Bettina Hubby

Biography

"An art egalitarian with a pop artist’s penchant for merchandising," Bettina Hubby’s practice is wide-ranging, encompassing curatorial, public engagement and project-based work, alongside more traditional media such as collage, drawing, photography and sculpture. With ideas that engages diverse communities and often exist in settings that challenge the conventions of exhibition spaces, Hubby’s work celebrates collaboration and resists easy categorization. Earning her MFA in 1995 from the School of Visual Arts in New York, Hubby then moved to Los Angeles in 1999.

In "The Sexual Bronze Show" at Klowden Mann Gallery in 2016, Bettina Hubby let loose with "a raucous sense of humor [...]. Mining a territory that expounds on the sexual pun, Hubby identifies objects from the grocery store that in some way compliment one another or more specifically suggest a sexual allusion."

Previous to that, she embarked upon large project called "Thanks for the Mammaries" at ForYourArt in 2014. Garnering national and international press, "Thanks for the Mammaries" was an exhibition in which Hubby turned her diagnosis with breast cancer into a life-affirming community-supported celebration of breasts by organizing a show of 125 artists with related works. All sales from the show went to support women with breast cancer.

Before this, Hubby acted as the Santa Monica Museum of Art’s Resident Construction Artist, creating Dig the Dig, an installation and event in dialogue with the beginning of long term construction of the Olympic/26th Street Expo Metro Station; and in conjunction worked with The Institute for Art and Olfaction to develop a cologne for construction workers called DIG. Her solo exhibition at Klowden Mann, 2013 coincided with a publication of an artist book collaboration, Uniforms, with writer Dave Cull of her collages, published by The Iceplant. Other projects include The Eagle Rock Rock and Eagle Shop (2012), an installation and pop-up store in the Los Angeles community of Eagle Rock, CA. The exhibition blurred the lines between curation, collection, kitsch, craft, and commerce. Her work was highlighted in The Home Show at the California Arts Foundation in 2011.

Get-Hubbied (2009–2011) was a two-year project about the institution of marriage that ultimately culminated in a legally binding wedding, and CoTour* (2008) was a bus tour that explored spaces of private significance in a tour-guide kind of way throughout greater Los Angeles.

"Bettina Hubby is an interdisciplinary artist with an impulse towards collaboration and integrating daily life into her art (and vice versa), all with large doses of humor. From cheeky collages of magazine cutouts, to dinner parties with construction workers beneath the twinkle of a disco ball hanging from a bulldozer, her work invites participation and engagement."

Notable Exhibitions

"The Sexual Bronze Show", Klowden Mann Gallery, Los Angeles, January 16 - February 27, 2016

"Come Up and See Me Sometime", Paris Photo LA, Paramount Studios, 2015

"Chinatown League of Ultimate Benevolence", Fifth Floor Gallery, Los Angeles, May 30 - July 11, 2015

"Love Potion No. 9", The Institute for Art and Olfaction, February 2015

"Thanks for the Mammaries", ForYourArt, July 31 – August 17, 2014

"Pretty Limber", Klowden Mann, September 7 - October 19, 2013

Google Eyes for Ginat Rock, High Desert Test Sites, October 12–19, 2013

"Dig the Dig", at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, 2013

"The Eagle Rock Rock and Eagle Shop", April–June, 2012

"Get Hubbied", 2012