'FALL OPENER' RECEPTION SEPT. 22

• Fall Opener: An Exhibition of Visual Art by the UC Davis MFA Class of 2012 — The entire class of 2012 is presenting this show, the final exhibition in 124 Art Building, the former home of the Nelson Gallery. Fall Opener is scheduled to close Saturday, Sept. 24; a reception is scheduled two days earlier, starting at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 22.

Here are the exhibitors and their selections:

• Daniel Brickman — a "monumental and minimalist" wooden sculpture, a 50-foot-long beam stretching from a corner where wall meets floor at one of the gallery to a corner where wall meets ceiling on the opposite side of the room
• Kyle Dunn — a "colorful and whimsical" two- and three-dimensional installation
• Dani Galietti — a large-scale work on paper with projected video components
• Katie Nulicek — semi-abstract gestural landscape paintings
• Erika Romero -- life-size nude figure paintings on canvas
• Terry Peterson — a sculptural installation that incorporates found natural objects
• Jared Theis — a life-size ceramic environment with a stop-motion video component

NEW THIS FALL

• Birds: A Kinetic Installation — Does the term "kinetic sculpture" fill your mind with images of clanking metal gears or corny water-driven fountain elements? Chico MacMurtrie has made his share of drum-pounding giant robots over the years. But, with Birds, he offers a different vision: a lyrical, even meditative exploration of the flapping of wings — a dozen pairs of them. Driven by compressed air, the fabric wings slowly inflate, flap and deflate over a period of minutes, in eerie grace and silence. Sept. 29-Dec. 11, Nelson Gallery, Nelson Hall. Regular hours starting Sept. 29: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Thursday and Saturday-Sunday, and Fridays by appointment. Opening reception for the artist, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 29.

• Double Vision: New Works by Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie — A collaboration of the C.N. Gorman Museum, the Great Plains Art Museum and Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie, this exhibition poses an intervention with the photographic archive. Based on historical images from the late 1800s by Laton Alton Huffman and William Henry Jackson, held in the collections of the Great Plains Art Museum at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Tsinhnahjinnie creates works that serve as a remembrance of the bison, a visual confrontation and an appropriation into a Native American context. Sept. 29-Dec. 2, C.N. Gorman Museum, 1316 Hart Hall. Hours: noon-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, and 2-5 p.m. Sunday. Artist and curator lecture, 4 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 29, with a reception to follow. 

• Gyre: A Grand Tragedy of the Commons — Installation work by Robert Gaylor, Oct. 10-Dec. 2, Design Museum, Cruess Hall.

• Of Corset — Corsets as undergarment, outerwear, costume and art object, by Kaleigh Brady, Clinton Gibson, Sarah Beth Rawls, Laura Reyes, Jennifer Rutherford and Carrie Tamber, all of the Craft Center staff. Sept. 26-Oct. 28, Craft Center Gallery, South Silo. Hours: 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Friday, and 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday-Sunday. Closing reception for the artists, 5:30-7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 28.

ONGOING EXHIBITION

• Selections from the Fine Arts Collection — Paintings and prints. Through Sept. 29, Nelson Gallery, Nelson Hall. Hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Thursday, and by appointment on Fridays.

OFF-CAMPUS

• Wayne Thiebaud, professor emeritus of art — Five of his paintings are on display at the California Museum in Sacramento, in conjunction with his induction Dec. 14 into the California Hall of Fame. See separate stories on Thiebaud, "Painter, teacher, visionary" and his induction into the California Hall of Fame. The museum has gathered personal items from all of the 2010 inductees, for an exhibition that is scheduled to run through Oct. 31. Thiebaud's picks: Bikini Figure (1966), Waterland (1996), Two Tulip Sundaes (2009), and Intersection Building and Cliff Ridge (both from 2010), all oils, on canvas or wood. The museum is in the California State Archives building at 1020 O St., at the corner of 10th Street, one block south of Capitol Park. Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday and noon-5 p.m. Sunday. (No one admitted after 4:30 p.m.) Closed all major holidays and furlough Fridays.