Views and Voices: Personal Perspectives on the Collection

At a time of distance, this new audio series is designed to bring you closer to the individual people behind BAMPFA and individual works from our art and film collections. We’ve invited staff and students with ties to BAMPFA to select a favorite piece and talk about what makes it compelling or important to them. Our curators, educators, projectionists, publicist, and others will offer perspectives that vary according to their professional roles and personal affinities. We hope these individual commentaries will eventually add up to a collection of their own.

Jamie Danis on Fred Wilson’s Wanderer

Jamie Danis offers timely insights into Fred Wilson’s powerful and provocative artwork titled Wanderer (2003). Danis received her BA in the history of art from UC Berkeley, where she was the departmental valedictorian of her class. She begins graduate work at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, this fall.

Fred Wilson: Wanderer, 2003; painted wood and printed paper; 54 1/2 x 15 1/4 x 22 3/4 in.; University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; purchase made possible by the Acquisitions Committee Fund, General Acquisitions Fund, and Norma H. Schlesinger, Andrew and Paul Spiegel Fund. 2004.7.

Lynne Kimura on the Bodhisattva Manjusri

Lynne Kimura, Carmel and Howard Friesen Collections Engagement Associate and Academic Liaison, offers a thoughtful and informative look at a beautiful thirteenth-century Chinese painting of the bodhisattva Manjusri. She shares her experiences discussing the image—its iconography and materiality—with UC Berkeley classes.

Attributed to Zhang Sigong: Bodhisattva (Monju Bosatsu); c. 13th century; hanging scroll: ink and colors on silk; 46 x 21 1/4 in.; gift of Dr. Eugene C. Gaenslen, Jr. 

Sherry Goodman on Ad Reinhardt’s Abstract Painting

Sherry Goodman, BAMPFA director of education and academic relations, provides a personal view of the museum’s monumental all-black painting by Ad Reinhardt, including her experience looking at it together with UC Berkeley students and its relevance for the current time.

Ad Reinhardt: Abstract Painting, 1960–65; oil on canvas; 60 x 60 1/4 in.; BAMPFA, gift of Ad Reinhardt.