In Blue Reverie, life-sized photographs of historic light bulbs coalesce in modern, sculptural forms, while blue filters positioned on windows become lenses into the urban landscape, creating dual visions from a point of translucency and opacity. These forms are met by wall drawings constructed with painter’s tape that perform spatial interventions by mapping abstract drawings in-situ. Pulling extensively from the Paule Anglim Archive Room, the exhibition proposes a synthesis of David Ireland’s work and Wagner’s broader investigation of blue through curatorial engagement.
The free opening reception on October 4, 2025 from 5:30–7:30 pm will feature a special performance entitled “Blue Moon” and a temporary sonic work installed in the upstairs closet by artist Nathan Kosta. Get tickets here.
Blue Reverie is supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and Teiger Foundation.
About Catherine Wagner
For over thirty years, Catherine Wagner (b. 1953, San Francisco, CA) has been observing the built environment as a metaphor for how we construct our cultural identities. She has examined institutions as various as art museums, science labs, the home, and Disneyland. Wagner’s process involves the investigation of what art critic David Bonetti calls “the systems people create, our love of order, our ambition to shape the world, the value we place on knowledge, and the tokens we display to express ourselves.”
While Wagner has spent her life residing in California, she has also been an active international artist, working photographically, as well as creating site-specific, public art, and lecturing extensively at museums and universities. She has received many major awards, including the Rome Prize (2013-2014), a Guggenheim Fellowship, NEA Fellowships, and the Ferguson Award. In 2001, Wagner was named one of Time Magazine’s Fine Arts Innovators of the Year. Her work is represented in major collections nationally and around the world, such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, SFMOMA, The Whitney Museum of American Art, MOMA, Tate Modern, Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, Museum Folkwang, and MFA Houston. She has also published several monographs, including Place, History, and the Archive, and American Classroom, Art & Science: Investigating Matter, and Cross Sections.