Survival Strategies: Teaching Artists at LMU

Exhibition Dates: Sep. 21 – Dec 7, 2024 
Artists’ Reception: Thursday, Sep. 26, 4 – 7PM 

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The Laband Art Gallery is very pleased to present the exhibition Survival Strategies: Teaching Artists at LMU. This show includes twenty-four members of the Studio Arts faculty who are practicing visual artists. Their work ranges in media from watercolor and oil painting to ceramics, video, design, sculpture, photography, drawing, and socially-engaged practice. 

Southern California, and Los Angeles in particular, is recognized as one of the world’s leading art capitals. This distinction can be largely attributed to the many outstanding art schools and studio art departments in the region’s colleges and universities. We can credit the practicing artists who hold “day jobs” as teachers at these higher ed institutions for making Los Angeles a leader in contemporary art production.  

While this exhibition’s title highlights the reality that artists regularly ensure their livelihood through teaching, notions of survival are also present in artworks that consider the importance of human resilience: from migration stories to gender transition, environmental adaptation to just staying alive during the global pandemic.  

By bringing the work of this cohort together, the Laband seeks to enlighten students and the campus community about the talent and influence that our faculty offer this university. Indeed one of the key assurances of artistic survival comes from paying it forward as a mentor. The passing on of belief systems to the next generation of artists may be the most enduring survival strategy of all. 

Press Release 

Press Images

Image credit: Diane Meyer, P.S. 124, Hand-sewn archival inkjet print, Courtesy of the artist