Southern Exposure (SoEx) offers artists the chance to experiment, exposes them to new audiences, and engages them in meaningful conversation with other artists and the public. We cultivate emerging artists whose work questions and challenges existing assumptions, shows great promise, and contributes to a cultural dialogue. To ensure that we are in touch with what’s happening at the forefront of artistic expression, exhibitions are developed by an artist-run Curatorial Committee made up of a rotating group of 10 artists and two staff members.

 

Solo Exhibitions
SoEx is committed to offering major solo exhibitions to emerging artists because they don’t often find this opportunity elsewhere; the resulting project can make a substantial difference in the development of the artist’s practice. Solo artists are commissioned to do new work and given an honorarium, a materials budget and a two-week installation period that often serves as a mini-residency; artists are selected through an open submissions process by the Curatorial Committee based on artistic merit, regardless of commercial viability.

Group Exhibitions
Thematic group exhibitions respond to new trends in artistic practice, reach out to diverse audiences, and encourage debate on contemporary art and culture. These exhibitions are an opportunity for artists and curators to bring timely issues to a broader audience and to explore experimental and emerging curatorial practices.

Public Art
Our public art program commissions new temporary and permanent work throughout the Bay Area that intervenes and interacts in the social and political spheres beyond the gallery. Public art is the newest addition to our programmatic agenda, and SoEx is one of only a few venues committed to supporting emerging artists working in the public realm.

Juried Exhibition
This annual exhibition has become one of the premier showcases of contemporary artwork by promising local talent in Northern California. Artists are not required to pay an entry fee. A prestigious national guest curator selects the art, offering more than 700 artists each year the opportunity to have their work viewed by a respected curator from outside the local region. For many of the artists selected, this is their first major exhibition and an important step in advancing their career. The project includes an exhibition, a public-art day and film/video screenings.

Events and Public Programs
Workshops, lectures, performances, artists' talks, screenings, education programs, panels and symposia create a forum on contemporary aesthetic, sociopolitical and cultural issues. Events and public programs are designed to expand on ideas and issues presented in concurrent exhibition and education projects as well as to provide much needed technical and professional skills to artists.

Publications
We produce high-quality documentation for each exhibition and project as a way to stimulate dialogue and engagement with the artwork and to encourage critical writing about the arts. Documentation is invaluable to exhibiting artists as it chronicles their projects and provides them with an immediate resource to use in promoting their work.