Apr 30 Thursday
This collaborative exhibition celebrates the intersection of art and environmental stewardship, highlighting the efforts of the Oak Group, the UCSB Cheadle Center for Biodiversity & Ecological Restoration, and Coal Oil Point Reserve to conserve the Devereux Slough. Art in Service of the Land invites viewers to explore how art documents, interprets, and amplifies the ongoing work of conservation, revealing the beauty and complexity of the North Campus Open Space (NCOS) and inspiring engagement with our local environment.
This exhibition was curated and cosponsored by the Oak Group and the Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration, in collaboration with UCSB Library staff.
The Oak Group is one of the first artist groups in the U.S. to combine creativity with conservation. Since 1986, Oak Group artists have exhibited artworks painted on location to raise awareness and funds for open spaces, generating over $3 million in sales to support the preservation of lands for wildlife, recreation, ranching, and farming. The group includes 25 active members and has presented more than 100 exhibitions benefiting over 20 conservation organizations.
"Through most of our lives and work, Cedric and I have had deep commitments to collaboration, internationalism, and solidarity movements."–Elizabeth Robinson, 2024
This exhibition documents the life’s work of Cedric J. Robinson and Elizabeth Peters Robinson, placing it in the global context of the Black radical tradition. The Robinsons were renowned for their seminal scholarship and activism that had wide-ranging influence at UC Santa Barbara (UCSB), in academia, and across many public arenas. The exhibition is drawn from the Cedric J. and Elizabeth P. Robinson Archive (“Robinson Archive”) and supplemented by a variety of materials from other collections in UCSB Library’s Special Research Collections, as well as personal contributions from Elizabeth Robinson.
A deeply influential educator, Cedric Robinson (1940-2016) was a well-known scholar of racial capitalism and the Black radical tradition, and an active participant in political movements, both at home and internationally. For more than 30 years, Elizabeth Robinson has been an educator, social worker, former associate director for media at KCSB-FM radio, activist, and community media producer.
This exhibition was curated by Yolanda Blue, the Library’s Curator of American and International History, Politics, and Cultures Collections, in collaboration with New York University and UCSB Library staff.
William Shakespeare’s plays transcended their origins almost immediately. Even during his lifetime, his unforgettable characters and indelible lines were already escaping the stage – taken up by others and repurposed and circulated in diverse ways. While his plays have been performed continuously for over four hundred years, they have also left the stage behind to live on elsewhere.
Printers and publishers have reproduced Shakespeare’s words in every possible textual format and in numerous languages. Literary and visual artists have continuously adapted and reinterpreted them in various artforms. Musicians and choreographers have refashioned his stories into opera, ballet, pop songs, and modern dance. Meanwhile, filmmakers, television writers, and videogame creators have transformed them for modern screens. This exhibition explores the many forms and many afterlives of Shakespeare’s art – from a single scrap of his crabbed handwritten text to the digital media of the twenty-first century.
Infinite Variety was co-curated by David Gartrell, the Library’s Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts, and Professor Jim Kearney, Department of English. The exhibition is on display in the Jackie Laskoff Exhibition Alcove, located in the Sara Miller McCune Arts Library (1st Floor, Mountain Side), and is co-sponsored by UCSB Library and the Department of English.
May 01 Friday
Since 2007, UCSB Reads has fostered a shared sense of belonging by bringing the UCSB campus and Santa Barbara communities together to read a common book that explores compelling issues of our time. Conceived by then Executive Vice Chancellor Gene Lucas, the program is led by the UCSB Library in collaboration with campus and community partners. Each year, a committee of UCSB faculty, students, staff, and community members selects a thought-provoking, interdisciplinary book written by a living author that encourages a wide range of readers to engage with a contemporary social, political, cultural or scientific issue such as climate change, racial justice, technology, memory, identity, and democracy.
The program kicks off in winter with a book giveaway for UCSB students led by the Chancellor, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, and University Librarian, and culminates with a free public talk by the book’s author(s) at Campbell Hall in the spring. Throughout the winter and spring quarters, the Library sponsors a variety of free learning, experiential, and social events to explore the book’s themes. The selected book is also incorporated into the university curriculum for winter and spring, allowing students to explore its themes in an academic context. UCSB Reads is generously supported by many individuals, university departments, and organizations.
This exhibition highlights the history of UCSB Reads since its inception, featuring promotional posters, selected books, custom bookmarks along with testimonials and images of participants engaging with programming throughout the years. UCSB Reads has become a beloved campus tradition that brings together thousands of people every year and demonstrates the power of literature to bridge divides, promote intellectual engagement, and build community.
More than 1,200 UCSB students annually participate in the UCSB Education Abroad Program (EAP) to study, intern, and conduct research in 35+ countries, earning UC credit toward majors, minors, and general education requirements. Returning students are invited to share their most memorable images from their time outside the United States with EAP.
Curated by EAP staff, this exhibition showcases standout submissions from EAP’s annual photo contests. Through these eye-catching photographs, students share their experiences living abroad with the campus community and highlight how EAP has enriched their undergraduate education at UCSB.
The nine diverse works of American art in this exhibition span from 1915 to 2020, representing a remarkable slice of American art history. This selection weaves together ideas of identity, childhood, and environment. Through diverse mediums, styles, and cultural contexts, these works offer insights into the personal, cultural, and artistic conversations that shape our world. This project is made possible through our remarkable partnership with Art Bridges, whose mission is to bring art out of storage and into communities across America.
Themes of both celebrated and forgotten identities appear throughout—from the mystery of Richard Prince’s Nurse Elsa to the individuality of Alex Katz’s Dark Glasses and the haunting imagery of Edouard Duval-Carrié’s Lost at Sea. Rachel Rose’s Lake Valley transports us to the bittersweet nostalgia of childhood, where memories feel both real and imagined. Pop culture and American consumerism are brought into the conversation with Robert Gober’s Untitled (butter), which turns the familiar into something strange. Frank Stella’s maze-like Cinema de Pepsi Sketch I and Max Weber’s Interior with Music explore color, shape, and detail in bold ways. Félix González-Torres’ participatory work Untitled (L.A.) and Alfred Conteh’s Malik and Marquis invite reflection on friendship, loss and human connection.
Together, these works explore social issues that feel especially relevant today in the American political landscape—ideas of home, belonging, community, and time. Each artwork tells its own story, but together they create a larger history and experience. This exhibition does more than reflect the world: it helps us understand it and imagine the future we want to create.
Passage Through, New York–based artist Peter Krashes’ first solo exhibition on the West Coast, uses paintings of old and new construction, atmospheric details of public meetings, and ordinary yet meaningful aspects of community work to focus on daily experience in an ever-changing world. For nearly two decades, Krashes was deeply engaged as a community activist, and this lived experience shapes the work throughout the exhibition. Passage Through turns our attention to interstitial spaces and events—what is found in between, at the edges of our awareness, in the overlooked, and in the margins of our vision.
In works like Fences and Trees and Sprouting Seedbomb, barriers divide spaces, block visibility, and keep people separate from one another, but over time, they also provide a place for plants to grow and for birds to roost. In early works, scenes from community work, such as More Filled Seats Magnify the Message, grew from rallies and community-building practices, while State Attorney’s Public Meeting Notes emerged from the workings of government. Krashes’ work highlights how a community evolves, and the people, voices, and actions over time that help shape it.
Recent paintings made for this exhibition, including a series of mockingbirds in flight, recognize change as a constant in our neighborhoods while highlighting that resilience is possible over time. Working primarily in gouache, a medium Krashes describes as humble and open, the paintings leave room for uncertainty and possibility. In their directness, Krashes’ paintings reflect the context in which he lives and works in Brooklyn, yet they offer a passage of entry for any voice trying to make sense of our complicated world.
