NextGen 11.0

March 22- May 12 2024

Gibbs Street Gallery

VisArts presents NextGen 11.0, a juried group exhibition that showcases next generation aspiring artists, ages 17 to 27, from the Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC area. The annual exhibition offers young artists who have little to no exhibition record the opportunity to bring their work to a wider audience.

The exhibition is planned and realized by a team of Galleries department interns with mentorship from staff.

This year’s NextGen jurors are:

Naoco Wowsugi 

Naoco Wowsugi is a community-engaged artist who lives and works in Washington, DC. Wowsugi’s cross-disciplinary projects range from portrait photography, participatory performance, and collective healing, to horticulture, exploring the nature of belonging and inclusive community building while they highlight and fortify everyday communal and interpersonal identities. Wowsugi’s art practice blurs the lines between being an artist and an engaged citizen. (www.wowsugi.com and @wowsugi)

José Ruiz

José Ruiz is a Peruvian-born curator working between Baltimore, Washington DC, and New York. He is the Director of the MFA in Curatorial Practice program at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) as well as full-time faculty. His projects have been exhibited in most major American cities and internationally in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. As an independent curator, Ruiz has produced exhibitions for the Bronx Museum of the Arts, El Museo de Arte de El Salvador, Incheon Biennial, School 33 Art Center, and Queens Museum, to name a few. In New York, he is a partner and co-director of Present Co.—a Brooklyn-based gallery. His practice has been the subject of various publications, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, ARTnews, Arte Al Dia, Artnet, and The Washington Post. He received an MFA in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute and a BA in Painting and Latin American Studies from University of Maryland.

NextGen 11.0 Artists