The San Luis Obispo Museum of Art is pleased to announce Once Upon Now, a group exhibition of highlights from the Art Bridges Collection on view in the Museum’s Gray Wing February 28 – May 30 , 2026.
The nine diverse works of American art in this exhibition span from 1915 to 2020, representing a remarkable slice of American art history. This selection weaves together ideas of identity, childhood, and environment. Through diverse mediums, styles, and cultural contexts, these works offer insights into the personal, cultural and artistic conversations that shape our world. This project is made possible through our remarkable partnership with Art Bridges, whose mission is to bring art out of storage and into
communities across America.
Themes of both celebrated and forgotten identities appear throughout, from the mystery of Richard Prince’s Nurse Elsa to the individuality of Alex Katz’s Dark Glasses and the haunting imagery of Edouard Duval-Carrié’s Lost at Sea. Rachel Rose’s Lake Valley transports us to the bittersweet nostalgia of childhood, where memories feel both real and imagined. Pop culture and American consumerism are brought into the conversation with Robert Gober’s Untitled (butter), which turns the familiar into something strange. Frank Stella’s maze-like Cinema de Pepsi Sketch I and Max Weber’s Interior with Music explore color, shape, and detail in bold ways. Félix González-Torres’ participatory work Untitled (L.A.) and Alfred Conteh’s Malik and Marquis invite reflection on friendship, loss and human connection.
Together, these works explore social issues that feel especially relevant today in the American political landscape, ideas of home, belonging, community and time. Each artwork tells its own story, but together they create a larger history and experience. This exhibition does more than reflect the world, it helps us understand it and imagine the future we want to create.
Emma Saperstein, Chief Curator at the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, says: “The partnership with Art Bridges has been incredibly meaningful for SLOMA. Through this collaboration, we’re able to bring remarkable works of American art to San Luis Obispo, works that many of our visitors might not otherwise have the opportunity to experience in person. Presenting Once Upon Now here affirms the importance of access, storytelling, and seeing our own lives and histories reflected in art, right here on the Central Coast.”
This exhibition is presented by the Art Bridges Foundation and Pacific Gas and Electric Company.
Once Upon Now, February 28 – May 30, 2026.
Member preview and curator walk-through: February 27, 5-8 p.m., curator remarks at 6:30 p.m.