AMELIA KAHL
Barbara C. and Harvey P. Hood 1918 Senior Curator of Academic Programming
JAMI POWELL
Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs and Curator of Indigenous Art
JOHN STOMBERG
Virginia Rice Kelsey 1961s Director
In 2026, the United States will celebrate its 250th anniversary—the Sestercentennial— and the Hood Museum has begun ramping up our programming in recognition of this moment in history. Over the next twelve months, we will be presenting a slate of new co-curated exhibitions that address significant moments and themes in art and culture that have created and shaped this country. There is no one way to tell all the multiple and complex stories, and for this reason we are avoiding any attempt at a singular narrative. Rather, we are selecting ideas and currents in the myriad histories available for consideration and using those as the basis for the Hood Museum's year of dynamic shows.
The first exhibition for our 2026 series is titled Always Already: Abstraction in the United States. Outside of its alliterative quality, which we love for an exhibition title, Always Already as a philosophical foundation for the exhibition is drawn from poststructuralism and the work of Jacques Derrida and Donna Haraway. At its most basic level, Always Already recognizes that some things have simply always been with us, and abstraction is one. In nature, we find patterns all around us. We can point to the wonderful lines the wind draws in the sand, branching trees, snail shells, mountain ranges and other geological formations—the list is endless. Probably because of the ubiquity of these phenomena, humans have long incorporated them into our visual creations and expressive forms. While some are simple and others complex, the human impulse to arrange shapes and colors has a history, the beginning of which we cannot know.
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The works of art featured in this two-gallery exhibition emerge from a wide variety of artistic impulses and inspirations but are mostly of relatively recent vintage—the last couple hundred years or so. Included are ceramics, paintings, sculpture, textile, drawings, and prints. This range suggests the wide variety of objects that are vehicles for non-representational mark-making—and some that push the boundary between naturalism and abstraction. Through the works on view and the voices present—quite literally with direct quotes from the artists at the top of each of our labels—the exhibition also reveals new layers to the story of abstraction in the United States.
The show focuses on visual connections irrespective of direct influence, although for those visitors in the know or who are interested in exploring further, those influences are certainly present. We note the confluence of figuration in Fritz Scholder's painting and the pottery of Edwin and Mary Scheier. Frank Stella paints monumental triangles while Nampeyo's pottery and nearby beaded forms boast smaller and more differentiated ones. Georgia O'Keeffe and Kay Walkingstick push the limits of geometry and landscape, while Louisiana Bendolph, Joseph Albers, and Leon Polk Smith revel in square and rectangular forms.
In addition to an emphasis on form, the works on view and the artists who created them were also deeply interested in the role and relationships of color. As Fritz Scholder said, "one color by itself is pretty blah. I don't care what color you take. It's when you put the second color next to the first color that, then things start to happen, and you get vibrations . . . when you get purple next to an orange, things are going to happen." This illusion of vibration and the tension created through the interactions of colors and light are also evident in the works of Gene Davis, Josef Albers, and Barbara Takenaga, among others in the exhibition. The most well-known example of this is Mark Rothko's Lilac and Orange over Ivory, the label for which starts with the artist's own words:
"I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions— tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on . . . The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them. And if you . . . are moved only by their color relationships, then you miss the point."
Here, we see how the consideration of color and its use in Rothko's work goes beyond the visual and perceptual to the metaphysical. The list of visual and philosophical resonances carries on, and we hope you will discover many more of your own connections while exploring the works on view.
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There are direct relationships here as well, including married couples such as the Sheiers, Maria and Julian Martinez, and Robert Motherwell and Helen Frankenthaler, or the extended family of makers represented by the Nampeyos, whose family tree also includes the Naminghas, all of whom have work in the galleries. Ellsworth Kelly spent considerable time visiting with Polk-Smith, who in turn knew well the work of Bauhaus artists such as Joseph Stella from his time working at the Museum of Non-Subjective Art (the precursor to the Guggenheim). These tangles of familiarity do not always amount to influence, but they do reveal the prevalence of abstraction throughout different artmaking communities in the United States.
That said, there are examples of influence that can be discerned through careful looking and extended study. The United States has benefited from thousands of years of ongoing Indigenous visual traditions, and in the exhibition, we have included beadwork, painting, weaving, sculpture, and ceramics. These often merge in interesting with ways with European art, as witnessed in works such as Adolph Gottlieb's painting, which finds its inspiration a Tlingit Chilkat weaving. Another example of this is the way Jordan Craig '15 draws inspiration from the gridlike forms of Northern Cheyenne bead and quill work, which resonate beautifully alongside the grids of another Santa Fe–based artist, Agnes Martin, whose work is also in the exhibition. Several artists trace a visual heritage to Asia, and Japan in particular, from whence a strong interest in Zen emerged in the post–World War II era. We find this especially in works by Helen Frankenthaler and Deborah Remington.
Together, it all informs the vital and diverse work we know today as abstraction in the United States. As you enjoy these artworks, we invite you to consider the ubiquity of some of these patterns, shapes, and forms in your own daily life.
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