LA Sees Itself is on view from October 23-December 1 in the Earl & Virginia Green Gallery and Bardwell Project Space at Biola University. A public opening reception will be held Monday, October 23 from 6-9pm.

The Biola University Department of Art is pleased to announce the opening of LA Sees Itself, a multi-part exhibition and catalog publication curated and produced by Biola Art students in collaboration with LA-based curator, Carl Berg. Throughout the 2022-23 academic year, a class of students joined Carl to explore the various ways that artists have seen and shared their visions of Los Angeles and its surrounding areas. Working with the lens of the overlapping ecosystems that make up this complex region - it’s iconic landscapes of mountains, deserts and beaches; the architecture and populations of it’s urban core, surrounded by the diffuse networks of suburban sprawl; the industries and innovations of the cultural forces (entertainment, automotive, aerospace, astronomical, and more) that shape its social fabric - we have brought together a collection of ways to see LA. 

Throughout the year-long project, the class participated in archive and field research, gallery and artist’s studio visits, and active, ongoing conversations between all project participants, culminating in the catalog production and exhibitions launching in Fall 2023. The artists included in this exhibition, and more expansively in the accompanying catalog publication, were selected through both Carl’s network of Los Angeles artists and through each student’s original research interests. 

This work of envisioning Los Angeles is not a new endeavor - but as is perhaps fitting for a place as sprawling, diverse, multi-layered and diffuse as Los Angeles, each time this subject is approached a new network of connections and voices is revealed. In the case of our project, it has evolved as a series of overlapping conversations and investigations between multiple generations of the Los Angeles artistic community, as our students - the newest cohort of LA-based artists - bring their fresh eyes to the place and the legacies of which they are now a part.

LA Sees Itself opens on Monday, October 23 with a curated exhibition in the Earl & Virginia Green Gallery of thirty artists whose work reflects the city and larger context of Southern California. Accompanying this show, the Bardwell Project space features original works and research by students, providing context for the project as a whole. Finally, we are launching a limited-edition catalog publication containing essays by student curators and graphic interpretations of the region by student designers. 

This exhibition was made possible through a generous donation by John and Marilyn Long and The Long Family Foundation.