Featured Event September 2026

Marilyn Arsem and Kledia Spiro in SMFA at 150: Looking Back

Opening Reception Thursday September 17, 2026, SMFA at Tufts, 230 the Fenway, Boston, MA, USA

In honor of the 150th anniversary of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (now SMFA at Tufts), Tufts University Art Galleries is thrilled to present a look back at the art school’s history—as told by alumni artists and curators. ​

Performance, Pedagogy and Lineage features the work and far-reaching impact of three of the SMFA’s most prolific performance art practitioners and educators: Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons (b.1959), Danielle Abrams (b.1968-2022), and Marilyn Arsem (b.1951). Archival research, oral histories, images and video will highlight the expansive and expressive modes of their performances and teaching philosophies. We place the work of each former faculty member in conversation with the work of the artists they influenced during their graduate years at SMFA. They include Faith Johnson, Angela Counts, Andrea Sherrill Evans, Helina Metaferia, Allison Rodriguez, Kirk Amaral Snow, Sarah Hill, and Kledia Spiro. This section will also include “Jackson Pollock: Two Figurative Alternatives,” a video work by Dell Marie Hamilton and an homage to painter Jackson Pollock and art historian Susan Denker, who also taught at the SMFA. The video inserts Hamilton’s body into the received histories of modernism and performance art, and points to Amelia Jones’s book, “Body Art/Performing the Subject,” which Arsem assigned to Hamilton during her MFA program.

Image Credit: Resisting Surviving, 6-hour durational performance by Marilyn Arsem as part of 'CEREMONY [ii]' produced by Future Ritual London, England, UK, April 27, 2025, photo by Fenia Kotsopoulou.

See what else is happening this month!