NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
17 September 2007

René de Guzman Appointed Senior Curator of Art
at the Oakland Museum of California

Renè de Guzman. Photo Abigail Huller.

René de Guzman has been named senior curator of art at the Oakland Museum of California. Currently director of visual arts at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), de Guzman joins the museum staff in mid-October.

One of the first staff at YBCA, de Guzman helped establish its artistic vision and an audience for the start-up arts organization. During his 15-year tenure, de Guzman has supported emerging and mid-career artists, nurtured diverse cultural forms, connected the fine arts to civic life, and broadened audiences with engaging programs.

“My colleagues and I are greatly pleased to have René de Guzman join us as senior curator, said Philip Linhares, chief curator of art at the Oakland Museum of California. “He brings great vitality, wide-ranging professional contacts, and a wealth of experience to his new position here. René’s contributions to interpretation, exhibition programming, and acquisitions will add much to visitors’ enjoyment of our collections.”

A longtime Bay Area resident, de Guzman, 43, immigrated to the U.S. from the Philippines in 1968 and grew up in Piedmont, CA. After earning a BFA in art practice at the University of California, Berkeley in 1987, he worked as an individual artist before deciding to pursue a fulltime curatorial career. De Guzman’s mixed media sculptures are in private and public collections, including the Berkeley Art Museum and the San Jose Museum of Art.

De Guzman was a recipient of an Art Matters’ Individual Artist Award (1992) and a Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation commission as a member of DIWA Arts, a Filipino-American artist collective (1994). He has also served on the curatorial committees and boards of leading artist spaces in San Francisco such as Southern Exposure and the San Francisco Art Institute Artist Committee, and has taught in the graduate fine arts program of the San Francisco Arts Institute and the California College of the Arts.

“René brings incredible experience working with emerging, contemporary artists and a multicultural, global perspective to our curatorial staff,” said Lori Fogarty, executive director of the Oakland Museum of California. “We are most confident that René will make a tremendous contribution to our mission to connect communities through interdisciplinary programs and exhibitions and to serve as a forum for public dialogue.”

“I look forward to bringing my extensive experience with artists and contemporary art to the museum’s inclusive vision,” said de Guzman. “I believe my background as an artist, curator, and educator will be a great match for the already strong staff, programs, and educational activities here. I’m excited to get started and feel very fortunate to be joining the museum at this point in its history.

“Oakland is a fertile environment with amazing potential,” added de Guzman. “It’s a working city, a smart city—I believe it will be a cultural trendsetter. The museum shares these qualities. I foresee it will set the standard for how museums can lead and be embraced by their public and community.”

De Guzman’s work at YBCA has encompassed international exhibitions, community collaborations, artist commissions, and investigations of how the fine arts interact with popular culture. His curatorial record is marked by significant, early support for some of the Bay Area’s leading artists and curatorial experimentation.

Some of de Guzman’s major curatorial projects include I Love My Time, I Don’t Like My Time, a mid-career survey of Austrian artist Erwin Wurm (2004); Mexcelente! (1998), an exhibition of Mexico City-based artists; Hip-Hop by the Bay (2001), a quadrennial survey of Northern California hip-hop history; Bay Area Now 1, 2, 3 and 4 (1997, 1999, 2002, 2005), a quadrennial survey of Northern California art; and Beautiful Losers (2004), an exhibition on street and skate culture and contemporary art.

The curator’s recent installations are Black Panther Rank and File, on the legacy of the Black Panther Party and radical art (2006), and Dark Matters: Artists See the Impossible, a look at the post 9-11 culture of secrecy (2007).

For an interview with René de Guzman please contact Elizabeth Whipple (510/238-4740 or ewhipple@museumca.org). Terrific photos are available.

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The Oakland Museum of California is at 1000 Oak @ 10th Street in Oakland, one block from the Lake Merritt BART. Museum is open Wednesday to Saturday, 10 to 5; Sunday, noon to 5; first Friday of the month open until 9. Admission is $8 for adults, $5 seniors and students with ID, free for kids five and under, members, and Oakland City employees with ID. Admission is free the second Sunday of the month. For information, call 510/238-2200 or visit www.museumca.org.