Rural Culture & Urban Arts: Terroir Wrap

After a three month run the Terroir exhibition in Marin County (Northern California), organized by ecoartspace west has closed. This indoor/outdoor exhibition included 28 Bay Area artists and several site-specific installations both indoor and outdoor. A few of the outdoor temporal works were already removed by the time of the closing reception. There are several posts on the Art at the Cheese Factory blog that capture the programs and artists included. Below are a few highlights and additional information.

Overall, it was a well attended exhibition with a high number of people who had not planned to see an art exhibition when they arrived to visit the Marin French Cheese Company. Of the 42 days the gallery was open to the public, attendance was approximately 70 persons per day. Outdoors there was high traffic flow, with up to 10,000 people over the three-month period. There was also a one-week residency, the very first at this site. And, a total of four events including an opening reception, curator’s tour & tasting, artist talk and closing reception. The owners of the cheese factory were closely involved and really appreciated the number of younger conceptual artists included. Our goal was to show work that visitors could relate to with regard to subject matter and that was a new aesthetic than they might expect to see in a local gallery (no landscape paintings or traditional sculpture). The consensus was that the works were engaging and that visitors were surprised to find conceptual art at their local gathering site.

Some highlights include:

Susan Leibovitz-Steinman
Land(e)scape (2009)
topsoil, rain and pond water all collected on the cheese factory grounds, and acrylic paint

Photo ©2009 Jeannie O'Connor





Philip Krohn with Paul Reffell
The Kindling (2009)
11’ X 8’ diameter
misc firewood (cypress, douglas fir, eucalyptus, monterey pine)










Mark Brest van Kempen
Lineaus Line, 2009
approximately 600 ft (500 tags)











Jessica Resmond
Jorge Bachman
Shipped: Global Terroir (2009)
58” X 130”
4 inkjet prints/sound component









Lewis de Soto
APPELLATION: Napa 4 (10.12.07)
K3 inks on paper
26" x 77.5” X 2"
Courtesy Brian Gross Fine Art, San Francisco


(at the top of the post):

Emily Payne Haven (2009) site-specific installation - clay, wax, linen thread