Current Exhibitions
Temporary Exhibitions
Woody De Othello: coming forth by day
August 12–December 5, 2026
This solo exhibition, originated by Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), features a new series of works by the Oakland artist that explore the primordial relationship between body, earth and spirit. Othello honors an important Northern California lineage of ceramic artists and expands that tradition by drawing on knowledge and philosophies from around the world through a decolonial lens. Using material experimentation and sculptural gesture, the exhibition considers how objects carry history, absorb meaning and serve as vessels for both spiritual and emotional experience. The exhibition features a new bronze sculpture created specifically for UC Davis. The Manetti Shrem Museum is the only California venue for coming forth by day.
Woody De Othello: coming forth by day is organized by PAMM Curator Jennifer Inacio, with the support of PAMM Curatorial Assistant Fabiana A. Sotillo.
The Manetti Shrem Museum presentation is organized by Susie Kantor, associate curator and exhibition department head.
Image: Installation view: Woody De Othello: coming forth by day, Pérez Art Museum Miami, 2025–26. Photo: Oriol Tarridas
Download: Manetti Shrem Museum Opens Fall Season with Exhibitions Tracing Northern California’s Rich Art History (August 10, 2026)
Out of Line: Art at the Edge
August 12–December 5, 2026
What happens when the artist’s studio spills out into the world? And when the world necessarily makes its way into the studio? In the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, as political and cultural upheavals reverberated across the country, artists at UC Davis navigated these questions. Bruce Nauman (M.A. ’66) taped a square on the ground of his studio and filmed himself walking around the perimeter during the winter of 1967-68. This exhibition takes his square as a formal provocation to investigate the boundaries of the artist studio, specifically drawing on Nauman’s deployment of the perimeter as a site of activity. Mike Henderson, Ester Hernandez, Malaquías Montoya, Bruce Nauman, Nancy Rubins, Dorothy Wiley and the student artists of UC Davis’ Third World Forum engage with film, print and performance — cheap, accessible mediums that allowed for experimentation, iteration and easy dissemination. Through these frameworks, Out of Line challenges the arbitrary line that declares certain practices “artistic” and others “political.”
Curated by Ginny Duncan, assistant curator, and Grace Xiao, curatorial assistant.
Image: Bruce Nauman, Dance or Exercise on the Perimeter of a Square (Square Dance), 1967–68. Black-and-white video with sound, transferred from 16 mm film, 8:24 min. Courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York. © 2026 Bruce Nauman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Ongoing Exhibition
Together Again, 1960-2026: Perspectives from UC Davis’ Fine Arts Collection
September 23, 2026–Ongoing
Featuring important new additions to the university’s Fine Arts Collection, Together Again inaugurates the Manetti Shrem Museum’s ongoing collection galleries. This exhibition highlighting the collection will be on long-term view, accompanied by temporary exhibitions each fall and winter.
The ongoing collection galleries trace a history of art forged from this place. By focusing on relationships of many kinds, this presentation proposes that in order to understand an artwork in all its fullness, chance encounters and long-standing friendships often matter as much as formal affiliations. UC Davis legends such as Wayne Thiebaud, Deborah Butterfield and Bruce Nauman are exhibited alongside important regional voices that were once overlooked, and the exhibition extends to the artists shaping Northern California today, including Sadie Barnette, Woody De Othello, Kota Ezawa and Ruby Neri.
Together Again builds bridges between who we were and who we are becoming at UC Davis, and affirms the Manetti Shrem Museum as home to the complex story of Northern California art — rich in legacy and always in the process of becoming.
Curated by Founding Director Rachel Teagle, with collection research and development by past guest curators Sampada Aranke, Ph.D. ’13; associate professor, Ohio State University; Carlos Jackson, M.F.A. ’03; dean, Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design; University of Michigan; and Susette Min, associate professor, UC Davis
Images, left to right: Manuel Neri, Prietas Series III, 1993. Plaster, dry pigment/water, steel, wood and Styrofoam core, 58 3/4 x 13 1/2 x 17 1/4 in. The Fine Arts Collection, Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, University of California, Davis. Gift of the Wayne Thiebaud Foundation.
Ruby Neri, Woman Reclining in Landscape, 2023. Glazed ceramic, 44 1/2 x 22 x 19 in. The Fine Arts Collection, Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, University of California, Davis. Museum Purchase provided by the Maria Manetti Shrem Acquisition Fund. Courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery.
Upcoming Exhibitions
The Gift of Fashion
From the Maria Manetti Shrem Haute Couture Collection
October 14, 2026–January 31, 2027
The Gift of Fashion: From the Maria Manetti Shrem Haute Couture Collection showcases the art of Italian design through seven couture gowns and 16 pieces of jewelry by Roberto Capucci, Dolce & Gabbana, and Bulgari. These intricately designed, one-of-a-kind couture creations illustrate the intersection of aesthetics and functionality and tell the story of philanthropist and fashion icon Maria Manetti Shrem.
This exhibition is organized by the Maria Manetti Shrem Institute for Sustainable Design, Fashion and Textiles, and Guest Curated by Professor Tim McNeil and Maev Dunning, Graduate Student, Department of Design, UC Davis.
Image: Preliminary rendering of The Gift of Fashion exhibition by senior undergraduate design major Madison Liang.
Kota Ezawa: long story short
January–May 2027
Kota Ezawa is an Oakland-based artist who visually transforms imagery mined from news media, photography, film, popular culture and the history of art. The artist’s first career survey, this exhibition spans 20 years of art making across video, projection, CRT monitors, slide projectors, 16mm film and lightboxes, as well as public art. Ezawa will create a new animation for the exhibition: Acts of Painting, which draws from biographical films about painters that show artists working in the studio. Bringing together Ezawa’s signature watercolor and digital animations in one work, it will be his most ambitious project to date. This survey serves as the Manetti Shrem Museum’s signature exhibition for the inaugural Further Triennial, a region-wide celebration of art across Northern California.
Curated by Susie Kantor, associate curator and exhibition department head
Image: Kota Ezawa, Vector drawing based on scene from Jo no mai (1984), directed by Sadao Nakajima, 2025. Courtesy of the artist.
California Dreaming
Fall 2027
Palazzo Strozzi presents California Dreaming, a major exhibition dedicated to California through works by artists from the 1960s to the present day. The exhibition, organized with the Jan Shrem and Maria Momeni Shrem Museum of Art in Davis, CA, explores the appeal and contradictions of a place that has become a symbol of modernity and success, poised between myth and reality, utopia and disillusionment. The project creates an intergenerational dialogue between historic figures and contemporary voices, bringing together artists who were born or have worked in California, or whose practice is deeply connected to its cultural context. David Hockney, James Turrell, Judy Chicago, John Baldessari, Ed Ruscha, Mike Kelley and Catherine Opie are presented in dialogue with leading figures from the contemporary art scene, including Sadie Barnette, Alex Israel, Patrick Martinez, Lauren Halsey and Refik Anadol.
Read more about California Dreaming on the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi website.
California Dreaming (March 20–July 25, 2027) is promoted and organized by Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, with the Jan and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art Davis, CA, that will be a second venue of the show in fall 2027. The exhibition in Florence is curated by Arturo Galansino, Director General of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, while in Davis, California, it will be curated by Susie Kantor, Associate Curator.