,"date":"2026-06-13T12:33:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T12:33:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/701699\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T12:33:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T12:33:24","slug":"curatorial-democracy-in-action-at-mcasb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/701699\/","title":{"rendered":"Curatorial Democracy in Action at MCASB"},"content":{"rendered":"

In what is shaping up to be a happy tradition in Santa Barbara\u2019s art landscape, we seem to be in a high season for local art surveys on museum walls. Currently, the Westmont Museum of Art is presenting its annual \u201cTri-Counties Juried Show,\u201d (bit.ly\/4vFRdp5),<\/a> showing 50 artists winnowed down from 422 applicants.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara (MCASB) is showing its third annual Arte del Pueblo exhibition, a giddily jury-free and \u201cthrow it against the wall and see what sticks\u201d brand of community art culling. As it happens, a lot does stick in this year\u2019s potpourri show, slicing across ranks of professional and amateur and fine and not-so-fine art.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the mission statement on the MCASB website, the project\u2019s objective is made clear in the section called \u201cThe Process\u201d: \u201cTo ensure true access, we remove traditional barriers. There is no theme. There are no jurors. There are no gatekeepers. Just art, and the community that makes it.\u201d This is a democratic, all are welcome, cross-section of art being made in our pueblo, and the result is fascinating, on various levels.<\/p>\n

The show\u2019s built-in diversity factor begins as you enter the museum. The entrance-facing wall features such works as Javier Nuchita\u2019s detailed portrait \u201cNuchita\u201d and Miriam Slater\u2019s \u201cFour Directions Violin\u201d \u2014 an actual violin painted with Cubist- and Orphism-referential gestures. Tucked into the lowest spot on this busy wall is the long, aptly horizontal train painting \u201cSurfliner,\u201d by the artist known as moments in spray (the medium is spray paint on canvas).\u00a0<\/p>\n

A sizable number of pieces represent the show\u2019s sculptural component, gamely including such sculptural objects as a Wave surfboard in a display case and Bea\u2019s cheeky but useful concoction, \u201cThe Dryer Chair,\u201d cleverly combining those two functional objects in a delightfully form-goosing package. Further perception play is at work in Brett Schoonwoerd\u2019s jet-black gun facsimile \u201cMade in America,\u201d with an impression that is initially foreboding, until we realize it\u2019s actually a squirt gun.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cThe Dryer Chair,\u201d by Bea, MCA Santa Barbara, 2026 | Photo: Josef Woodard\"\"\u201cSurfliner\u201d by Moments in Spray, MCA Santa Barbara, 2026 | Photo: Josef Woodard\"\"\u201cMade in America\u201d by Brett Schoonwoerd, MCA Santa Barbara, 2026 | Photo: Josef Woodard<\/p>\n

\"\"Another view of the Arte del Pueblo gallery, MCA Santa Barbara, 2026 | Photo: Josef Woodard<\/p>\n

Another intriguing sculpture has art-about-art cred, Andrew Garcia\u2019s \u201cColor Makes You\u2026:,\u201d a lionizing treatment of the graphics-centric letters \u201cCMYK.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amid the very mass of uncategorized art here, certain thematic ripples and echoes pop up. Cloud play faces off on opposite gallery walls, between Krystal Vander Ark\u2019s mystical painting \u201cAbove the Clouds,\u201d and Peter Honig\u2019s soft-focus cloud photograph, half of the dreamy diptych \u201cAssonance.\u201d Another evocatively impressionistic case of nature photography revisited shows up with Kate Connell\u2019s untitled image.<\/p>\n

Mostly, contrasts rule the day. Andrew Roy\u2019s splattery abstraction \u201cWorking Together\u201d riffs off of Jackson Pollock, contrasting the crisp prismatic perspective study of Olguin Tapia Heredia\u2019s \u201cColores de mi Tierna.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yuliya Greben\u2019s \u201cSovereignty,\u201d a portrait of a mythic warrior woman lined in kitchen and feminine empowerment, hangs next to Iben Vestergaard\u2019s \u201cInfinity Pool,\u201d one of the finest admixes of abstraction and realism in the house.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cAbove the Clouds\u201d by Krista Vander Ark, MCA Santa Barbara, 2026 | Photo: Josef Woodard\"\"Ggallery shot with \u201cAssonance\u201d by Peter Honig, MCA Santa Barbara, 2026 | Photo: Josef Woodard\"\"\u201cNina\u201d by Juana Martinez, MCA Santa Barbara, 2026 | Photo: Josef Woodard<\/p>\n

Rough-edged and black outlined neo-expressionism marks the righteously questioning patriotism of the epic painting \u201cState of the Union\u201d \u2014 created by the consortium of Rick Stitch, Trane Hulbert, Lucy Seaberg, and Claire Carey. Communal effort and cause is also on view with a generous section of wall given over to a mosaic of social commentary driven paintings from the Santa Maria\u2013based youth collective \u201cCorazon del Pueblo Painting Project,\u201d led by Marlyn Olea.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of the surprise treats in the show speak softly, with an enigmatic power, in the form of Juana Martinez\u2019s sexually loaded portrait of a young woman, \u201cNi\u00f1a,\u201d in acrylic and embroidered embroidery floss on canvas. And tucked up high on that same art-populated wall, like a sneaky side gag, is Demi Boelsterli\u2019s \u201cSleeper.\u201d Fittingly, it is a sleeper in the show, a folk arty and ostensibly clumsy portrait of a Spanish-headed woman which oozes with off-kilter charm and grabs at your senses with its overbaked colors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You never know what you\u2019re going to find, or what might speak to you, at Arte del Pueblo. Long may it hang, freely.<\/p>\n

Arte del Pueblo is on view at MCA Santa Barbara (653 Paseo Nuevo) through July 25. See mcasantabarbara.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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