Exhibitions Archive
reflections on our collective psyche
Apocalypse WhenThe motif of apocalypse in art explores the timeless fascination with an imminent, final destruction. From 20th-century prints to innovative digital installations, this exhibition captures various apocalyptic interpretations of catastrophic historical events and modern anxieties, while also evoking a sense of shared humanity, humor, and hope in the face of disaster.
A Space for Dialogue is a student-curated exhibition program that began in 2001. Hood Museum of Art interns create an installation drawn from the museum's permanent collection by engaging with every aspect of curation, from doing research and selecting objects, to choosing frames and a wall color, to planning a layout and writing labels and a brochure, to giving a public talk. There have been over 100 A Space for Dialogue exhibitions on a wide variety of themes.
Indigenous Australian Art from the Kimberley and Central Desert
Layered Histories
The artists in Layered Histories deftly use color, pattern, and abstraction to create a sense of place that layers images of the land (known as Country) with creation stories, historical events, and significant animals, plants, and people. Unlike Western ideas of history which often draw a firm line between events of the past and the present, these Indigenous artists express more comprehensive and integrated world views.
The Legacy of Conversion and Commerce in the Early Modern World
Faith and Empire
This exhibition is organized by the students of ARTH 20.04, "Faith and Empire: Art in the Early Modern World," taught by Elizabeth Rice Mattison, Andrew W. Mellon Associate Curator of Academic Programming, Hood Museum of Art. It examines the relationship between colonialism and religion between 1550 and 1750, especially in the Dutch and Spanish global empires. Drawn from new research completed by the students on the Hood Museum’s collection, it also revisits histories of enslavement, diplomacy between nations, and exemplary craftsmanship.
The Great Mystery
Kent Monkman
Featuring a new body of paintings by Cree artist Kent Monkman—including two commissioned works for the Hood Museum of Art’s permanent collections—The Great Mystery serves as both an introduction to and a revisitation of Monkman’s early interest in abstract expressionism. Drawing on the museum's existing collection of modernist abstraction, Monkman's paintings create pathways for multiple and shared understandings across cultural divides and are unlike anything we have seen from him before.
U.S. Abstraction since 1950
The Painter's Hand
For abstract painters, such as Louise Fishman and Robert Motherwell, the action of creating a brushstroke itself has a singular importance, reinforcing their individuality. Often referred to as “gestural,” these works track the movements of the artists’ hand, arms, and even bodies in the creation of imagery that favors invisible concerns such as emotion, spirituality, and the metaphysics of existence. At the same time, there have been artists who seek to downplay or eliminate all traces of their own gestures—Ellsworth Kelly and Deborah Remington—to others utilizing techniques that involve pouring, dripping, or splashing pigment onto their canvases—notably Helen Frankenthaler and Pat Steir. Taken together, these Hood Museum collection favorites suggest the continued vitality of painting and abstraction.
Connecting Threads and Woven Stories
Connecting Threads and Woven Stories gives a glimpse into the rich and diverse textile traditions of Southeast Asia. The textiles vary in style, material, and technique, including nineteenth-century Indonesian tapis, a Vietnamese photo-weaving, and a contemporary Thai textile woven with jewel beetle wings. Despite their differences, these textiles tell the stories of the peoples who made them, their cultural values, and their legacies.
A Space for Dialogue is a student-curated exhibition program that began in 2001. Hood Museum of Art interns create an installation drawn from the museum's permanent collection by engaging with every aspect of curation, from doing research and selecting objects, to choosing frames and a wall color, to planning a layout and writing labels and a brochure, to giving a public talk. There have been over 100 A Space for Dialogue exhibitions on a wide variety of themes.