Distinguished from a traditional sculpture garden by its site-specific nature, many of the artworks are fused seamlessly to campus buildings or integrated into the landscape itself. Great care is taken to incorporate the university's long- and short-range plans while maintaining the integrity of the art and providing provocative, thoughtful and carefully considered additions to the fabric of campus life.

The Stuart Collection matches and reflects the level of excellence exhibited by UC San Diego’s distinction as a science and technology powerhouse. There is a uniquely elevating alliance between the ongoing pursuits of a major research university and the expression of contemporary art. Both address the most important questions of our time and do so with ambition and intellectual courage.

Many of the artists who have designed works for the collection are associated with movements or attitudes that are seldom represented in public sculpture collections. They have been honored with every major award in the art world, ranging from the Pulitzer Prize to the Venice Biennale’s Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement Award and the National Medal of Arts awarded by President Barack Obama. In addition, the collection includes four recipients of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship “Genius Grant” which celebrates intellect, accomplishment and creative potential.

The collection continues to commission exciting new works from the world’s most important contemporary artists. We seek artists who think in interesting ways, regardless of whether they have produced sculptures or completed a permanent outdoor installation previously. When an artist is identified, they are invited to the university to explore the campus and imagine where their work would sprout. Throughout the proposal, design and construction phases, artists select and tailor their work to a specific UC San Diego site.

Once a proposal is submitted, the Stuart Collection Advisory Board—comprised of some of the world’s most respected contemporary curators, historians and artists—considers the impact of their idea. Projects chosen for realization are then submitted for a campus review process, including the Chancellor’s Office. Once approved, a budget is established and fundraising begins—all sculptures come to life thanks to private donations.

The collection began with the support of the Stuart Foundation. It has since grown to encompass an impressive range of projects thanks to the enthusiastic partnership of the UC San Diego Department of Visual Arts, along with financial support from the Friends of the Stuart Collection, the National Endowment for the Arts, and many other organizations, foundations and individuals.

RojoNegro

The work of collective RojoNegro, Noé Martínez (he/him) and María Sosa (she/her), focuses on the lived experience of Indigenous communities and artistic interpretations of communal histories, of which shared experiences of resistance and the celebration of their heritage are crucial elements. 

Noé Martínez (b. 1986, lives and works in Mexico City, MX) is a visual artist and filmmaker who graduated from Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado (“La Esmeralda”), Mexico City. His work functions as a case study that emerges from personal history, using ethnographic methodologies and research on the various histories of Indigenous communities on the American continent. His work has been presented at the Rose Art Museum (2024); Orange County Museum of Art, Santa Ana (2020); The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2019); 21 Bienal de Arte contemporáneo SESC Videobrasil, São Paulo (2019); FilmFront, Chicago (2019); Native Crossroad Film Festival, Norman (2018); Festival Internacional de Cine, Morelia (2018) and Festival Internacional de Cine, Morelia (2018).

María Sosa (b. 1985, lives and works in Mexico City, MX) holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo. Her work develops from research about colonial pasts and how they shape contemporary racial, sexual and social dynamics in the American continent. Throughout her practice, Sosa particularly highlights the eroding knowledge surrounding non-Western ways of life and pre-Hispanic cultures. Her work has been exhibited at Fundación Casa de México, Madrid (2022); Laboratorio de Arte Alameda, Mexico City (2021-2022); Tale of a Tub, Amsterdam (2021); Arewá, Madrid (2021); Servais Family Collection, Brussels (2020); Lasécu Artothèque, Lille (2019); FilmFront, Chicago (2018- 2019); Native Crossroad Film Festival, Norman (2018); Festival Internacional de Cine, Morelia (2018), where she won the Eye to the Best Short Film of Michoacán Award; and International Performance Art Week, Venice (2016).

RojoNegro has exhibited work at individual shows at MAZ, Zapopan, Jalisco (2024), Swiss Institute OFFSITE, Mexico City (2022) and Fudación Alumnos 47, Mexico City (2017). Work by RojoNegro has also been included in collective shows at Forma, Paris (2024), No Mans Gallery, Amsterdam (2023), IV Congreso de Estudios Poscoloniales/VI Jornadas de Feminismo Poscolonial, Buenos Aires and California (2018), Venice International Performance Art Week, Venice (2016), Juan José Arreola Lake House Museum, Mexico City (2015) and MUCA Roma, D.F., Mexico City (2012). RojoNegro participated in the Clarice Oliviera Tavares residency at the Swiss Institute in New York, New York in Fall, 2020.

Learn more:

• RojoNegro Instagram 
• María Sosa Instagram 
• Noé Martinez Instagram

Precious Okoyomon

Precious Okoyomon (b. 1993) is a Nigerian-American poet and artist. Their work considers the natural world, histories of migration and racialization and the pure pleasures of everyday life. They have had one-person exhibitions at the LUMA Westbau, Switzerland; the Museum Für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany; Performance Space New York, New York, New York; the Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, Colorado; The Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Madrid Foundation, Madrid, Spain. They were included in the Baltic Triennial 13, Tallinn, Estonia; the 58th Belgrade Biennial, Belgrade, Serbia; the 59th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy; the 2022 Okayama Art Summit, Okayama, Japan; the 11th Sequences Biennial, Reykjavik, Iceland; the 2023 Thailand Biennial, Chiang Rai, Thailand, as well as in group exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK; LUMA Westbau, Switzerland; Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin, Germany; LUMA Arles, Arles, France; Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France; Nigerian Pavillion, 60th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy; Fondation Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland. Okoyomon’s work is included in the permanent collection of the Museum Für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany and LUMA Arles, Arles, France. Okoyomon was the 2021 recipient of the Frieze Art Fair Artist Award, as well as the 2021 Chanel Next Art Prize. In 2024, their second book of poetry But Did You Die? will be co-published by the Serpentine and Wonder Press.

Learn more: Precious Okoyomon Instagram 

Max Hooper Schneider

Max Hooper Schneider (b. 1982, lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) graduated from Harvard University in 2011 with a master’s degree in landscape architecture. The foregrounding of material technologies and tactics of defamiliarization within the fields of biology, philosophy, landscape architecture and varying subcultures continue to inform his polymathic practice. Hooper Schneider’s work develops and explores the aesthetics of succession, abandonment and the uncanny through the creation of habitats and installations that materialize and dramatize nature in diverse ways, with nature conceived as a process of ceaseless morphogenic modulation, a relentless onslaught in which bodies, as formed matters, are continuously created, transformed, and destroyed. Obsessive travel, documentation and field work in distant regions, and the sacrificing of his own material compositions to environmental elements remain integral to his codex of artistic procedures. He continues to experiment across institutions, venues and outdoor sites locally and internationally and is held in major public and private collections around the world. 

Learn more: Max Hooper Schneider Instagram