This December, the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art will debut three new exhibitions and host two events with current exhibition artists. Visiting the Nerman Museum is always free, and the museum events highlighted below are also free.
New exhibitions
Linda Lighton: Love & War, A Fifty-Year Survey, 1975-2025
For 50 years, American artist Linda Lighton (b. 1948) has created a powerful body of subversive ceramic sculptures that explore desire in all its complex forms. Her work uses wit and seduction as conceptual weaponry to mine the relationships between sex, power, and politics. Love & War, A Fifty-Year Survey will be on view in the Nerman Museum’s Oppenheimer, Thompson and Anonymous Galleries on the first Floor, from December 13 through May 3, 2026.
Visionary: The Work of Michael Brantley
This exhibition, guest curated by artist Harold Smith, will feature the elegant and sophisticated work of painter Michael Brantley. He is a master painter whose stunning work and practice compellingly encapsulate the love, fears, hopes, and dreams within the Black experience. Visionary: The Work of Michael Brantley will be on view in the Nerman Museum’s McCaffree Gallery (second floor), from December 13 through May 3, 2026.
Angeline Rivas: I Had a Dark Night of the Soul and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt
Painted with airbrush on wood panel and canvas, the works of Angeline Rivas are vast, yet compact, crucibles of a unique form of western Americana. Unlike typical airbrush paintings, Rivas’s works have a way of disclosing, as opposed to effacing, facture via imperfections, pieces of tape, and small moments of graffiti, making it such that the work has carved out a singular space for itself both on a formal and a conceptual level. This exhibition, Rivas’s first institutional solo show, will be on view in the Nerman Museum’s Kansas Focus Gallery on the first floor, from December 13 through May 3, 2026.
Upcoming events with the artists
Artist Talk with Linda Lighton
December 12—6-7 p.m.—Hudson Auditorium, second floor
Join the Nerman Museum for an artist talk with Linda Lighton on December 12 to celebrate the opening of the Linda Lighton: Love & War, A Fifty-Year Survey, 1975-2025. A reception in the Museum’s atrium will follow the talk.
Collective Imagining Circle: 2026 with Amy Kligman
December 13—1-2:30 p.m.— Oppenheimer New Media Gallery, second floor
Join Salon artist and organizer Amy Kligman on Saturday, December 13, for a circle dialogue to explore and develop personal goals for 2026. Participants will go through a collective imagination exercise, which will be archived within the Salon collection. This event is free, but space is limited, and RSVP is required.
The Salon for Possible Futures is an exhibition organized by Amy Kligman as an interactive space for community gathering and collective imagining. Themes of sustainability, hope, magic, learning from the past, and fostering humanity and relationships are the underpinnings of the Salon’s assembled objects and imagery. This exhibition is on view in the Nerman Museum’s Oppenheimer New Media Gallery on the second floor, through December 21.
Café Tempo
After a nearly five-year hiatus, Café Tempo at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art reopened earlier this fall, with a menu of old favorites and new classics. Visit the Café, open Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., for a delicious selection of sandwiches, soups, salads, and desserts.
Throughout the year, seasonal, limited-time menu offerings are included. The Café menu and soup of the day are posted at the start of each week.
Museum, Café, and December holiday hours
The Nerman Museum’s hours are:
- Tuesday, Friday, Saturday: 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
- Wednesday, Thursday: 10 a.m.-8 p.m.
- Sunday: noon-5 p.m.
- Monday and JCCC Holidays: Closed
- Upcoming closure: December 24 through January 5, 2026
Café Tempo is open:
- Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
- Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and JCCC Holidays: Closed
- Upcoming closure: December 13 through January 19, 2026
Stay up to date with Spring 2026 youth and teen art class opportunities, upcoming exhibitions and events, and other Nerman Museum happenings at nermanmuseum.org. Join the Nerman Museum email list to be the first to learn about what’s new at the Nerman.
