San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) and Oakland’s Aggregate Space Gallery (ASG) are thrilled to represent the video works by Chicago-based, interdisciplinary artist Jefferson Pinder in an immersive virtual adaptation of the exhibition titled Flash Point. Viewers are invited to experience the exhibition as it was originally presented in the Walter and McBean Galleries to experience the full length video works, read about the works in detail through wall texts, and wander the gallery from anywhere in the world. Like many arts and education-based organizations, SFAI is working to envision the future of arts engagement in a way that better utilizes technology and increases access to a wider audience base worldwide. Through collaborations with radical thinkers across disciplines, SFAI will continue to place artists at the center of future making.
Thank you to our partner Aggregate Space Gallery, to the artist Jefferson Pinder, and to Matterport for their ongoing support in making this virtual exhibition possible.
The original exhibition was on view December 6, 2019—March 28, 2020 in the Walter and McBean Galleries at SFAI—Chestnut Street Campus.
PAST EVENTS
Opening Reception: Thursday, December 5 | 5–8pm
Closing Reception: Friday, March 13 | 7–9pm (Virtual Experience)
San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) and Oakland’s Aggregate Space Gallery (ASG) present the debut of four new video works by Chicago-based, interdisciplinary artist Jefferson Pinder in an original exhibition titled Flash Point. Collapsing history into the present, Pinder traces a path back to the Spring of 1919, when Blacks across the United States saw a surge in race riots, lynchings, and violent mobs. Racial tensions had reached a critical tipping point, fueled by a shifting post-war climate. This extended period of violence, lasting through most of the year, is marked in American history as the Red Summer.
The performance work captured in the videos is associated with Pinder’s cathartic 2019 Red Summer Road Trip, a journey he undertook on the 100th anniversary of the 1919 violence. Pinder explores the current racialized landscape with his crew of performers to see what has changed in a century—and what has not. From Chicago, Illinois to Ellisville, Mississippi, revisited sites of terror are host to an exploration of the hidden histories that underpin the African American plight.
Flash Point is presented as part of ASG’s Aggregate Spaceship initiative and is funded by ASG's donors, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. The acclaimed Oakland gallery, founded by SFAI alumni Willis and Conrad Meyers, announced earlier in 2019 that it was being displaced from its current space due to unsustainable rent increases. During its search for a permanent home, ASG is presenting satellite exhibitions and programs with partners such as SFAI.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Jefferson Pinder’s work provokes commentary about race and struggle. Focusing primarily on performance and object making, Pinder investigates identity through the most dynamic circumstances and materials. From uncanny video portraits associated with popular music to durational work that puts the black body in motion, his work examines physical conditioning that reveals an emotional response. His work has been featured in numerous group and solo shows including exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, Showroom Mama in Rotterdam, Netherlands, The Phillips Collection, and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. Pinder’s work was featured in the 2016 Shanghai Biennale and at the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture. In 2016, he was awarded a United States Artist’s Joyce Fellowship Award in the field of performance and was a 2017 John S. Guggenheim Fellow. Currently, Pinder is a Professor of Sculpture and the Dean of Faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
ABOUT AGGREGATE SPACE GALLERY
Aggregate Space Gallery (ASG) envisions an Oakland where artists can make and experience art in a safe space with access to production tools and hands-on guidance, creating work that fuels critical dialogue in a time when it is desperately needed. Founded in 2011, ASG is a charitable, artist-run exhibition and performance space in West Oakland that prioritizes the exhibition of artwork that generally can’t be seen elsewhere – whose mantra is “Install the Unimaginable.” They showcase video and installation artworks, films, lectures and performances by innovative regional artists and thinkers, providing extensive in-house resources and expertise that enable artists to create and promote intellectually engaging and immersive projects. In early 2019, ASG was priced out of its West Oakland location where it was founded, but hasn't missed a beat in its programming by launching Aggregate Spaceship, an initiative that has included pop-up programming at Classic Cars West, Warehouse 416, and New Parkway in Oakland, Central Stage in Richmond, CA, and The Roxy Theater, and SFAI in San Francisco. ASG is funded by its dedicated supporters and by generous support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, Neda Nobari Foundation, Creative Work Fund (Walter & Elise Haas Fund and William and Flora Hewlett Foundation), and Zellerbach Family Foundation.
