Recognizing our civic role within a public university, BAMPFA presents this group of recent acquisitions that invites the public to engage with creative voices from across a range of artistic and cultural backgrounds. On view are nearly two dozen artworks, most by womxn and queer artists hailing from around the world, including Armenia, China, Israel, Italy, and Mongolia, as well as the Bay Area, New Orleans, and Alabama. Stemming from the belief that form is politics, an ethos of activism infuses each artist’s multidisciplinary practice across photography, ceramics, textiles, painting, collage, film, and sculpture.
This exhibition demonstrates BAMPFA’s ongoing work to expand the global art historical canon through the art of lesser known makers and marginalized groups. It reaffirms our vision to build a locally connected, globally relevant collection by turning an eye toward artists associated with UC Berkeley and the Bay Area, as well as those representing female-identifying, LGBTQ, Latinx, Asian, and Black diaspora experiences. All of the works in this exhibition have been acquired since 2019, with all but two of the represented artists and filmmakers entering the collection for the first time. Whether made in a studio or at home, from intergenerational memory or crafted in the editing suite, these works come together across time to celebrate a politics of diversity and feminist care that is shaping BAMPFA’s collection today.
Artists in this exhibition
Zarouhie Abdalian, Ginevra Cantofoli, Anne Chu, Ora Clay, Jean Conner, Odonchimeg Davaadorj, Sandra Davis, Guo Xianglan, Barbara Jones-Hogu, Ester Hernandez, Fran Herndon , Rina Kimche, John O’Reilly, Ruth Gilliam Waddy, Pamela Wilson-Ryckman, Martin Wong, Zhang Xinlan.