Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis

WINTER SEASON NEWS IT’S ON! The Manetti Shrem Museum is excited to announce we will open to the public Thursday, January 27, with three dynamic exhibitions that explore multiple visions of resistance and protest through video, and showcase renowned artists Mary Heilmann and William T. Wiley. From Moment to Movement: Picturing Protest in the Kramlich Collection Mary Heilmann: Squaring Davis William T. Wiley and the Slant Step: All on the Line... Come check them out beginning January 27. The museum’s winter/spring public hours are 11 a.m.6 p.m. Monday, Thursday and Friday, and 10 a.m.5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Timed tickets are recommended; visit our website for more information about planning your visit. https://manettishremmuseum.ucdavis.edu/visitor-toolkit Image by Karin Higgins / UC Davis.

Repost from @manettishrem Curator at Large @dannadel: From chilly NYC I'm opening two exhibitions in warm(er) Davis, CA at the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, UC Davis: 1) William T. Wiley and the Slant Step: All on the Line looks at Wiley from 1962 to 1969 with a special focus on the step, and including a new one by Bruce Nauman. ... 2) Mary Heilmann: Squaring Davis remembers Mary's studies with Bill Wiley at Davis in 1966, includes her funky sculptures and later paintings made thinking about that place and time. Both shows on view Jan. 27May 8, 2022. Here are some snapshots from along the way. It was an honor bringing these two together again. More pictures to come when I get 'em. For now, images are: Nauman & Wiley; Heilmann; Wiley; Heilmann; Mary and Bill, December 2019. Thanks to all.

The Manetti Shrem Museum reopens Thursday, January 27. Free, timed tickets are recommended and available to book online, so reserve your spot now! Unfortunately, the January 30 public Winter Season Celebration has been canceled due to health and safety concerns. We’re open 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday, Thursday and Friday, and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Walk-up visitors are welcome based on capacity.... Experience three dynamic new exhibitions that showcase early works from renowned artists William T. Wiley and Mary Heilmann, and film and video installations by groundbreaking new media artists Shiva Ahmadi, Dara Birnbaum, Kota Ezawa, Theaster Gates, Nalini Malani and Mikhael Subotzky. Visit our website’s visitor toolkit to learn more about safety protocols, book your ticket and plan your visit: https://manettishremmuseum.ucdavis.edu/tickets

We're beyond thrilled to be included in ARTnews' list of the 25 Best Museum Buildings of the Past 100 Years: "This list collects some of the most important museum buildings of the past 100 years. It includes influential modernist experiments and polarizing postmodern expansions, architectural oddities and beloved additions, circular museums and glassed-in pyramids. These structures proposed strange, new possibilities for how a museum ought to lookand, in some cases, changed the cultural landscape altogether."

We’re hiring! The Manetti Shrem Museum is seeking an Executive Analyst, a dynamic and experienced individual to provide high level planning and communication support to the leadership team. The successful candidate will possess excellent interpersonal communication skills graciously exercised with everyone from student visitors to the highest-level donor alike. The ability to navigate a complex and diverse roster of projects, and to communicate clearly about them, is the key ...to success in this position. This is a job for people who appreciate a workplace where every day brings new opportunities to learn! The deadline to apply is Feb. 13, 2022. Learn more and apply at UC Davis Jobs, job #29745: https://www.hr.ucdavis.edu/careers The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer advancing inclusive excellence. Manetti Shrem Museum’s DEAI Mission: We make an ongoing commitment to confront systemic racism in the Manetti Shrem Museum's culture and practices by understanding the fraught history of museums and breaking down barriers to diversity, equity, accessibility and inclusion.

New exhibitions opening Thursday, January 27. Book your free, timed tickets now at https://manettishremmuseum.ucdavis.edu/tickets

Rounding out the museum’s winter 2022 season lineup is William T. Wiley and the Slant Step: All on the Line, opening Thursday, January 27. From 1962 to 1969, while teaching at UC Davis, William T. Wiley developed a complex methodology and compound symbol language to explore philosophical, environmental and psychological questions working with all available media. This exhibition gathers key works from this era, including the original Slant Step. The peculiar wooden step, ...covered in worn green linoleum and purchased at a Marin County salvage shop, epitomized Wiley’s outlook on art and jump-started conceptual art in Northern California. See many of the Slant Steps created by Wiley and Nauman as part of 1965-66 Slant Step Project, gathered for the first time. All on the Line also debuts a brand-new digital Slant Step work by Nauman in which he considers the Slant Step as a subject and muse once again and invites visitors to explore it as well. William T. Wiley and the Slant Step: All on the Line will be on view January 27May 8, 2022. The museum’s winter/spring public hours are 11 a.m.6 p.m. Monday, Thursday and Friday, and 10 a.m.5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Visit https://manettishremmuseum.ucdavis.edu/ for more information. Image credit: William T. Wiley, Reflections on Egypt, 1964. Oil on Masonite, 28 x 28 in. Private collection, courtesy Parker Gallery, Los Angeles. William T. Wiley.

The UC Davis community continues to remember and honor the legacy of Wayne Thiebaud, whose 42 years at UC Davis and contributions as artist and teacher helped to shape the university.

WINTER SEASON UPDATE: The Manetti Shrem Museum is not able to reopen January 8 as planned. We are temporarily closed to the public as part of UC Davis’ efforts to prioritize the health and safety of our students, faculty and staff, and the community at large. We look forward to welcoming you back, and are excited to share our incredible new exhibitions with you as soon as it’s safe to do so. Check our website, https://manettishremmuseum.ucdavis.edu/, for updates and news ab...out our plans to reopen. Image: Iwan Baan

An exhibition this spring at the university’s Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art demonstrated the breadth of his influence as an educator, featuring work by Andrea Bowers, Bruce Nauman, Robert Colescott, Alex Israel, and Jonas Wood, among others," writes Artnet in this obituary. Andrea Bowers also talks about his influence.

Manetti Shrem Museum Founding Director spoke with Insight's Vicki Gonzalez today about the impact of Wayne Thiebaud as a teacher as well as an artist, and parallels with Joan Didion.

"Thiebaud’s work is universal," writes Jerry Saltz. "His hallucinatory surfaces, uncanny perceptual intelligence, thick buildups of rich color, hard light, luminosity, tonal control, and Hopperesque remove create eye-worms that make you meld with the paintings, participate in how they were made."

Art, science and dance come together Saturday, Dec. 5, in The Vortex, performed by Donna Sternberg & Dancers in a special online presentation by Mondavi Center’s HomeStage. The work is based on visual artist Meredith Tromble’s Dream Vortex, a virtual, interactive 3-D installation based on the dreams of researchers, and brings to life the emotional impact of scientists’ stories, through dance, spoken word and video. Tromble and choreographer Donna Sternberg developed it a...long with geobiologist Dawn Sumner when they were participating in the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. 7:30 p.m. PST Saturday, Dec. 5. On Zoom; visit mondaviarts.org to register. A live virtual question and answer session with the artists will take place following the performance, moderated by UC Davis Professors Margaret Laurena Kemp and Dawn Sumner. The Vortex is presented in conjunction with the SHAPE course Transforming Exclusion to Expression: Gender and Race in Climate Science.

Congratulations to Manetti Shrem Museum Curator-at-Large Dan Nadel, whose book Peter Saul: Professional Artist Correspondence, 19451976 (Bad Dimension Press; 272 pages), was selected as one of the best art books of 2020 by New York Times co-chief art critic Roberta Smith. It’s available at Artbook.com, Bookshop.org and Amazon.com. Nadel curated Kathy Butterly: ColorForm and Landscape Without Boundaries.

Films can inspire us to take action and make a difference in our communities. Screening from November 1224, this year’s Human Rights Film Festival, presented by the UC Davis Humanities Institute, brings you five films that bear powerful witness to local and global human rights issues. Q&A sessions with filmmakers and scholars are from 5:10-6 p.m. November 16-20. The remote festival is co-sponsored by Human Rights Studies, the Manetti Shrem Museum, and Human Rights Watch Film... Festival. What film has moved you recently? To register and purchase livestream access or a festival pass, visit https://dhi.ucdavis.edu/human-rights-film-festival. . #ManettiShremMuseum #UCDavis #HumanRights #FilmFestival #BringingTheConversationToYou #FreeForAll

Halloween is going to look pretty different this year. But whether you’re watching spooky movies over Zoom, decorating your space, or carving pumpkins with members of your household, the Manetti Shrem Museum wants to treat you to some virtual Halloween hijinks. In 2018, the museum participated in When You Work at a Museum’s Museum Dance Off. Celebrating the Wayne Thiebaud: 1958-1968 exhibition with Def Leppard and some sweet costumes, the the hard-rocking, art-loving staff ...placed in the final two in the USA Museum Showdown. Check out our dance-off video. We wish you a happy and safe Halloween! https://youtu.be/Yv-wqfbLqbg

As turkeys continue to roam UC Davis’ Gateway District, including their regular stops at the Manetti Shrem Museum, we wish you a safe and abundant Thanksgiving. The team has been busy inside with the seasonal gallery turnover, which you can read more about at our new Exhibition in Progress website (link in bio). Meanwhile, as we holiday in place this year, catch up with our exciting Fall 2020 webinars, including visual artist LaToya Ruby Frazier, the Young, Gifted and Black... team, and Wayne Thiebaud Influencer: A New Generation co-curators Rachel Teagle and Susie Kantor. They’re available for viewing on our video page: https://manettishremmuseum.ucdavis.edu/msm-vide This year in particular, we’re thankful for our museum familyfor all of you who are tracking our progress, cheering us on and offering support in so many ways. The turkeys are back on campus eagerly awaiting the day that people will appear in the lobby windows once again. . . . #ManettiShremMuseum #ManettiShremMuseumAtHome

On Dec. 12, curator Rita Gonzalez will give a virtual talk as part of Art Studio’s Visiting Artist Lecture Series, organized by the Department of Art and Art History. As the Terri and Michael Smooke Curator and head of Contemporary Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gonzalez has curated Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano Movement; Asco: Elite of the Obscure; Lost Line: Contemporary Art from the Collection; Agnés Varda in Californialand; In Production: Art and ...the Studio System, and Christian Marclay: Sound Stories, among other exhibitions and programs. Gonzalez also curated L.A. Exuberance: New Gifts by Artists, an exhibition that featured 60 gifts and marked the culmination of LACMA’s 50th anniversary year. 4:30-6 p.m. PST Thursday, Dec. 10. Zoom link: https://ucdavis.zoom.us//register/WN_Z43UfO8VQ8uNzcOQfYLcVw Co-sponsored by the UC Davis College of Letters and Science and the Manetti Shrem Museum.

We’re excited to be involved with this year’s Black Fall Welcome tomorrow night and hope to see lots of new Aggies there!

Sign up and join us, friends ...

Wayne Thiebaud reflects on 100 years, current projects, his favorite kind of pie, and why "paintings are not made to be exciting."

It’s almost here! In just nine days, author, playwright, poet and multimedia artist Claudia Rankine visits UC Davis for a lecture and reading of her new book, Just Us: An American Conversation. In a series of mixed-media essays weaving together image and text, Rankine explores the liminal space airplanes, dinner parties, and the internetwhere presumed neutrality gives way to American culture’s overwhelming whiteness. The reading is organized by Professor Allison Coudert..., Paul A. and Marie Castelfranco Chair in the History of Religion; Professor Katie Peterson, director of the Creative Writing Program; and the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum, with 23 UC Davis co-sponsors. Just Us: An American Conversation takes place on November 4, 4 PM PST, on Zoom. Register at manettishrem.org or Zoom registration: https://ucdavis.zoom.us//register/WN_quKuhrwnTxqWUcEx3MMruw

If an American photo league like the one-time New York photography cooperative that arose in the first half of the 20th century ever emerges anew, one can look to the art, ideas and mission of LaToya Ruby Frazier. Read more about Frazier's recent talk in this terrific piece by Michelle Villagomez in the UC Davis Arts Blog.

Celebrate one of fall’s most buzzworthy art books at an intimate online event Oct. 29. New York art collector Bernard Lumpkin, writer Antwaun Sargent and curator and artist Matt Wycoff join Manetti Shrem Associate Curator Susie Kantor for a conversation about Young, Gifted and Black: A New Generation. The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art. The 250-page book, which draws from Lumpkin’s collection and the traveling group exhibition, sheds new light on wo...rks by contemporary artists of African descent and connections to their predecessors. We’re living in a world where Black artists are increasingly driving the conversation visually, Sargent told New York magazine in August. What we have to remember is that before this moment there were people like Bernard, like Thelma Golden, and other curators and writers who really believed in this work. That requires a level of belief in the power of Black art, in the power of it to represent a community, to push back against stereotypes and racism, and to provide an intervention into the Western art historical canon. The exhibition Young, Gifted and Black, which opened earlier this year and was scheduled to travel to the Manetti Shrem over the summer, has been rescheduled at the museum for 2022. Credits: 1) Book cover 2) Antwaun Sargent, Bernard Lumpkin and Matt Wycoff at Lehman College in February 3) L-R: Sargent, D’Angelo Lovell Williams, Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Sable Elyse Smith and Lumpkin in March. Photos: BFA 4:30-6 p.m. PDT, Oct. 29, on Zoom. Register at https://ucdavis.zoom.us//register/WN_y0J0PtkwTx2K1V0HQi96rA

Conversation and Book Launch: "Young, Gifted and Black: A New Generation of Artists. The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art" Thursday, October 29 4:30-6 PM PDT On Zoom... Celebrate one of fall’s most buzzworthy art books at an exclusive online event Oct. 29. New York art collector Bernard Lumpkin (pictured right), writer Antwaun Sargent (pictured left) and curator Matt Wycoff join Manetti Shrem Associate Curator Susie Kantor for a conversation about Young, Gifted and Black: A New Generation: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art. For more information and to register online visit: https://manettishremmuseum.ucdavis.edu/programs#ygbbook

For thousands of years, the land on which our campus is located has been the home of Patwin people. Today, there are three federally recognized Patwin tribes: C...achil DeHe Band of Wintun Indians of the Colusa Indian Community, Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation, and Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation. The Patwin people have remained committed to the stewardship of this land over many centuries. This campus is Patwin land and remains an important part of Patwin heritage and identity. Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebrates the beauty, strength, and joy of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, past and present. Indigenous Peoples’ Day acknowledges the rich and diverse histories of Native American people and renounces the false narrative that Columbus’ discovered America. We ask you to join us in uplifting Native voices and peoples, today and everyday. The Native American Contemplative Garden in the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden was developed with Patwin Elder Bill Wright and his family and honors the Patwin ancestors who lived on this land. It offers encouragement to American Indian students, telling them that they belong here, that they belong in higher education -- and they can say, "I'm a part of this." #IndigenousPeoplesDay Resources: - Follow the Native American Academic Student Success Center The Native Nest - Support students by giving to the Native American Retention Initiative (NARI) link in bio. https://give.ucdavis.edu/VCSA/SNARI06

Art created to honor African American women heroes in the fight for voting rights and female victims of police brutality will be part of an art walk and Facebook Live event taking place Friday, Oct. 9 in downtown Davis. We need to put faces to the names of Black women who have been victims of police brutality as well as Black women who led the civil rights movement and brought the Voting Rights act, says WiLD founder Dzokerayi Minya. The works were created as part of the Fo...r Our Mothers, For Our Sisters, For Our Daughters March in August recognizing the centennial of women winning the right to vote and the 55th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act organized by Women in Leadership Davis (WiLD). Art.In.Action will be on display at Davis Downtown Commons (former Mikuni’s location), the Paint Chip at E Street Plaza, the Avid Reader and Armadillo Music through Oct. 17. View some of the works in the manettishrem.org’s Community Gallery. 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 9. Visit the Art.In.Action Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1296015537405393/ . Credits: Danielle Fodor and Anya McCann #ManettiShremMuseum #SayTheirNames #ManettiShremMuseumAtHome

Hey hey look who’s at the museum’s events plaza today. Check out @chancellor.may’s Instagram Stories for this week’s Thursday Thoughts. He and LeShelle share their favorite holidays, things they can’t live without, his role as chancellor, and give shoutouts to #UCDavis VIPs. . #ManettiShremMuseum #ThursdayThoughts #FreeForAll

Claudia Rankine, an award-winning author, playwright, poet and multimedia artist, comes to UC Davis, virtually, on Nov. 4 for a reading and lecture based on her new book, Just Us: An American Conversation, which is being hailed as a must-read book this fall, and her magnum opus. Her previous book, Citizen: An American Lyric, a meditation on race relations in the United States, is widely considered one of the most influential books of our age. In a series of revelatory ...and ingeniously written essays that mix text and visuals, Rankine questions what it means to interrogate white privilege, liberal politics, white male aggression and much more. Coming the day after the U.S. presidential election, this online event, like Rankine’s intimate book, promises to bring us into a necessary conversation about what we don’t know. As Rankine says, It’s all right to not know; it’s what you do with your not-knowing. Organized by Professor Allison Coudert, Paul A. and Marie Castelfranco Chair in the History of Religion; Professor Katie Peterson, director of the Creative Writing Program; and the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum, with 23 UC Davis co-sponsors. . November 4, 4 PM PST, on Zoom. Register at manettishrem.org or Zoom registration: https://ucdavis.zoom.us//register/WN_quKuhrwnTxqWUcEx3MMruw

UC Davis students from the ensemble Catalyst: A Theatre Think recently undertook an artistic challenge to respond to the Manetti Shrem Museum during the time of two pandemics: COVID-19 and racism. They chose to focus on the few works that visitors can still engage with during the museum’s closure: The Manuel Neri sculptures installed on the west side of the museum. Using dance, movement and dialogue, they crafted and filmed critical responses to Neri’s work, asking questions ...including What does this art mean to you? Do you see yourself in this art? Who are these sculptures for? Who are they representing? Can art be a barrier? The resulting performance, Asking Questions: Barriers and Points of Access, reminds us that art is most powerful when it inspires conversation and questions. . #ManettiShremMuseum #ManettiShremMuseumAtHome #MuseumFromHome

Ariana Reines, who has been called the most daring spiritual poet of her generation, will give a reading Tuesday, Oct. 13, from A Sand Book (2019). Her direct, intense poems reckon with profound questions on a personal level, using a dizzying array of materials, from ancient texts to contemporary art. No topic is off limitssex, politics, god, ugliness, the university, the grocery store, social media, private life. At the start of the pandemic she created what has become I...NVISIBLE COLLEGE, a thriving internet space at the intersection of poetry, sacred study and art. Reines also wrote the Obie-winning play Telephone and has created performances for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Le Mouvement Biel/Bienne, the Whitney Museum, Stuart Shave/Modern Art and more. Reines’ reading will be followed by an opportunity to ask questions, hosted by Professor Katie Peterson. This online program is organized by the Department of English and Creative Writing Program and co-sponsored by the Manetti Shrem Museum. To register: https://ucdavis.zoom.us//tJEudOCtrTojHt0-lMr5X_wk3rU0canB_ . #ManettiShremMuseum #ManettiShremMuseumAtHome #BringingTheConversationToYou #FreeForAll