Image: Detail: Tom Nakashima, Turtle, 1994. Etching and mixed media on paper. Jersey City Museum Collection at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, gift of Jersey City Museum, 2018; Gift of Judith and Gerson Leiber, 1994. Photo Peter Jacobs
The Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University will present 'Japan In/Out of View' from 9 September 2026 to 14 February 2027 at 71 Hamilton Street in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The exhibition traces cultural exchange between Japan and the United States from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, beginning in the 1860s and 1870s, when Rutgers hosted some of the earliest Japanese students in America. Prints, photographs and archival materials document those early connections, while later works by Japanese and Japanese American artists address new artistic forms; the museum frames the selection as showing the fluid nature of influence and reorienting understanding of Japanese and American art.
The exhibition is organised by Nicole Simpson, Curator of Prints and Drawings, with Haruko Wakabayashi, Associate Teaching Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures, and Fernanda Perrone, Archivist and Head of Exhibitions Program and Curator of the William Elliot Griffis Collection in Special Collections and University Archives. Support for bilingual text is provided by the Art Bridges Foundation's Access for All program. The museum has not published a full checklist.
The work used in the museum's publicity is Tom Nakashima's 'Turtle' (1994), an etching and mixed-media work on paper. Its credit line records it as part of the Jersey City Museum Collection at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, a gift of the Jersey City Museum in 2018, with a 1994 gift credit from Judith and Gerson Leiber.
Two free public programmes accompany the opening period. 'Rutgers Meets Japan: A Celebration of Friendship', presented in connection with the exhibition, takes place on Saturday 12 September 2026, 3-5 pm, at Kirkpatrick Chapel, 81 Somerset Street, with parking and RSVP details still to be announced. On Thursday 17 September 2026 the museum hosts a conversation between the artist Hank Willis Thomas and the collector Jordan D. Schnitzer from 5 to 6 pm in Kirkpatrick Chapel, followed by a reception at the museum from 6 to 8 pm for its new exhibitions, including 'Japan In/Out of View'. Both events are free and open to the public with complimentary light refreshments, and the museum asks visitors to RSVP in advance.
'Japan In/Out of View' opens alongside three other exhibitions in the Zimmerli's fall season: 'The Beast of Joy: Women Artists from Soviet Republics' (2 September 2026 - 18 July 2027), and 'Hank Willis Thomas: LOVERULES - From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation' and 'Hank Willis Thomas Selects the NJ Arts Annual' (both 17 September - 20 December 2026).
Admission to the Zimmerli is free and no tickets are required for exhibitions. The museum opens Wednesday to Friday 11 am to 6 pm and Saturday and Sunday noon to 5 pm, and closes on Mondays, Tuesdays, major holidays and throughout August; offices reopened on 1 September and galleries on 2 September while staff installed the fall exhibitions. The Upper Dodge wing is temporarily closed. The museum states that its operations, exhibitions and programmes are funded in part by Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and by income from the Avenir Endowment Fund and the Andrew W. Mellon Endowment Fund, with additional support from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the museum's donors, members and friends.
