About the
Richmond Center for Visual Arts
Founded in 2007, the Richmond Center for Visual Arts acts as an anchor for the presentation and interpretation of contemporary art and design on the campus of Western Michigan University, within the city of Kalamazoo, and throughout southwest Michigan. Dynamic, diverse, and devoted exclusively to the art of today, the mission of the Richmond Center is to spark conversation and sustain dialogue about the social, political, aesthetic, and cultural role of art in the 21st century. Free and open to the public, the Richmond Center for Visual Arts hosts more than 10,000 visitors annually.
In its fourteen year history, the Richmond Center has produced two major traveling exhibitions, Complex Conversations: Willie Cole Sculptures and Wall Works (2013), curated by Patterson Sims, and After the Thrill is Gone: Fashion Politics and Culture in Contemporary South African Art (2016) curated by Andrew Hennlich. In addition to faculty sabbatical shows, solo exhibitions in RCVA’s sprawling Albertine-Monroe Brown Gallery and intimate Rose Netzorg & James Wilfred Kerr Gallery have featured such artists as Dwayne Lowder (2020), Christina Quarles (2019), Robyn O'Neil (2019), Mike Glier (2016), the artist collective Quintapata (2015), Kate Teale (2014), Nayda Collazo-Llorens (2012), Peter Campus (2012), Yinka Shonibare (2010), and Roger Shimomura (2010). Major group exhibitions include Animal Logic: Jennifer Catron and Paul Outlaw, Paul Sydorenko, Squeak Carnwath (2011); In the Shadows: Contemporary Artists and Obsessive Memory (2014); The Expanded Print: WMU's Collection in Context (2017); Site & Survey: The Architecture of Landscape (2018); On the Inside Out (2018); Spiral: Up and Out (2019), > 1: Celebrating Design + Community (2019); as well as annual faculty and student exhibitions. Click here to visit the Richmond Center's website.
How can you help support the Richmond Center?
The Friends of the Richmond Center members group support the students of the Frostic School of Art by investing in our exhibitions programs. More than an affiliate group, Friends of the Richmond
Center create a community who acts as our most significant off-campus audience. Since 2007, members of the Friends of the Richmond Center have remained integral in providing financial support for opening receptions and exhibition previews. Proceeds from our bi-annual benefit, which is attended by many Friends members, assist with offsetting operational costs. Friends of the Richmond Center help spread the news about our exhibitions and events to wider audiences and share in the excitement of our work with students, national and international artists, as well as the WMU Art Collection.
Click here to become a Friend of the Richmond Center or contribute to the Friends of the Richmond Center Endowment.
