Past Exhibitions

This exhibition celebrates the work of select professional artists who are former students of Bill Kelly, a professor of visual art who has dedicated the last 20 years to heightening the practices of countless creative minds. Having once traversed the halls of USD, each of these alumni have excelled in their professional lives and continue to cultivate vibrant careers as artists. The works presented here display the partnership and collaboration that Kelly developed alongside his students, which has opened opportunities to instrumentally bolster their creative talents and initiatives.

This exhibition was presented in complement to Witness in the Grass: Thirty Years of Prints by Bill Kelly, Fall 2022.

Presented by Jordan D. Schnitzer and his Family Foundation in partnership with the University of San Diego

Marie Watt (Seneca, b. 1967) is one of the country’s most celebrated contemporary artists whose work draws on personal experience, indigenous traditions, proto-feminism, mythology and art history. Storywork: The Prints of Marie Watt presented a mid-career retrospective of Watt’s work as a printmaker, demonstrating how the medium of print has served for Watt as a laboratory for large-scale pieces and concepts. In each of her prints Watt demonstrates a tactile appreciation for the particular qualities of wood, copper, or stone, aiming to achieve in her words a “familiarity and intimacy” with the material that adds a layer of thematic resonance to her work.

Conceived of as an in-person continuation to the online presentation Traditions and Transformations published during the pandemic, this exhibtion underscored the emergent strength of womxn indigenous makers in the May Collection. Ongoing Transformations was mounted in honor of Joyce Antorietto, the Collections Specialist for the May Collection, who retired from USD in October 2021, after 20 years of service.

This online presentation surveys five years of acquisition activity in support of the May Collection. Since 2015, the May Collection has flourished alongside a new commitment to contemporary indigenous artists, working in a wide variety of media. Traditions & Transformations highlights twenty-five acquisitions made in the course of the past five years, at once celebrating these works and suggesting vital paths for future inquiry and growth.

Thirty representations by both well-known artists and anonymous printmakers were included in There Is Hope, If We Rise, the title of which was borrowed from the multi-part series by Sonny Assu (Ligwilda'xw Kwakwaka'wakw). Taken together, these images recounted numerous occasions when native populations have expressed their outrage—and their hopes—for political, social, and economic change. The earliest posters in this exhibition were produced by activists associated with the American Indian Movement (AIM), a grassroots civil rights organization that began in 1968. More recently, activists associated with protesting the Keystone and Dakota Access Pipelines (DAPL) running through North and South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois, have used posters to express dissent with the environmental despoliation of sacred lands. The works in There Is Hope, If We Rise are part of a growing archive of political posters being assembled by the University Galleries.

A member of the Swinomish and Tulalip tribes, Matika Wilbur has been photographing contemporary Native Americans as part of an epic documentary undertaking titled Project 562. When completed, it will include portraits from all 562 Federally recognized tribes in the United States. Her photography aims to resist the idea of “vanishing races” that has pervaded the narrative surrounding Native American portraiture since the late-19^thcentury. This presentation included dozens of Wilbur’s recent works, focusing on portraits of individuals from the Southwest.

In 2016, local artist Johnny Bear Contreras received a commission from USD to create a public artwork for the Kumeyaay Garden that borders the North east edge of campus. This exhibition explored the artist's proposal through sketches and past creations, as well as by pairing his work with examples of Kumeyaay basketry and ceramics from the May Collection.

This exhibition demonstrated what can be gained by championing contemporary Native American artists while placing their works in a dialogue with more historic objects from the collection. Because Imprint was a celebration of newly-arrived work, 9 images on paper—6 prints and 3 drawings—were included in this presentation of 15 recent acquisitions. The works displayed suggest some new directions and strategic visions for the May Collection.

In 1995, USD accepted a unique anthropological and fine art collection of more than 1500 objects from a local couple, Dorothy and Robert May. In the twenty years since the May Collection came to campus, the resource has also grown steadily—the total size of the collection, thanks to other gifts and purchases directed by Professor Alana Cordy-Collins, now stands at more than 2000 works. In recognition of two decades of collection-inspired exhibitions and courses, the University Galleries proudly mounted this mini-survey of the May Collection. Twenty representative works were selected by Professor Cordy-Collins. Taken as a whole, this project documented the May Collection’s growth and suggested future avenues for research.

This student-produced exhibit traced the significance of the close bond that developed between Indians of the Southwest and the horse. Horses in American Indian Culture included objects that demonstrate the horse’s profound role in warfare, spirituality, and current place in contemporary American Indian Art. Objects on display included a life-size painted sculpture of a horse by renowned local artist Robert Freeman, as well artifacts and traditional jewelry.

Basketry is one of the most widespread and ancient of mankind’s crafts and a universally practiced art form. This exhibit looked at the techniques, styles, and traditions in use to create these works of art.

This exhibition was created in celebration of students’ discoveries utilizing May Collection objects in their research. Using the instrumental chemistry labs on campus, students analyzed residues extracted from a sample of 24 mugs and vessels from the May Collection, and found evidence of theobromine, a compound associated with cacao (chocolate). Their research extended the known geographic and temporal range of cacao use in the American Southwest, and helped to explain the mugs' functions within Native American society.