Current & Upcoming Exhibitions

Lee ShinJa: Drawing with Thread

Lee ShinJa: Drawing with Thread is the first North American survey of the work of the historically under-recognized Korean artist Lee ShinJa (b. 1930, Uljin, South Korea; lives and works in Seoul). Spanning more than five decades, from the 1950s to the early 2000s, the exhibition showcases the artist’s bold innovations in fiber through forty monumental textile works, woven maquettes, and preparatory sketches.

Art Wall / Stephanie Syjuco: Present Tense (Roll Call)

Debuting her largest wall installation to date, artist Stephanie Syjuco (b. 1974, Manila, Philippines; lives and works in Oakland) presents Present Tense (Roll Call). Referencing the classroom routine of announcing one’s presence, the exhibition explores radical pedagogy in the politics of education. Syjuco’s practice spans from handcrafted textiles to archival excavations, interrogating how photography and archives shape racialized narratives of being and belonging.

MATRIX 287 / Berenice Olmedo: To ti ên einai

MATRIX 287 / Berenice Olmedo: To ti ên einai is the first museum exhibition in the United States for artist Berenice Olmedo (b. 1987, Oaxaca, Mexico; lives and works in Mexico City). Olmedo’s intimate yet commanding anthropomorphic assemblages with fused prostheses and orthotics urge a reconsideration of standardized expectations of bodies.

Teaching Wall / Panther Meadows and Dangerous Worlds: Contemporary Readings of Asian American Landscapes

Campus Collaborations

Panther Meadows and Dangerous Worlds brings together works on paper by Asian American artists that explore different perceptions of the natural world. The title references both Panther Meadows, the storied California site near Mt. Shasta that inspired Isho’s sketches, and the surreal terrain of Rina Banerjee’s print. Drawn from BAMPFA’s collection, the exhibition is organized in collaboration with the UC Berkeley–Stanford Transpacific/Asian American Art Histories Working Group

MATRIX 288 / Andro Eradze: Shifting Stillness

MATRIX 288 / Andro Eradze: Shifting Stillness brings together a trilogy of films by artist Andro Eradze (b. 1993, Tbilisi, Georgia; lives and works in Tbilisi). Eradze’s mesmerizing films draw from surrealism and magic realism to dissolve distinctions between the real and imagined, alive and inanimate, domestic and wild.

Object Oriented: Abstraction and Design in the BAMPFA Collection

Object Oriented: Abstraction and Design in the BAMPFA Collection explores how artists have represented, reshaped, and reimagined familiar objects, drawing attention to the role of design in our everyday lives

Atrium Projects / Sarah Cain: To—you know—you

Painter Sarah Cain (b. 1979, Albany, New York; lives and works in Los Angeles) presents the site-specific installation To—you know—you. Returning to UC Berkeley, where she received her MFA in 2006, the artist continues her intuitive approach to painting, improvising the installation on-site at the museum.

MATRIX 289 / Zeinab Saleh: Signs of a softer world

For her first solo museum exhibition in the United States, Zeinab Saleh (b. 1996, Nairobi; lives and works in London) debuts a new group of paintings that present a meditative perspective on the everyday. MATRIX 289 / Zeinab Saleh: Signs of a softer world offers a space of respite amidst a world so often filled with confusion and chaos. 

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings is the first retrospective in twenty-five years dedicated to the groundbreaking work of the artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. Gathering over one hundred artworks and archival materials from across her short but prolific career, as well as select loans of works by Cha and other artists, the exhibition highlights the inventive, playful, and meditative methods of Cha’s practice while also situating her work within a constellation of artistic forebearers, peers, and contemporary artists for whom she has long been a lodestar. 

Maren Hassinger: Living Moving Growing

Maren Hassinger: Living Moving Growing will be the most significant retrospective of the work of Maren Hassinger, presenting her work across sculpture, performance, video, and installation from the early 1970s to the present. Hassinger’s work addresses social and cultural issues through an awareness of interconnectedness, ephemerality, and relationships between humans and the natural world. These themes emphasize the importance of caring for the things we share in contrast to the things that divide us. The exhibition will survey Hassinger’s expansive career, making connections across her practice and asserting her dynamic place in the history of contemporary art.