Author Description

"In 600+ pages of color images and text, Paradigm Shifts reflects a vision and strategy that brings contemporary art practice into dialogue--and confrontation--with the effects of globalization on our cultural lives and daily existence. The book is organized into sections that illustrate the five axes of investigation that guide SFAI's programming: Global Figures, New Models of Culture and Art Production, Pacific Perspectives, Acting Out in the City, and New Voices. Using the Walter and McBean Galleries as the nucleus of this global dialogue, SFAI's exhibitions and public programs address urgent questions facing both the local and the international art community. Emphasizing the processes of research, production, and collaboration, the program unfolds in the tension between critiques of established models of institutional representation and experiments with new paradigms of curatorial practice. This opens up a perspective that transforms the local art scene into a globally significant force with renewed relevance. Paradigm Shifts functions as both documentation of and debate surrounding this ongoing evolution... [with] images and information from over 25 exhibitions, including solo exhibitions with artists Sarkis, Allora et Calzadilla, Jens Haaning, Adel Abdessemed, Yan Pei-Ming, Dan Perjovschi, On Kawara, and Shahzia Sikander, and group exhibitions such as World Factory, Geography of Transterritories, and Everyday Miracles (extended).--Publisher website.