Closing out two years of celebrating the 50th birthday of the Ulrich Museum of Art, the museum hosted the fall opening exhibition with installations of exhibits by Justin Favela and Abhindya Ghuge, drinks and hors d’oeuvres, Bollywood dancers, henna tattooing and live music by DJ Ashley.
“We’ve been now celebrating for two years, and we’ve reflected on our history and seeing forward to the future,” Vivian Zavataro, the executive and creative director of the Ulrich said.
The Ulrich Museum celebrated its 50th birthday in December 2024. Staff decided to celebrate the milestone in both 2024 and 2025 because of its significance, according to Zavataro.
“The first year really, really reflected on our history, so we did a lot of collection-based shows and shows that reflected the past,” Zavataro said. “This year we’ve been thinking about the future, and we wanted to end installation exhibitions of artists that don’t normally get to be included in museum spaces, such as Abhidnya Ghuge and Justin Favela, both incredible artists and also a little bit burned out about how cultural institutions treat those folks … a reflection not only for the Ulrich but for museums in general.”
Favela’s exhibit uses pinatas as a medium, and Ghuge’s exhibit is a freeform abstract floating installation made from paper plates.
This year, the Ulrich team is also working to make the community feel more welcomed and invited into the museum, to create a place of belonging.
“There’s a lot of really cool surprises coming up, but the main thing being that we’re going to take the museum outside of its walls into communities, instead of waiting for folks to come to us, we’re going to come to them in order to build trust,” Zavatraro said. “We’re going to look at them with educational programming, workshops and other activities and fun stuff that we’ll be doing around town.”
Along with the larger installations by Favela and Ghuge, some student interns had their own artwork on display in the museum.
Dante Coleman, a junior studying graphic design at Wichita State, is one of the collections interns at the Ulrich and had his artwork put on display at the fall exhibition event.
“I just love people – everyone’s unique, everyone has their own story,” Coleman said. “Painting is kind of new to me, and I was like ‘What can I paint a lot of, people?’ because there’s always endless amount of faces.”
Coleman’s exhibit is full of portrait oil paintings of people he has seen in passing, on TV and on social media. He started digitally on Procreate before transitioning to oil painting on canvas, and he started painting in February of this year.
“Just make art, don’t be afraid to make art, who cares who looks at it, just make it,” Coleman said.
The students’ fall exhibits will be on display until Sept. 6. For more information about upcoming Ulrich events, visit the website.
