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New exhibition of paintings by Penn alumna and contemporary artist Allison Zuckerman on view at Penn Live Arts
March 24, 2026
For immediate release
New exhibition of paintings by Penn alumna and contemporary artist Allison Zuckerman on view at Penn Live Arts
The exhibition, Allison Zuckerman: Remixed and Reclaimed, is curated by the Arthur Ross Gallery’s Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw.
PHILADELPHIA, March 24, 2026 – A new exhibition at the University of Pennsylvania presents a selection of recent paintings by New York City-based artist Allison Zuckerman that exemplify her exuberant, layered approach to image-making.
Starting on March 28, Allison Zuckerman: Remixed and Reclaimed will be on view at Penn’s Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts through March 19, 2027. The opening reception is from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, April 12, at the Annenberg Center. Zuckerman, who earned her bachelor’s degree from Penn in 2012, is scheduled to attend.
“Penn is where my artistic identity really began to take shape through both my studio practice and my art history classes. I can see that influence in these paintings, where I have even sampled imagery from works I made as a student here and woven them into the compositions,” said Zuckerman, noting that she spent “countless nights” working in the studios in Charles Addams Fine Arts Hall. “It feels incredibly surreal now to walk up Walnut Street and see my work hanging at the Annenberg Center.”
The exhibition curator is Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, the Inaugural Faculty Director of the Arthur Ross Gallery. The exhibition includes six large-scale paintings on loan from the Neumann Family Collection and another private collection in New York.
Using traditional paint techniques with digital collage, Zuckerman creates densely constructed compositions that draw from art history, popular culture, and the internet, said Shaw, the James and Nan Wagner Farquhar Professor of History of Art at Penn.
“She remixes fragments of Old Master paintings with gestures borrowed from modernism and animation to produce maximalist images,” Shaw said. “Her hybrid, often female figures—assembled from borrowed faces, bodies, and decorative elements—occupy compressed, saturated spaces that seem to press toward the viewer.”
Relying on digital research, Zuckerman begins by collecting and altering reproductions of historical artworks, primarily by male artists. She then translates these manipulated sources into thickly worked surfaces in oil and acrylic. “The resulting paintings blur boundaries between past and present, original and copy, digital and handmade,” Shaw said.
One painting alone includes references to works by Pablo Picasso, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Chaïm Soutine, Henri Rousseau, and Roy Lichtenstein, mixed with modern elements, including areas that look digitally pixilated. Zuckerman’s paintings also include self-portraiture, and what she terms “self-sampling,” borrowing from her own previous paintings.
At the core of Zuckerman’s practice is a critical engagement with the Western canon, which she studied as a Fine Arts major in the College of Arts & Sciences at Penn. She earned her Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2015.
“By cutting up and reconfiguring canonical works, she challenges longstanding hierarchies and asserts her own authorial agency,” Shaw said. “Her paintings celebrate the history of the medium while reimagining who has the power to shape its future.”
Zuckerman has held solo exhibitions at institutions including the Rubell Museum, the Akron Art Museum, the Pizzuti Collection, and the Arlington Museum of Art. Her work has also been exhibited internationally at institutions including the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art and the Jewish Museum of Australia in Melbourne. In addition to her studio practice, Zuckerman has collaborated with cultural and fashion institutions including Vogue Italia, TOD’s, Veuve Clicquot, and TikTok, creating projects that bridge contemporary art, media, and visual culture. Zuckerman is the recipient of the Mark Podwal Visual Arts Award from the Elie Wiesel Foundation.
Allison Zuckerman: Remixed and Reclaimed is a presentation of the Arthur Ross Gallery, Penn Live Arts, and The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation.
Image: Allison Zuckerman, Conferring with Grace, 2021. Acrylic, oil, rhinestones, and archival CMYK ink on canvas. 90 in. x 73 in. Courtesy of the Neumann Family Collection. Additional images available upon request.
Related events:
March 28: TedX Penn, 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Penn’s Irvine Auditorium. Allison Zuckerman is one of the nine featured speakers at this year’s conference, titled Mosaics. Tickets available online.
April 12: Allison Zuckerman: Remixed and Reclaimed opening reception, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, 3680 Walnut St., Philadelphia. Register here.
For media inquiries, please contact:
Louisa Shepard
LJS Communications LLC
ljscomms@outlook.com
Miranda Powell
Gallery Coordinator
Arthur Ross Gallery
powellmj@upenn.edu
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The Arthur Ross Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania is a catalyst for creativity with a mission to engage, educate, and inspire. Founded in 1983, the Gallery is a resource for the University across schools and departments, as well as the local Philadelphia community, and scholars worldwide. We are a learning lab where people engage with important, and often rarely seen, art and artifacts from a diverse range of time periods, media, and cultures. Located in the Fisher Fine Arts Library building at the heart of Penn’s campus, the Gallery is open to the public and admission is free.
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