In 1997 I walked into the Berkeley Art Museum to be greeted by a staggering sight: an array of some 20 quilts unlike any I had ever seen. Their unbridled colors, irregular shapes and nearly reckless range of textiles telegraphed a tremendous energy and the implacable ambition, and confidence, of great art.

If necessity is the mother of invention, more than a few winners of the campus’s first-ever Berkeley Changemaker Technology Innovation Grants found inspiration in the teaching and learning challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive has hired Julie Rodrigues Widholm as its new director. Widholm, who is currently the director and chief curator of the DePaul Art Museum, will begin at Berkeley on Aug. 1.

This is a Pride Month unlike any other in recent memory.

We’re living in a time scarred by tragedy. This June, crowds won’t be pressing their way down Market Street to watch a parade. Instead, they are taking to the streets for another reason: to stand against the deeply rooted injustices and violence targeting the Black community.

For another year in a row, Berkeley Arts + Design awarded Creative Discovery Grants to Berkeley faculty seeking to develop new undergraduate courses or to enhance existing ones through creative, engaged, participatory learning te

Literature and the arts have always held a prominent place in helping to define who we are as human beings and in enriching our lives. This is all the more apparent during moments of crisis, like the current COVID-19 pandemic.

What do you do if you’re a college senior with a sense of humor, a canceled graduation and, suddenly, a lot of spare time?

Virtual Fellini: On March 10, UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive had planned a “Felliniesque” gala at the Hibernia honoring the centennial of this Italian filmmaker and the retirement of museum director-chief curator Larry Rinder.

 “Instagram avant la lettre,” said renowned scholar, anthropologist, and  museum curator Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, describing Arthur Szyk’s skillful use of visual imagery as a means of mass communication. Speaking to a capacity crowd at The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, Dr.

Rosie Lee Tompkins: A Retrospective, now on display at BAMPFA in Berkeley, marks the largest and most comprehensive exhibition ever presented of the work by this celebrated artist, one of the most inventive quilt makers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.