Public Event
Spring Exhibition Opening Celebration
Tomorrow | Thursday, January 26
5-8 p.m.

We can't wait to see you tomorrow when we celebrate the Ulrich Museum's spring 2023 exhibitions with an opening party featuring music, food, fun, and friends! Thursday, January 26 from 5-8 p.m. you're invited for a first look at our latest exhibits:

-Transmissions: The XXIV Faculty Biennial in the Polk/Wilson Gallery

-Nature in the Floating World: Images of Nature in Japanese and Chinese Art in the Beren Gallery

-Tuan Andrew Nguyen: The Boat People in the Amsden Gallery

We will also announce the new name of the Salon Circle program and the events we have planned February through May! As with all Ulrich public events, admission to the Spring Exhibition Opening Celebration is free and everyone is welcome.

Exhibition
Transmissions: The XXIV Faculty Biennial
January 26 through April 22
Polk/Wilson Gallery

The Faculty Biennial is a venerable tradition on the WSU campus and the longest-running series of exhibitions at the Ulrich Museum. The Biennial represents the breadth of creative work and research being undertaken by the faculty of the School of Art, Design and Creative Industries (ADCI). The 2023 edition showcases the work of faculty who specialize in art history, art education, ceramics, drawing, fiber, graphic design, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, and mixed and new media.

The Biennial’s theme, Transmissions, seeks to prompt reflections and start conversations about the altered creative landscape in which artists and educators, like the rest of us, find themselves in the wake of nearly three years of disruptions and changes. Making art in response to global paradigm shifts has set new challenges and opened new pathways for creative reflection. The theme invites a dialogue among ADCI faculty and Ulrich audiences on rethinking art practice in response to a participatory post-digital landscape, the de-centering of long-standing historical narratives, and the transcendence of familiar boundaries and borders.

See the digital publication that accompanies Transmissions: The XXIV Faculty Biennial here.

The Ulrich is grateful for the ongoing support of Salon Circle members who make the Museum’s exhibitions and programs possible through their Salon memberships. We also receive funding for general operational support from the City of Wichita and Wichita State University.

Exhibition
Nature in the Floating World:
Images of Nature in Japanese
and Chinese Art
January 26 through May 10
Beren Gallery

Among the treasures found in the Ulrich collection are dozens of remarkable Japanese woodcut prints. They include pieces by such internationally influential 19^th century masters of ukiyo-e as And? Hiroshige and Katsushika Hokusai, as well as a variety of works by participants in the 20^th century shin-hanga and s?saku-hanga movements to revive and revitalize woodcut printing.

This exhibition presents approximately forty works drawn from the Ulrich holdings, as well as from the Mark Arts Study Collection and a local private lender. All the works focus on images of nature—an important and widely interpreted theme in Japanese woodcuts. The works presented here, as well as two large-scale works by contemporary Chinese artists Huang Yan and Liu Guosong, capture great inventiveness and beauty in approaches to depicting the natural world and reveal its deep interconnectedness with human life.

Nature in the Floating World and associated programs are generously supported by Shoko Kato Sevart in loving memory of her mother, Taka Kato; Pam Bjork; and Trish Higgins. The Ulrich is grateful for the ongoing support of Salon Circle members who make the Museum’s exhibitions and programs possible through their Salon memberships. We also receive funding for general operational support from the City of Wichita and Wichita State University.

Exhibition
Tuan Andrew Nguyen | The Boat People
January 26 through May 6
Amsden Gallery

How can artists working today help us imagine the future? What concerns will affect us as a species? What will the world and politics surrounding us look like? How will our cultures change, and how will the people of the future think of us as their past? These are the questions the Ulrich will tackle in a series of presentations of moving image works titled Some Possible Futures.

The Boat People is the first exhibition in this series. In his 2020 film, Vietnamese artist Tuan Andrew Nguyen visualizes a depopulated post-apocalyptic world. A group of five children sail the seas and try to understand their ancestors’ past through the traces of material culture they find. In the process, they also make viewers consider afresh the evidence of war, migration, suffering, and survival that we are leaving behind us. 

See the digital publication that accompanies Tuan Andrew Nguyen: The Boat People here.

The Ulrich is grateful for the ongoing support of Salon Circle members who make the Museum’s exhibitions and programs possible through their Salon memberships. We also receive funding for general operational support from the City of Wichita and Wichita State University.

Exhibition schedules will now be staggered

Staff is hard at work preparing our Spring exhibits and programs. Starting this spring, the dates of our exhibits will be staggered, so there will be more open gallery days available for you to explore.

All three exhibits open Jan. 26. Transmissions: the XXIV Faculty Biennial will run through April 22. Tuan Andrew Nguyen: The Boat People, a post-apocalyptic moving image work, is on view through May 6. Nature in the Floating World: Images of Nature in Japanese and Chinese Art is on exhibit until May 10. You'll want to see them all!

Have you shared your Ulrich memories with us yet?

Our 50th anniversary is right around the corner (in 2024) and we're planning lots of great exhibitions and events to celebrate the Museum's excellence. One thing we are working on is collecting memories from folks who have been connected to the Ulrich over the years. Whether you are a present or past employee, a donor, volunteer, student, or general visitor, we'd love to hear your favorite memories of the Ulrich. We've created this webpage, which has a form on it, to help you share your stories. The memories we collect will be shared throughout our 50th anniversary celebrations and might even end up in a book we're putting together. We'd love to hear your stories.