Updated Jan. 14: Weaving & Woodwork at the Design Museum will open Tuesday, Jan. 22, one day later than originally announced, due to the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday Jan. 21.
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Two new exhibitions are open, three more are coming and one (Bruce Nauman’s Blue and Yellow Corridor) is being held over from fall quarter.
- Animals in the Archives debuted last Friday (Jan. 4) at Shields Library.
- Comings & Goings: Works on Paper by Rick Bartow opened Monday (Jan. 7) at the C.N. Gorman Museum.
Still to come:
- Weaving & Woodwork: A Scandinavian Design Partnership opening Tuesday, Jan. 22, at the Design Museum.
- Xicanx Futurity, works emerging from or influenced by the Chicano Art Movement of the late 1960s; Nauman’s Blue and Yellow Corridor; and Zachary Leener: Three Sculptures (pop-up exhibition) at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art. You'll have to wait until Sunday, Jan. 27, for the Manetti Shrem Museum’s winter opening (after being closed most of the month for installation).
Admission to all of these exhibitions is free and open to the public.
• Animals in the Archives — From rare books that depict unicorns and other fantastic beasts to faculty research on livestock, this exhibit explores the role of animals in ϲϿ Davis Library’s Special Collections and University Archives, and the animals’ place in academia and research, artistic expression and campus history. Jan. 4-March 29, lobby (near Special Collections).
• — An important figure in Native American art, Bartow (1946-2016) was a musician and songwriter, Vietnam veteran, and an enrolled member of the Mad River Band of Wiyot Indians (Humboldt County). This exhibition draws from a gift of nearly four dozen of his works, from his estate and the Froelick Gallery of Portland, Oregon. Jan. 7-March 15. Guest lecture by Charles Froelick of the Froelick Gallery, 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 27, with reception to follow. Regular hours: noon-5 p.m. Monday-Friday.
• — Celebrating the long and distinguished careers of ϲϿ Davis design professor emeritus Helge Olsen and his wife, Birgitta Olsen, this exhibition combines Helge’s wood furniture design with Birgitta’s woven wall tapestries — works that reflect the Olsens’ Scandinavian upbringing, training and design aesthetic, and which, when seen together, possess a compelling harmony of form and function. Jan. 22-April 21. Official opening: 6 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 24, featuring Kjetil Fallan, guest scholar in the Department of Design and a leading scholar on Scandinavian related design. Regular hours: noon-4 p.m. weekdays and 2-4 p.m. Sundays.
• — Works by Margaret “Quica” Alarcon, Gina Aparicio, Melanie Cervantes, Felicia Montes, Gilda Posada and Celia Herrera Rodríguez, “whose creative spirits bring together past and present to shape the future.” Curated by two members of the ϲϿ Davis Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies faculty, Carlos Jackson, associate professor and the department chair, and Susy Zepeda, assistant professor; along with María Esther Fernández, chief curator, Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara. Jan. 27-May 5. See below for Xicanx Futurity related programming.
Read more about Xicanx Futurity, including where the name comes from, in this ϲϿ Davis news release.
• — The Los Angeles-based artist, whose work embraces metaphorical and spiritual ideas of world building and creation, presents a “pop-up” exhibition inviting viewers to imagine the world that birthed these shapes, patterns and forms, and the idea space from which these configurations might have emerged. Jan. 27-May 5.
• Winter Season Opening Celebration — Free and open to the public, 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 27. The program will include a panel discussion with all six Xicanx Futurity artists and Associate Professor Jackson as the moderator, starting at 2:30 p.m.; as well as a performance by In Lak Ech, a Xicana spoken word, poetry, song and drumming collective.
The museum will resume its regular hours on Tuesday, Jan. 29: noon-6 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday; noon-9 p.m. Thursday; and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
The museum’s winter schedule also includes Art Talks Feb. 6 and March 9, and Art Studio Labs every Saturday and Sunday. And don’t forget the back-by-popular-demand Nauman installation:
• — The artist conceived of this participatory environment in 1970-71 (four years after receiving a Master of Fine Arts degree from ϲϿ Davis), and now Blue and Yellow Corridor has been built for the first time — a narrow passageway that wraps around an existing room, combining colored fluorescent light and closed-circuit video to manipulate the viewer’s perceptual experience. An adjacent gallery includes artworks that situate the corridor within the artist’s career. This exhibition debuted last September and had been scheduled to close in mid-December. The new closing date: April 14.
Xicanx Futurity: Related programming
- Cherríe Moraga in Conversation — In celebration of Xicanx Futurity, the poet, essayist and playwright sits down with Assistant Professor Zepeda, one of the co-curators. Moraga is a professor in the Department of English at ϲϿ Santa Barbara, where she and her artistic partner, Celia Herrera Rodríguez (one of the Xicanx Futurity artists), have instituted Las Maestras: Center for Chicana and Indigenous Thought and Art Practice. 4-5:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 14.
- Decolonizing Healing: Everyday Rituals and Remedies — A plática/discussion featuring Zepeda in dialogue with Lola Venado, a Sacramento folk herbalist, kitchen witch, energy worker, writer and community gatherer. 3:30-5 p.m. Tuesday, March 5.
- Intersectional Feminism in Museums: Panel Discussion — Exploring recent exhibitions and museum approaches that challenge mythologies about sexuality, gender, race and power. Panelists: Abby Chen, head of contemporary art/senior associate curator, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; Heidi Rabben, curator, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco; and Fernández, one of the Xicanx Futurity curators. Moderator: Paula Birnbaum, professor and academic director, Museum Studies Program, Department of Art + Architecture, University of San Francisco. 4:30-6 p.m. Wednesday, April 17. (Fernández will lead a brief tour of Xicanx Futurity at 4 p.m. for people who are interested.)
Art Talks
- Mauro Aprile Zanetti — The Sicilian born, San Francisco-based multidisciplinary author will discuss his book on Fellini and Morandi, La Natura Mortade la Dolce Vita: A Mysterious Morandi in the Matrix of Fellini’s Vision (2008). 4:30-6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 6.
- The Life and Work of Manuel Neri — Jock Reynolds, MFA ’72 looks at the work of the first-generation ϲϿ Davis art faculty member through lenses of personal memory and deep art historical understanding. Reynolds, who studied under Neri and served as his teaching assistant, is the author of Manuel Neri: The Human Figure in Plaster and on Paper (2018). 2-3:30 p.m. Saturday, March 9.
Art Studio Labs
Everyone is invited into the Carol and Gerry Parker Art Studio for hands-on activities from 2 to 4 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday. Get messy, express yourself! Free.
Media Resources
Dateline Staff, 530-752-6556, dateline@ucdavis.edu