Rhapsody: Works from the Cooper Rosenwasser Collection | March 4 - June 28, 2026

Rhapsody: Works from the Cooper Rosenwasser Collection presents paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, and photographs from the collection of Penny Cooper and Rena Rosenwasser, which are part of a generous bequest to the BAMPFA Collection. Cooper, a celebrated criminal defense attorney and advocate for social justice, and Rosenwasser, a poet and cofounder of the Bay Area–based feminist publishing house Kelsey Street Press, have been longtime supporters of BAMPFA and champions of women artists for six decades. Arranged into groupings reflecting themes of abstraction, design, and representations of the body, the exhibition reflects both the dynamism of art making over the last half century and the close personal relationships that the couple has developed with artists, many of whom have exhibited at BAMPFA.

Gathering work made from the 1960s to the present, Rhapsody maps the tremendous contributions of an international and intergenerational group of artists to movements ranging from Minimalism and Conceptualism to cross-disciplinary experimentations. The exhibition also traces the influence of second-wave feminism on artists as they navigated social and political transformation on a global stage. Rhapsody is titled after a major work by Jennifer Bartlett from 1975–76, which spurred Cooper and Rosenwasser’s love of collecting and supporting women artists in the Bay Area and beyond.

The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue featuring an interview with Cooper and Rosenwasser by Margot Norton, Chief Curator, and texts by Tausif Noor, Kiki Smith, and Richard Tuttle.

Maren Hassinger: Living Moving Growing | June 6 - November 29, 2026

Maren Hassinger: Living Moving Growing will be the most significant retrospective of the work of Maren Hassinger, presenting her work across sculpture, performance, video, and installation from the early 1970s to the present. Hassinger’s work addresses social and cultural issues through an awareness of interconnectedness, ephemerality, and relationships between humans and the natural world. These themes emphasize the importance of caring for the things we share in contrast to the things that divide us. The exhibition will survey Hassinger’s expansive career, making connections across her practice and asserting her dynamic place in the history of contemporary art.

Art Wall / Stephanie Syjuco: Present Tense (Roll Call) | August 13, 2025 - June 28, 2026

Debuting her largest wall installation to date, artist Stephanie Syjuco (b. 1974, Manila, Philippines; lives and works in Oakland) presents Present Tense (Roll Call). Referencing the classroom routine of announcing one’s presence, the exhibition explores radical pedagogy in the politics of education. Syjuco’s practice spans from handcrafted textiles to archival excavations, interrogating how photography and archives shape racialized narratives of being and belonging.

Images:

Maren Hassinger, Tree Duet, 1977. Courtesy of Susan Inglett Gallery, NYC. Photo: Adam Avila

Installation view of Rhapsody: Works from the Cooper Rosenwasser Collection, March 4–June 28, 2026, at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), Berkeley, CA. Photo: Chris Grunder

Installation view, Art Wall / Stephanie Syjuco: Present Tense (Roll Call), 2025