Animal, Vegetable, nor Mineral: Works by Miljohn Ruperto | March 12 - September 14, 2026

"Animal, Vegetable, nor Mineral" is the first large-scale solo museum exhibition of Manila-born, Los Angeles-based artist Miljohn Ruperto (b. 1971). Working across photography, video, animation, generative artificial intelligence, and other mediums, Ruperto explores the ways humans have understood their place in the world. From digitally-created fantastical botanical specimens printed as gelatin silver photographs to immersive apocalyptic landscapes experienced in VR, Ruperto’s artworks highlight the elusiveness of knowledge and unsettle what we think we know about nature.

Often working collaboratively with other artists, scholars, scientists, and technologists, Ruperto champions interdependence and cooperation—not isolated genius—as vital and innate to creativity and scholarship. The resulting artworks challenge traditional modes of classifying and representing the natural world and inspire new ways of relating to each other and the world around us.

This exhibition is presented as part of the museum’s Asian American Art Initiative (AAAI). It is accompanied by a publication featuring short essays by Ruperto, providing expanded context for the artist’s collaborative practice, and an essay by exhibition curator Maggie Dethloff elucidating the conceptual underpinnings of the artist’s wide-ranging artistic output.

In conjunction with this exhibition, the Cantor has partnered with Minnesota Street Project Foundation to present Miljohn Ruperto: Ultimate Days, on view March 14–April 18, 2026

Jeremy Frey: Woven | March 26 - July 20, 2026

The Cantor is honored to be the final—and only west coast—venue for this acclaimed exhibition organized by the Portland Museum of Art in Maine. Seventh-generation basket weaver Jeremy Frey (b. 1978) often remarks that the exhibition was “thousands of years in the making.” Wabanaki baskets have existed for more than thirteen thousand years in what is today known as Maine. The tradition was under threat when Frey, who is Passamaquoddy (one of four federally recognized Wabanaki tribes), began making baskets out of ash and sweetgrass in the early 2000s, helping to revitalize the art form.

JANE! An intimate exploration of Gilded Age excess 
and the enigmatic life and death of Jane Stanford | July 2 - May 18, 2028

Curated by Associate Curator of European Art, Patrick R. Crowley, JANE! celebrates the aesthetic and affective excesses of Jane Stanford, the Gilded Age founder and matriarch of Stanford University. Bringing together precious keepsakes, souvenirs, archaeological detritus, and spooky messages from beyond the grave, the exhibition reveals the campy underside of a familiar biography and perhaps an even more familiar murder mystery.

From her elegant French gowns to a colossal painting of her jewels, from the Egyptian artifacts she acquired for her fledgling museum to a Hawaiian skirt she may or may not have purchased immediately before her suspicious death, Jane! presents various idiosyncratic artifacts of Stanford lore—many shown for the very first time, and very likely for the last.

Solid Pictures: Photosculpture and the Making of Modern Likeness | September 17 - January 18, 2027

Before 3D printing, there was photosculpture. Curated by Patrick R. Crowley, Associate Curator of European Art, Solid Pictures is the first major exhibition to explore these largely overlooked objects first conceived in 1859 by the twenty-nine-year-old French artist and inventor François Willème.

Employing projection technologies and mechanical instruments, Willème and his team of operators translated photographic negatives into solid figures across a variety of media, aiming to create affordable portrait sculpture for the burgeoning middle class of Second Empire France. Though commercially unsuccessful, these experiments laid the groundwork for the scanning, machining, and printing technologies ubiquitous today. Bringing together these rare artifacts, the exhibition opens up a little-known chapter of history to reveal the roots and richness of our contemporary world.

An accompanying catalogue features four newly commissioned essays accompanied by previously unpublished documentation, deepening our understanding of this overlooked chapter in the history of art and technology.

The Cantor Arts Center is always free with free parking on the weekend.

Images:

Napoleon T. Sarony, Portrait of Jane Lathrop Stanford, 1871. Photograph with charcoal touch up, 55 ½ x 45 in. Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, Stanford Family Collections, JLS.18217

Jeremy Frey (Passamaquoddy, born 1978), Observer, 2022, ash, sweetgrass, porcupine quill on birch bark, and dye, 13 1/2 x 10 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches. Collection of Carole Katz, California. © Jeremy Frey. Image courtesy Eric Stoner

François Willème (French, 1830–1905). Unfinished photosculpture bust, ca. 1860. Oak and twine on base. Gift of Eastman Kodak Company, ex-collection Gabriel Cromer, 1985.0517.0001. Courtesy of the George Eastman Museum

F&F Kelady

Jane White Gown Painting