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Architecture & DesignContemporary Art

Artist Profile: Sheri Simons

Get to know the artists of Contraption: Rediscovering California Jewish Artists, on view at The Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, Feb 22, 2018–Jul 29, 2018.

Uploaded Mar 7, 2018.

about the artist
Sheri Simons

Using materials such as wood, steel, men’s dress shirts, and inner tubes, Sheri Simons (b. 1954) creates sculptures that engage the viewer with sight, sound, and movement. Her works of art utilize sculpture as an instrument, something designed to cause or aid in causing an action or reaction. Born and educated in Michigan, with a BFA from the University of Michigan and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Simons has resided in California since the mid-1980s. She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, and the Michigan Council for the Arts. Residencies have taken her around the globe, including the Japan-US Friendship Commission and Youkobo Art Space residencies in Tokyo; a residency at ZK/U: Center for Art and Urbanistics in Berlin; and a residency at Artpark in New York. Her sculptures have been included in exhibitions at such institutions as the Fukushima Biennale, Japan; the Cranbrook Museum, Michigan; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; the Kansas City Art Institute; and the Detroit Institute of Arts.

about the exhibition

Contraption: Rediscovering California Jewish Artists is a group show that presents the work of sixteen California-identified artists of Jewish descent—both historical and living—whose work refers to the machine either literally or metaphorically. Some of the artists are rarely seen now. Among the living artists, there will be large-scale mechanical installations by Bernie Lubell and Sheri Simons, as well as ceramics, drawings, sculpture and paintings by Ned Kahn, Bella Feldman, Howard Fried, and Annabeth Rosen. This original exhibition was co-curated by Chief Curator Renny Pritikin and Mark Dean Johnson, Professor of Art at SFSU.

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supporters

Leadership Support for digital media at The Contemporary Jewish Museum is generously provided by the Jim Joseph Foundation.

Contraption: Rediscovering California Jewish Artists, an original exhibition of The Contemporary Jewish Museum (The CJM), was organized in association with the Fine Art and Jewish Studies departments of San Francisco State University. The exhibition is presented on the occasion of The CJM’s Tenth Anniversary in its Daniel Libeskind-designed building.

Major sponsorship is provided by Gaia Fund, the Taube Philanthropies for Jewish Life and Culture, and Dorothy R. Saxe. Patron sponsorship is provided by Fred Levin and Nancy Livingston and The Shenson Foundation, in memory of Ben and A. Jess Shenson. Supporting sponsorship is provided by Riva and David Berelson, in memory of Gita and Henry Baigelman; Howard and Barbara Wollner. Additional support is provided by Doug Mandell and Scott Ullman.

Generous support is provided by The Contemporary Jewish Museum’s Bernard and Barbro Osher Exhibition Fund.

The Contemporary Jewish Museum thanks The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for its lead sponsorship of The Museum’s exhibition program.