Art San Diego Contemporary Art Show Returns To Balboa Park This November 3-6 | Enter To Win Tickets To The VIP Opening Night Reception

October 7, 2016

 Art San Diego returns to America's Finest City this November 3-6, offering four days of contemporary art at the Balboa Park Activity Center, featuring an international slate of artists and galleries. We are raffling off a pair of passes to the VIP Opening Night Reception, so read on for all the details and be sure to enter.



The 2016 theme of Art San Diego is [THRESHOLD] - "standing at the precipice of what’s yet to come; perched on the brink of something extraordinary, expansive, and ever evolving."Art San Diego, presented by Redwood Media Group, is the city’s only contemporary fine artshow and has become one of the leading cultural events in Southern California.

"We are really excited to continue to grow the success that Art San Diego has already seen," said Eric Smith, president and CEO of Redwood Media Group. "Every year, we incorporate new elements to ensure there is always something new for our attendees to experience - and this year is no different."

Art San Diego features over 500 leading contemporary artists, museum exhibitions, art labs, events, and symposiums. Art San Diego will also launch the third exhibition of the Open Walls Project in October and November to engage leading contemporary artists in transforming commercial billboards and community spaces throughout downtown San Diego into works of public art. This city-wide Art Lab will feature works by a range of internationally collected artists, including Marcos Ramírez ERRE, Sam Durant, Rigo23, Andrea Bowers, and Daniel Guzman. All of the chosen artists incorporate social activism in their work and portray contemporary political issues such as deportation, immigration, and police brutality.

Ten billboards total will be created by the five artists in areas throughout San Diego. Three works will go up on October 17 and seven additional works will go up on October 31. All billboards will be up for the duration of one month. Billboard locations will span from the Tijuana/San Isidro border up throughout downtown and North Park. The project will culminate with the last billboard, by artist Andrea Bowers, being unveiled at Art San Diego during the Opening Night Preview Party on Thursday, November 3, starting at 7:30pm.

Art San Diego will also feature a special exhibition by the 2016 San Diego Art Prize recipients chosen by San DiegoVisual Arts Network: William Feeney and Shinpei Takeda. Now in its 10th year, the SD Art Prize awards a cash prize and exhibition opportunities to established and emerging San Diego visual artists whose achievements merit the recognition. Feeney and Takeda will in turn choose two established artists to mentor them and to co-exhibit with at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library.

The LaunchPad Program will feature Stefani Byrd, whose practice includes video, new media, and interactive technologies. She is most noted for her interactive temporary public art installations, which are hybrids of video and performance art that both disorient and re-orient the viewer. Byrd has received grants and support from groups such as Creative Capital of New York, Flux Projects, the San Diego Art Institute, the San Diego Art Fair, Atlanta Celebrates Photography, and Idea Capital. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia and the Columbus Museum of American Art, and is also archived as a part of the Public Art Database project.

Founded in 2009 as the first and only contemporary art show in San Diego, Art San Diego is now an annual showcase, featuring not only San Diego’s most talented artists, but also leading artists from around the globe. The show has enriched the city each year with compelling site- and theme-specific art projects, art talks and panel discussions, a selection of dynamic and cutting-edge film, video and new media works, and a curated selection of emerging and spotlight artists. More than 60 galleries from the U.S., Canada, Europe, Latin America, and Asia will showcase paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, videos, and cutting-edge multimedia artworks during Art San Diego 2016.

One-day tickets for Art San Diego are priced at $20 online/$25 at the door for general admission. For opening night attendance, tickets are priced at $75 online/$85 at the door. Proceeds from the opening night ticket sales go directly to the Museum of Contemporary Art.

For more information on Art San Diego, visit art-sandiego.com.