Exhibitions

Shahzia Sikander’s video artwork The Last Post (2010) critically considers the legacy of British colonialism in Asia using her signature approach of infusing Indo-Persian miniature paintings with a contemporary perspective. 

Cecilia Vicuña’s large-scale installation of unspun wool transforms the museum’s contemporary art gallery.

Pictures of Belonging celebrates three trailblazing Japanese American women artists and asserts their rightful place in American art.

SAAM's groundbreaking exhibition examines the ways in which American sculpture has shaped and reflected attitudes and understandings about race in the United States.

Sightlines provides glimpses into the complexity and depth of Asian American connections to Washington, DC.

Glenn Kaino’s powerful aerial sculpture Bridge, suspended from the ceiling of SAAM’s Luce Foundation Center, evokes the ways that even small acts can ripple through time and alter the course of history. 

A presentation of Isaac Julien’s tour de force moving image installation that interweaves period reenactments across five screens to create a vivid picture of nineteenth-century activist, writer, orator, and philosopher Frederick Douglass.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum's galleries for modern and contemporary art display selections from the permanent collection from the 1940s to the present.

Artist to Artist features paired artworks, each representing two figures whose trajectories intersected at a creatively crucial moment, whether as student and teacher, professional allies, or friends.

SAAM’s collection of folk and self-taught art represents the powerful vision of America’s untrained and vernacular artists.