SOMArts Cultural Center

SOMArts Cultural Center will present a centennial birthday celebration of art icon John Cage, December 17 through January 26, 2011. Get Lucky: The Culture of Chance, curated by Justin Hoover and Hanna Regev, provides a multimedia and multidimensional look at a vast array of fine art practices investigating the implications of chance operation in the arts across cultural beliefs, values and practices.

New works and site-specific installations created by 29 Bay Area artists hinge upon human interaction, explore varying levels of control in production, and experiment with structured randomness. Get Lucky includes works which conflate Wiccan-based Tarot practice and corporate culture, I-Ching with installation art, and the aesthetics of Zen pottery with Western abstract painting.

Chance operations filter into both the activation of the artwork and the curatorial structure of Get Lucky: The Culture of Chance. David Molina and Garrett La Fever create an ongoing audience activated musical installation for the annex of the SOMArts Main Gallery. The experimental instrument, which draws inspiration from the Koto, a Japanese  harp, is accompanied by a mercurial digital projection with video source material by Micky Tachibana. Sculptor Michael Bartalos offers a 3D installation involving boxes the public can arrange to create mutable structures. An evolving wall displays a different selection each week of 25 from a set of 44 EXCOR (Exquisite Corpse) images chosen randomly by a roll of the dice by the curators.