A Sound Work by Lala Rukh: Subh-e-Umeed | February 13 - September 7, 2026

Subh-e-Umeed marks the first exhibition on the West Coast of work by Pakistani artist and activist Lala Rukh (1948–2017). A sonic archive of a morning in Lahore (the artist’s birthplace) during Pakistan’s politically fraught Lawyer Movement, Subh-e-Umeed begins with birdsong at daybreak. As a crowd gathers to protest outside the city’s High Court, the sound of marching and chanted slogans builds, ending with strands of Hindustani classical music and vocals by Sarah Zaman.

“Lala Rukh’s practice regularly engaged with music and recordings. In this work, that engagement comes together with her rigorous exploration of inventive, delicate forms of notation to record changes over time,” says exhibition curator Padma Dorje Maitland, the Malavalli Family Foundation Associate Curator of the Art of the Indian Subcontinent at the Asian Art Museum. While Subh-e-Umeed is unique as a sound work, it offers a fitting introduction to this influential and dedicated advocate for women’s rights, says Maitland, “inviting audiences into the feeling of hope on the cusp of change."

Lala Rukh studied art at Punjab University, Lahore, Pakistan (MFA) and University of Chicago, USA (MFA). She taught for 30 years at Punjab University, Department of Fine Art and the National College of Arts where she set up the MA(Hons) Visual Art Program in the year 2000. One of the foremost feminist activist artists of South Asia, Lala Rukh devoted her time after retiring from teaching to her studio in Lahore and to activism. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows worldwide.

Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries | April 3 - July 20, 2026

The Japanese artist renowned for immense, intricate webs of thread makes her Bay Area debut.

Two Home Countries is the first solo museum exhibition in the Bay Area by Chiharu Shiota, best known for large-scale installations that fill spaces with densely woven webs of colored fibers. Featuring works from throughout Shiota’s career spanning installation, sculpture, video, drawing, and stage design, the exhibition offers a timely meditation on belonging, impermanence, and living with “in-betweenness.”

As Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries unfolds, audiences accompany the artist on a journey that is both deeply personal and universally relatable. Navigating an existence suspended between Japan and Germany, absence and presence, isolation and belonging, Shiota explores the threads of memory, history, and identity that make up the complex fabric of our shared reality.

Al-An deSouza: Table Settings | April 9 - November 2, 2026

Al-An deSouza’s Table Settings invites viewers into a world of textures and details inspired by the permanent galleries of the Asian Art Museum and informed by the artist’s practice of photographing the streets while walking, attending closely to their “cracks and stains, signage and markings, bumps and dips, and potential slips and trips.” The work was created over months at a living room table; each session began with a pot of tea, remnants of which formed the ground of that day’s painting.

Layering elements that are rarefied and humble, intentional and unplanned, Table Settings offers a meditation on where we find value and beauty, both in the galleries and beyond. deSouza describes taking inspiration from a uniquely attuned movement through their surroundings: “looking down, watching your step, accepting one’s connection to the baseness of matter.”

“I decided on watercolor for its association with the amateur ‘Sunday’ painter, with the feminine, for its low carbon footprint, and especially in how it is a technique of more or less controlled staining,” relates deSouza. “It seems devalued for all these reasons, and it is this devaluing which attracts me in relation to what is socially valued, and what is seen as a stain on the social body and a stain on ‘pure’ culture."

Al-An deSouza (American, b. 1958) works across disciplines including photography, text, performance, and pedagogy. Their artworks have been shown extensively in the US and internationally. Their 2018 book How Art Can Be Thought makes a case for art as a vital university-level research discipline; their most recent book,  Ark of Martyrs, is a polyphonic “replacement” of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. deSouza’s writings have appeared in publications including Third Text, London, The Brooklyn Rail, and Art Journal, NY. Their artworks have been shown at venues worldwide including the Phillips Collection, the Krannert Art Museum, the Johnson Museum, the Pompidou Centre, the Gwangju Biennale, and the Guangzhou Triennale.

Image:

Installation view of Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries at Japan Society Gallery, New York, 2025. Photo by Waso Danilenko.