Editor's note: One can tell fall is coming by how many art events have started on campus and in the area. Don't miss out. Read more below. The Weekender is published each Thursday during the school year to help you plan your weekend. 

Manetti Shrem Museum fall 2025 exhibitions explore the borderlands; environmental justice

On view through Nov. 29, 2025; Opening Celebration Sept. 28, 2-5 p.m.

Two exhibitions that invite visitors to reflect on the present by considering the past and our shared future are on view this fall at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at University of California, Davis. The exhibitions are on view through Nov. 29. 

“OJO” Julio César Morales explores the U.S.-Mexico border as a lived human experience. Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice, a groundbreaking group exhibition from the Hammer Museum at UCLA, connects social and environmental injustice. A free public opening celebration with artists and curators, art making and music takes place from 2 to 5 p.m. at the museum Sunday, Sept. 28, coinciding with the start of the university’s academic year. 

After more than a decade in Arizona working as a senior curator and a museum director, this midcareer survey marks Morales’ California homecoming and return to full-time studio practice. The Bay Area artist draws from real-life narratives — including his family's experience from both sides of the border — found materials and detritus of crossings to traverse the border’s geopolitical history while imagining speculative futures. “OJO” Julio César Morales comprises more than 50 works.

The lungs of our planet — oceans, forests and the atmosphere — are under threat, invaded by carbon emissions, plastics and man-made pollutants. The act of breathing was rendered even more perilous by the COVID-19 pandemic and encounters with escalated police violence that became a focus of the COVID period. Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice considers the connections between social and environmental injustice through the lens of contemporary art. 

 Full story and event schedule for fall. 

Art Spark for September: Drop in for an afternoon (Saturdays and Sundays, 1-4 p.m.) of art making at the museum’s Carol and Gerry Parker Art Studio inspired by this fall’s exhibitions. Each month, they offer a different activity that explores ideas, materials and processes connected to works of art on view. All ages and skill levels are welcome. Making art is for everyone.  All activity supplies provided. September: Glowing Words — Practice your calligraphy (or decorative swooshes) with a black light art-making session inspired by Julio Cesar Morales’ neon artworks.

Photography exhibition at Library commemorates 60 years since California labor strike

A traveling exhibition of nearly 90 works by labor photographer and journalist David Bacon —offering a window into the lived experiences of farmworkers — launches on Saturday, Sept. 13, at the University of California, Davis. Organized by the UC Davis Labor and Community Center in partnership with the artist, the exhibition shines a light on the experiences, strength and resilience of farmworkers in Northern California.

The exhibition, In Camps, Under Trees and Evicted, commemorates the 60th Anniversary of the 1965 farmworkers’ strike. Bacon’s work will be on view at the Peter J. Shields Library at UC Davis through Dec. 14, 2025. The works are displayed on walls opposite the main entrance near the courtyard.

A collection of black-and-white photographs taken over 35 years, the exhibition depicts the lived experiences of farmworkers and others living close to the line who are, in the artist’s words, “virtually invisible in the picture most people see of Northern California.” The main exhibition is accompanied by selected items from the library’s Archives and Special Collections, which includes extensive historical material related to agriculture, California history, and social and political movements of the 20th century.

In bringing these faces and voices into the public eye this month, the exhibition recalls the deep roots of the farm labor movement. On Sept. 8, 1965, Filipino grape workers led by the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, or AWOC, organized a strike in Delano, California to protest poor pay and working conditions. On Sept. 16, the National Farm Workers Association, led by Cesar Chavez, voted to join the strike. 

Within a year, the two organizations would merge to form the United Farm Workers, a union that continues to organize migrant farm workers to advocate for better wages, living conditions and legal protections to this day.

More here.

Gorman Museum of Native American Art features Rick Bartow

Starting next Wednesday, Sept. 17, catch a solo exhibition featuring award-winning artist Rick Bartow, from 1979-2015, at the Gorman Museum of Native American Art. A Vietnam vet, writer, musician and enrolled member of the Mad River Band of Wiyot Indians, Bartow is considered one of the most important leaders in contemporary Native American art. 

Artworks on exhibition include gifts to the Gorman by the Richard E. Bartow Estate and Froelick Gallery, with additional pieces on loan from private collections.

The Bartow work is on view through Jan. 18.

The museum is closed through Sept. 16 for installation.

Watch for events and hours at gormanmuseum.ucdavis.edu

Crocker starts new exhibition Sunday on African artistic traditions

Crocker Art Museum, 216 O Street, Sacramento, crockerart.org/visit

The Crocker Art Museum has an exhibition starting Sunday:  A Taste of Beauty: Spoons of Africa from the Collection of Richard Ulevitch, on view through January 11, 2026. A Taste of Beauty invites a reevaluation of the boundaries between art and utility. By highlighting the craftsmanship, symbolic meanings, and historical contexts, this exhibition contributes to a better understanding of African artistic traditions.

This presentation is the first and only exhibition exclusively dedicated to African spoons ever mounted in the United States and offers the most comprehensive look to date at these remarkable works of art. Featuring nearly 100 examples from a California private collection assembled over three decades, the exhibition invites visitors to see how artists across Sub-Saharan Africa transformed an everyday utensil into an expression of identity, status, and artistic vision.