Current Exhibitions

Rex Ray: We Are All Made of Light features multimedia American artist Rex Ray (1956–2015), best known for his innovative and subversive pop aesthetic. Drawing inspiration from mid-century modernism, Dada, the decorative arts, Fluxus, Pop Art, low-fi zines, and mail-art culture, Ray became a leading figure in both graphic design and fine art. He is especially known for his large-scale mixed-media collage and tour posters for artists including the Rolling Stones, R.E.M., Radiohead, and David Bowie. MMA presents this exhibition as the first museum retrospective of Ray's work.

About the Artist

Rex Ray attended the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI), where he studied with Sam Tchakalian, Kathy Acker, and Angela Davis, and received his BFA in 1989. His work has been featured in exhibitions at the Akron Art Museum; Berkeley Art Museum; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento; MCA DENVER; McNay Art Museum, San Antonio; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; San Jose Museum of Art; and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco.

About the Curators

Cydney Payton is an independent curator and writer, and former CEO and Chief Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver and the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. Her leadership in the arts has been acknowledged by The New York Times, The Denver Post, Artforum, and Art in America. Payton has curated groundbreaking exhibitions by such artists as David Altmejd, Morley Baer, Lynda Benglis, Yu-Chen Chou, Brad Kahlhamer, Susanne Kühn, Roberto Behar, Rosario Marquardt, Wangechi Mutu, Arlene Shechet, Collier Schorr, and Fischli & Weiss, among numerous others.

Griff Williams is an American painter, publisher, and gallerist. In 1993, he founded Gallery 16 and the pioneering fine art printmaking workshop Urban Digital Color in San Francisco. He has designed and published acclaimed books with the Gallery 16 Editions imprint, including a monograph on the life and artwork of the late San Francisco artist Rex Ray. His paintings have been exhibited in galleries and museums, including the San Diego Museum of Art, the Crocker Art Museum, and the San Jose Museum of Art.

Support for this exhibition provided by Sandra Dewey and Jacalyn June Horton

Rex Ray (1956–2015), Placidium, c. 2003, collage with mixed media over canvas, 54 x 54 in. Courtesy of Gallery 16.