Talks & Conversations

Ongoing

Artists, curators, scholars, and others share their insights on BAMPFA exhibitions, the arts, and other cultural topics.

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  • Barbara Kasten: Photogenic Painting Untitled 76/7, 1976 © Barbara Kasten. Courtesy the artist, Bortolami Gallery, New York, and Thomas Dane Gallery.

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Upcoming Events

  • Friday, May 16, 5:30 PM

    MFA Artists’ Talk

    Hear from the 2025 graduates of UC Berkeley’s Master of Fine Arts program—Viviana Martinez Carlos, Priyanka D’Souza, Arianna Khmelniuk, Jasmine Nyende, bryant terry, and Zekarias Thompson—on the occasion of BAMPFA’s fifty-fifth annual MFA exhibition.

    BAMPFA
  • Saturday, June 14, 2 PM

    Lijin Lecture: Yasufumi Nakamori on Martin Wong and Premodern Art of Asia

    BAMPFA is pleased to announce Dr. Yasufumi Nakamori as BAMPFA’s 2025 endowed Lijin Lecturer. His presentation connects two important aspects of the museum’s collection--contemporary and pre-modern art from Asia—and promises to cast new light on the art of Martin Wong (1946-1999).

    BAMPFA

Past Events

  • Thursday, April 17, 6:30 PM

    Artists' Conversation: Disobedient Bodies

    Concluding the series of thematically focused Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection discussions, this program brings together Suzanne Jackson and Firelei Báez, two artists whose works are featured in the exhibition, in conversation with writer, curator, and UC Berkeley teaching professor Hilton Als. The group will discuss approaches to artmaking that defy conventional modes of representation, through innovations in portraiture and lively methods of abstraction.

    BAMPFA
  • Wednesday, April 9, 5:30 PM

    Conversation: The Afterlives of Art: Caring for the Ephemeral

    Artist Estefania Puerta, conservator Michelle Barger, and scholar Jules Pelta Feldman join BAMPFA Chief Curator Margot Norton for a multifaceted in-gallery discussion of the issues and opportunities presented by art made under conditions of impermanence, as highlighted in the museum’s current collection exhibition, To Exalt the Ephemeral: The (Im)permanent Collection.

    BAMPFA
  • Thursday, March 27, 6:30 PM

    California Live! Enthralled: What Explains Our Unshakeable Fascination with Cults?

    Join California Magazine’s Pat Joseph in conversation with Poulomi Saha, who teaches the highly popular course Cults in Popular Culture and is currently working on a book entitled Enthralled, to discuss America’s long obsession with “communities and philosophies that offer total belief and total enthrallment—even and especially as we might claim that we would never ourselves join.”

    BAMPFA

    Copresented by California Magazine and the Cal Alumni Association

  • Saturday, March 15, 3:00 PM

    Artists’ Conversation: Crafting the Self

    Artists Melissa Cody and Tau Lewis join curator Jenelle Porter to discuss the ways their works express identity, power, lineage, and the self through materials, making, portraiture, and abstraction.

    BAMPFA
  • Saturday, January 25, 2:00 PM

    Artist's Conversation / Jamillah James, Barbara Kasten, and Gloria Sutton: Painting and Technology

    Featuring artist Barbara Kasten whose work is included in Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection, this discussion explores the innovative ways artists have transformed the language of painting as technologies evolve. Barbara Kasten will be joined in conversation by Jamillah James, Manilow Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and Gloria Sutton, Associate professor of Contemporary Art History and New Media at Northeastern University and catalogue contributor for Making Their Mark.

    BAMPFA

    This conversation will be followed by a tour of the exhibition at 3:30 PM.

  • Saturday, January 18, 1:00 PM

    Artist’s Talk and Conversation: Tanya Aguiñiga and Anthony Graham

    Join artist Tanya Aguiñiga and Senior Curator Anthony Graham for a conversation on Aguiñiga’s new Art Wall installation, her first solo presentation in the Bay Area.

    BAMPFA
  • Saturday, January 18, 2:00 PM

    Artist’s Talk and Conversation: Amol K Patil and Victoria Sung

    Join Amol K Patil and Phyllis C. Wattis Senior Curator Victoria Sung for a conversation on Patil’s newly commissioned body of work.

    This event is cosponsored by BAMPFA, the Institute for South Asia Studies, and the South Asia Art Initiative at UC Berkeley.

    BAMPFA
  • Sunday, January 12, 3:00 PM

    Social Art: The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends Is the Highest Form of Art with Tom Marioni

    Legendary Bay Area conceptual artist Tom Marioni, whose work is featured in To Exalt the Ephemeral, introduces his book Social Art, an updated consideration of his ongoing and best-known work, the performance installation The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends Is the Highest Form of Art.

    BAMPFA

Past Films