Our temporary exhibitions may all be closed, but there continues to be a flurry of activity every day preparing for 2025! A reminder that we’ll be closed to the public after tomorrow until the new year, Dec 21-Jan 1, open again on Jan 2!

We’ve updated the “On View at the Museum” to reflect the many changes to what is on view inside the museum now. Whenever a huge exhibition is being prepared, there is a game of Tetris that is played with moving other art objects to make room, both in the galleries and in storage. It is all very exciting and we’re looking forward to sharing more details and photos in 2025!

In taking down the Actions for the Earth exhibition we had one time-sensitive task to handle, which was removing the live plants in such a way that they could be transplanted and transported to the greenhouse. When we went to start this process, we realized just how happy some of those plants have been – they may not have all gotten tall since August, but their root systems are amazing!

With the help of our exhibition tech team, we were able to get them safely stowed for winter and will be looking forward to planting them on the JCCC campus in spring!

Rashawn Griffin’s work has been placed in the Regnier Center on the 2nd floor, just outside the room that is affectionately called “the cube” (a glass walled meeting room). It takes the place of the Roberto Lugo ceramic Kobe Urn, which is on loan to SFMOMA for their Get in the Game exhibition all about sports: Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture · SFMOMA. 

Prior to Lugo’s work being in this location, Wendy Red Star’s Untitled (silver) [Jingle Dress] was in this spot, and that work is also on loan (along with many other works from our collection), to the Spencer Museum in Lawrence for their Native Fashion exhibition: Native Fashion | Spencer Museum of Art. Check that one out before it closes Jan 5!

Here is the label info for Rashawn’s work:

Rashawn Griffin (b. 1980)

Apparatus 15 (Internal Fixation)

Clay, glaze

Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2024.026, Acquired with funds provided by the Barton P. and Mary D. Cohen Art Acquisition Endowment at the JCCC Foundation

For the exhibition Sun Drinks White at the Nerman Museum in 2023, Rashawn Griffin created immersive environments that were simultaneously spaces, sculptures, and paintings. This included a room-like structure The Interior Fixation with a mirrored inside, which was filled with ephemera as well as ceramic sculptures, such as Apparatus 15 (Internal Fixation), seen here in isolation. With twisting, attenuated forms that recall limbs or organs, the organic nature of the clay sculptures calls to mind the possible dual meanings of ‘interior’ – the inside of a room but also of a body or a mind.

Rashawn Griffin earned an MFA from Yale University, New Haven, CT, and a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.