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Visual Arts

Two 2025 project grants and a fellowship from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage
A sculpture of a crocodile eatings its tail made in filament and resin.

“White Ouroboros II” by Allison Janae Hamilton. The Institute for Contemporary Art will feature the first museum survey of the artist in the spring of 2027.

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Two 2025 project grants and a fellowship from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage

WXPN and the Institute for Contemporary Art each received creative project grants and filmmaker Sosena Solomon, who teaches in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies, was named a 2025 Pew Fellow.

3 min. read

Native North America Gallery opens at the Penn Museum
People visiting Penn’s new Native North American Gallery at the Penn Museum.

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Native North America Gallery opens at the Penn Museum

In partnership with eight Indigenous consulting curators, the newly renovated 2,000 sq. ft. gallery features more than 250 archaeological, historic, and contemporary items from the Museum’s North American collections.

3 min. read

Monumental sculpture celebrated on Penn’s campus
The Rui Rui sculpture on campus.

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Monumental sculpture celebrated on Penn’s campus

A generous gift from alumni Glenn and Amanda Fuhrman brings the work of internationally acclaimed artist Jaume Plensa to the University of Pennsylvania. The latest addition to the Penn Art Collection expands Philadelphia's public art.

3 min. read

Students use art to change how we communicate about research
Five ceramic art pieces on display.

Image: Courtesy of Penn Medicine News

Students use art to change how we communicate about research

Science is hard to explain. The Artist-in-Residence initiative at Penn’s Translational Research Immersion Program seeks to help by using art.

2 min. read

Johanna Burton appointed director of ICA at Penn
Portrait of a person in front of plain background.

Image: Erin Leland

Johanna Burton appointed director of ICA at Penn

Burton, who currently serves as director of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles, will begin on Nov. 1.

Akilah Child

2 min. read

Exhibition as conversation
Exterior view of “(Ex)Urban Futures of the Recent Past” artwork.

Exterior view of “(Ex)Urban Futures of the Recent Past” at Galleria Thomas Schultz in Berlin.

(Image: Courtesy of Weitzman News)

Exhibition as conversation

For three faculty members in the Department of Fine Arts, curating exhibitions offers the opportunity to explore relationships between works of art, art and politics, history, and the environment.

From the Weitzman School of Design

2 min. read

Bringing museum filmmaking into the classroom
Sosena Solomon on stage during a Q&A at the Met with two other people.

Sosena Solomon participated in a panel conversation at The Met on May 31 with international co-hosts for the Arts of Africa: Jonathan Nsubuga, chief architect of JE Nsubuga and Associates, and Fasil Giorghis, associate professor of architecture and the chair of conservation of urban and architectural heritage at the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development.

(Image: Argenis Apolinario)

Bringing museum filmmaking into the classroom

Filmmaker Sosena Solomon taught Documentary Ethnography for Museums and Exhibitions amid filming in Africa for a Metropolitan Museum of Art redesign. The Arts of Africa galleries just reopened, including in-gallery and online films Solomon shot in 12 countries.

6 min. read

At the Venice Biennale, a convergence of innovations in materials, structures, and landscapes
Robert Gerard Pietrusko’a installation ”A Satellite Symphony.”

Robert Gerard Pietrusko collaborated on the installation ”A Satellite Symphony,” which explores how satellites frame how we understand the Earth itself; the viewing structure is constructed from trees from the Veneto region downed by storms.

(Image: Gaia Cambiaggi / Studio Campo)

At the Venice Biennale, a convergence of innovations in materials, structures, and landscapes

Several Weitzman School of Design faculty and students will exhibit at the Venice Biennale’s 19th International Architecture Exhibition.

From the Weitzman School of Design

3 min. read

‘Scattered Earth, Sounded Depth’
Eissa Attar and Alvin Luong standing in art gallery with arms around each other's shoulders

Artworks by the two master of fine arts students graduating in the Class of 2025, Eissa Attar (left) and Alvin Luong, are in a thesis exhibition at the Arthur Ross Gallery through a new collaboration with the Weitzman School of Design. 

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‘Scattered Earth, Sounded Depth’

A new thesis exhibition at the Arthur Ross Gallery features works by graduating Master of Fine Arts students Eissa Attar, from Saudi Arabia, and Alvin Luong, from Canada. On view through May 30,  “Scattered Earth, Sounded Depth,” was curated by Emily Zimmerman.

Louisa Shepard

4 min. read