The clocks may have gone back (we’ll miss you, post-5pm sunsets!) but there’s still a lot to look forward to as we continue the Fall 2026 season here at TUAG. 

Make the most of the longer nights ahead by joining us for our final programs of the year and the last weeks of Arnold J. Kemp: Not One Thing and SMFA at 150: Looking Back—both TUAG locations are open Tuesday–Sunday 11am-5pm, with extended hours until 8PM on Thursdays. 

Also on the horizon: Places We Carry: SMFA at Tufts Juried Student Exhibition opens later this month at MFA Boston, we welcome a new cohort of 2026 Traveling Fellows, and work by Arnold J. Kemp joins the Tufts University Permanent Collection.

Keep reading to explore what November has in store and to learn more about what’s new and what’s next at TUAG.

Presented in collaboration between Tufts University Art Galleries and the History of Art and Architecture Department, Natalie Lemle (BA ‘10) will discuss her recent novel, Artifacts (2026) with faculty members Kate Franklin (History of Art and Architecture), Anne Mahoney (History of Art and Architecture), and Adriana Zavala (Classical Studies).

Natalie Lemle is a writer and visual art advisor with a BA in classics and art history from Tufts University and an MFA in creative writing from Emerson College. She is the founder of the Boston and Montreal-based advisory art_works.

Artifacts is her first novel. Her second novel, The Banquet, is forthcoming from Simon & Schuster in July 2027.

Join us on the final day of SMFA at 150: Looking Back for a tour of the exhibition with SMFA Librarian (and unofficial institutional historian) Darin Murphy and TUAG Co-Interim Director and Head of Collections Laura McDonald. The co-curators will share stories from the early, foundational days of the art school: from its various architectural homes to the 1980s atrium expansion, and the communities, performances, and actions that developed in those spaces.

Join us for the book launch of Arnold J. Kemp: Reader and a panel with the artist and Dr. Pamela Lee, Yale University Carnegie Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art, moderated by TUAG curator and Co-Interim Director Laurel V. McLaughlin. RSVP here.

Arnold J. Kemp: A Reader gathers critical essays, new writing, and visual material that illuminates and contextualizes Kemp’s work in relation to contemporary art and culture. This extensive survey includes essays from leading writers and thinkers who examine Kemp’s role in shaping essential dialogues on conceptualism, Black abstraction, authorship, and the politics of art-making today.

You can also preorder this vivid survey of the work of our Fall 2026 exhibiting artist and his impact on conceptualism, Black abstraction, authorship, and the politics of making from MIT Press.

Since 1899, the SMFA Traveling Fellowship program, one of the largest endowed art school grant programs in the United States, has provided critical early-career support for SMFA at Tufts alumni. Selected by an independent jury, SMFA Traveling Fellowship recipients receive up to $10,000 to explore locales and visit communities that will inform current or future art endeavors.

This year’s fellows plan to travel to Albania, Armenia, Chile, Italy, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the Philippines and other parts of Southeast Asia, the East and Gulf Coasts, and New York City, and one road trip from Los Angeles to Florida. We extend our congratulations to Lu Adami (MFA ’25), Miguel Caba (BFA ’25), Bug Davidson (MFA ’13), An Hà (BFA ‘25) Amy Kaczur (BFA ’83), Antonia Kuo, (BFA ’09), Tristan Lajarrige, AG23 (MFA ’23), Jackie Milad, (BFA ’01), Kasia Ozga (BFA ’04) and Kledia Spiro (MFA ’15) and invite you to learn more about the program and the 2026 cohort’s projects here.

In a longstanding collaboration between the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), Boston and of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA), six current and former students at Tufts University explore how migration, memory and cultural inheritance shape identity in the new exhibition Places We Carry: SMFA at Tufts Juried Student Exhibition, on view from November 21, 2026–April 18, 2027 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA).

Featured artists Liangsi Wang (MFA ’26), Bianca Daher (MFA ’27), artist duo Co&Lee—comprised of DBCO (’26) and SangBin Lee (MFA, ’26), Antonio Angel (BFA ’26), and Christine Chiang (MFA ’26) present work that treat family history and identity as material, asking how lineage can be carried through storytelling.

The exhibition is organized by Kendall Murphy (MA ’26) and Kehayr Brown-Ransaw, a current Master of Fine Arts candidate at Tufts pursuing a concentration in Museum Studies. Mentorship was provided by Daisy Alejandre, curatorial assistant in Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, with support from Tufts University Art Galleries (TUAG).

Possible Bibliography  is a series of photographs featuring selections from Fall 2026 exhibiting artist Arnold J. Kemp’s personal library, collected from the 1980s to present. The images offer snapshots into the theoretical and literary discourses that inform the artist’s studio practice, curatorial work, poetry, and academic career. Each book is photographed in Kemp’s hands, transforming the distancing research into tender gesture: the act of holding becomes both a claim to intellectual inheritance and an offering to the world. 

Hear from the artist about the “cultural role models” that shaped this piece and explore Arnold J. Kemp: Not One Thing from anywhere on TUAG’s Bloomberg Connects digital guide.