UCI Art celebrates a milestone year with "The Inoperative Community: Exhibition X Practice, UCI 1965-2025"

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IRVINE, Calif. – The University of California, Irvine’s University Art Galleries is pleased to present The Inoperative Community: Exhibition X Practice, UCI 1965–2025, curated by Juli Carson, Kevin Appel, and Sasha Ussef. This landmark exhibition will span all three campus galleries and opens with a public reception on Saturday, October 11, 2025, from 2–5 p.m.

As part of the opening celebration, Irvine Mayor Larry Agran will join the curators at 4 p.m. for a conversation exploring the intertwined histories of UC Irvine, the city of Irvine, and the region’s dynamic cultural evolution. Together, they will reflect on how boundary-pushing art by UCI faculty and alumni over the past 60 years helped shape both the university’s artistic legacy and the broader Southern California landscape.

The Exhibition

The Inoperative Community: Exhibition X Practice, UCI 1965-2025—an archival exhibition of the University Art Galleries (UAG) from 1965 to the present—provides an unprecedented look at the gallery’s evolving curatorial and artistic legacy, highlighting its significant role in shaping the artistic and academic communities at UCI and beyond. The exhibition takes its title from Jean-Luc Nancy’s famed "Inoperative Community" essay, in which a non-hegemonic, fluid model of community is presented. In this context, the UAG's history is understood not as a linear narrative, but as an evolving, collective moment where diverse voices and practices converge and shift over time.

The Inoperative Community will showcase a broad range of materials: artworks, photographs, exhibition documentation, catalogues, publications, and other archival artifacts, in addition to artworks. While elements of the archive have been accessed by researchers over the years for specific projects, this exhibition will be the first to present the full spectrum of the gallery's multifaceted activities, offering a comprehensive exploration of the UAG’s diverse and interdisciplinary legacy for students, scholars and artists, on campus and internationally.

The UAG’s history is marked by leadership of several key directors, each of whom contributed to shaping the gallery’s identity and its role within the broader artistic and academic landscape. Accordingly, the exhibition will be structured around the following "epochs".

1965–1968: John Coplans
1968–1970: Alan Solomon
1972–1975: Hal Glicksman
1975–1990: Melinda Wortz
1991–1996: Catherine Lord
1998–1999: Brad Spence
1999–2001: Jeannie Weiffenbach
2004–present: Juli Carson

Featured artworks and archives by:

Artwork: Larry Bell, Craig Kauffman, Peter Voulkos, Joe Goode, Bruce Conner, Wallace Berman, Chris Burden, Robert Wilhite, Guy de Cointet, Peter Alexander, Hannah Wilke, David Lamelas, Alan Saret, John Coplans, Faith Wilding, Roy Lichtenstein, Tony DeLap, Nancy Buchanan, Sam Gilliam, Carlos David Almaráz, Michael Frimkess, John Knight, Nicole Eisenman, Judie Bamber, Carrie Mae Weems, Bas Jan Ader, Simon Leung, Zinny/Maidagan, Yael Bartana, Adrià Julià, Koki Tanaka, Roberto Jacoby, Florian Pumhösl, Monica Majoli, Artur Żmijewski, Kelly Barrie, Jane & Louise Wilson, Maura Brewer, Alicia Piller, Andrea Geyer, Mary Kelly, Jacob Lenc, Simon Klein, Jered Frigillana, and others.

Archives: John Baldessari, Los Four (Carlos David Almaráz, Roberto De La Rocha, Gilbert Sanchez Lujan, Frank Edward Romero), Maria Nordman, Bruce Nauman, Billy Al Bengston, John Mason, Malcolm McClain, James Melchert, Ron Nagle, Manuel Neri, Kenneth Price, Henry Takemoto, George Herms, Edward Kienholz, Fred Mason, Ben Talbert, Tom Eatherton, Eric Orr, Richard Ballard, Vija Celmins, Robert Irwin, Richard Smith, Coco Fusco & Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Charles Gaines, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Renée Green, David Hammons, Ben Patterson, Adrian Piper, Sandra Rowe, Gary Simmons, Lorna Simpson, Pat Ward Williams, Fred Wilson, Yvonne Rainer, Barbara Kruger, Lyle Ashton Harris, Catherine Opie, Laura Aguilar, Robert Blanchon, Patricia Cronin, Martha Fleming, Lyne Lapointe, Rinaldo Hopf, Doug Ischar, Glenn Ligon, Paul Pfeiffer, Eugene Rodriguez, Connie Samaras, Millie Wilson, Sol LeWitt, Sam Watters, Stephanie Taylor, Sharon Hayes, Vincent Benjamin Pruden, Dorit Margreiter, Gaylen Gerber, Katya Sander, Molly Corey, Christóbal Lehyt, Shana Lutker, Kenny Berger, Erika Vogt, Constanze Ruhm, Barbara T. Smith, Ed Moses, Yoshua Okón, Omar Mismar, Kerry Tribe, Cauleen Smith, Lutz Bacher, Panos Aprahamian, Heather M. O’Brien, Simon Liu, Michael Moshe Dahan, Cog•nate Collective, Basyma Saad, Yong Soon Min, Sula Bermudez-Silverman, Danielle Dean, Africanus Okokon, among many others..

With this robust roster of artists as its backdrop, The Inoperative Community explores how shifts in leadership reflected broader cultural and political movements and the changing landscape of contemporary art. The show intends to not only document and preserve the archive, but to provide a platform for original and transformative contributions by inviting collaboration across multiple disciplines and institutions to work on and/or respond to it, thus building new communities. In so doing, The Inoperative Community will create an immersive and critical space for understanding the complex history of the UAG, while also offering a platform for new interpretations and future conversations about art, community, and institutional legacy.

Learn more and RSVP for the public opening event.

The Curators

Juli Carson joined UC Irvine in 2004 where she is Professor of Art, Theory, and Criticism in the Department of Art and Director of the University Art Galleries. From 2018-19 she was also Philippe Jabre Professor of Art History and Curating at the American University of Beirut. Carson’s books include Exile of the Imaginary: Politics, Aesthetics, Love (Vienna: Generali Foundation, 2007), The Limits of Representation: Psychoanalysis and Critical Aesthetics (Buenos Aires: Letra Viva Press, 2011), and The Hermeneutic Impulse: Aesthetics of and Untethered Past, (Berlin: b_books Press, 2019). Her most recent book is Mary Kelly’s Concentric Pedagogy: Selected Writings (London: Bloomsbury Press, 2024).

Kevin Appel is Professor of Art and Chair of the Department of Art at UC Irvine, where he also serves as Executive Director of the University Art Galleries and Associate Director of the Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art. Recent exhibitions he has co-curated include Cross-Section: Ed Moses (2018) and First Glimpse: Introducing The Buck Collection (2018). His solo exhibitions include Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe, New York (2024–25); Miles McEnery Gallery, New York (2023); Christopher Grimes Gallery, Santa Monica (2013); Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects (2012); ACME. Gallery, Los Angeles (2009); Two Rooms Gallery, Auckland (2008); Wilkinson Gallery, London (2006); Angles Gallery, Santa Monica (2006, 2002, 1999, 1998); Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City (2003); Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York (2001); and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1999).

Sasha Ussef is Associate Director of the University Art Galleries at UC Irvine. She holds an MPL in Urban Planning and an MA in Art and Curatorial Practices in the Public Sphere from the University of Southern California. Prior to joining UCI, she held curatorial and programming positions at the Sursock Museum and the Arab Image Foundation in Beirut, as well as the Vincent Price Art Museum in Los Angeles. Her recent curatorial projects include Learning from ACT UP: Tactics of Direct Action (2024), co-curated with Juli Carson.

Note to editors: Selected high-resolution images for publicity only may be downloaded from Google Drive (Image Key included).

About the UAG

The University Art Galleries are committed to promoting an intergenerational dialogue between 60s/70s neo-avant-garde art and contemporary visual culture. Accordingly, the curatorial mission is to keep an eye on the modernist past while promoting the most innovative aesthetic and political debates of the postmodern present. From this vantage, the projects commissioned provoke intelligent debate on the subject of art in its most expansive poetic definition. What distinguishes the program is its unwavering commitment to publishing scholarly texts in catalogue/book form in order to disseminate research-based information into the community, providing a venue for the promotion of innovative discourse surrounding mixed media production today. The UAG program provides several exhibition platforms for inter-generational and interdisciplinary dialogue. The Major Works of Art Series commissions original projects by canonical artists working today. The Emerging Artist Series features solo projects by a set of younger artists informed by the legacies showcased in the Major Works series. The Critical Aesthetics Program commissions new work by internationally renowned mid-career artists. Augmenting this intergenerational dialogue, UAG also produces larger thematic group exhibitions alternately showcasing historical and contemporary art and film projects. UAG further promotes an active dialogue between UCI residents and the local and international art communities through colloquia, conferences, visiting artist lectures and theme-based films series, all of which are open to the public. As the galleries continue to mature, they stand committed to being an experimental exhibition space different from the current – but largely traditional – art biennial and film festival platforms.

About UCI Claire Trevor School of the Arts

The UC Irvine Claire Trevor School of the Arts is where scholarly research and creative activity converge. As the only comprehensive arts school in the University of California system, it includes four departments: art, dance, drama and music. The school offers 15 undergraduate and graduate degree programs and two minors that combine rigorous artistic training with a world-class liberal arts education. Named for Academy Award-winning actress Claire Trevor, the school presents more than 200 public performances, exhibitions and lectures each year. Students and faculty engage in studio practice, performance, academic study and interdisciplinary research, often collaborating across campus and within the community. Recognized nationally for its excellence, access and affordability, the school prepares the next generation of creative leaders who shape culture, drive innovation and make a difference in the world. For more information, visit www.arts.uci.edu.