Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings

January 24–April 19, 2026

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.

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Installation view of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings, January 24–April 19, 2026, at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), Berkeley, CA. Photo by Chris Grunder.
Installation view of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings, January 24–April 19, 2026, at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), Berkeley, CA. Photo by Chris Grunder.
Installation view of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings, January 24–April 19, 2026, at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), Berkeley, CA. Photo by Chris Grunder.
Installation view of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings, January 24–April 19, 2026, at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), Berkeley, CA. Photo by Chris Grunder.
Installation view of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings, January 24–April 19, 2026, at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), Berkeley, CA. Photo by Chris Grunder.
Installation view of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings, January 24–April 19, 2026, at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), Berkeley, CA. Photo by Chris Grunder.
Installation view of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings, January 24–April 19, 2026, at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), Berkeley, CA. Photo by Chris Grunder.

Upcoming
Films
Upcoming
Events
Selected
Objects
Past
Films
Past
Events

Past Events

Wednesday, April 15, 5:30 PM
Dusting Settlements led by Jasper Qiyun Wang

During this gathering-performance and shared viewing of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings, those who choose to participate physically will be asked to kneel, bow, or perform other gestures of prayer as they are able. All others are welcome to observe. Led by Jasper Qiyun Wang.

BAMPFA
Sunday, April 12, 2 PM
Educator’s Tour: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings

For visitors curious about the work of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha and wishing for guidance on the potentially challenging contemporary modes that characterize her practice, BAMPFA Education Director Sherry Goodman offers an exhibition tour that grounds Cha’s artwork in fundamentals of Conceptual art, performance art, and video.

BAMPFA
Saturday, April 4, 1:30 PM
Conversation: Cathy Park Hong, Brandon Shimoda, and Divya Victor

Drawing on the radical generosity of Cha's multidisciplinary practice, authors Brandon Shimoda, Divya Victor, and Cathy Park Hong discuss the lasting impact of Cha’s work, as well as their own approaches to writing in relation to such themes as imperialism, displacement, exile, and subjectivity.

BAMPFA

Presented in partnership with UC Berkeley’s Center for Korean Studies. Community partnership support provided by GYOPO.
Tickets required.
Thursday, March 19, 5 PM
Lecture: Spencer Lee-Lenfield and Kyung-Nyun Kim Richards on Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

In this illustrated presentation, Spencer Lee-Lenfield draws on Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s own artwork and her family history to reconstruct how she understood the forces that shaped her life—and how we might contextualize her work across Korean and overseas Korean history.

BAMPFA

Presented in partnership with UC Berkeley's Center for Korean Studies.
Tickets required.
Ongoing
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Special Print Mailer

Occasioned by the exhibition Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings, BAMPFA’s Art Lab digs into the museum’s Cha archives to create a special edition risograph print mailing.

Sign up by March 1, 2026, to receive a copy of the print mailing (limited edition; first come, first served)
Saturday, February 28, 2–5 PM
Collective Marathon Reading of Dictée

In collaboration with Small Press Traffic, BAMPFA presents a collective marathon reading of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s genre-defying work Dictée (1982) by members of the Bay Area arts community. Audience members are encouraged to participate in this collective and open-ended reading.

BAMPFA

Presented in partnership with Small Press Traffic
Sunday, February 22, 1 PM
Concrete Poetry with Lindsay Choi

In this two-hour generative poetry workshop led by poet Lindsay Choi, discover a selection of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s concrete poetry, artist’s books, and performance pieces, taking inspiration from her work to generate drafts, notes, and other forms of new material.

BAMPFA
Select Wednesdays, Sundays, and Free First Thursdays
Exhibition Tour: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings

Graduate students from the departments of Art History, English, and Ethnic Studies offer tours of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings on select Wednesdays at 12:15 PM, Sundays at 2 PM, and First First Thursdays at 1:15 PM.

BAMPFA
Sunday, February 8, 12:30–3:30 PM
Symposium / Multiple Offerings: New Directions in Research on Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

BAMPFA hosts a symposium that highlights new directions in research on Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, featuring contributions from graduate students and early career researchers and moderated by UC Berkeley faculty and scholars.

BAMPFA

Community partnership support provided by GYOPO
Wednesday, February 4, 12 PM
Curators' Tour: Victoria Sung and Tausif Noor on Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings

Exhibition curators Victoria Sung and Tausif Noor invite visitors to walk through the exhibition together as they underscore the multilingual, multisensory, and multivalent strategies at play across Cha’s oeuvre.

BAMPFA
Sunday, January 25, 11 AM–7 PM
Free Community Day / Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings

Join us for the opening day of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings with free gallery admission for all!

BAMPFA

Free gallery admission all day
Sunday, January 25, 11:30 AM–2 PM
Art Making for All Ages

Drop in and make art in BAMPFA’s Crane Forum space, next to the Art Wall. Materials will be provided.

BAMPFA
Saturday, January 24, 2 PM
시( )nawi( )fugue (an improvisation, an offering, a reading)

Artist Jesse Chun presents the inaugural activation of her new performance series 시( )nawi( )fugue in a collective, improvisational reading that invokes artistic matriarchs and cultivates spiritual kinship across generations.

BAMPFA

Presented in partnership with UC Berkeley's Center for Korean Studies and the Arts Research Center.
Friday, January 23, 11 AM–7 PM
Preview Day / Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings

BAMPFA members and UC Berkeley students, faculty, and staff enjoy early access to the new exhibition Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings.

BAMPFA

For BAMPFA members and UC Berkeley students, faculty, and staff.

Past Films

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings

January 24–April 19, 2026

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 (b. 1951, Busan, South Korea; d. 1982, New York City). Cha produced an expansive range of works across text-based media, video, and performance, including her posthumously published book, Dictée (1982). The artist’s interdisciplinary practice gave shape to the experimental art scenes in San Francisco, New York City, and beyond.

After emigrating from South Korea to the United States, Cha enrolled in 1969 at UC Berkeley, where she studied art practice, comparative literature, and film. Keenly attuned to the active role that audiences play in the creation of meaning, she prioritized nonlinear narratives to allow for more open-ended forms of interpretation—what she termed a method of “Multiple Telling with Multiple Offering.” The retrospective adopts this framework to allow for a range of entry points into Cha’s work, guiding visitors through the themes—memory, displacement, and the mutability of language, among others—that recur in her oeuvre.

Since 1992, owing to a generous gift from the Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Memorial Foundation, BAMPFA has served as the steward of Cha’s art and archives. 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, Multiple Offerings 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.

The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue—the first museum monograph dedicated to the artist in over twenty years.

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Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings is curated by Victoria Sung, Phyllis C. Wattis Senior Curator, with Tausif Noor, Curatorial Associate. This exhibition is made possible through lead support from Teiger Foundation. Major support is provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Korea Foundation, the Shah Garg Women Artists Research Fund, and the R.J. Bertero Family Fund. Additional support is provided by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, Alexandra Bowes, Stephen Cheng, Miyoung Lee, and Robin Wright.

The Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Endowment was established in 2003 to support the Cha Collection and Archives at BAMPFA.

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