Exhibitions Archive
What happens when we assess a work of art as a historical document? When Art Intersects History examines works of American modern art that document the history of equality during the second half of the 20th century. This politically charged era reached a climax in the 1960s and 1970s with the confluence of the civil rights movement, women’s rights campaigns, the gay rights movement, and Vietnam War protests. All of this resistance was propelled by a mounting countercultural cry for equality and social justice. This exhibition considers how American artists have shared their perspectives on these galvanizing historic moments, and how their work still impacts us today.
This exhibition includes many objects from the Hood Museum of Art’s collection that studio art faculty member Colleen Randall uses to introduce painting and drawing students to the idea of process in art, and that serve as models for their own work. These selections are affirmations of humanistic values. Within the imagined world of the picture plane, the artists imbue the world we know with greater fullness and meaning.
An array of school photos from across photography's histories and geographies is set in dialogue with works by contemporary artists who have reframed them. The exhibition looks critically at how a ubiquitous yet unremarked vernacular genre has been used to advance ideologies of assimilation and exclusion but also to inspire social and political change.
Artists featured in the exhibition include Marcelo Brodsky, Steven Deo, Mirta Kupferminc, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Silvina Der Meguerditchian, Diane Meyer, Vik Muniz, Lorie Novak, Sandra Ramos, Tomoko Sawada, Abdel Salam Shehada, Carrie Mae Weems, and David Wojnarowicz.
Contemporary Indigenous Australian Photography
Shifting the LensDrawing from the Hood Museum’s collection of Indigenous Australian art, Shifting the Lens features photography by Christian Thompson, Fiona Foley, Bindi Cole, Michael Cook, Darren Siwes, Tony Albert, and Michael Riley that interrogates and conveys the multidimensionality of Indigenous Australian experiences.
What Do You See?
Vision 2020Mass media and technology inform not only our understanding of the contemporary world but also our self-perception. Vision 2020: What Do You See? highlights works from the Hood Museum’s collection that grapple with the impact of visual media and technology on body image in the 20th and 21st centuries. The artists in this exhibition encourage conversation about beauty ideals, gender, self-perception, and agency in mass media.