Tufts University Art Galleries

Tufts University Art Galleries Always free and open to all. Open in Medford and Boston: Tues-Sun, 11AM-5PM and late for events

05/28/2026

For our Fall 2026 season, Tufts University Art Galleries (TUAG) is pleased to present two exhibitions that spotlight the the legacy of student-centered artmaking at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) at Tufts in its 150th year: “Arnold J. Kemp: Not One Thing,” homecoming solo exhibition of , one of the school’s notable graduates, on view July 28–December 6 at TUAG / Medford, and “SMFA at 150: Looking Back”, a broad historical look at a century and a half of radical arts education at , as told by alumni artists and curators, on view July 28–November 8 at TUAG / Boston.

The galleries are currently closed, but we invite you to explore more about our upcoming season at the link in our bio 🔗

⭐️ Meet Our MFAs! ⭐️To celebrate the 2026 MFA Thesis Exhibition “Passages,” opening May 5 at TUAG / Medford (Aidekman Ar...
04/29/2026

⭐️ Meet Our MFAs! ⭐️

To celebrate the 2026 MFA Thesis Exhibition “Passages,” opening May 5 at TUAG / Medford (Aidekman Arts Center), we’ll be spotlighting the 19 graduating Masters of Fine Arts (.mfa) students from ✨

Up first: Kyuin Baik, Jemma Byun, Catherine Chen, and Christine Chiang!

Kyuin Baik was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea. She received BFA from Cornell University and is currently pursuing MFA at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. Back is an interdisciplinary artist, primarily working in photography. Her work explores the continuous act of synchronizing oneself to another culture: the hope of being understood and included, limited by the quiet knowledge that full synchronization may never come.

Jemma Byun lives and works in Boston, MA. She received her B.F.A from Korea University and is currently an M.F.A candidate at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. Her work explores the invisible forces that shape our inner selves. She is interested in creating images that allow viewers to slow down and remain in the present, embracing moments of pain or intensity that bring an unusual clarity to the mind.

Catherine Chen () is a visual artist based in Boston whose practice spans painting, printmaking, and mixed-media installation. Drawing from family archives, dream fragments, and the sensory experience of seasonal change, her work explores memory, time, and the emotional textures woven into everyday life. Through painting, she revisits the edges of memory, acknowledging its fragility while embracing the beauty of its constant transformation.

Christine Chiang ()is a ceramic artist and photographer whose work brings together craft traditions, cultural inheritance, and close material observation. Raised between Taiwan and Europe, she brings a cross-cultural perspective to her engagement with material traditions. Chiang’s practice moves between ceramics and photography, exploring craft as a way of thinking through making.

On view May 5–17 at Tufts University Art Galleries in Medford, the 2026 MFA Thesis Exhibition “Passages” presents thesis...
04/27/2026

On view May 5–17 at Tufts University Art Galleries in Medford, the 2026 MFA Thesis Exhibition “Passages” presents thesis work by nineteen MFA candidates, showcasing their richly varied practices and development in the MFA program. The exhibition’s title speaks to the journey each student has undergone, in art and in life, forming a conceptual throughline for the works on view 🌀

“Passages” is guest curated by Assistant Curator Max Gruber () and organized by Alexi Antoniadis, Dina Deitsch, Madeline Ditzler, Laurel Nakadate, Sarah Prickett, and Kenson Truong.

Join us in celebrating the graduates during a public reception on Friday, May 15 from 5-8PM at TUAG / Medford (Aidekman Arts Center).

The 2026 BFA Senior Thesis exhibition “Until we run out of space”, on view from May 6–17 at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA), features the work of graduating BFA and Combined Degree seniors in the Atrium, Anderson Auditorium, Grossman Gallery, B305 and B307 galleries, SMFA Library, and across the SMFA campus. Join the SMFA Dean’s Suite for a drop-in reception celebrating the student artists May 16, 5–8PM.

Both TUAG locations are currently closed for installation. We’ll see you in May ✨

Images: 1) Jemma Byun, “Self Portrait,” 2026. Tanvi Amrit, “Musical©ity,” 2024. Digital Animation. Courtesy of the artist.

YOU’RE INVITED! 📚Join John Michael Kohler Arts Center () and Tufts University Art Galleries () in Chicago with Gallery 4...
04/24/2026

YOU’RE INVITED! 📚

Join John Michael Kohler Arts Center () and Tufts University Art Galleries () in Chicago with Gallery 400 () for the publication launch of “How do you throw a brick through the window…”, produced alongside the exhibition of the same name. Both the exhibition and publication take inspiration from artist and activist Johanna Hedva’s () question, “How do you throw a brick through the window of a bank if you can’t get out of bed?” Hedva’s statement questions the rights and opportunities of individuals with disabilities who navigate forms of protest 🌀

🗓️ May 21, 2026
🕑 6:00-7:30PM
📍UIC Architecture and Design Studios ()
845 W Harrison St, Chicago, IL 60607
Room 1100

The evening will include a talk by contributing author Amanda Cachia () , who will discuss her essay in the publication alongside related scholarship from her recent book, “Hospital Aesthetics: Disability, Medicine, Activism” (2025).

Exhibition co-curators and publication co-editors Tanya Gayer () and Laurel V. McLaughlin () will present an overview of the publication, including its design by Body & Forma (), essays by Amanda Cachia, torrin a. greathouse (), and Mev Luna (), and the artworks and artists featured in the exhibition: Yani aviles, Chloe P. Crawford (), Nat Decker (), Jeff Kasper (), Carly Mandel (), Jeffrey Meris (), and Libby Paloma () ✨

Free and open to all. RSVP at the link in our bio by May 7 to reserve your spot 🔗

Today marks the final day of our Spring 2026 exhibitions—“Michelle Lopez: Shadow of a Doubt” at TUAG / Medford and “Magi...
04/19/2026

Today marks the final day of our Spring 2026 exhibitions—“Michelle Lopez: Shadow of a Doubt” at TUAG / Medford and “Magical Thinking, of Systems and Beliefs” at TUAG / Boston.

This season, we fully embraced the call to rethink sculptures and systems, presenting two exhibitions that explored these mediums to deeply thoughtful, surprising results.

We found our galleries filled with audiences eager to be in community and engage with collective, participatory performance. As we gathered—to unearth histories of radical Black pedagogy with Jonathan González () and the Museum of African American History, Boston / Nantucket () and partnered with Tufts Chaplaincy to bring Michelle Lopez’s Keep Their Heads Ringin’ to the historic Goddard Chapel belltower ()—we felt the transformative power of artistic practice as a means of visibility and empowerment. 

We are deeply grateful to the many artists and collaborators who made this season possible, and of course, to you, our community, for your continuous support of vibrant, experimental contemporary art and programming. Thank you!

As we head into the final weekend of TUAG’s Spring 2026 exhibitions, we’re closing out our series of spotlights on the w...
04/17/2026

As we head into the final weekend of TUAG’s Spring 2026 exhibitions, we’re closing out our series of spotlights on the work and practices of the six artists featured in “Magical Thinking, of Systems and Beliefs” at TUAG / Boston with Portland-based artist, designer, and writer Sidony O’Neal ().

O’Neal’s work poses questions to mathematical concepts and histories of knowledge through research, intuition, and interface. In their kinetic sculpture “Colonel Lágrimas,” featured in “Magical Thinking, of Systems and Beliefs” at TUAG / Boston, O’Neal questions the limits of mathematical systems, specifically how they influence behavior, gesture, and social and economic structures. “Colonel Lágrimas” traces the origins of the Pankha fan, a cooling device from South Asia from the sixth century, denoting the caste system by those who enact cooling and for whom, eventually becoming embedded within British colonialism. Reemerging as a German patented technology in the late 2010s, O’Neal hacks the stolen cooling system through the integration of hand-etched ceremonial blades, nodding to Central African gift knives, that vibrate in the air—for both warning and forging relation. By coopting the German patent, O’Neal hacks the hacker, complicating the unbalanced mechanizations of colonialism.

“Magical Thinking, of Systems and Beliefs” at TUAG / Boston and “Michelle Lopez: Shadow of a Doubt” at TUAG / Medford run through this Sunday, April 19—both galleries are open 11am-5pm all weekend. Learn more and plan your visit at the link in our bio 🔗

Velvety flocking, rippled chrome, buttery-soft leather, delicate gold leaf, and portal-like silver nitrate—the sometimes...
04/14/2026

Velvety flocking, rippled chrome, buttery-soft leather, delicate gold leaf, and portal-like silver nitrate—the sometimes sensual, sometimes solemn, and always surprising materiality of ’s sculptures invites a closer look 👀

You have less than one week left to see TUAG’s Spring 2026 exhibitions, including “Michelle Lopez: Shadow of a Doubt” at TUAG / Medford, which closes Sunday, April 19. Plan your visit at the link in our bio 🔗

The Whitney Biennial () is the longest-running survey of American art, and has been a hallmark of the Museum since 1932....
04/12/2026

The Whitney Biennial () is the longest-running survey of American art, and has been a hallmark of the Museum since 1932. Out of the 56 artists featured in the exhibition, all making work at the leading edge of contemporary art, two are currently exhibiting at TUAG: Michelle Lopez () and Jonathan González ().

Accompanying the exhibition is a 500 page, full-color catalog featuring each artist in longform conversation discussing their practices and contributions to the show, Lopez’s “Pandemonium” (2025) and González’s “magic hour–golden time” (2026).

You only have one more week to see TUAG’s Spring 2026 shows (plan your visit at the link in our bio 🔗) but the 2026 Whitney Biennial runs through August 23, 2026 ✨

After nearly a decade at the helm of Tufts University Art Galleries (TUAG), Dina Deitsch (), Director and Chief Curator ...
04/09/2026

After nearly a decade at the helm of Tufts University Art Galleries (TUAG), Dina Deitsch (), Director and Chief Curator of the Tufts University Art Galleries (TUAG), will be leaving Tufts for a new opportunity as the Ruth Gordon Shapiro ’37 Director of the Davis Museum at Wellesley College () this July.

In her role, Deitsch has been a champion for the arts and their value to the university and Greater Boston communities, developing an artist-centric gallery program of contemporary exhibitions and collecting. After joining the School of Arts and Sciences in 2017, she led the complex merger of the school’s art gallery with the exhibitions department at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts after Tufts acquired SMFA—we owe both our plural moniker and unified program across two unique campuses to her decisive and forward-thinking leadership.

Through forming deep partnerships with artists, arts organizations, and our local arts community and championing the expansion and diversification of the Tufts Permanent and Public Art Collections, Deitsch has led a stellar exhibition and public art program across our two campuses, gaining significant recognition from the local and national arts community, academia, media, and the public.

During Deitsch’s tenure, the Art Galleries have flourished, and we are grateful. Though it’s bittersweet news, TUAG staff, Tufts faculty and students, and members of our arts communities look forward to celebrating and thanking her for her incredible leadership soon. In the meantime, please join us now in wishing her the best on this exciting new step in her journey as a curator and arts leader.

“Michelle Lopez: Shadow of a Doubt,” Deitsch’s final exhibition with TUAG and the first exhibition to present Lopez’s () drawing practice alongside her celebrated sculpture and installation work, will run through April 19 at TUAG / Medford.

In fields harrington ()’s practice, sculpture, performance, video, photography, and writing portray immaterial forces th...
04/07/2026

In fields harrington ()’s practice, sculpture, performance, video, photography, and writing portray immaterial forces that shape the production of empirical knowledge,
particularly within Western science. harrington’s series “Non-Exhaustive Work” (2023), consisting of sculpture, a C-print with privacy filter, and a dye sublimation
print, alongside a new poster “Disembodied Survival,” departs from the HeLa cell.
This notoriously immortal cell line was extracted from Henrietta Lacks’s cervical cancer cells in 1951 without her consent. Questioning the knowledge-producing system of scientific inquiry through the commonplace tools of a lab support stand (known as “monkey bars”), ventilation ducts, and roller drums used in cell culture, alongside images of the cell itself, harrington also reconfigures such objects as speculative propositions. The works consider immortality as a fugitive escape from death, akin to the concept of
free time as a space outside of work.
As harrington says, “Non-exhaustive work could be defined in many ways. For our purposes, we will define it as work performed by lives which are themselves not subject to exhaustion: immortal life.”
Tufts students and faculty can join the TUAG Student Programming Committee (SPC) and for a drop-in reading session, featuring written works that similarly explore the legacy of Henrietta Lacks and the extractive histories of modern medicine, tonight at 6:30PM in the SMFA library 📚

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