New contemporary art centre coming to University of California, San Diego
Strauss Family Gallery, University of California, San Diego Photo: Pablo Mason, courtesy UC San Diego
Official response and confirmed impact
The University of California, San Diego (UCSD) will open a 12,000-sq.-ft contemporary art space on its campus in spring 2027.
Housed in the university’s new Triton Center, the Strauss Family Gallery will include four indoor exhibition spaces and an outdoor sculpture terrace.
Free and open to the public, the Strauss will host exhibitions, commissions, artist residencies and public programmes that encourage collaboration between artists and UCSD researchers and scholars.
Jessica Berlanga Taylor, UCSD’s chief campus curator, tells that the university is aware of the challenges other San Diego cultural institutions are facing and believes investing in art and culture is essential.
In 2023, the local philanthropists Matthew and Iris Strauss gave more than 100 works form their art collection to UCSD. (Matthew, who made his money in real estate, died the following year.) Represented artists in the gift include Carrie Mae Weems, Fred Wilson, Zhang Huan and Sabine Moritz.
A foyer gallery on the first floor of the Strauss will host many of these pieces.
Incident background
"The Strauss represents a long-term commitment that the university is making to contemporary art and sees it as an integral part of the university's intellectual and public life," she says.
