To Exalt the Ephemeral: The (Im)permanent Collection

August 14, 2024–July 6, 2025

To Exalt the Ephemeral: The (Im)permanent Collection draws from BAMPFA’s art and film collections to explore how museums collect, care for, and amplify the work of artists who celebrate ideas of impermanence and cycles of decay and regeneration.

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  • Installation view of To Exalt the Ephemeral: The (Im)Permanent Collection, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2024

  • Installation view of To Exalt the Ephemeral: The (Im)Permanent Collection, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2024

  • Installation view of To Exalt the Ephemeral: The (Im)Permanent Collection, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2024

  • Installation view of To Exalt the Ephemeral: The (Im)Permanent Collection, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2024

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Upcoming Events

  • Selected Wednesday, Sundays, and First Free Thursdays

    Exhibition Tour: To Exalt The Ephemeral

    UC Berkeley graduate students in the English and Critical Theory offer tours of To Exalt The Ephemeral on selected Wednesdays at 12:15 and Sundays at 2:00, and on Free First Thursdays at 1:15.

    BAMPFA

Past Events

  • Sunday, January 12, 3:00 PM

    Social Art: The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends Is the Highest Form of Art with Tom Marioni

    Legendary Bay Area conceptual artist Tom Marioni, whose work is featured in To Exalt the Ephemeral, introduces his book Social Art, an updated consideration of his ongoing and best-known work, the performance installation The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends Is the Highest Form of Art.

    BAMPFA
  • Saturday, December 14, 11:30 AM–1:00 PM

    Gallery+Studio / Sculpting Light and Space

    Inspired by Robert Irwin’s Untitled, work with light, shadows, color, and space to make an experimental sculpture that changes according to its surrounding conditions.

    BAMPFA

    For ages 6–12 with accompanying adult(s)

  • Sunday, December 8, 1:00 PM

    Rubber Stamp Postcard Extravaganza

    Come to the Art Lab for a special postcard making extravaganza featuring a vast collection of rubber stamps created by postal artist and rubber stamp designer Leavenworth Jackson.

    BAMPFA
  • Sunday, November 24, 3:00 PM

    Clouds from a Crumbling Giant

    Clouds from a Crumbling Giant is an examination of the life cycle, performed by the physical theater and dance company inkBoat, with guests.

    BAMPFA
  • Thursday, November 21, 1:00 PM

    Tui Na with David Wei

    Tui Na is a standalone medical system that includes acupressure, massage techniques, assisted stretching and joint manipulations. Learn about the techniques of the Wei family dragon claw Tui Na to promote self/shared care from Wei Da Wei, who apprenticed under esteemed Wudang blind bone setting master Du Yi Jun in China.

    BAMPFA
  • Wednesday, November 20, 1:00 PM

    Qi Gong with Eileen Housteau

    Join us for an invigorating qigong experience that blends gentle tranquil movements and inner stillness. Eileen Housteau is a caretaker of the Spiritual Wellness traditions, Wudang Mountains, China.

    BAMPFA
  • Thursday, November 7, 1:15 PM

    Curator's Tour: Tausif Noor on To Exalt the Ephemeral

    Tausif Noor explores how artists have taken up ideas of ephemerality to comment on the nature of memory and acts of memorialization across different media. Noor is BAMPFA Curatorial Associate and cocurator of To Exalt the Ephemeral.

    BAMPFA
  • Saturday, October 12, 11:30 AM–1:00 PM

    Gallery + Studio—Exploring the Ephemeral with Suminagashi

    Learn the fascinating art of Suminagashi, which means “floating ink” in Japanese, and take home your own uniquely patterned sheet of marbled paper.

    BAMPFA

    For ages 6–12 with accompanying adult(s)

  • Saturday, September 28, 3:00 PM

    Poetry Reading: Sophia Dahlin, Forrest Gander, and Noah Ross

    In conjunction with To Exalt the Ephemeral, BAMPFA presents a reading with three Bay Area poets: Sophia Dahlin, Forrest Gander, and Noah Ross. Their works touch on themes of everyday experience, ecological engagement, and queer legacies, and engage with the many facets of the ephemeral.

    BAMPFA

    Programmed by Tausif Noor

  • Thursday, September 5, 1:15 PM

    Curator's Tour: Margot Norton on To Exalt the Ephemeral

    Chief Curator Margot Norton introduces To Exhalt the Ephemeral, discussing key artworks in each thematic section and highlighting the exhibition’s genesis and relation to BAMPFA’s collecting history.

    BAMPFA

Past Films

  • Joan Mitchell: Portrait of an Abstract Painter

    Marion Cajori
    United States, 1993

    New Digital Restoration

    Sunday, December 8 1:30 PM
    Introduced by Meg Partridge

    In Marion Cajori’s elliptical and intimate documentary, Joan Mitchell—the creator of an eloquent vocabulary of abstract gesture, color, and light—speaks about painting and life. Screens with Meg Partridge’s Academy Award–nominated portrait of photographer Imogen Cunningham.

    View Details

  • Gabriel

    Agnes Martin
    United States, 1976
    Sunday, December 15 1:30 PM

    Gabriel, Agnes Martin’s cinematic celebration of freedom, happiness, and the beauty of the natural world, screens with Bruce Conner’s The White Rose, an elegiac ode to painter Jay DeFeo and her monumental masterpiece. 

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  • Eva Hesse

    Marcie Begleiter
    United States, Germany, 2016
    Sunday, December 22 1:30 PM
    Introductions by Margot Norton and Adam Prieto

    Marcie Begleiter’s compelling documentary is an indispensable aid to understanding and appreciating the groundbreaking work of artist Eva Hesse. Screens with Obata’s Yosemite, which reflects on the painter and educator’s life and his relationship with Yosemite’s landscapes. 

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