Stephanie Syjuco (born 1974, in Manila, Philippines), is a Filipino-born American conceptual artist and educator. She works in photography, sculpture, and installation art. Born in the Philippines, she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1977. She lives in Oakland, California, and teaches art at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

Education

Stephanie Syjuco received a BFA degree in sculpture from the

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a Private college, private art school, college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mis ...

in 1995; she studied at the Skowhegen School of Painting and Sculpture (1997); and received a MFA degree from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

in 2005.

Career

Syjuco works in photography, sculpture, and installation, moving from handmade and craft-inspired mediums to digital editing and archive excavations. Her projects leverage open-source systems, shareware logic, and flows of capital, in order to investigate issues of economies and empire. Recently, she has focused on how photography and image-based processes are implicated in the construction of racialized, exclusionary narratives of American history and citizenship. Her early artwork explored the friction between the authentic and the counterfeit, addressing political concerns regarding issues of labor and economies within the capitalist system. In 2009 she created ''Copystand: An autonomous manufacturing zone'' for the

Frieze Art Fair Frieze Art Fair is an annual contemporary art, contemporary art festival, art fair first held in 2003 in London's Regent's Park. Developed by the founders of the contemporary art magazine ''Frieze (magazine), Frieze'', the fair has since expan ...

in London.

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

notes: "Other artists, meanwhile, are openly toying with the fair's changing economics... San Francisco-based artist Stephanie Syjuco and several of her artist friends are making copycat versions of their favorite fair pieces, which she is selling at "heavily discounted" prices ranging from roughly $30 to $750." A long-time educator, she is an Associate Professor in Sculpture in the Art Practice Department at the University of California Berkeley, having joined the department in 2013. Prior to being at Berkeley, she was a visiting lecturer at numerous art programs, including The California College of the Arts,

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University in Oakland, California is part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was relocated to Oakland in ...

, and

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

. She is represented by Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco, RYAN LEE Gallery in New York, and Silverlens Gallery, Manila. Her work is in the collection of the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

, New York,

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern art, modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art ...

, Di rosa, The Smithsonian American Art Museum and the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

., among others. She is the recipient of a 2014

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

in Visual Arts and a 2009

Joan Mitchell Foundation Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artis ...

Painters and Sculptors Program grant. In 2018, she was featured in the San Francisco Bay Area episode of PBS's Art21: Art in the 21st Century. In 2011 Syjuco made Re-Edition Texts: Heart of Darkness. In September 2019 Syjuco opened a large solo exhibition titled ''Rogue States'' at the

Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis is an art museum for contemporary art, located in St. Louis, Missouri. Known informally as the CAM St. Louis, the museum is located at 3750 Washington Boulevard in the Grand Center Arts District. The build ...

. In 2024 Syjuco opened ''After/Images'', a large-scale exhibit with an focus on photography and videography of Filipinos to showcase the impacts of colonialism through the framing and existence of the visual medium.

Exhibitions

Exhibitions include a show at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, "Being: New Photography" at the

, New York, "Public Knowledge," at the

, ''Disrupting Craft: The Renwick Invitational'' (2018-2019) at the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM; formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's lar ...

, and This site is under Revolution the

Moscow Museum of Modern Art The Moscow Museum of Modern Art () is a museum of modern and contemporary art located in Moscow, Russia. It was opened to public in December 1999. The project of the museum was initiated and executed by Zurab Tsereteli, president of the Russia ...

. * 2024 ''Stephanie Syjuco: After/Images'', Frye Art Museum, Seattle, Washington * 2024 ''Dodge + Burn'', Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, California * 2023 ''Recent Acquisitions: Stephanie Syjuco'', Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio * 2017 ''CITIZENS'', Ryan Lee Gallery, New York, New York * 2016 ''Neutral Calibration Studies (Ornament + Crime)'', Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, California * 2013 ''RAIDERS Redux'', Catharine Clark Gallery Project Space, New York, New York * 2011 Currents Series: Stephanie Syjuco: Pattern Migration, Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio * 2011 ''RAIDERS'', Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, California * 2010 ''notMOMA'', Washington State University, Pullman, Washington * 2009 ''1969'', PS1, New York * 2009 ''Unsolicited Fabrications'', Pallas Contemporary Projects with 126 Artist-run Gallery, Dublin, Ireland * 2008 Perspectives Series 164: Total Fabrications, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Texas

Bibliography

*Syjuco, Stephanie. ''Stephanie Syjuco: The Unruly Archives''. 2024 *See, Sarita E. ''The Filipino primitive : accumulation and resistance in the American museum''. New York: New York University Press, 2017. *Hart, Dakin, and Jenny Dixon. ''Museum of stones : ancient and contemporary art at the Noguchi Museum''. New York London: The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum in association with D Giles Limited, 2016. *Syjuco, Stephanie. ''Comparative Morphologies: Complete Variations''. 2008. *Syjuco, Stephanie. ''Misproductions: Stephanie Syjuco.'' 2006. *Johnstone, Mark, and Leslie Holzman. ''Epicenter : San Francisco Bay area art now''. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2002.

Notes

External links

Stephanie Syjuco's websiteStephanie Syjuco in "San Francisco Bay Area"

Art21 Founded in 1997, Art21 is a nonprofit organization that produces documentary films about contemporary artists from across the globe. It produces three film series: "Art in the Twenty-First Century" on PBS, "New York Close Up," and "Extended Play." ...

Interview with Stephanie Syjuco
MoMA Audio: Being: New Photography 2018
Counterfeit Crochet ProjectStephanie Syjuco
SPARK episode

at th
Columbus Museum of Art
curated by Lisa Dent, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art
Reframed: Artists Seeking Social Change Bring the Public into the Picture
KQED video
‘Alien She’ Exhibit Explores the Connection Between Punk Rock and Fine Art
KQED article
Stephanie Syjuco artist talk: “Patterned Migration” at Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland, June 12, 2014
{{DEFAULTSORT:Syjuco, Stephanie American conceptual artists Women conceptual artists San Francisco Art Institute alumni 1974 births Living people American contemporary artists Artists from the San Francisco Bay Area 21st-century American women artists 21st-century American artists Filipino contemporary artists Filipino photographers Stanford University alumni American artists of Filipino descent in California