Past Exhibitions
Reconstitution
Institutional spaces have long privileged Euro-American narratives, which has had powerful, even dangerous consequences in our culture and society. Artists in Reconstitution foster the evolution of previously entrenched narratives as they remind us that we are all responsible agents in the complicated processes of writing current and future histories.
The Soul Has Bandaged Moments
Experiencing trauma can change our biochemistry and behavior, producing a disease called PTSD. Contemporary neuroscience research suggests that through the making of art, individuals can recalibrate their biochemistry and cure their symptoms. "The Soul has Bandaged Moments" encourages three conversations: challenging the definition of trauma, exploring trauma as a physiological disease, and proposing different mechanisms of healing.
When Art Intersects History
What happens when we assess a work of art as a historical document?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.
Content in Process
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.
School Photos and Their Afterlives
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.