by Alison Knowles

A Retrospective (1960–2022)

by Alison Knowles: A Retrospective (1960–2022)

Best known as a core member of Fluxus, the avant-garde art group founded in 1962, Alison Knowles (1933–2025) created groundbreaking experiments that have influenced contemporary art for over fifty years. Organized by the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) and curated by Karen Moss, by Alison Knowles: A Retrospective (1960–2022) is the first comprehensive exhibition of the artist’s work, spanning the entire breadth of her career, from her intermedia works of the 1960s to her participatory and relational art from the 2000s. Knowles’s poetic artworks—including prints, sculptures and installations, sound compositions, paper scrolls, and artists’ books—emerged from her extended engagement with ordinary materials, found objects, and everyday life. Following the exhibition’s extensive international tour, the Grey Art Museum at New York University is the last, and only East Coast, venue. By Alison Knowles is accompanied by a generously illustrated 250-page exhibition catalogue co-published by BAMPFA and D.A.P., the first comprehensive book on Knowles’s work to be published by a museum.

Starts Wednesday, Sep 09, 2026
Ends Saturday, Dec 19, 2026
Curator Karen Moss
Organized by Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA)
Travel Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive: July 20, 2022–February 12, 2023; Museum Wiesbaden, Germany: September 20, 2024–January 26, 2025; Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Saint-Étienne, France: November 8, 2025–March 15, 2026; Nikolaj Kunstahal, Copenhagen: April 25–July 26, 2026; Grey Art Museum, New York University: September 9–December 19, 2026
Credits

by Alison Knowles. A Retrospective (1960–2022) is organized by the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) and curated by Karen Moss. The exhibition is made possible through lead support from the Terra Foundation for American Art and from Dr. Rosalyn M. Laudati and Dr. James Pick. It is also supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. The presentation at the Grey Art Museum is made possible in part by generous support from the Abby Weed Grey Trust.

BAMPFA written in white capital letters over an irregular dark blue square       TERRA Foundation for American Art written in capital blue letters

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Exhibition Types: American Art