The West Coast has provided inspiration for dozens of Hollywood movies and Top 40 songs. At the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, gallerist Ken Harman Hashimoto has curated Left Coast, an online art exhibition inspired by the United States’ West Coast.
The online exhibition, which features the work of 46 artists, takes inspiration from New-York Tribune editor Horace Greeley’s statement of “Go West, young man”. This proclamation supported the ideology of Manifest Destiny, the 19th-century belief in the westward expansion of the United States.
But while Manifest Destiny largely brought an influx of settlers from the eastern United States, the West has now become a mosaic of people and cultures from around the globe. Left Coast celebrates this diversity, featuring images of beaches beside busy streets and palm trees.
Hashimoto describes the exhibition as “an exploration of the West’s magnetic draw”.
“This exhibition explores the appeal of the West Coast through the optics of contemporary art,” said Hashimoto. “From painting to drawing to photography to sculpture, the Left Coast has inspired as many artistic mediums and styles as it has historic movements and migrations. It is my hope that this exhibition will inspire viewers, as much as the Best Coast has inspired the many artists, poets, filmmakers, farmers, miners and workers throughout history.”
The online exhibition is available to view here, and a virtual “walk and talk” exploring the gallery will also be available online in mid-June.
Down below are some of the best from the exhibition.
