The Manhattan Beach Art Center (MBAC) on Friday will debut "Ritual" – a group ceramics exhibition featuring works by renowned artists Alex Anderson, Charly Blackburn, Anabel Juarez, Henry Kim, Charles Snowden, and Claudia Solorzano. Through clay and process-based practices, the exhibition explores how ritual shapes identity, memory, and belonging.

The art center will offer a special opening reception, free and open to the public, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. on Friday evening. 

In Ritual, acts of making become sites where identity is negotiated and belonging is formed. The exhibition focuses on ceramics because it is an inherently ritualized medium. Clay is gathered, shaped, fired, broken, and repaired. These cycles mirror the ways identity is formed: through inheritance and adaptation, memory and reinvention. For the artists in Ritual, working with clay becomes a means of accessing embodied knowledge—knowledge carried through the hands, the body, and the collective histories embedded in material practices.

The works reflect diverse approaches to ritual: ancestral and domestic, spiritual and social, aesthetic and political. The artists examine rituals of beauty, power, labor, extraction, and representation. Together, they reveal how ritual operates as a structure of belonging—one that can affirm community, reveal boundaries, and reimagine connection.

As part of the exhibition, MBAC’s Education Space will be transformed into a contemporary tea room inspired by Japanese tea ceremonies. Presented in collaboration with Zakka Bakka Shop and TEA TEA TEA, the installation brings together traditional objects and handcrafted ceramic elements to create a reimagined environment for reflection and gathering. During the opening reception, tea master Shingo Murayama will activate the space through tea offerings, inviting visitors to experience ritual as a shared and embodied practice.

“Ritual” will be on view at the Manhattan Beach Art Center (1560 Manhattan Beach Boulevard, Manhattan