Exhibitions featuring new sculpture and installation commissions, paintings from world-renowned artists, and large-scale ceramics debut this fall at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at the University of California, Davis.

Phillip Byrne, Beatriz Cortez, Kang Seung Lee, Candice Lin: Entangled Writing opens Aug. 8. Four California artists working in sculpture and installation each present a new installation — the largest group of works the Manetti Shrem Museum has commissioned to date. The exhibition explores the way that people and objects move across time and space, allowing for multiple potentialities to exist. The exhibition ends Dec. 29.

“Entangled Writing grew out of early conversations between Beatriz Cortez and Phillip Byrne, and builds upon existing relationships between Cortez, Lee and Lin,” said Susie Kantor, associate curator and exhibitions department head. “The resulting exhibition opens a portal to new and imagined worlds, allowing us to envision different futures and shine a light in difficult times.”

In the planning stages since 2022, Entangled Writing features artists making a splash on the international arts scene: Cortez, a UC Davis faculty member whose works are in the current Venice Biennale, along with those of Lee, and Lin, who was in 2022’s biennale. 

Entangled Writing: About the artists

Phillip Byrne was raised in California’s Central Valley and lives and works in Los Angeles. He views life as built upon multispecies collaborations and relationships between different types of matter. His project began with telecommunication cables found in a scrapyard in the Loire Valley, France. Byrne envisions the past and future lives of the cast-aside cables as portals to other worlds. From underwater symbiosis between animals and cables to birds nesting in telecommunication wires above the ground, he explores the many possibilities these cables engender. He holds a B.A. in Studio Art from California State University, Stanislaus, and an M.F.A. from UC Davis in Studio Art (2022).

Beatriz Cortez is a multidisciplinary artist and sculptor who lives and works in Los Angeles and Davis. She joined the UC Davis faculty as associate professor of art in fall 2023. Her work explores life in different times and states of being as a way to imagine possible different futures. Adrift In A Mirrored Sea (Hansbukta) brings together research on the history of whaling, the self-organizing architecture of icebergs, and the volcanic eruption of Ilopango in what is now El Salvador. These interconnected constellations speak to global histories and worlds beyond the human scale. Ilopango, a work from her recent solo show Beatriz Cortez: The Volcano that Left at Storm King Art Center, New York (2023), is currently on view through Nov. 10 in Future Dreaming …  A Path Forward at Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, California. She received an M.F.A. in art from the California Institute of the Arts and a Ph.D. in Literature and Cultural Studies from Arizona State University.

Kang Seung Lee is a multidisciplinary artist who was born in South Korea and now lives and works in Los Angeles. His work frequently engages the legacy of transnational queer histories, particularly as they intersect with art history. Skin focuses on 80-year-old queer dancer and performer Meg Harper. Through muscle memory, gestures and a magnified view of their skin, Lee honors Harper’s own long-lived practice as well as the many artists and activists in Harper’s extended queer community, linking those who may not have overlapped in life but are able to do so in the space of his work. Lee has also been included in Made in LA at Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2023); and in several recent solo exhibitions and projects, including National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul (2023), Vincent Price Art Museum, Los Angeles (2023) and Gallery Hyundai, Seoul (2021). He received an M.F.A. from California Institute of the Arts (2015). 

Candice Lin is based in Los Angeles and is an assistant professor of art at the University of California, Los Angeles. She works with installation, drawing, video and living materials and processes. Her work deals with the politics of representation and issues of race, gender and sexuality through histories of colonialism and diaspora. Lin’s work in Entangled Writing begins with the loss of a dear friend and mentor processed through a dream and a parable and takes the form of a round, rotating sculpture filled with ceramic, wood and metal objects reflecting loss, desire and the disintegration of the body. Lin’s recent solo exhibitions include Candice Lin: The Sex Life of Stone, at Monash University Museum of Art, Australia, through Sept. 7, andSeeping, Rotting, Resting, Weeping, which started Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2021), then traveled to Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard, and Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley (2022). Lin received her B.A. in visual arts and semiotics from Brown University (2001) and M.F.A. in New Genres from San Francisco Art Institute (2004). 

Two more exhibitions open in September

Rounding out the fall season, Light into Density: Abstract Encounters 1920s–1960s | From the Collection of Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem, and Ritual Clay: Cathy Lu, Paz G, Maryam Yousif both open on Sept. 19. An official public opening day featuring artists and curators takes place at the museum Sunday, Sept. 29. More event details and exhibition information will be announced soon.

Light into Density: Abstract Encounters 1920s–1960s is the museum’s first student-curated and student-designed exhibition. Most of the 15 paintings — including profound and exhilarating works by Francis Bacon, Salvador Dalí, Vassily Kandinsky and Joan Miró — are shown together for the first time. The works come from the collection of art lovers and philanthropists Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem, and are a shared gift between the Manetti Shrem Museum and SFMOMA. (On view Sept. 19, 2024–May 5, 2025)

Ritual Clay: Cathy Lu, Paz G, Maryam Yousif features three contemporary Bay Area ceramicists with a shared interest in clay who explore how their identities and experiences intersect with themes of immigration, ethnicity, race and gender in 21st century America. For Cathy Lu, Paz G and Maryam Yousif, clay is a link to the past and a conduit of cultural knowledge. (On view Sept. 19–Dec. 29)

New public hours

The Manetti Shrem Museum reopens Thursday, Aug. 8, with new hours. The public hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. The museum is closed to the public Tuesday and Wednesday but open for UC Davis classes by appointment.

Art Wide Open

The Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at the University of California, Davis, is a contemporary art museum for today, committed to honoring the past and shaping the future while making art accessible and approachable to all. It builds on UC Davis’ legacy of exceptional teaching and practice of the arts to offer engaging experiences, rotating exhibitions and vibrant programs that reflect and serve the community. The museum shares the university’s core values of innovative research, interdisciplinary experimentation and a commitment to educational programming. One-third of the museum’s 50,000-square-foot space is devoted to instruction. An architectural masterpiece that stands as a testament to innovation, creativity and the power of philanthropy, the museum was designed by renowned architects SO-IL and Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. Opened in November 2016, the museum has won numerous awards for its distinctive design including being named as one of the top 25 museum buildings of the past 100 years by ARTnews. 254 Old Davis Road, Davis, 95616; manettishrem.org.