A half century before NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a knee, gold medal sprinter Tommie Smith raised a fist at the 1968 Summer Olympic Games in Mexico to protest abuse of human rights around the world and in response to the struggle for civil rights in the United States. His historic gesture, and its reverberations […]

Outliers and American Vanguard Art focuses on three key periods when the intersection of self-taught art with the mainstream has been at its most fertile: The First Wave includes the interwar years—particularly the aftermath of the Great Depression—through World War II; the Second Wave covers the “long” decade of the 1970s in the wake of […]

Ginia Sweeney – Coordinator of Museum Interpretation took us through the galleries to explore how cultural shifts, scientific discoveries, political events, and more influenced the stylistic evolution of painting, and the choices made by artists, over the centuries. We focused on the European galleries, but this line of questioning can be applied to the rest […]

TECHNICOLOR: JAIME HAYON Enter the vibrant world of Technicolor, an immersive installation in the Museum’s Anne Cox Chambers Wing featuring dramatic new works by Jaime Hayon (Spanish, born 1974). Hanging from the ceiling are six large-scale textiles based on designs Hayon created for last summer’s piazza installation Tiovivo (those murals are still on view at […]

This exhibition continues artist Daniel Arsham’s (American, born 1980) ongoing project Fictional Archaeologies, in which he creates replicas of everyday objects—such as basketballs and cameras—in precious and semi-precious stones. The objects become fossils, remnants of our present seen through the eyes of a future researcher. Hourglass comprises three related, site-specific installations, each infused with mythology and striking […]

Rising Up: Hale Woodruff’s Murals at Talladega College In 1938 Atlanta-based artist Hale Woodruff was commissioned to paint a series of murals for Talladega College, Alabama, one of the first colleges established for blacks in the United States. Installed in the institution’s newly constructed Savery Library, the six murals portray noteworthy events in the rise of […]

The High will be the first museum in the United States to present a new body of work by German photographer Thomas Struth with this major touring exhibition, which will feature more than 30 works by the renowned artist. Struth is celebrated for his innovations with large-scale color photography, which span fields of interest such […]

Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, and Garry Winogrand were innovative photographers of the American social scene in the 1960s and ’70s. All three supported themselves through New York City’s burgeoning print industries in advertising, fashion, and journalism. The breadth of editorial assignments allowed them to plumb personal interests and build distinct, stylistically coherent bodies of work. […]

A Cut Above presents the varied approaches of a group of artists to a common material. From discarded or inexpensive manufactured board to naturally occurring branches, roots, and stumps, wood is widely available to artists without access to or interest in traditional art supplies or schools. Some sculptors are uniquely receptive to how the natural properties […]