FREE EVENT – Rico Gatson: Icon Artist Reception

No cost

Please join us for the opening reception of The Weight of Memory and The 52 Project 2021 Exhibitions, plus the artist reception for Are You with Me?

Masks are required to visit the Riverside Art Museum. We are a community space and the health and safety of our visitors, young students, staff, and volunteers must remain our top priority. For now, this means continuing to require our visitors to wear masks. This policy will allow us to offer a safe and welcoming space to families with children who are not currently eligible to be vaccinated as well as to individuals who are unable to get vaccinated. 

For RAM special events (held on or off site) with 60 people and over, proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 is required. “Fully vaccinated” means the event is at least 14 days after a participant’s final vaccine dose. To enter the event, participants must bring  proof of vaccination, either a physical vaccination card, a picture of a vaccination card, or a digital vaccination record. Most California residents may request a digital vaccination record at myvaccinerecord.cdph.ca.gov. Anyone 12 and over without proof of being fully vaccinated must provide proof of a negative COVID-19 PCR test taken within 72 hours (3 days) prior to entering the event. Masks are also required at all times indoors, except when eating, drinking, or actively speaking to a group as part of a presentation for all patrons and visitors, regardless of vaccination status, at the Riverside Art Museum.

No cost; while supplies last

Enter the witty and wild mind of artist Deladeso. Come see the pop-up art installation inspired by his drawings, including selected artwork created by our youth art students. Be a part of the fun with coloring and clay activities. 

No cost

Please join us for the opening reception for the following Winter 2020 exhibitions at RAM:

• Sandra Rowe | Mother Wit
• Brenna Youngblood | Lavender Rainbow
• Henry L. A. Jekel: Architect of Eastern Skyscrapers and the California Style
• The 52 Project 2019 Exhibition

$120/person, $100/RAM member, Evening Wear and Masks Requested

Join us for an evening of intrigue at the museum where you’ll be delighted by sumptuous hors d’oeuvres and an array of cocktails at our hosted bar, enthralled by the mystic performances of master mask maker Rob Faust, treated to a sneak peek of the fantastical Beast exhibition, and much more!

It’s a masquerade, so don’t forget to dress up! #BeastMasquerade

Online ticket sales have ended. Tickets will be available for purchase at the door! Thank you.

Become a sponsor!

Sponsorships start at $500, which includes two tickets, plus other benefits. Contact Valerie Found at [email protected] or 951.684.7111×311 for more information.

$7,500 PRESENTING Sponsor

Fair Market Value: $480

Recognition: Your name/company’s name and logo headlined as PRESENTING Sponsor on event and exhibit signage, including exterior exhibition banner*, in press releases*, on RAM website (including link), print materials*, e-newsletters, Artifacts newsletter*, social media, etc. (*Note: pending pertinent deadlines.)

Hospitality: 8 tickets to Masquerade Gala and Beast exhibit sneak peek. Invitation to official exhibition opening reception. Exclusive curatorial tour for up to 10 guests. 75 museum passes for distribution to colleagues, clients, family, and friends.

$5,000 LEAD Sponsor

Fair Market Value: $360

Recognition: Your name/company’s name featured as LEAD Sponsor on event and interior exhibit signage*, on RAM website (including logo and link), print materials*, e-newsletters, Artifacts newsletter*, social media, etc. (*Note: pending pertinent deadlines.)

Hospitality: 6 tickets to Masquerade Gala and Beast exhibit sneak peek. Invitation to official exhibition opening reception. 50 museum passes for distribution to colleagues, clients, family, and friends.

$2,500 SUPPORTING Sponsor

Fair Market Value: $240

Recognition: Your name/company’s name featured as SUPPORTING Sponsor on event signage, on RAM website (including logo and link), print materials*, e-newsletters, Artifacts newsletter*, social media, etc. (*Note: pending pertinent deadlines.)

Hospitality: 4 tickets to Masquerade Gala and Beast exhibit sneak peek. Invitation to official exhibition opening reception. 25 museum passes for distribution to colleagues, clients, family, and friends.

$1,000 ASSOCIATE Sponsor

Fair Market Value: $120

Recognition: Your name/company’s name featured as ASSOCIATE Sponsor on event signage, on RAM website (including logo and link), print materials*, e-newsletters, Artifacts newsletter*, social media, etc. (*Note: pending pertinent deadlines.)

Hospitality: 2 tickets to Masquerade Gala and Beast exhibit sneak peek. Invitation to official exhibition opening reception.

$500 FRIEND Sponsor

Fair Market Value: $120

Recognition: Your name/company’s name on event signage, on RAM website, e-newsletters, and Artifacts newsletter*. (*Note: pending pertinent deadlines.)

Hospitality: 2 tickets to Masquerade Gala and Beast exhibit sneak peek. Invitation to official exhibition opening reception.

Click here to become a sponsor today!

THANK YOU TO OUR GENEROUS SPONSORS!

Francie and Eric Johnson

Amy Harrison

Jinnefer and Derrick Razo

Coyote Oaks Vineyards

Gallery Tour: 12:30 p.m., Panel Discussion: 1:30 p.m., Free

Robbert Flick, Ken Marchionno, Susan Straight, and Kim Stringfellow share their inland discoveries and how their finds inspired their work in In the Sunshine of Neglect.

This project was made possible with support from California Humanities,
a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Visit www.calhum.org.

Join us during our Day of Remembrance free weekend for a moving performance by one-half of our Wendy Maruyama: E.O. 9066-related Artist-in-Residency duo, Brenda Wong Aoki.

“Aoki encompasses the comic and the tragic with fine, quick, delicate gestures, using everything from her expressive hands and face to her long sweeping black hair…making relevant and magical even the most faraway tales.”

— Los Angeles Times, Critic’s Choice

Commemorate DAY OF REMEMBRANCE. Come see America’s first Asian Storyteller discuss and perform true stories from the Incarceration. 

Artist bio

Brenda Wong Aoki is a writer, performer, and recording artist. Weaving together Japanese Noh and Kyogen theater, dance, and everyday life experience, her plays have been produced in the U.S., Japan, China, Singapore, Australia, and Austria. She has been awarded National Endowment Theater Fellowships, Drama-logue Awards, INDIE awards for Best Spoken Word recordings, a Critics’ Circle Award, and continued ASCAP Innovation Awards for new libretto. She is the first nationally recognized Asian Pacific Storyteller in the nation (NSN Circle of Excellence Award 2014). Her stories are part of the California Collection at the Library of Congress and her plays are part of the Asian American Woman’s Archive at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Known for her agility across disciplines and cultures, Brenda has created theatrical works for symphony, jazz ensembles, Taiko ensemble, contemporary and traditional world dance and solo performance. Her commissioners include the Japan Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Asian Arts Council, U.S. Congress, the City of San Francisco and the NEA. Brenda has deep roots in San Francisco. Her paternal grandfather was a founder of Japantown in the 1890s and her maternal grandmother was a leader of the first Chinatown garment union in the 1920s. She is a founding faculty member of the Institute for Diversity in the Arts (IDA) at Stanford University and continues to teach and perform internationally.

To learn more about the artist-in-residency and what part you could play in it, click here.

Reception & Cocktails: 5:45 p.m., Dinner & Program: 6:40 p.m.

Tickets: $80/person, business attire, RSVP by February 20, 2018

Started in 1999, the Top Dog celebration honors individuals who embody the vision and dedication that helped transform a small art center located in the old city dog pound into a dynamic cultural center now housed in our historic Julia Morgan-designed architectural gem.

This year’s honorees are:

• Gregory Adamson
• Jim Davis
• Doris Morton
• Connie & Roger Ransom

This event is sold out. Thank you for all your support of our Top Dogs!

Artwork by: r. mike nichols

Renowned storyteller Brenda Wong Aoki and Emmy Award-winning composer Mark Izu will weave Asian-American history, family legend, and humor together in a vibrant celebration of our community.

Inspired by Wendy Maruyama: E.O. 9066, Brenda and Mark will place their focus on the interracial connections (including love stories) around the time of the incarceration and the impact on their descendants today. Because of a long-shared history, they will specifically reach out to the Chicano/Mexicano and Japanese-American communities in Riverside.

The project still in development, Brenda writes:

Distilling our conversations, researching Wendy’s work, and cognizant of the current demographics of Riverside, the energy building around The Cheech Marin Center, and the need to bring attention to the Hard House renovation efforts and the immigration issues stressing the Latino community, we thought long and hard about what kind of community engagement we could do around the Japanese incarceration that would add to the story.

Our work, while based in the Japanese/Chinese/Asian-American experience, is intended to be culturally specific, but universally empowering. Unfortunately, the racial bigotry so devastating to our ancestors is repeating itself to both new immigrants and to second-, third-, fourth-, and fifth-generation Latinos, Muslims, Asians, and others. As we begin to unwrap our histories in California, we find not merely commonalities of subjugation, but also that we banded together and provided mutual support for each other. While Japanese-Americans were incarcerated, those who remained tended the fields and stored our treasured possessions. And when we returned, we joined together on athletic fields in the matrimony. We fought together in the military and fought anti-miscegenation laws. Tamales on New Year’s Eve became just as important as ozoni on New Year’s morning.

Join us for:

• Tales of Resilience: A Talk Story Performance: February 17, 2018, 1 p.m. | Commemorate DAY OF REMEMBERANCE. Come see America’s first Asian Storyteller discuss and perform true stories from the Incarceration. If you have a story of interracial connection to share, please speak with Brenda after the performance. Click here for photos from the event. Click here for video from the event.
• Milagro, Talisman & Love Stories, A Story Gathering Workshop: March 10, 2018, 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m. | This workshop is an intergenerational workshop culminating in a roundtable sharing of personal stories and artifacts. Participants, please bring small precious objects that have sustained you during your life. Come prepared to explain how you got them and why they’ve helped you. The purpose of this workshop is to gather personal stories. Stories about or that resonate with the Japanese American incarceration during WWII; stories of kismet and kindness that go beyond skin color.
• The People of the Tags: March 17, 2018, 1 p.m. | Brenda’s stories will give dramatic testimony to the real people behind these tags. Stories she has gathered in her 42 years as a teller in the hinterlands of America; acts of bravery and human decency that can teach us strategies for navigating the turbulence of today. Click here for a short video from the end of the event.

Exhibit-related programming for Wendy Maruyama: E.O. 9066 was made possible with support from the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program at the California State Library:

Hello!

There’s more to do than just look at art at RAM. Come Play the Museum!

Engage in our activity centers throughout the museum. Check out games and other fun items (coming in Summer!) from the Visitor Services desk. Interact with the engagement activities and with fellow visitors! 

So what are you waiting for? Get inspired, talk to new people, and Play the Museum.

Thought Experiments: February 2 – March 26

Though experiments are often used by scientists, philosophers, and, most famously, by theoretical physicist Albert Einstein, to pose questions to work out complex ideas that would solve issues in the real world.

Einstein asked, “What would it be like to travel on a beam of light?” This question led him to his Theory of Relativity. In an interactive station in the museum, you can reflect on relevant world issues to pose your own question, e.g., “What if Twitter held all the secrets of the universe in some kind of code?” 

What question would you pose and pin to our Thought Experiments activity center?

The Future Will Be…: February 2 – March 26

In the article “What is the Future of Art?”, Serpentine Galleries co-director Hans Ulrich Obrist was asked by Artsy, an online arts resource, to make a prediction based on his experience working with artists. The article explains Obrist’s approach to take the question one step further by asking the artists directly. He reformulated the question and asked the artists to answer, “The future will be…?”

The artists’ replies went beyond art and the art world. Their responses seemed to be a reflection of the world around them. The article struck a chord and inspired a chalkboard response and reflection.

During your visit, you can read a copy of the article and share your answer to Obrist’s question. The chalkboard is wiped clean at the end of each day to allow for new responses.

Sound Advice: February 2 – April 30

We seek advice from our family, friends, and loved ones to gain guidance concerning future decisions or actions. Even if you don’t take the advice, the act of listening and considering can be comforting and what is needed. 

Come take a seat in our listening station to hear a track list of 10 speakers giving advice about love, work, death, and more. Then feel free to take some advice from the community and leave some of your own as well.

Please join us for the free, open-to-the-public reception for Beyond Science Fiction: The Alternative Realism of Michael Whelan. Be one of the first to see this astounding collection of work by acclaimed artist Michael Whelan, who will be in attendance. 

Mental Physix will be providing music for the reception.

Whelan Bio

Whelan is one of the world’s premier painters of imaginative realism. For 40 years, he has created book and album covers for authors and musicians like Isaac Asimov, Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Anne MacCaffrey, Robert Heinlein, Melanie Rawn, Michael Moorcock, the Jacksons, and Meatloaf. His clients have included every major U.S. book publisher, CBS Records, the Franklin Mint, and many more.

As the most honored artist in Science Fiction, Whelan has won an unprecedented 15 Hugo Awards, three World Fantasy Awards, and 13 Chesleys from the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists. The readers of Locus Magazine have named him Best Professional Artist 30 times in their annual poll and the Spectrum Annual of the Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art named him a Grand Master in 2004. Other noteworthy awards include a Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators, a Grumbacher Gold Medal, and the Solstice Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America.

In 2009, he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, which includes such luminaries as H.G. Wells, Philip K. Dick, Gene Roddenbury, H.R. Giger, Octavia E. Butler, and Ursula K. Le Guin.

Please join us for the Opening Reception on Thursday, February 2, 2017, from 7 p.m. – 9 p.m. It is free and open to the public, occurring during the monthly Riverside Artswalk.

This evening will host the opening receptions for Papel Chicano Dos: Works on Paper | From the Collection of Cheech Marin, Trabajamos/We Work: In the Fields of the North | Photographs by David Bacon, and the Community Altar Project with Artist Cynthia Huerta.

Come meet artists and curators, as well as Cheech Marin (he will be available to sign copies of the exhibit catalog which will be available for sale).

Be sure to get here early as the Riverside Art Museum’s Buildings and Grounds Committee will be holding a ribbon-cutting ceremony and other festivities, presided over by Councilman Gardner, on the rooftop from 5 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. We will be celebrating the completion of our rooftop shade sail project.

We will also have our normal Artswalk programming from 6 p.m. – 9 p.m.

Come celebrate art with us!