Exhibition Schedule

Oongoing
Expanding Views of Africa
With works created over the past 5000 years, this reinstallation broadens conventional views of African art, from ancient cultures before the dynasties of the Egyptian Pharaohs to artists working today. The new displays consider African art and culture in its historical depth and diversity by presenting a greater range of media, chronology, and geography than most African exhibitions, which usually focus on 19th- and early 20th-century works from west and central Africa. Themes, including "Fashioning the Body/ Defining the Self," "Economies and Exchanges in Africa and Beyond," and "Moments of Transformation," provide new perspectives and contexts for the works chosen from the Center's collection as well as from other regional collections. Learn more

November 9, 2011 – February 26, 2012
The Legend of Rex Slinkard
Cantor Arts Center is the primary repository of works by southern California artist Rex Slinkard (1887–1918). New research reveals Slinkard's relationship to famous art and literary figures of the early 20th century. This selection of oil paintings, charcoal drawings, and pen-and-watercolor sketches conveys the breadth and strength of Slinkard's short-lived artistic development. The corresponding catalogue includes essays that illuminate his artistic legacy, a timeline of his life, and a fully illustrated checklist of the Center’s complete holdings of his work. Learn more

February 1 – April 8, 2012
Walker Evans
This exhibition of the American photographer Walker Evans (1903-1975) pays homage to one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century. Evans’s classic images of life on small town main streets, in New York subways, and on sharecroppers’ porches in the South are national treasures that have inspired generations of photographers including Helen Levitt, Robert Frank, and Lee Friedlander. Drawn entirely from the deep holdings of Randi and Bob Fisher, the preeminent private collection of photography in North America, this retrospective includes more than 125 vintage prints as well as an extensive selection of Evans’s original books and magazines. Learn more

February 22 – May 27, 2012
Memory and Markets: Pueblo Painting in the Early 20th Century
In the early 20th century, a new movement of Native American painting emerged in the Pueblo communities of the Southwestern United States. Encouraged by local anthropologists and teachers to record past and current scenes of their daily life on paper, the artists found inspiration in the centuries-old tradition of Pueblo painting found in pottery, murals, and archaeological remains. This small exhibition outlines the history of this development in Native American painting in the first half of the 20 th century. Included are works by well-known artists, such as Tonita Peña (Quah Ah) and Alfonso Roybal (Awa Tsireh), as well as several recent gifts to the permanent collection. Learn more

February 29, 2012 – October 13, 2013
Wood, Metal, Paint: Sculpture from the Fisher Collection
Over the past decade, the Fisher family has been exceedingly generous in lending works of art from their unrivaled collection. This new long-term installation, selected in consultation with contemporary art professor Pamela Lee, includes pieces by John Chamberlain, Jenny Holzer, Sol LeWitt, and Claes Oldenburg, together with Carl Andre’s Copper-Zinc Plain, a floor piece comprised of 36 tiles, and John Chamberlain’s Bijou, a large early work made of crushed automobiles and paint. The works on display are especially significant because they are examples of the innovations that established the reputations of these artists. Learn more

March 21 – July 8, 2012
Light Works: Dan Flavin and Robert Irwin
Beginning in the 1920s, with the work of the Constructivists, electric light became a medium for art. With the advent of Minimalism in the late 1960s, artists found that using light as a medium could challenge perception and be impersonal as well as emotionally engaging. This installation features two large pieces. One by Dan Flavin is an example of the artist’s use of mass-produced fluorescent light. The second work, an untitled disc by Robert Irwin, typifies the interest in light and space that occupied a number of artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s. These two works complement Sculptures from the Fisher Family Collection and provide another look at the diverse artistic approaches in the 1960s. Learn more

May 16 – September 2, 2012
Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benue River Valley
The Benue River Valley is the source of some of the most abstract, dramatic, and inventive art works in sub-Saharan Africa. This exhibition, organized by the Fowler Museum at UCLA, is the first major view of the spectacular sculpture, ceramic objects, and video material representing the major artistic genres defining the Lower, Middle and Upper sub-regions of the Benue River Valley, starting at its confluence with the Niger River and following eastward to its upper reaches around the Gongola River, its major tributary. Learn more

June 13 – October 14, 2012
Not Wanting to Say Anything About Marcel: John Cage Plexigrams
John Cage (1912–1992), the foremost American experimental composer of the 20th century, also made prints and assembled words as graphic/conceptual puzzles. His first visual work, Eye Editions, Cincinnati (1969) is a series of eight “Plexigrams” collectively titled “Not Wanting to Say Anything about Marcel.” The title refers to a comment Jasper Johns made to Cage after Marcel Duchamp's death; artists were encouraged to respond in memoriam, and Johns said, in effect, I don't want to say anything. Each Plexigram is composed of eight printed Plexiglas sheets standing in parallel slots in a wooden base; the entirety is viewed through the spaced “sandwich.” On view will be the Center's four Plexigrams from the series.



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Ongoing in the Collection Galleries

Rodin! The Complete Stanford Collection
200 works on view in three galleries and outdoors. Free docent tours on Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. Learn more
Europe 1500-1800,
Ancient Greece and Rome Learn more