Baseball: The All-American Game
May 26 - September 9, 2012

Opening at the height of baseball season, Baseball: The All-American Game explores the influence of baseball on American folk art made between the late-1800s to present day. For the first time in Los Angeles, the public will have access to the largest exhibition of baseball-related traditional folk art since the American Folk Art Museum’s historic Perfect Game: America Looks at Baseball in 2003. Approximately 75 works of baseball-inspired folk art and memorabilia will be shown from the private collection of Gary Cypres, owner of one of the largest sports memorabilia collections in the world.

No other sport is more ingrained within the American national consciousness than the great game of baseball, which became the first organized sport in the United States in 1857. After the Civil War ended in 1865, the sport became increasingly important in uniting a country that was previously divided. As baseball’s popularity grew throughout the nation, its imagery emerged in all mediums of popular culture, including advertisements, tobacco packaging, games, and fine art.

Read the press release HERE.

Ehren Tool: Production or Destruction
May 26 - September 9, 2012

Ehren Tool: Production or Destruction is a solo exhibition of ceramist and former Marine Ehren Tool. Emblazoned with the haunting images of armed conflict, Tool creates handmade ceramic cups as a medium to address war and the violent rhetoric and imagery used to perpetuate it. The exhibition will feature 1,000 handcrafted cups, video, installation, photographs, and printed materials.

Twenty years after his service in the first Gulf War, Tool’s firsthand contact with the reality of war is manifest in the thousands of cups he dutifully produces. The cups will be exhibited at CAFAM in “units” based on military formations of “squads” (13), “platoons” (55), and “companies” (225), serving as a visual reminder of each Marine within a military unit. Each cup is uniquely crafted, decorated with ceramic decals of soldiers’ photos, propaganda, war porn, and sculptural reliefs shaped like bombs, guns, or medals. Other imagery alludes to the culpability of video games, toys, and pornography in desensitizing the public to the emotional toll of war.

Read the press release HERE.

Exhibition Tours

For information about booking group and school tours, contact Holly Jerger at 323.937.4230 x28 or holly@cafam.org.

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To sponsor one of these important exhibits, please contact Edward Escarsega at 323.937.4230 x31 or edward@cafam.org.

Or, please visit our Sponsor Page for additional information.