Current Exhibits:

Is Anything the Matter? By Layla Ali - With works dating from 1993 to 2020, “Is anything the matter? Drawings by Laylah Ali” explores Ali’s ongoing interest in the amalgam of race, power, gendering, human frailty and murky politics through more than 100 ink, colored pencil, soluble crayon, colored marker, and mixed media drawings. Spanning nearly three decades of Ali's work, the exhibition allows visitors to discover stylistic and contextual similarities, contrasts, and shifts in her drawings over time.

Take Five – This dynamic interactive exhibition invites viewers to slow down, look closely, and engage with five remarkable art works from the museum’s permanent collection. Included in the show is Gymnasium Chases, a series of photographs by Christian Boltanski acquired by UMass students through our annual Collecting 101 course, along with compelling works by Sanford Biggers, Shirazeh Houshiary, Richard Yarde, and Allora & Calzadilla. Each piece will be accompanied by a prompt that asks participants to engage their senses, look closely, and respond to the artworks through drawing, listening, and writing.

About the Collection: In 1962, the University began to assemble a collection of art works to be used for teaching purposes and for exhibition to the general public. When the Bromery Center building was completed in 1975, the Collection was placed under the care and management of the University Museum of Contemporary Art (UMCA). The Collection focuses primarily on works on paper – drawings, prints, and photographs – from the second half of the 20th century to the present and comprises approximately 3,800 objects. Images of works in the collection are all digitized and accessible through a shared database with the Museums of the Five Colleges and Historic Deerfield: museums.fivecolleges.edu.