Dear Colleagues,  

Beverly Semmes: Boulders/Flag/Flip/Kick is now on view at our Medford galleries through November 23, 2025 and How do you throw a brick through the window…, will be on view at our SMFA/Boston galleries from September 2-November 9, 2025.  These two exhibitions, which complicate, explore, and expand upon representations of marginalized bodies, reflect the core values and commitments of our work at TUAG and Tufts—and we are thrilled to be able to bring these artists to campus.  

Below you will find summaries of both exhibitions and other educational resources to get you intrigued and thinking about course connections. The online educational guides contain additional resources on the artists and related themes which you can use to learn more or pull for your syllabi.  I would love to work with you and your class – please reach out when you are ready to discuss! 

We are very excited to be partnering with CHAT for an arts preview/open house on September 3rd from 4-6PM. Please save the date – more information will be available shortly.  

And we hope you will join us for our opening events on September 18 in Medford and/or September 4 at the SMFA/Boston.  

I look forward to hearing from you, 

Liz 

Tufts/SMFA alumna Beverly Semmes (BA/BFA ’82) has built an extensive practice in sculpture, painting, film, performance, and fashion that probes the paradoxes and complexities of the body and its representation. Best known for her oversized dress sculptures, begun in the early 1990s—followed by her FRP (Feminist Responsibility Project) series of over-painted pornographic images and clay sculptures—Semmes has played with the scale, exposure or covering, and abstraction of the female form for over three decades.  

TUAG is pleased to present the most comprehensive survey of Semmes’ work to date: beginning in her student days at Tufts, where she tested ideas of ephemerality, scale, and representation in the itinerate installation Boulders, to her most recent fabric installations, ceramics, and paintings that continue to explore issues of female visibility and presence.  

While Semmes has worked in just about every medium, there remains a perpetual friction between presence and absence—be it a room-sized installation of empty gowns in wispy organza, a haunting performance video, or hollow, human-sized clay vessels. Throughout her wide-ranging oeuvre, Semmes offers a material corollary to the internal and public tensions over who in our society is allowed to take up space, and in what form.  

Beverly Semmes: Boulders / Flag / Flip / Kick is curated by Dina Deitsch, TUAG Director,  with the artist and Camilo Alvarez and generously supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. 

How do you throw a brick through the window… presents new commissions and recent works of art exploring how individuals with disabilities navigate forms of protest despite the normalization of ableism in public spaces. 

Opening at Tufts University Art Galleries (TUAG) September 2, 2025 and on view at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center (JMKAC) February 28–Oct. 25, 2026, the exhibition is part of a two-year research initiative co-organized by TUAG and JMKAC that began in 2024. 

How do you throw a brick through the window… features the work of seven artists—Yani aviles, Chloe P. Crawford, Nat Decker, Jeff Kasper, Carly Mandel, Jeffrey Meris, and Libby Paloma—who engage the radical questioning of writer, artist, astrologer, and disabled non-binary Korean-American activist, Johanna Hedva: “How do you throw a brick through the window of a bank if you can’t get out of bed?” 

Written in the aftermath of the 2014 Black Lives Matter protests, Hedva’s 2016 text “Sick Woman Theory” reverberates in the wake of 2020 protests for racial equity and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

This long-term research project, which includes a symposium, artist-led workshops, and the group exhibition, responds to calls for reconsideration of public streets as de-facto sites for civic action and able-bodied action as the measure of protest. Participating artists offer works reimagining embodied dissent informed by disabled, sick, mad, and healing frameworks. 

The exhibition is co-organized by TUAG Curator Laurel V. McLaughlin and JMKAC Associate Curator Tanya Gayer in dialogue with the artists. Exhibition design is provided by Emily Sara. 

Generous support for this TUAG exhibition and programming is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Office of the Vice Provost for Institutional Inclusive Excellence and the Theatre Dance and Performance Studies Department, as well as an anonymous donor. 

Fall Exhibitions & Teaching Resources  

Boulders/Flag/Flip/Kick Press Release 

How do you throw a brick… Press Release 

Boulders/Flag/Flip/Kick Preview Slides 

How do you throw a brick… Preview Slides 

Elephant article about Beverly Semmes 

Sick Woman Theory by Johanna Hedva 

Boulders/Flag/Flip/Kick Education Guide  

How do you throw a brick through the window… Education Guide  

General Resources 

Multiyear Exhibition Preview – through Fall 2026 

Archive of Past Exhibitions’ Education Guides 

Public Art on Campus

Land Acknowledgment Learning Resource 

Language Learning with/in the Galleries 

Search the Permanent Collection Online 

Collection Guide: Adorning the Body 

Collection Guide: Climate Change + the Environment 

Collection Guide: Portraits and Identity   

GROUP VISIT PROTOCOLS (BY APPOINTMENT  ONLY) 

All Tufts classes or student groups must make an appointment before visiting, so we can be prepared for  your  visit, monitor capacity, and avoid two large groups attempting to visit the galleries at the same time. 

If you would like to schedule a small group or class session in the gallery, please contact me,  elizabeth.canter@tufts.edu, even if you do not wish to co-teach the class with me or receive any gallery-led instruction.    

Additionally, select works from Tufts University Permanent Collection can be shown in Koppelman to small groups.  Please reach out to make arrangements. 

VIRTUAL VISITS  

For larger or online classes, please contact me to discuss your learning objectives. Class content can be curated using permanent collection objects, videos, and still images of current exhibitions, and supplemental readings. I can work one-on-one in collaboration with you to create a live session via Zoom or an asynchronous assignment using Canvas, the TUAG app, and other virtual materials to best serve your curricular needs.