THE FUTURE
1969 - TODAY
"(The Gallery) has faith in the art of its own time and believes that our society is just as capable of making as great art as the past"
Bob Matheny, 1965
quoted from essay on the Purchase Award Show
After his departure from the Art Gallery Director position, Bob Matheny would continue on as a full-time Faculty member, teaching at Southwestern College until his retirement in 1991. Still an influential presence in the San Diego art scene, Matheny advocated for and inspired younger artists, collecting their artworks and promoting them, right up to his recent passing. Always an artist himself, in the wake of the Gallery Director firing, Matheny began a collaborative conceptual project titled the Art Disposal Service (link for more detail) and created countless other conceptual objects, sculptures, prints and more, for years to come. He also carried on as a gallerist, creating exhibitions in his airplane hangar and the street lined fence of his home.
The permanent SWC Art Gallery (which Matheny fought for since the first screw went into those fiberboard panels over Chula Vista High School lockers) still stands, and has been a venue promoting local contemporary artists and culture to our students and the community for over 50 years. The Art Gallery Director position evolved and passed through many hands during that time, with Matheny briefly returning to the position again in the mid 1980s. The original Library and Student Union buildings, where influential artists such as John Baldessari, Bruce Nauman, Richard Allen Morris and more, displayed their controversial artworks, have been demolished. The converted office space of the "temporary" Art Gallery of room 702 has been remodeled and returned back to the office space from whence it came.
This project is an attempt to preserve the vital and important history of Southwestern College's Art Gallery and Department, so that it may inform and inspire future generations to come, with the hope that all will remember a time when, without much money or community support, a group of dedicated artists came together to create something influentially new.
Our goal is to continue this archival process and present our findings for the study and enjoyment of all. We welcome your knowledge, information, stories, images or ephemera from this first decade of Southwestern College's Art Gallery history (see the contact link below).
September 2020
