Browse Museums, Galleries, and Art Organizations

A university art and research center at UC Santa Cruz that uses exhibitions, research, and public programs to engage the critical issues of the present, bringing the arts together with the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Founded in 2014 to expand the visual arts at UC Santa Cruz, it opened the university's first professional, climate-controlled galleries on the Westside of Santa Cruz in 2023 under director and chief curator Rachel Nelson. Its Art + Science programs focus on climate resilience. Chief among them is An Aesthetics of Resilience, a research initiative with the Friedlaender Lab that brings scientists, artists, humanists, and activists together to examine vulnerability in the face of climate change, and that produced the exhibition and catalog Weather and the Whale (2025–26). Other programs include Visualizing Abolition, LASER Talks, the Coha Nowark Art + Science Pilot Residency, graduate student fellowships, and paid undergraduate internships.

This gallery presents exhibitions that connect the UC Merced campus with artists, ideas and communities from across California and beyond. Located in El Portal, the gallery is free and open to students, campus visitors and the public.

Of considerable breadth for a museum of its size, the AD&A Museum’s Art Collections includes the Morgenroth Collection of Renaissance Medals and Plaquettes, the Sedgwick Collection of Old Master Paintings, the Feitelson Collection of Old Master Drawings, the Ken Trevey Collection of American Realist Prints, the Fernand Lungren Collection, the Women Beyond Borders collection, the Garcia-Correa Collection of Mexican Prints, and a growing collection of contemporary artwork in all media. Contemporary holdings focus on artists active in California, particularly in the Santa Barbara community. The AD&A Museum also features significant holdings in photography, including an extensive collection of vintage daguerreotypes, tintypes and ambrotypes from 1840-1880 as well as works by Muybridge, Weegee, William Wegman, Gary Winogrand, and Carrie Mae Weems. In addition, the art collection is strong in ethnographic objects. Exhibitions and programs at the museum recorded in the archive include Environmental Communications: Big Bang Beat L.A. (2025), Bonnie Ora Sherk: Life Frames since 1970 (2026), Jackie Amézquita: Gemidos de la Tierra (2026) and the Campus Lagoon Tour & Exhibition Tour (2026), organized with the Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration.

Combining historical collections, contemporary art exhibitions, and public programs, the Hammer Museum at UCLA emphasizes artist-centered practices and engagement with pressing social and environmental issues. Free and open to the public, its collections span international contemporary art, works on paper, and sculpture, with a particular focus on Los Angeles artists. Exhibitions such as Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice (2024–25) explore connections between art, environmental change, and social justice while advancing sustainable exhibition practices. The museum also supports artistic research and collaboration through residencies that connect artists with UCLA faculty, students, collections, and the broader Los Angeles arts community.

Connecting California’s artistic history to the present, this public art museum uses its collection, exhibitions, and programs to bridge UC Irvine and Orange County.

Exhibitions, research, and public programs here explore where art, science, and engineering meet, with a focus on new forms of interdisciplinary art made with digital technologies. The center is part of UC Irvine’s Claire Trevor School of the Arts.

Since opening in 2016, this free-admission museum at UC Davis has put contemporary art in direct conversation with university research. Its exhibitions and programs have featured artists working on identity, migration, environment, and material innovation.

Founded in 1970, UC Berkeley’s art museum and film archive holds more than 25,000 artworks and 18,000 films and videos, including the world’s largest collection of African American quilts. It presents exhibitions, screenings, talks, and performances at the edge of campus and downtown Berkeley.

Permanent and rotating exhibits on the history of Merced County and the Central Valley fill this volunteer-run museum. It is housed in the county’s 1875 Italianate courthouse, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Merced County Arts Council’s mission is to nurture and inspire the arts and artists in Merced County by cultivating places for creative discovery, community, and dialogue. We strive to show the community that art is around us all the time, and can be experienced in anything and everything. Incorporated in 1978, the Merced County Arts Council was originally operated from a small office space on Main Street. In 1996, the City of Merced entrusted the Arts Council to manage the Merced Multicultural Arts Center. In addition to operating this 28,000 sq. foot, multipurpose arts center, the Arts Council manages an arts-in-education program; an arts facility for adults with developmental disabilities; performances and visual/performing arts classes for children and adults; professional support for artists through fiscal sponsorship; exhibits year-round in the four galleries; and newfound coalitions for visual and performing artists.