Art docent urges patrons to appreciate Rosen’s sculptures in person
On August 12 FAL’s Docent Lecture series broke some new ground with a presentation about the work of Annabeth Rosen. This was the first time the series has featured a ceramic artist, and also the first instance of working with the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, which is currently exhibiting the artist’s work.
Docent Ron Glait began his talk with a brief history of the museum, which is situated in a former PG&E substation near the Yerba Buena Center. It was renovated to provide an attractive modern building, with a striking extension built in the shape of the Hebrew word for “life.” The museum moved into the building and opened there in 2008.
Annabeth Rosen was born in 1957 and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan in 1981. Her work earned her a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a 1992 Pew Fellowship. After teaching at several institutes and universities in the East and Midwest she moved west, and from 1997 to the present she has held the Robert Arneson Endowed Chair at UC Davis.
The exhibition, “Annabeth Rosen – Fired, Broken, Gathered, Heaped,” contains over 120 of the artist’s works, mostly ceramic sculptures, but some works on paper. The works are all abstract. The larger sculptures are assemblages of various elements such as spheres, tubes, cylinders, and other irregular shapes, often painted in bright patterns of green and yellow. They are mostly held together with wires and mounted on wheeled frames. The works on paper are illustrations of the sculptural works. Many of the sculptures vaguely resemble real items, and so have names such as “Cherry,” “Atlas,” and “Bunny.”
Many of the lecture’s attendees commented that they found it to be very enlightening and entertaining. Mr. Glait remarked that he felt that a slide show does not produce the startling effect that seeing the work in person does, and he hoped we would be inspired to visit the exhibit, which runs until January 20, 2020.
The final docent lecture for the year will be on James Tissot at the main library October 21 at 6:30 pm. As usual, the event will be free.
—David Beall