UC People: Rachel Teagle

By José Vadi

UC Davis

‘Face to Face’: The power of art spaces

How Rachel Teagle curates creativity on campus

Encouraging creativity across disciplines is integral to the university experience, Rachel Teagle, founding director of Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, told Chancellor Gary S. May on this month’s episode of Face to Face.

Teagle was instrumental in the planning, construction and 2016 opening of the Manetti Shrem Museum. In addition to previous curatorial roles at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Anderson Collection, Teagle served as the executive director of the New Children’s Museum in San Diego and the curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.

In a lively conversation, Teagle notes UC Davis’ global impact on the arts, including professor Beatriz Cortez’s recent inclusion in the prestigious Venice Biennale in Venice, Italy. 

Hear how Teagle is helping to “change the perception” that UC Davis is strictly focused on science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, by making sure “every undergraduate has an art experience while they’re at UC Davis.” 

One upcoming art experience, Teagle notes, is the Arts and Humanities Graduate Exhibition on June 6 and the museum’s display, Hatched: The Making of Robert Arneson’s Eggheads, as part of the ongoing Year of the Eggheads campaign celebrating the artwork of Robert Arneson. 

Stick around for the “hot seat,” where Teagle and May discuss everything from jazz musician Pharoah Sanders, the artists behind classic Marvin Gaye albums and the one piece of artwork that Teagle believes, when witnessed in person, “can change your life.”