Asian American art and art by Asian Americans has not been highly visible in museum contexts, especially in thematic museum exhibitions and art histories.

The Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum will be looking at ways to bring Asian American art to a future project at the UC Davis museum thanks to a Warhol Foundation grant.

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has awarded a $50,000 curatorial fellowship grant to the Manetti Shrem Museum, independent curator Susette Min, who is also a UC Davis professor and Department Chair of Asian American Studies, and contemporary art writer, juror and lecturer Amy Sadao.

Their work is already underway.

The “Abolition of a Category” project started with an open invitation Min and Sadao issued in the Brooklyn Rail in 2022 urging a collective rethinking of the category of Asian American art and how it’s presented. Among their many questions: “How might we figure Asian American art as bringing on a new system that reveals and revels in decolonial arrangements and projects already underway, and/or makes room for new alliances, unexpected juxtapositions, connections, tensions, and dynamic collaborations?”

The grant allows Min and Sadao to further explore these and other questions and work toward a future project to be presented at the Manetti Shrem Museum.

The Warhol Foundation announced $4 million in arts grants in July, with 49 recipients in all.