International Shoebox Sculpture Exhibition Comes To University Art Gallery

The 9th International Shoebox Sculpture Exhibition continues until Oct. 31 in the University Art Gallery at California State University, Dominguez Hills. The show features 82 sculptures in a wide variety of mediums that are small enough to fit into a shoebox. An invitation-only exhibition, the triennial exhibition attracts numerous well-known artists from Hawaii, the U.S. mainland, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Mexico, Norway, the Netherlands, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam. The University Art Gallery hosted the 4th and 8th edition of this traveling exhibition in 1992 and 2004.

“My primary reason for hosting this lively exhibit is that it exposes our students to a wide range of sculptural images and materials ranging from photosensitive glass to leather,” says Kathy Zimmerer, director of the University Art Gallery. “Also, it shows students how creative you can be within the limitations of scale. While it would be prohibitively expensive for the gallery to exhibit large scale sculpture, we have the best of both worlds with this exhibit of outstanding sculptures by international artists on a small scale.”

The Shoebox Sculpture concept grew from the desire to present a wide variety of sculptural ideas, styles and materials as the small shoebox-size of this exhibit provides broader exposure to contemporary sculpture. To create their sculptures, artists have used almost every imaginable medium, including cast metal, carved wood, blown glass, woven fiber, papier mache, molded clay, found objects, glass beads and feathers.

The 9th International Shoebox Sculpture Exhibition is organized by the University of Hawaii Art Gallery and supported in part by a grant from the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts. Presentation of this exhibit at the University Art Gallery, CSU Dominguez Hills, is sponsored by the City of Carson Fine Arts and Historical Commission. In conjunction with the exhibit, Shoebox Sculpture art workshops for K-12 children will be presented by art educator and artist Linda Jo Russell.

The gallery is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Thursday, and is located in La Corte Hall A107; admission is free. The campus is located at 1000 E. Victoria Street in the City of Carson near the junction of the Harbor, Artesia and San Diego freeways. Visitor parking permits may be purchased for $3 at the yellow dispensing machines at the front of each campus lot.

For an online catalog of the exhibit visit the University of Hawaii at Manoa Art Gallery's Shoebox Sculpture web site.

- Kathy Zimmerer and Joanie Harmon

Photos above:

Annemarie Rawlinson
Rancho Palos Verdes, California
Ascent, 2005
Mixed media

Liguo Liu
Beijing, China
Walking with Porcelain Shoes, 2005
Porcelain

Lynda E. Andrus
Manhattan, Kansas
Dainty Desserts for Dainty People, 2005
Mixed media

All images courtesy of Kathy Zimmerer