Exhibitions and Galleries
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
John M. "Jack" Carney
Exhibition Schedule
GALLERY HOURS
Tuesday - Saturday
and by appointment.
closed Sundays and Mondays.
EXHIBITIONS STAFF
EXHIBITION SPACES
The Richmond Center for Visual Arts features several exhibition spaces:
- Albertine Monroe-Brown Gallery for temporary exhibitions of national and international artists
- Rose Netzorg and James Wilfrid Kerr Permanent Collection Gallery for exhibitions of works from the University Art Collection and other special exhibitions.
- Atrium Gallery, primarily for sound and video art.
- Eleanor R. and Robert A. DeVries Student Art Gallery is dedicated to Frostic School of Art students.
Exhibitions are free and open to the public throughout the academic year for all to enjoy and be exposed to regional and national topics in modern and contemporary art.
MISSION
Founded in 2007, the Richmond Center for Visual Arts acts as an anchor for the presentation and interpretation of contemporary art and design on the campus of Western Michigan University, within the city of Kalamazoo, and throughout the southwest Michigan area. Dynamic, diverse, and devoted exclusively to the art of today, the mission of the Richmond Center is to spark conversation and sustain dialogue about the social, political, aesthetic, and cultural role of art in the 21st century. Free and open to the public, the Richmond Center for Visual Arts hosts 10,000 visitors annually.
EXHIBITION HISTORY
Comprised of the Albertine Monroe-Brown Gallery, the Rose Netzorg & James Wilfred Kerr Gallery and the Eleanor R. & Robert A. DeVries Student Art Gallery, the Richmond Center for Visual Arts encompasses approximately 5,000 sq. feet of flexible exhibition space. In its fourteen year history, the Richmond Center has produced two major traveling exhibitions, Complex Conversations: Willie Cole Sculptures and Wall Works (2013), curated by Patterson Sims, and After the Thrill is Gone: Fashion Politics and Culture in Contemporary South African Art (2016) curated by Dr. Andrew Hennlich. In addition to annual faculty/staff and student exhibitions, as well as faculty sabbatical shows, solo exhibitions in RCVA’s Albertine-Monroe Brown Gallery and Rose Netzorg & James Wilfred Kerr Gallery have featured such artists as Dwayne Lowder (2020), Christina Quarles (2019), Robyn O'Neil (2019), Mike Glier (2016), the artist collective Quintapata (2015), Kate Teale (2014), Nayda Collazo-Llorens (2012), Peter Campus(2012), Yinka Shonibare (2010), and Roger Shimomura (2010). Major group exhibitions include a historical survey of artists working in conceptual, performative or three dimensional modes, Sculptural Concepts (2008); Animal Logic: Jennifer Catron and Paul Outlaw, Paul Sydorenko, Squeak Carnwath (2011); In the Shadows: Contemporary Artists and Obsessive Memory (2014); The Expanded Print: WMU's Collection in Context (2017); Site & Survey: The Architecture of Landscape (2018); a group exhibition featuring artists who confront issues of mass incarceration, On the Inside Out (2018); Spiral: Up and Out (2019), highlighting artists of the famous New York City-based 1960s artist alliance; and > 1: Celebrating Design + Community, a retrospective covering nearly four decades of graphic design work by students and faculty at the Frostic School of Art’s Design Center for Research and Education.
While the Albertine Monroe-Brown Gallery space typically hosts expansive solo and group exhibitions, the more intimate Rose Netzorg & James Wilfred Kerr Gallery highlights the work of Frostic School of Art faculty as well as visiting artists and special exhibitions comprised of selections from our University Art Collection, which includes an outstanding print collection. Employed primarily as an object-based teaching collection, the Frostic School of Art print collection encompass traditional and contemporary printmaking techniques, including work by such artists as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Sol LeWitt, Claes Oldenburg, Cy Twombly, Ann Hamilton, Rina Banerjee, Chakai Booker, Alfredo Jaar, Joyce Pensanto, Catherine Opie, and Emma Amos, among many others.
With nearly 1,000 square feet of exhibition space, the DeVries Student Art Gallery qualifies as one of RCVA’s most vivacious exhibition spaces. Ranging from BFA thesis shows to individual student projects and group exhibitions from areas including art education, photography and intermedia, sculpture, graphic design, and printmaking, exhibitions in the DeVries Gallery provide an essential professional practice experience for Frostic School of Art students.