Current Exhibitions

Inner Vision: Abstraction and Cognition
Main Gallery, February 13 鈥 May 8, 2025
Inner Vision: Abstraction and Cognition considers the use of abstraction to investigate the nature of thought, experience, and the senses. Exploring abstraction as a language that spans lived experience, scientific inquiry, and diverse epistemological frameworks, Inner Vision examines a range of abstract representations of cognition and sensation including emotional states, dreams, hallucinations, mystical experience, and neurological phenomena. While their visual dialects vary, each artist investigates the complexities of inner perception and sensation. Some works offer critical perspectives on cultural signifiers to convey belief systems. Others examine altered states of consciousness through abstracted scientific models. Still others investigate the ways color and form activate personal and collective memory. Many of the works explore and engage perceptual awareness. Together, they demonstrate the potential of abstraction to understand and communicate the full spectrum of lived experience.
Featured artists: Bhakti Baxter, Terri Friedman, Rema Ghuloum, Dennis Koch, Robin Mitchell, Bridget Mullen, Angeline Rivas, Adee Roberson, Barbara Rossi, and Vian Sora

Main Gallery Corridor, February 13 鈥 May 8, 2025
With this group of lithograph prints, artist Bruce Conner (1933-2008) reproduced a series of highly detailed but fading images he originally created using felt-tip pens. The nine prints on display explore the act of perception by prompting prolonged, up-close viewing. The meticulous black and white compositions recall mandala forms as well as microscopic imagery. The selected prints on view are part of the Museum鈥檚 permanent collection.

Mini Gallery, February 13 鈥 May 8, 2025
Jodie Mack鈥檚 handmade collage films blend techniques of abstraction and optical science to create richly layered perceptual tapestries. Glistening Thrills is an approximately 9-minute audiovisual film set to play on a loop for the duration of the exhibition. The gallery setting facilitates an immersive experience that builds upon the themes of the Main Gallery exhibition, Inner Vision: Abstraction and Cognition.
Community Gallery, February 13 鈥 May 8, 2025
Brittany Mojo: A Vocabulary of Objects offers an intimate glimpse into the artist鈥檚 studio practice. The exhibition features dozens of hand-molded ceramic pieces鈥攁mong them dog bones, kitchen spoons, birds, bottles, eggs, and throwing dice鈥攚hich the artist sculpts while conceptualizing and building a larger piece. Mojo describes the small objects as 鈥渓ittle memory palaces鈥 that accumulate in her studio, taking on new meanings and associations over time. Rooted in personal memory and nostalgia, Mojo鈥檚 diaristic vocabulary of objects speaks to the idiomatic relationships we form with our surroundings. A large stoneware piece, Plumb Bob (2025), anchors the installation.
Brittany Mojo received a BFA in Ceramics from Cal State Long Beach in 2013.

Laurie Steelink: A Love Supreme
Glenn Court, February 13 鈥 May 8, 2025
Saturated with vivid colors and teeming with clusters of organic, cell-like forms, Laurie Steelink鈥檚 A Love Supreme (2010) seems to pulsate with life and energy. A meditation on interpersonal connection and reciprocal support systems, the artist created the work during a period of deep contemplation on the nature of life and love. Steelink鈥檚 abstract imagery references scientific and spiritual perspectives, from cellular structures seen under a microscope to altered visions that can arise when using plant medicines.

Carolyn Campagna Kleefeld Gallery, Ongoing
Notes to Future Selves: A Community Engagement Project is a participatory exhibition that invites the community to create artwork in response to the prompt: What do you want the future of your community to look like? Participants are given the option to display their artwork in the Carolyn Campagna Kleefeld Gallery for the duration of the exhibition.
Inspired by the Museum鈥檚 50th anniversary in 2024 and this year鈥檚 75th anniversary of California State University, Long Beach (六九色堂), Notes to Future Selves embraces these milestones as a powerful moment for collective reflection. The exhibition celebrates the 六九色堂 community鈥檚 diversity of voices, perspectives, experiences, and visions for the future.
Notes to Future Selves will be updated weekly as artwork submissions are received from the community.
Learn how to participate in the exhibition.
In conjunction with Notes to Future Selves, a section of the Carolyn Campagna Kleefeld Gallery features selections from the Museum鈥檚 permanent collection that engage introspective practices, such as recording everyday events, experiences, or observations in a sketchbook or journal or expressing one鈥檚 thoughts and feelings through personal iconography. Featured artists include Hannelore Baron, Carolyn Kleefeld, Joyce Treiman, and Beth Van Hoesen.

Walasse Ting: 1垄 Life
Prints and Drawings Room, February 13 鈥 May 8, 2025
1垄 Life (1964) is a collaborative book project by Chinese-American visual artist and poet Walasse Ting (1929-2010). The book combines written works by Ting with artwork by various artists associated with Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism, including Sam Francis (who edited the book), Roy Lichtenstein, Joan Mitchell, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol, among others. Ting鈥檚 witty wordplay and biting sense of humor is evident throughout the book, as is 1960s experimentation and iconoclasm. The book includes thirty-one folios, which will be on display with weekly rotations over the course of fall 2024 and spring 2025 semesters. 1垄 Life is part of the Museum鈥檚 permanent collection.
Reservations are available for visitor exhibition viewing sessions in the David Campagna Prints and Drawings Room. To make a reservation to view this exhibition, please fill out a request at least two weeks in advance.
Prints and Drawings Hallway, February 13 鈥 May 8, 2025
Looking closely at three works from the Museum鈥檚 permanent collection, Word & Image explores the interplay of symbolic meanings and metaphors that emerge when visually combining text and image. How do text and image interactions guide our perceptions? How, for example, do word/image juxtapositions enhance or contradict meaning or introduce ambiguity? The exhibition includes prints by Wayne Campbell, Michael Goldberg, and Manuel Rodriguez.
Selections from the Permanent Collection
Archives Room, Ongoing
A selection of artwork from Kleefeld Contemporary's permanent collection is displayed in the Archives Room on an ongoing basis.
The Archives Room is available to reserve for research requests. To make a reservation, please fill out a request at least two weeks in advance.
Upcoming Exhibitions
INSIGHTS 2025
Select museum galleries, May 21 鈥 July 11, 2025
INSIGHTS is the annual juried School of Art (SOA) student exhibition at California State University, Long Beach. A selection of student artwork from INSIGHTS 2025 will be on display at Carolyn Campagna Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum.
About INSIGHTS
INSIGHTS is the annual juried School of Art (SoA) student exhibition at California State University, Long Beach. Undergraduate and graduate students are invited to submit up to three works for consideration. The exhibition is juried by School of Art faculty from their respective program areas: Animation, Ceramics, Drawing & Painting, Fiber, Graphic Design, Illustration, Metals & Jewelry, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture/4D, and Wood.
Insights 2025 takes place May 7 - May 13 in the Max L. Gatov, Dr. Maxine Merlino, Dennis W. Dutzi, and Marilyn Werby galleries, which comprise the main School of Art Galleries located between Fine Arts 2 and Fine Arts 3. Select works will also be displayed at the Carolyn Campagna Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum May 21 - July 11.
INSIGHTS 2025 artists on view at the School of Art Galleries:
Adam Abraham
Johanna Amezcua
Makaela Barron-Wright
Kat Barsukova
Elizabeth Benedict
Manon Berard
Skylar Bush
Jasmine Duong
Emily Cladinos
David Dardis
Krizzha Marie Dee
Jenny Do
Madison Elliston
Melissa Fillari
Shannon Freshwater
Augustus Giba
Mackenzie Giles
Luciano Gomez
Kai Gonzales
Lisa Gonzalez
Marrin Goodall
Micah Goodnough
Wym Greene
Nichola Harris-Kowalchek
Makayla Haynes
Trinity Healy
Jazmin Heredia
Vladimir Herrera
Linna Hossain
Jade Liu
Johanna Jimenez
Vanessa Juarez
Kaili Ker
Michael Larios
Allison Lawton
Menghao Lee
Nicole Li
Vanessa Mae Lim
Cynthia Lopshire
Amaya Lounibos Hartard
Alondra Mares
Vincent Martinez
Christina Mcallister
Alexis Miranda Gaona
Jacqueline Mix
Sarah Mueller
Alejandra Navarro
David Christian Ng
Magdalena Oliveros
Emilia Perez
Emily Perez
Kaitlyn Nguyen Pham
Melanie Polanco
Olivia Prior
Alkaid Ramirez
Samantha Randell
Oscar Razo
Lucy Reese
Gianfranco Ross
Casey Rubenfeld
Sara Ruiz
Luis Ruvalcaba
Alexa Saavedra
Isabella Sapien
Nadine Schelbert
Flynn Scorzelli
Elani Scott
Natalie Seago
Fiona Simpson
Guadalupe Tapia
Ashley Tesfamariam
Tommy Diaz
Jaslie Ulloa
Aaliyah Uy
Gopi Vadsak
Ernesto Vazquez
Celina Villanueva
Lucia Wang