Museum of Riverside

HOBOS TO STREET PEOPLE (exhibit now closed)

Hobos to Street People: Artists' Responses to Homelessness from the New Deal to Present
January 13 - April 29, 2012

About the Exhibit
Hobos to Street People features original works by artists who bring a wide range of cultural viewpoints, historical perspectives, and positions on the topic, including Dorothea Lange, Rockwell Kent, Charles Surendorf, Giacomo Patri, Francisco Dominguez, Jane “in vain” Winckelman, Sandow Birk, Art Hazelwood, and the San Francisco Print Collective. In addition, special works by children from Path of Life Ministries Transitional Shelter in Riverside as well as the Cardborigami Project by Tina Hovsepian will also be on display.

The exhibition compares artistic interpretations of homelessness created from the New Deal of the 1930s to the stigmatized street people of today–with an emphasis on California.

Over this time period, artists have shown different aspects of poverty and homelessness. During the Depression, WPA artists portrayed the lives of the poorest Americans both in “noble”and negative images. The work of artists such as Dorothea Lange often appeared in popular magazines such as Life and Time, profoundly influencing attitudes towards poverty. From World War II through the 1980s, artists tended to portray the homeless as degenerates unworthy of the government’s interest. Contemporary California artists, however, are witnessing, documenting, and commenting on today’s poverty in ways more akin to artists of the Depression era. This exhibition reflects this evolution and examines one of the most fundamental of human needs: shelter.

An Exhibit Envoy traveling exhibition funded by the James Irvine Foundation, LEF Foundation, and Fleishhacker Foundation

Special Thanks to Our Exhibit Sponsor:
Riverside Community Health Foundation

Special Thanks to our Exhibit Partners:
Path of Life Ministries,  For more information, click here
Cardborigami, For more information, click here
Yhomeless, For more information, click here