About

Art Connects.  AEIVA’s mission is to provide a cultural gateway that enriches and supports accessible learning, research, and thinking for the UAB community, Birmingham, and beyond, through transformative and challenging exhibitions, engaging programming, and purposeful collecting.

Open to the public since January 2014, highlights from AEIVA’s past exhibitions include Warhol: Fabricated, Willie Cole: Transformations, The Freedom Exhibition: Two Countries One Struggle, Enrique Martinez Celaya: Small Paintings 1974-2015, Jessica Angel: Facing the Hyperstructure, and David Sandlin: 76 Manifestations of American Destiny. AEIVA exhibitions focus on artists of regional, national, and international significance, works from the AEIVA permanent collection, and exhibitions of student work, such as the annual graduating BFA Exhibition each spring.

Designed by the world-renowned architect, the late Randall Stout, the Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts (AEIVA), is a center for UAB and the Birmingham community to engage with contemporary art and artists. The 26,000-square-foot building is named for lead donors Judy and Hal Abroms, and Ruth and the late Marvin Engel. AEIVA’s 5,000 square feet of exhibition space features six to eight exhibitions a year. The 95-seat Hess Family Lecture Hall serves as a changeable space for a variety of artist talks, panel discussions, performances, installations and educational programming, as well as events at AEIVA. In addition, the building’s academic classrooms, laboratories, and faculty offices are home to the Department of Art and Art History, facilitating a dynamic partnership in AEIVA’s mission of enhancing social, cultural and historical understanding through the visual arts across UAB and the broader community.

The facility is named for lead donors Hal and Judy Abroms, as well as Ruth and the late Marvin Engel. Los Angeles-based architect Randall Stout designed the building. Hoar Construction oversaw the construction of the building. “AEIVA creates a dynamic indoor and outdoor public space that physically and visually connect with the Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center across the street,” said UAB President Ray L. Watts, M.D.

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