Exerts from Fall season features contemporary works at Manetti Shrem Museum in the Daily Democrat on Sept. 15, 2017 by Karen Nikos-Rose, UC Davis News Service. For the full article visit www.dailydemocrat.com
The Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis, launches its fall season this month with two exhibitions highlighting the university’s distinctive legacy of nurturing and exhibiting innovative contemporary art.
The centerpiece of the museum’s fall program is a major group exhibition of works by leading African American contemporary artists, including rarely exhibited works by artists connected with UCD.
Also on view this fall is an immersive sound art installation by the experimental composer John Cage that returns to UCD after premiering at the university nearly 50 years ago.
The Manetti Shrem Museum serves as the exclusive Northern California venue for Dimensions of Black following the exhibition’s acclaimed presentation at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego earlier this year.
Dimensions of Black features more than 30 works by some of the most celebrated African American artists of the past three decades, many with close ties to California.
Featuring works by David Hammons, Dread Scott, Theaster Gates, Lorna Simpson, Kerry James Marshall, Mildred Howard, Carrie Mae Weems and many others, the exhibition explores the artists’ shared interest in shaping a fresh understanding of black aesthetics in figurative and abstract art.
Originally organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the exhibition includes several rarely seen works from the Manetti Shrem Museum’s own collection that have been added exclusively for the Davis presentation.
Among these are multiple works that highlight the university’s history as an incubator for artistic talent, such as a photograph by UC Davis graduate (master’s degree in fine arts) Jessica Wimbley and a sculpture by Horace Washington that was last seen in the seminal 1997 exhibition Reshuffling the Deck: Selections from the UCD Collections.