Press Releases

San Francisco, CA, June 9, 2020 — San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI), in association with ZAZ Corner, presents Tunnels of the Mind, a selection of 18 recent works by SFAI-affiliated artists, appearing on a Jumbotron in Times Square, New York City, starting at 7am on June 10th, 2020 and running through June 15, 2020 at midnight.

Tunnels of the Mind is the first in a year-long series of events marking SFAI’s 150th anniversary that will include programs and exhibitions presented in partnership with leading artists and arts organizations around the world. The dates, June 10 through 15 (10x15=150), were chosen in honor of SFAI’s 150-year anniversary.

Curated by SFAI Film Department Chair Orit Ben Shitrit, the selection of work reveals a vast diversity of forms and voices, a signature of SFAI’s highly personal and multi-disciplinary approach to art. Tunnels of the Mind spans distinct forms of moving image including, but not limited to: Structuralist Film, Video Art, Animation, Nonlinear Narrative, Detritus Cinema, Dance on Film, Computer Generated/ 3D, Experimental Film.

“In Tunnels of the Mind, artists reveal their internal worlds: at once subversive, queer, extra-territorial, and otherworldly,” says Ben Shitrit. “Art can encourage empathy, and it is the highest form of hope. When our reality is devastating—with troubling racist killings and social inequality exacerbated by a pandemic—the imagination can offer a refuge and lead us to discover new possibilities.”

ZAZ Corner is a digital gallery showcasing artwork on a large LED billboard measuring 67 by 23.5 feet in the heart of Times Square in New York City. Located at the corner of 41st Street and 7th Avenue, the billboard features a digitally activated screen with a rotating series of images and videos that individually morph, bringing the art to life. This spring and summer, the ZAZ Corner theme is All About Us, featuring people, places, and contemporary interpretations and designs from artists around the world.

ZAZ Corner is presented by ZAZ 10 Times Square (ZAZ10TS) an ongoing cultural initiative that integrates art into the office building at 10 Times Square and its surroundings. ZAZ Corner aims to engage and inspire the public with evocative visuals that stand apart from the world of commerce surrounding them.

“ZAZ Corner at 10 Times Square joins the San Francisco Art Institute to honor their 150th anniversary by showcasing them in the heart of New York City. Life is traumatic and uncertain right now, but the art still continues strongly,” says Tzili Charney, founder of ZAZ10TS.

Eighteen works by SFAI faculty, students, and alumni were chosen from more than 300 submissions by Ben-Shitrit and a team of curatorial assistants, Danette Bouzanquet, Kaycee Phillips, and Vivian Vivas. The selections, each approx. 3 minutes in length for a total running time of 1 hour, include:

1. Zeina Barakeh, Homeland Insecurity & Slam Bang Blue Remix

2. Mads Lynnerup, Jewish Folktales Retold

3. Orit Ben-Shitrit, Ward of the Feral Horses 

4. Avery D. van der Steur, Oscillation

5. Kathleen Quillian, The Conjurer

6. Kota Ezawa, Paint Unpaint

7. Scott Kiernan, Memphis Variations 3

8. Michael Mandiberg, All Haiku, All the Time

9. Sharon Lockhart, One Exercise in Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation

10. Kent Long, The Waves

11. Orit Ben-Shitrit, Universal Leader 2

12. Julia Fairbrother, Reclaiming Skylines

13. Walt Ohnesorge, Glass Rotation

14. Sequinette, Good Queen

15. Aziz + Cucher, You’re Welcome and I’m Sorry

16. David Bayus, Psyman's Acres

17. Michelle Handelman, Gothic Snow, from Dorian, A Cinematic Perfume (wallpaper edition)

18. Minoosh Zomorodinia, Sensation

During the weeklong screening of Tunnels of the Mind, SFAI and ZAZ10TS will also feature Artistic Messages to Inspire from 7 to 9am and 7 to 9pm daily, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 75 artists from the SFAI community contributed additional work celebrating and reflecting on the resilience of New Yorkers during these difficult times. **

On Friday, June 12th, and Saturday June 13th 2020 at 9pm PDT, SFAI will project the entire program in San Francisco on the school’s landmark tower at 800 Chestnut Street, a venue that is visible to audiences throughout the city’s North Beach neighborhood. Synchronously, ZAZ Corner will feature a special midnight screening in New York, making this evening a live bi-coastal act of East Coast-West Coast solidarity. The works will also be streamed on SFAI’s website at www.sfai.edu/tunnels-of-the-mind starting Wednesday, June 10 at 9pm.

About the San Francisco Art Institute

Founded in 1871, SFAI is one of the country's oldest and most prestigious institutions committed to the practice and study of contemporary art. SFAI fosters creativity and original thinking in an open, experimental, and interdisciplinary context, and has played a central role in many contemporary art movements including Abstract Expressionism, Bay Area Figuration, Color Field, California Funk, and the Mission School. Celebrated artists who have studied or taught at SFAI include Ansel Adams, Mark Rothko, David Park, Richard Diebenkorn, Jay DeFeo, Joan Brown, Barry McGee, Sharon Lockhart, Alicia McCarthy, and Kehinde Wiley. Other notable alumni include photographer Annie Liebovitz and Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow.

General Information

For more information, the public may visit sfai.edu. San Francisco Art Institute is located at 800 Chestnut St., San Francisco, CA.

MEDIA CONTACT

Nina Sazevich

Public Relations

415.752.2483

nina@sazevichpr.com

**List of Artists featured:

Adrian Del Riego