This exhibition pairs drawings selected from Victoria Wagner's First Year Drawing 1: Form and Gesture Fall 2016/Spring 2017 classes with a selection of archival photographs of Meyer Library from late 60s to early 70s, to see the Meyer Library through both contemporary and archival lenses. Wagner’s students were prompted to respond to questions of scale, perspective and proportion with tools, techniques and methods discussed and practiced throughout the semester. Using the Meyer Library as a template, each student-artist chose to explore the formal aspects of the project from unique vantage points to frame the Meyer Library’s dynamic architecture while simultaneously creating narratives that explore a sense of shifting time, history, legacy, intimacy and phenomenon of space.
CCA’s Oakland campus location was acquired in 1922. In 1964, the responsibility to develop a master plan for a high density urban campus2 fell to the architects Vernon DeMars and Donald Reay. For phase one, they envisioned a library-lecture-hall-gallery-studio complex, and Meyer Library was part of the master stroke. Finished in winter 1968, Meyer Library has become one of the gems of CCA’s Oakland campus. For 49 years, it has witnessed the students’ imagination turn into works, and research turn into achievements. And the building itself has experienced changes. When CCA’s programs expanded to offer Animation, the balcony outside of the periodical terrace was turned into animation studios. Today, the library director, the systems librarian, and the digital scholarship librarian have their offices in what was formerly the terrace. This exhibition pairs drawings selected from Victoria Wagner's First Year Drawing 1: Form and Gesture Fall 2016/Spring 2017 classes with a selection of archival photographs of Meyer…