What does it mean to live with possibility? To live in a moment when artists and citizens reject fear and find power in discovery? For those who came of age in the Bay Area with the apocalyptic uncertainty of nuclear proliferation and the AIDS crisis; the devastation of the Loma Prieta earthquake and the Oakland firestorm; the audacious acquittal of LAPD officers Koon, Wind, and Briseno and the disembodied destruction of the first Gulf War; the road was bleak. And yet the energy in the cultural sector at the time was electrified.

Today we again find ourselves at a moment of consequence in need of radical thought, civic action, and relentless imagination. From Arnold Kemp’s bold letter forms to Alicia McCarthy’s rapturous woven lines; from Margaret Kilgallen’s intricate 2001 installation, Main Drag, to Rigo 23’s insurgent mural after Goya, Terra Nullius, Bay Area Then brings together historic and new works by artists who shunned despair to instead assert their unique vitality, resourcefulness, and camaraderie.

Central to 1990s Bay Area was a complex web of artist-run and alternative spaces that served as essential outlets for gathering, listening, performing, and learning from each other. Photographs, ephemera, and artworks on view here were shared by many individuals and serve to document these spaces, their activities and the formative role of these initiatives in the art ecosystem.

Bay Area Then presents works by Nao Bustamante, Carolyn Castaño, Bill Daniel, Sergio De La Torre, Beatrix Fowler, Mike “Dream” Francisco, Johanna Jackson, Chris Johanson with Ajax Oakford, Arnold Kemp, Margaret Kilgallen, Alicia McCarthy, Barry McGee, Ruby Neri, Manuel Ocampo, Eamon Ore-Giron, Gina Osterloh, Rigo 23, Spie One, and others.