Info
Alex Arzt is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, gardener, and grant writer based in Oakland, CA. Rooted in a connection to place and material explorations, she facilitates connections between human and nonhuman spaces by creating projects in the form of publications, interactive objects, workshops, group performances, lectures, videos, and experimental gardens. From 2018-2022, she was an Affiliate Artist at The Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, CA. She is a co-founder of the artist collective Whiz World and runs a Risograph press called A Magic Mountain, and her publishing projects are in the collections of libraries such as Stanford, Getty Research Institute, and School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has been awarded grants from The Puffin Foundation and The East Bay Community Foundation. She earned a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and has since attended residencies at Ucross, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, PLAYA Summer Lake, Real Time and Space, A-Z West, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Mildred’s Lane, and This Will Take Time. From 2015-2023, she taught courses in photography, time-based media, and book making at UC Davis, UC Berkeley, San Francisco Art Institute, and VCU. Since 2021, she has worked with artists and nonprofits in development and grant writing, and is currently the Senior Grants Officer for the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.
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Awards+Residencies
Ucross Foundation Residency, Ucross, WY, 2024
Puffin Foundation Grant, 2018, 2022
PLAYA, Residency, Summer Lake, OR, 2017, 2022
Headlands Center for the Arts Affiliate Artist Studio Program, Sausalito, CA, 2018-22
Real Time and Space, Residency, Oakland, CA, 2021
Dream Farm Commons, Residency as Whiz World, Oakland, CA, 2019
East Bay Fund for Artists Grant at the East Bay Community Foundation, 2018
Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, NE, 2017
Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Amherst, VA, 2017
This Will Take Time, Point Arena, CA, 2016/2017
Exhibitions
San Francisco Center for the Book, Unfolding Duplications: Contemporary Risograph Publishing, San Francisco, CA, 2024
San Francisco Arts Commission, Transcending Physicality: The Essence of Place, San Francisco, CA, 2023
Platform Artspace at UC Berkeley, Feral, Berkeley, CA, 2022
Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Repair Manuals and Cosmic Sounds Self-publishing to heal the entire universe, Barcelona, Spain, 2022
Fruitlands Museum, Recruiting for Utopia: Print and the Imagination, Harvard, MA, 2020-2021
The Royal NoneSuch Gallery, Whiz Confluxx, Oakland, CA, 2019
Dream Farm Commons, Tipping Point, as Whiz World, Oakland, CA, 2019
Sierra Nevada College, Garage Gallery, Alchemy, as Whiz World, Incline Village, NV, 2019
Sediment Arts, Whiz World, Storefront feature, Richmond, VA. 2018
The East Cut Community Benefit District, Home/Sick, curated by Bre Arder, San Francisco, CA. 2018
Teaching
University of California, Davis, Lecturer in Photography, 2021-2023
University of California, Berkeley, Lecturer, Berkeley, CA, 2020
San Francisco Art Institute, Public Education and PreCollege Program Faculty, San Francisco, CA, 2018-2019
Virginia Commonwealth University, School of the Arts, Adjunct Faculty, Art Foundations and Photography & Film Departments, Richmond, VA. 2015-2016
Collections
SFMOMA Library, San Francisco, CA
Getty Museum Library, Los Angeles, CA
Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA
University of California, Davis, Library Special Collections, Davis, CA
University of California, Santa Cruz, Library Special Collections, Santa Cruz, CA
University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library, Berkeley, CA
University of Pittsburgh, Frick Fine Arts Library, Pittsburgh, PA
School of the Museum of Fine Arts Library, Boston, MA
School of the Art Institute of Chicago Library, The Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection, Chicago, IL
Indiana University Bloomington Fine Arts Library, Bloomington, IN
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
Candela Collection, Candela Books+Gallery, Richmond, VA
Brooklyn College Library Zine Collection, Brooklyn, NY
Book Fairs
LA Art Book Fair 2019, 2023
San Francisco Art Book Fair, 2022, 2023, 2024
SFMOMA Small Press Book Bazaar, 2022, 2023
Printed Matter Virtual Art Book Fair, 2021
Chicago Art Book Fair, 2017, 2018, 2019
Vancouver Art Book Fair, Vancouver, BC, 2018
Education
Virginia Commonwealth University, MFA, 2015
Rhode Island School of Design, BFA, 2010