Current & Upcoming Exhibits

All Exhibits

Each floor of the Anderson Academic Commons hosts a number of different exhibitions that change almost every quarter. These include fine art installations, student-curated shows, displays of faculty, student, and staff scholarship, and exhibitions curated from Special Collections & Archives and the Beck Archives.

Scroll down to see all current exhibitions, upcoming installations, and events.

View Upcoming Events

UPCOMING:

The Magna Charta Universitatum

A Pledge to Academic Freedom and Institutional Autonomy

AAC 290 Cases

May 21st- September 7th, 2026

Drawing on materials from the collection of Professor Emerita of Italian Roberta Waldbaum, this exhibit explores the Magna Charta Universitatum and the partnership between the University of Denver and the University of Bologna. What began as an academic agreement grew into a broader model of international collaboration grounded in service learning, cultural exchange, and a shared commitment to the public role of the university.

ON DISPLAY NOW:

Rocky Mountain Bound: 2026 Rocky Mountain and Wasatch Chapter of the Guild of Book Workers Members Exhibition

Special Collections Cases, Lower Level

September 1 - November 30, 2026

This regional exhibition showcases contemporary book arts and fine craft by members of the Rocky Mountain and Wasatch Chapter of the Guild of Book Workers.

Un)Altered Books: Unheard Voices

AAC 290 Cases, Main Level, and the Upper Level Built-in Cases

September 14 - November 15, 2026

Presented in partnership with the Colorado Chapter of the Women’s Caucus for Art and the Blair-Caldwell Research Library, this exhibition brings together work by more than 30 artists and community members responding to censored words, banned books, erased histories, and silenced stories. Through altered books, sculpture, collage, assemblage, painting, and mixed media, the exhibition explores questions of censorship, memory, identity, resistance, and whose stories are preserved and heard.

Cocina Libre

Lower Level

Image Credit: Madison Sussmann, 2025.

"Sazón & Liberation was born from a belief that every person carries an inherent dignity, and that telling our stories—especially those pushed to the margins—is an act of liberation. We were inspired by the way food can embody memory and hope, how a shared table can be a site of belonging, and how cooking becomes both survival and sacred offering. This exhibit features the portraits and interviews of immigrant chefs featured in Cocina Libre."

"Bibliomysteries"

Faculty Reading Room

Bibliomystery is a subgenre of mystery fiction that centers around books, manuscripts, libraries, bookstores, or the literary world. The plot often involves a crime related to rare books, literary artifacts, or the book trade. Protagonists are frequently scholars, librarians, authors, and book collectors.

This exhibit presents 48 selected bibliomysteries, showcasing the variety of this genre. These covers represent a small portion of the 1,000+ bibliomysteries in the Libraries' collections. While most are in the DU Special Collections & Archives, some are available to check out from the circulating collection.

“Feast on Art”

Faculty Reading Room

(Image of one wall of the exhibit with a gallery wall of art and recipes)

This exhibition will showcase various cookbooks owned by Anderson Academic Commons, inspired by art, literature, and museums. Art is defined as the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, and the art of cooking belongs on this list. The emergence of the ‘Art(ists) Cookbook’ -a recipe book authored by or featuring artists – forms an intersection of art and culinary creation that is a feast for the eyes, as well as the stomach. Some artists cookbooks blur the line between cookbook and art book entirely, functioning as a collectable art object sin their own right. Artist’s cookbooks challenge traditional notions of what constitutes a cookbook, inviting readers to explore the intersection of food and art through unconventional formats and avant-garde presentation. The lives and passions of these artists leak from the pages, offering us a glimpse of what life was like beyond their artistic endeavors.