Contemporary Art

This exhibition showcases works by Asian diasporic artists that explore the process of unmaking and remaking the self. Focusing on art as a site of radical reimagination, the exhibition presents a cross-generational conversation about the liberatory possibilities inherent in the continuous, messy, and sometimes contradictory process of forming social identity.

Stockholm-based artist Lap-See Lam presents “Tales of the Altersea” (2023), an immersive video installation inspired by the ruins of a dragon-shaped ship visible from her art school studio. The ship, which sailed from Shanghai to Gothenburg in 1990 intending to serve Chinese cuisine to European patrons, was eventually abandoned. Lam’s work explores themes of loss, memory, and resilience, utilizing the vessel’s history as a narrative foundation.

Explore the innovative works of artist Cai Guo-Qiang, who utilizes gunpowder and pyrotechnics to create dynamic drawings, paintings, and explosion events. This exhibition delves into the nature and properties of gunpowder, chronicling its use in Cai’s artistic process. Accompanying programs include videos on fireworks creation, interactive displays, and film screenings.

In 2019, Lawson answered more than 1,000 questions in his Story File so that future generations can continue conversing with him to learn about his legacy. What would you like to ask Lawson?

Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.,
Thursday, 12:00 noon – 8:00 p.m.
Adults – $16, Seniors and Youth – $9, Members and Children under 5 – Free

Mark Bradford’s 150 Portrait Tone, a mural-size composition that contains elements of both abstraction and realism, is based on an idea for a work that the artist conceived after the fatal shooting of Philando Castile by a police officer in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in July 2016. Castile, a nutrition services supervisor at an elementary school, was shot after being pulled over in his car—an incident that was livestreamed on Facebook by Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, who was sitting in the passenger seat next to him.

The painting features excerpts of Reynolds’s dialogue from the video. The title, 150 Portrait Tone, refers to the name and color code of the pink acrylic used throughout the painting. Like the now-obsolete “flesh” crayon in the Crayola 64 box (renamed “peach” in 1962), the color “portrait tone” carries inherent assumptions about who, exactly, is being depicted. In the context of Bradford’s painting, the title presents a sobering commentary on power and representation.