Photo: Two women observing art at the AEIVA gallery

10 Years of AEIVA: A Visionary Building for a Visionary Mission

Story by Julie Keith | Photos by Andrea Mabry and courtesy of AEIVA
Video by Ian Logue, Mayen Ma, Andrea Mabry and Jeff Myers

Back in January 2014, excitement was running high ahead of the grand opening of UAB’s Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts.

Years of planning had led to the ribbon cutting. Many of Birmingham’s most prominent philanthropists and art collectors had worked closely with then-dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Bert Brouwer, Ph.D; his successor, Robert E. Palazzo, Ph.D.; and renowned Los Angeles architect Randall Stout to envision an institute that would change the way art was experienced at UAB, in Birmingham, and throughout the Southeast.

Their original concept for the Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts was to locate the Department of Art and Art History offices and classroom spaces above a state-of-the-art gallery space—an approach that was unique in the state. The resulting building — a contemporary structure located across from the Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center and notable for its angular design and soaring atrium — was unlike anything else that had ever been built on campus. At the time of the opening, Dean Palazzo said, “The new institute shows just how vast the attention to art is, in this community, in terms of personal treasures and stewardship of art.”

Supported with generous naming gifts from the late Hal and Judy Abroms and Ruth and the late Marvin Engel, the stunning 26,000-square-foot building was designed to be a center for UAB and the Birmingham community to engage with contemporary art and artists. The 5,000 square feet of exhibition space was intended to host several annual exhibitions, and the 95-seat Hess Family Lecture Hall was planned as a flexible space for artist talks, panel discussions, performances, installations and educational programming, and special events.

AEIVA also was meant to be the new home for UAB’s own art collection, which includes works by renowned artists such as Andy Warhol, James Rosenquist, Robert Rauschenberg, Christo, Sally Mann, Sam Gilliam, Thornton Dial, Hank Willis Thomas, Jiha Moon, Lonnie Holley, and Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons.

Warhol

Lisa Tamiris Becker was named AEIVA’s founding director in the summer of 2014. An accomplished scholar and passionate advocate for contemporary art and artists, Becker made an immediate impact both on campus and in the larger metropolitan area with her sophisticated, memorable programming. Although she passed away in 2016, she was instrumental in shaping AEIVA’s growth, including its two most important early shows.

After a successful grand opening show called “Material Evidence,” curated by then-director of the Birmingham Museum of Art Gail Andrews, Becker, along with AEIVA curator John Fields, selected Warhol as the featured artist for a landmark 2015 exhibition called “Warhol: Fabricated.” Warhol was chosen after UAB received two major Warhol gifts: six never-before-shown Warhol prints in November 2013, and a 2008 gift of 150 Warhol works from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, which distributed works to nearly 200 university museums nationwide. The 2008 gift to UAB included both Polaroids, for which Warhol was famous, and 8-by-10 black-and-white prints.

To form “Warhol: Fabricated,” UAB’s newly expanded Warhol collection was paired with loaned pieces from the Andy Warhol Museum and local collectors, in addition to several high-quality Warhol forgeries by NYC artist Charles Lutz. After a packed opening, the exhibition received high praise from local and national media outlets, art experts, and the general public, who were able to see some of Warhol’s works for the first time in a building that had been built for art education, conservation, exhibition and experience.

Fields noted that, ‘“These are major works by one of the most significant artists of the 20th century, and we are thrilled that they have found a permanent home at UAB. We anticipate being able to use these in a number of dynamic presentations both to our students and to the wider public.”

Warhol: Revisited

Ten years later, Fields is now the first Lydia Cheney and Jim Sokol Endowed Director of AEIVA and has curated and directed dozens of exhibitions at AEIVA that highlight artists of regional, national, and international significance, works from the AEIVA permanent collection, including Titus Kaphar: Misremembered, Mary Frances Whitfield: Why?, A La Carte: Our Culture’s Complicated Relationship with Food, The 2022 Alabama Triennial, and Thornton Dial: I, Too, Am Alabama. AEIVA also now brings high-profile, national touring exhibitions like Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, curated by NYU Professor and MacArthur Fellow, Nicole Fleetwood, and Kwame Brathwait: Black is Beautiful.

To mark AEIVA’s 10th anniversary, Fields and his team returned to the renowned artist who started it all by curating “Warhol: Revisited.” As in 2013, this anniversary show was selected from AEIVA’s impressive collection of original works by Warhol, along with loans from The Andy Warhol Museum and local art collectors. In 2024, the exhibit also featured works from artist Charles Lutz, who’s infamous “Denied” series draws attention to the still-relevant complications involving production, appropriation, authenticity, and the market value associated with Warhol’s work.

Over the years, some things have changed at AEIVA: the Department of Art and Art History outgrew the upstairs space and expanded some of their classrooms and studios into a nearby campus building. But much has remained the same: AEIVA has remained true to its mission, bringing thousands of people together to explore the galleries, listen to presentations and performances in the lecture hall, and discover art in a new way.

“I’m just one of several staff members who have had the tremendous opportunity to help shape the identity and vision of AEIVA over the years,” Fields says. “It’s one of the great things about having such a small team, each staff member has an opportunity to make significant, and lasting contributions. I am still impressed with what we have accomplished over these past 10 years, and I’m proud of AEIVA’s reputation, both nationally but also in our local communities. While the original AEIVA staff members have since moved on, we have an incredible team right now, and they are the future of AEIVA. I can’t wait to see how the institute continues to thrive in the next decade and beyond.”

“We are the only space in Birmingham solely dedicated to contemporary art at this museum-level scale, and everything we do is free,” he continues. “Our exhibits are free. Our programming is free. It's all free, and I’m grateful that UAB understands the value of what we do here. The local and national arts communities have embraced us, but there are still so many people I meet in Birmingham who’ve never been to AEIVA. That’s an audience I hope to grow in the coming years.”