Crates of art lined up in the gallery for installation.

Upcoming Exhibitions

Abstract painting by Salvador Dali.
Salvador Dalí, Les désirs inassouvis (Unsatisfied Desires), 1928, oil, sand, and seashells on board; 30 x 24 1/2 in. (76.2 x 62.23 cm). The Fine Arts Collection, Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, University of California, Davis. Fractional gift to the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem. © 2024 Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Artists Rights Society. Photograph: Ben Blackwell.

Light into Density:
Abstract Encounters 1920s–1960s
From the Collection of Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem

 

Start with dedicated art lovers and philanthropists Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem. Add 15 works from their collection by world-renowned artists — including Salvador Dalí, Vassily Kandinsky, Joan Miró and Francis Bacon. Top off with 30 UC Davis undergraduate and graduate students studying studio art, art history and design. Result: A unique exhibition entirely curated and designed by students. The profound and exhilarating works in the exhibition, most on public view for the first time in decades, invite visitors to encounter the deeply personal nature of abstraction and to create their own interpretations.

 

Curated by students in the Fall 2023 Exhibition Practicum course led by Assistant Professor Alexandra Sofroniew and designed by students in the Winter 2024 Exhibition Design course led by Professor Timothy McNeil and Associate Professor Brett Snyder.

On view September 19, 2024–May 5, 2025

Snake like sculpture with hands on the ends by Cathy Lu
Cathy Lu, Nuwa (Rainbow), 2023. Porcelain with PVD (physical vapor deposition), 48 x 36 x 26 in. © Cathy Lu. Photo: John Michael Kohler Arts Center.

Ritual Clay: Cathy Lu, Paz G, Maryam Yousif

 

Ritual Clay brings together recent ceramic work by Cathy Lu, Paz G and Maryam Yousif. These contemporary Bay Area artists are united by their shared interest in clay as a link to the past and as a conduit of cultural knowledge. They channel ancient archetypes and spiritual mythologies as a way to reckon with inherited histories. For each of them, there is power in clay’s iconographic as well as ritualistic past that opens a path for exploration of their own origin stories.

Curated by Ginny Duncan, curatorial assistant

On view September 19–December 29, 2024