Pro Arts Gallery & Commons
Pro Arts is 50 years old nonprofit art organization in Oakland, California. Pro Arts is a 501 (c) (3) charitable organization. Our EIN # is 94-2259269.
Pro Arts supports contemporary artists directly through exhibitions, commissions, residency programs, satellite projects, digital platforms and publications. Annually we present over 200 artists, working in diverse artistic fields, conduct over 700 art education programs for youth, and reach an audience of over 10,000.
21/02/2024
đź’ĄEligibility Information đź’Ą
The Artist Displacement Prevention Grant is a need-based immediate relief grant for artists in Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Francisco counties facing eviction, difficult housing transitions, or homelessness.
Vital Arts prioritizes those who are applying from historically oppressed communities, including but not limited to Black, Indigenous, other people of color, Trans, disabled, and other LGBTQ+ communities.
Applications open Monday 2/26/2024
For questions, please contact [email protected]
19/10/2023
Very exciting!!
Governor Newsom Signs Groundbreaking Law Promoting Affordable Housing for Artists Working in Cultural Districts — Californians for the Arts Governor Newsom Signs Groundbreaking Law Promoting Affordable Housing for Artists Working in Cultural Districts, Helping Set Protections for the State’s Cultural Treasures and Greater Economic Opportunity for Artists .
10/10/2023
This weekend at Omni Commons
06/10/2023
OPENING RECEPTION FOR VĂ„RMEELEMENTENS FĂ–RBUND GOES WEST !
29/08/2023
VĂ„RMEELEMENTENS FĂ–RBUND GOES WEST
Sep 25 - Oct 15, 2023
Barthélémy Garcia has recently created an association called Värmeelementens Förbund --The Radiator Association -- as a platform for his artistic practice. Värmeelementens Förbund is coming for the first time to America where it will invite the local communities of Oakland to explore the possibilities such associations can offer through city walks and conversations.
Hosted by Common Knowledge Platform, Pro Arts’ international artist residency in Oakland, the Association will take on the task of examining our material environment and its impact on our lives. The Association is a symbol, and the radiator stands for the most banal material thing that forms our living environment.
Garcia’s interest lays in material things and this is also what will be at the center of The Radiator Association’s inquiry. His residency will run from September 25 until October 15, 2023 with a public program at Omni Commons, Oakland, California.
Garcia is a is a French born artist based in Sweden. He holds a bachelor and master degree in photography from Valand Academy (Sweden) and previously studied art history and archaeology in Aix-en-Provence (France). His work has been exhibited at Röda Sten Konsthall in Gothenburg, Galleri Format in Malmö, at FG2 in Gothenburg and most recently at Duo Contradiction in Stockholm. In 2020 he was awarded the Swedish Arts Grants Committees assistant grant, together with Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt, and in 2022 he was awarded the IASPIS residency in Stockholm, Sweden.
CKP is a residency for an open knowledge production and exchange in the form of peer-to-peer artist collaborations, commissioned projects in research and print, and collective action through the medium of art and law that embody community ethos and philosophy. the international residency puts artists and cultural organizers at the center of artistic and cultural knowledge production, and as the main instigators of civic and community empowerment.
https://www.proartscommons.org/calendar
Natalia Latchezarova Ivanova Sarah Lockhart Pro Arts Gallery & Commons
14/08/2023
This Thursday evening, Pro Arts re-emerges to present a screening of writer and filmmaker Marisa Holmes' “All Day All Week” a documentary that captures the Occupy Wall Street movement at Zuccotti Park in NYC. In addition, Marisa will be reading excerpts from her NEW BOOK about organizing Occupy Wall Street. The event will be held in the Disco Room at Omni Commons, and is free to the public, though we will be accepting and encouraging donations. Marisa will have copies of her book for sale.
06/07/2023
Coming up next week! If you are in town, check out this amazing installation + performance happening at Dream Farm Commons, one of our former neighbors in downtown Oakland
Art Exhibition & Project Space | Oakland | Dream Farm Commons ​ Dream Farm Commons is a small, artist run exhibition and project space in Downtown Oakland. We are committed to an ongoing engagement with the visual, the poetic, the neighborhood and the future.
22/06/2023
Our Co-Director Natalia Latchezarova Ivanova is in Berlin. You can stream the shenanigans
10/05/2023
We greatly encourage artists and supporters of the arts in Oakland to read this article and communicate with those who can make funding decisions. Mayors' budgets regularly would propose cuts to the Cultural Funding Program and support for the arts ... and as in the past, the community should come together and oppose them.
'Demoralizing’: Oakland arts community let down by mayor’s budget proposal The Cultural Affairs Division accounts for 0.362% of the City of Oakland’s budget.
02/05/2023
One of our fond memories of recent years! Shall we do a second one?
Imagining Post Capitalism Festival Pro Arts Shaping San Francisco Shareable Upstream
30/04/2023
In 2022, after losing our home of 13 years at Oscar Grant Plaza in downtown Oakland, Pro Arts continued to operate without a central location and instead as an umbrella organization for other organizations, projects and collectives, holding space in a decentralized fashion and in the greater community of Oakland.
We are happy to report that as of May 2023, Pro Arts has joined the impressive roster of projects and collectives that are housed under one roof at Omni Commons
24/12/2022
Happy Holidays everyone! Consider supporting Pro Arts' It's Giving Giving fundraising campaign. We are still here. Check out our new website too to find out what's up.
It's Giving Giving, organized by Natalia Ivanova Dear Comrades, In 2022, Pro Arts shifted its operations from holding space to making space, us… Natalia Ivanova needs your support for It's Giving Giving
28/05/2022
It is true. Pro Arts has moved to The Contemporary on Broadway and now holding a space for residency, school, and curatorial work out of this new hub for artistic knowledge production. To create an oral memory mapping project, we ask YOU, our community to say a sentence that embodies your expierence or memory of Pro Arts. We will print select memories at Pro Arts COMMONS Printing Press on rizo and poster the public and community space thus creating a visceral, embodied oral archive of Pro Arts. So, I start: Pro Arts has supported in the past 48 years more than 20,000 artists and cultural workers in the Bay Area and beyond. Post a pic with a tag and tag love love love ❤️ share if you feel inspired
19/05/2022
With the support from the California Arts Council, Pro Arts will produce The Oakland Autonomous Intergalactic Portal (OAIP) to reclaim unused urban space and transform it into a hub for Oakland artists, activists, and community members to gather and collectively imagine a better future. Congrats to artists Rigo 23 and Binta Ayofemi, and curator Roberto Martinez ( Richmond Art Center) and Natalia Ivanova Mount (Pro Arts).
09/05/2022
Dear Family,
Pro Arts has moved to a new location and now holds an office space at “The Contemporary” on Broadway in Oakland, California. After 17 years of holding space in downtown Oakland, on Oscar Grant Plaza, and organizing legendary exhibitions, events, and public art projects, we are packing up light in order to shift from holding space to occupying intellectual property so we can build autonomy, agency, and economic power for artists and cultural workers around the globe.
Moving away from individual and project support and taking a more holistic approach to serving artists’ communities, Pro Arts plans for greater impact through spearheading a distributed network of commons oriented sites, practices, and means of production in Oakland and beyond.
In the next year of operation, Pro Arts will focus staff and organizational resources on building artist communities through dispersing our material and immaterial assets and intellectual resources at strategic sites and in cooperation with strategic partners in Oakland. In addition, we will launch the Teaching Institute for Art & Law with its own DAO as well the Performing Pro Arts COMMONS Fund for Artists and Cultural Workers whose project and educational pedagogy embody the act of commoning intellectual property and artistic content.
Pro Arts will operate exclusively for the development, promotion, expansion, and encouragement of artistic and cultural labor and activities on diverse levels, by creating and administering educational programs in the arts, deepening and strengthening the artistic and cultural life of the various neighborhoods in Oakland, California. Simultaneously, through programs like the Common Knowledge Platform Artist Residency, The Teaching Institute for Art & Law, and the PPAC Incubator for Social Impact Projects, we aim to expand our organizational reach to global networks, stakeholders and patrons of the arts.
02/05/2022
“Quilt Stories” window installation by Feral Fabric at Pro Arts Gallery & COMMONS until end of May 2022. Listen to podcast here: https://anchor.fm/natalia300/episodes/Natalia-Ivanova-live-from-Pro-Arts-Gallery--COMMONS-in-Oakland--CA-with-Feral-Fabric-collective-e1huiec
29/04/2022
Sunday May 1st, 3 to 6pm join us for the closing of window installation at Pro Arts.
17/03/2022
Pro Arts Fundraiser, organized by Natalia Ivanova Mount Hey fam! We need your help! Just as we were gearing up to open up our doors to the public w… Natalia Ivanova Mount needs your support for Pro Arts Fundraiser
17/03/2022
Probability @ Pro Arts, Bodil & Larnie Fox
Probability "Probability" by Bodil and Larnie Fox, Pro Arts Gallery & Commons, Oakland, CA, March 2022. Interactive Sound Sculpture.
Our Story
Pro Arts Gallery & COMMONS is a space for art, debate, experimentation, and collaboration. We are a multi-use space in downtown Oakland, California that houses exhibitions, symposiums, debates, music events, film screenings, literary events, residencies and publications. We are also a global networked community that shares values, as well as material and immaterial resources in the co-creation of ideas and critical engagements with the world. Both on local and global level, we are communizing the practice, production and presentation of art.
Pro Arts began in Oakland in May, 1974 under the name Alameda County Neighborhood Arts Program. An offshoot of the Arts Commission, the Alameda County Neighborhood Arts Program was funded through the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA)​ program and soon after its founding, became a national model for utilizing CETA funds for artists and arts projects. CETA was a federal jobs program that, like the Works Progress Administration (WPA) before it, funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to visual and performing artists. But unlike the WPA, CETA was decentralized; from 1974 to 1981 it was administered by local city and county agencies all over the country. On January 30th of 1981, The Alameda County Neighborhood Arts Program became Pro Arts, after it filled for a change of name. Located at 550 2nd Street in Oakland, the organization continued in its original mission, expanding it to include an exhibition space with a general emphasis on programs and services in support of the visual art field. With its roots in the “alternative arts organization” movement of the 1970s, Pro Arts is still going strong today, serving as the primary venue for experimental, independent visual artists and culture in Oakland.
Pro Arts is a 501 (c) (3) charitable organization. Our EIN # is 94-2259269.
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