Eight bridges connect the San Francisco Bay, so it is an apt name for a gallery platform that brings the Bay Area art world together.
Our mission is to maintain a vibrant gallery scene, despite restrictions on travel, celebrations and other larger gatherings. We want to support our artists by informing and entertaining curators, collectors and critics with potent online exhibitions of their work.
On the first Thursday of every month, we will launch 8 shows of artists relevant to the Bay Area. They may be working in this place, long considered an epicenter of change, or deeply engaged in the conversations the Bay Area holds dear, whether it’s related to technology, the environment, social justice or sexual identity, to name a few. In addition, each month will highlight the crucial work of a Bay Area non-profit arts organization.
Founding Committee
Claudia Altman-Siegel, Kelly Huang, Sophia Kinell, Micki Meng, Daphne Palmer, Ratio 3, Sarah Wendell Sherrill, Jessica Silverman, and Elizabeth Sullivan
Ambassador Committee
Sayre Batton & Maja Thomas, Joachim & Nancy Bechtle, Matt Bernstein, Sabrina Buell, Wayee Chu & Ethan Beard, Natasha Boas, Douglas Durkin, Carla Emil, Matt & Jessica Farron, Lauren Ford, Ali Gass, Stanlee Gatti, Brook Hartzell & Tad Freese, Pamela & David Hornik, Katie & Matt Paige, Putter Pence, Becca Prowda & Daniel Lurie, Deborah Rappaport, Komal Shah & Gaurav Garg, Laura Sweeney, The Battery, Robin Wright, Sonya Yu & Zack Lara
Sponsors
Lobus, The Space Program
Maya Lin (b. 1959, Athens, Ohio) critically engages with notions of site and place, exploring the development of systems in order to reflect on the environment, creating objects that invite contemplation—intellectual, sensorial, and physical—of the natural world.
Lin’s creative inclinations were encouraged from a young age and she spent much of her childhood in her father’s ceramics studio. She went on to study architecture and sculpture at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1981. Lin was thrust into the spotlight after winning a nationwide design competition for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. (1982). Informed by Robert Smithson’s earthworks and Richard Serra’s Minimalist sculpture, Lin’s memorial design was recognized with an Honor Award as well as a Henry Bacon Memorial Award from the American Institute of Architects in 1984.
Alongside commissions to design monuments for the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama (1989), and the Women’s Table for Yale University (1995), Lin pursued her art practice through the creation of site-specific sculpture and earthworks.
Lin’s longstanding environmental advocacy and her fascination with maps led her to begin exploring water as a precious resource in 2007, charting birds-eye views of major bodies of water. These wall works, drawings, and large-scale sculptures have been produced using materials including recycled silver, glass marbles, and custom-made stainless-steel pins. The recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts (1988, 2007), Lin was also honored with the National Medal of Arts, conferred by President Barack Obama in 2009, and later the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, for her significant contributions to art, architecture, and environmental activism.
For Lin, the idea of experience, movement, and nature are integral to her work, heightening spatial perception and environmental awareness. Her approach to artmaking often finds its origins in science rather than art, demonstrated in her application of satellite technology and cartographic techniques.
