Nancy Buchanan Retrospective to Open at The Brick in Los Angeles

TRUTHFULLY, NANCY BUCHANAN surveys five decades of experimental and political practice

This summer, The Brick in Los Angeles will present TRUTHFULLY, NANCY BUCHANAN, the first comprehensive retrospective of artist and UC Irvine Claire Trevor School of the Arts alumna Nancy Buchanan (M.F.A. ’71). On view from June 22 to Sept. 20, 2025, the exhibition spans more than five decades, tracing Buchanan’s influential practice across performance, video, drawing, collage, digital art and installation.

Buchanan’s work investigates systems of power and representation through a feminist lens, engaging with themes of social justice, nuclear disarmament, surveillance, environmental collapse and the politics of the body. With wit, urgency and experimentation, her work critiques dominant narratives while centering personal and collective resistance.

Curated by artist Laura Owens, Buchanan’s former student at CalArts, and The Brick’s curator Catherine Taft, the exhibition repositions Buchanan’s radical conceptual work within the West Coast art movements of the 1970s and ’80s, introducing new audiences to her dynamic and politically charged career. TRUTHFULLY, NANCY BUCHANAN emphasizes the artist’s under-recognized drawing practice, which has remained a constant through her experiments with media and form.

The exhibition includes rare documentation from Buchanan’s early performances, produced in collaboration with artists such as Chris Burden (M.F.A. ’71), Professor Emeritus Ulysses Jenkins and Barbara T. Smith (M.F.A. ’71), as well as major video and installation works from the 1980s to the early 2000s. Highlights include Fallout from the Nuclear Family (1981) and Security (1987), which draw on personal and national histories. Also featured are newly restored digital works, never-before-seen sculptures and the debut of Hair Room, an environmental installation first conceptualized in 1973.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of public programs, including artist and curator walk-throughs, screenings and a performance by Slauson Malone 1, who will reinterpret Buchanan’s 1974 piece Rock ’n’ Roll on closing day.

A fully illustrated catalogue will follow in 2026, Buchanan’s first monograph, featuring archival materials, rare photographs and essays by Laura Owens, Catherine Taft and other contributors.

To learn more about TRUTHFULLY, NANCY BUCHANAN, visit the-brick.org. To learn more about the Department of Art, visit art.arts.uci.edu.