The Fourth Annual Altoids Curiously Strong Collection (Recent Acquisitions)

The newest installation of the Altoids Curiously Strong Collection included work by Jesse Bransford, Trisha Donnelly, Sam Easterson, John Espinosa, Barnaby Furnas, Luis Gispert, Erik Hanson, Yun-Fei Ji, Brad Kahlhamer, Katrina Moorhead, Dave Muller, Shane O’Cadja Nash, Dread Scott, Ben Snead, Shirley Tse, Torbjorn Vejvi, Courtney Walker, Dan Webb, John Williams, and Amir Zaki.

Started in 1998, the Altoids Curiously Strong Collection of contemporary art is a showcase for some of the most talented emerging visual artists working in America today. The Collection was comprised of works in all media, including photography, video, mixed media, sculpture, painting, and digital art. Each year, Altoids engages the expertise of a selection committee comprised of prominent artists, critics, curators and gallerists and challenges them to select artists who represent some of the most “curious,” “strong” and “original” artwork being created today. Only emerging visual artists working in America were eligible for the collection, and no piece of submitted artwork could exceed $2,500 in value. The traveling exhibition was comprised of the twenty pieces that were chosen from a pool of one hundred nominated works. The premiere viewing of these works is held each year at the New Museum in New York, to which the entire Altoids Collection has been gifted, and then traveled to selected locations across the United States. In addition to bringing attention and recognition to the featured artists, the selected works themselves represented the diversity of artistic production today and embodied notable recent trends in contemporary art, among them a renewed interest in architecture and design, an increasing critical attention to sound-based works in the visual arts, and the use of unconventional or surprising materials.

This exhibition was part of the 2002 Los Angeles Arts Open House, coordinated by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission with support by the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department. This day of free events was part of Arts Day in California.