Four exhibitions are currently on display at Stanford University’s Cantor Arts Center and the Anderson Collection, presenting a variety of artworks that explore themes such as color, cultural identity, and historical narratives.
The Cantor Arts Center is hosting “Shahzia Sikander: Collective Behavior,” a major survey of the New York-based Pakistani artist. The exhibition features 44 works from Sikander’s three-decade career, including mosaics, paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. This show is also the first major solo exhibition organized by the museum’s Asian American Art Initiative (AAAI), which aims to improve public access to art by Asian American artists.
Kathryn Cua, curatorial assistant with AAAI, commented on Sikander’s work: “In all of her work, she’s really bringing women into the center and making them the main character of their own stories.” The exhibit includes notable pieces such as “A Slight and Pleasing Dislocation, II,” an acrylic painting depicting a headless female figure with multiple arms holding symbolic items. Other featured works include “Liquid Light II,” created for a Venice exhibition and combining global trade histories with South Asian imagery; “Promiscuous Intimacies (2020),” a bronze sculpture showing Venus and a Hindu celestial dancer; and “Parallax,” an animated digital piece addressing regional tensions in the Strait of Hormuz. The exhibition will be open in the Freidenrich Family Gallery until January 25, 2026.
Another show at Cantor is “Edmonia Lewis: Indelible Impressions,” which displays three marble sculptures brought to California by Edmonia Lewis from her studio in Rome during the Gilded Age. Jennifer DeVere Brody, professor of theater and performance studies at Stanford who curated the exhibit, said: “Edmonia Lewis was just an extraordinary person. She traveled extensively in an era when that was not necessarily possible for Afro-Native women, and when she brought these beautiful sculptures to California, she made them available to the West Coast for purchase for the first time.” The pieces include Awake, Asleep—described by DeVere Brody as among Lewis’s “best and most delicate carving”—and Bust of Abraham Lincoln. DeVere Brody added: “I think that every time she made one of those sculptures, it was a blow against a certain kind of system, a resistance. She carved her life out of her dedication to art and justice, and because of that, she’s someone who was well known during her time – and should still be well known in this one.” This exhibition runs through January 4, 2026.
At the Anderson Collection, Alteronce Gumby’s first West Coast museum exhibition presents nine mixed-media works incorporating paint, canvas, glass, semi-precious stones and other materials. Trisha Lagaso Goldberg, director of programming and engagement at Anderson Collection said: “I think we’re in a moment historically of there being a lot of tension, and we need to find better ways to communicate with each other openly. Gumby’s work encourages us to take a cosmic or universal stance. It offers us an example of how to think with an open mind and with an open eye and an open heart.” The show includes Gumby’s direct responses to other artists’ works in the collection—such as his piece After Rothko inspired by Mark Rothko’s Pink and White over Red—and will remain on view through March 1, 2025.
“Cunning Folk: Witchcraft, Magic and Occult Knowledge” is also on display at Cantor Arts Center through February 22, 2026. Curated by Sara Frier—the Burton and Deedee McMurtry assistant curator—the exhibit focuses on magic as restricted knowledge using artifacts sourced mainly from Stanford collections. Frier explained: “It’s a subject that can be scary, uncomfortable, and dark but it’s about being able to transform and influence nature in ways you normally can’t.” The show explores how societies have projected anxieties onto individuals or cultures associated with occult practices.
Both museums offer updated fall and winter hours for visitors during holidays.
