3.14.2006
Silicon Valley Community Newspapers (Image Magazine)
Theres a new art scene downtown and its called Cultural Xposure
Cultural Xposure creates a new art scene downtown
by Heather Zimmerman

Most visitors to a museum expect to find carefully displayed paintings or sculpture; they don’t expect to see art being created or performed right before their eyes. But at Cultural Xposure, held Jan. 13 at the San Jose Museum of Art, guests saw paintings in progress, heard different rhymes and rhythms, and saw poetry in motion.

The visual and performing arts have come together in a new way at the quarterly Cultural Xposure events presented by the Pacific Art Collective and the San Jose Museum of Art.
Cultural Xposure blends performance, music and the visual arts into a casual social evening that has quickly become quite popular. January’s event, the fourth outing for Cultural Xposure, was the bestattended yet, with more than 1,200 guests. In April, the event marks its one-year anniversary.

Visitors to the Jan. 13 Cultural Xposure watched painters create solo and collaborative paintings during the event, which were then sold in silent “wet paint” auctions.The evening also featured performances by rock, R&B and hiphop bands.Audiences were treated to a dance performance by a champion breakdancing group and to poetry readings by top slam poets. A variety of DJs spun world, hip-hop and house music.The event also highlighted two current exhibitions at the museum, “Visual Politics:The Art of Engagement” and “Tales From the Kiln: Contemporary Ceramics.”

“The goal is to try to cross-pollinate these different audiences,” says William Rowan, art director for the Pacific Art Collective and curator of Cultural Xposure. “The museum’s audience is getting exposure to our audience and then our audience is getting exposure to their audience.”

The Pacific Art Collective is a San Jose-based not-for-profit organization that specializes in multimedia visual and performance events like Cultural Xposure.The group helps West Coast art groups and cities promote the arts through such events. About two years ago, Rowan and the collective approached the San Jose Museum of Art about co-presenting Cultural Xposure,
with the aim of both attracting a new, younger crowd to the museum, and showcasing new art and artists to museum regulars.

Cultural Xposure has become an important element of an ongoing effort at the San Jose Museum of Art to attract younger audiences. “Cultural institutions across the country are trying to figure out how to reach that audience, not just because they are the members and donors of tomorrow, but because they represent a very real number of visitors for today,” says Doniece Sandoval, director of marketing for the San Jose Museum of Art. “I think everybody is trying to figure out what the equation is and Wil came to us with the perfect formula.”

The event has met its goal of bringing in new audiences, and younger ones. Surveys from the first Cultural Xposure in April 2005, indicated that at least 75 percent of guests were new to the museum. Additionally, Sandoval notes, recent surveys have shown that the largest number of museum visitors from any one age group—about one-third of the museum’s visitors—have come from the 18-24 age group.

Although the most recent Cultural Xposure featured more nontraditional art forms, the event embraces every kind of art. Sandoval recalls a Cultural Xposure event featuring a ballet performance that really seemed to strike a chord with the audience.

And even if Cultural Xposure has aimed for a younger audience, it appeals to a wide range of ages. “It really reaches an incredibly diverse group of people from show to show,” says Sandoval, who notes that although the average guest’s age is about 25, the event has also
attracted families with young children, as well as some seniors.

“I think that’s the biggest challenge. In order to build real community, you don’t want to just cater to children; you don’t want to just cater to a 21-and-hip crowd, and you don’t want to just cater to the older members.You want to try to create an event that actuallty appeals to everyone," Rowan says. “And that is what community is all about, is finding that common medium where we can all hang out together and still have a good time and still learn something.”

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