Brief History of Socity for Art Publications of the Americas (SAPA) and the Meridian Concept

Meridian Concept

A commitment to nonviolent social change and to the inherent value of diversity has animated the SAPA (nonprofit parent of Meridian Gallery) since it began in 1986. Initially dedicated to breaking down racial, cultural, economic and geographic barriers through the arts, Meridian Gallery rapidly began to move into its purpose - to embody change - and as it moved, to assume a tangible responsibility to explore issues and to make spaces where youth and adults could access experientially a widening of the possible.

Mission

The Society for Art Publications of the Americas and its Meridian Gallery increases social, philosophical and spiritual change among previously isolated individuals and communities. Society for Art Publications of the Americas is the title selected in 1985 for the 501(c)(3) non-profit whose programs bear the name "Meridian" to signify hemispheric, geographical and cross cultural concerns: Meridian Gallery (1989), Meridian Interns Program (1996) and Meridian Music: Composers in Performance (1998).

Gallery hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 11am - 5pm 

phone: 415 398 7229 
fax: 415 398 6176
info@meridiangallery.org

Meridian History (1989 - )

Eighteen years ago in the Summer of 1989, Meridian Gallery opened its downtown performance and exhibition space with a show curated by Rolando Castellón (co-founder and first director of the Galería de la Raza) called Drawings from the Fourth World. That arresting show of work by seven San Francisco Bay Area artists from seven cultures and ethnicities set the pattern for much that was to come: Performances of music, film, poetry, occasionally - dance - and from the beginning, Saturday Afternoon Forums, where dozens of interdisciplinary artists have given voice. By "The Fourth World" Castellón (who was also the curator for the SF MOMA "MIX" program), meant "…that space that exists between geographical, political, and aesthetic borders." That space is the one that Meridian with its shows, events and concerts of New Music consistently explores. The interns program is sited at the core of the gallery.

The Society has also supplied the strong, effective organizing base for collaborative programs such as Art of the Americas 1985; Indian Americas: Art and Architecture 1988; The Haida Project 1990; and The Exchange Show:  Twelve Painters from San Francisco and Rio de Janeiro 1994. In May and June of 2002, the Society collaborated with the Pauline Oliveros Foundation and Mills College to produce Sounding the Margins: a retrospective of the works of Pauline Oliveros.

The Society's founders, Anne Trueblood Brodzky and Anthony Williams, together with others such as Dore Ashton, James Rosen, Ronald Christ, who initially framed its ten-point statement of aims and purposes, were united in the conviction that the experience of significant art creates social, philosophical and spiritual change.

Meridian Gallery, with its policy of cross-cultural focus and its outreach through catalogues and traveling exhibitions, is today supported by growing annual membership in the Society, private and corporate contributions, government and foundation grants, and volunteers.