The American Art Museum, Archives of American Art & Renwick Gallery
The Lincoln Gallery of the American Art Museum
The American Art Museum will exhibit Tiffany Chung: Vietnam, Past Is Prologue, March 15-September 2.The contemporary artist from Vietnam is known for her multimedia work “that explores migration, conflict, and shifting geographies in the wake of political and natural upheavals.” Chung’s father was a pilot in the South Vietnamese army who fought alongside American forces. The family immigrated to the U.S. as part of the post-1975 exodus from Vietnam. The exhibition illuminates both the war’s scale and the personal stakes of people affected by it. The museum commissioned a new series of video interviews with former Vietnamese refugees in Houston, Texas; Southern California; and Northern Virginia for the exhibition. The exhibition also includes photographs, watercolors, texts, and hand-drawn maps that trace military strategies and refugee resettlement patterns. Sarah Newman, The James Dicke Curator of Contemporary Art, organized the exhibition. Image below: Tiffany Chung, reconstructing an exodus history: flight routes from camps and of ODP cases, 2017, embroidery on fabric, edition of 2, courtesy of the artist and Tyler Rollins Fine Art, New York
The American Art Museum will exhibit Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War, 1965-1975, March 15-August 18.The exhibition presents art created between the time of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s decision to deploy U.S. ground troops to South Vietnam in 1965 and the fall of Saigon ten years later. Artists Respond brings together nearly 100 works by fifty-eight of “the most visionary and provocative artists and artist groups of the period.” The exhibition is organized by Melissa Ho, SAAM’s curator of twentieth-century art.
The Smithsonian American Art Museum is exhibiting Disrupting Craft: Renwick Invitational 2018, thru May 5, 2019.The exhibition features the work of Tanya Aguiñiga, Sharif Bey, Dustin Farnsworth, and Stephanie Syjuco, who “challenge the conventional definitions of craft by imbuing it with a renewed sense of emotional purpose, inclusiveness, and activism.” The four artists work in a variety of media including ceramics, wood, and fibers. “They all share a dedication to social justice and to interrogating cultural identities and established historical narratives. By exploiting the conceptual toolkits of craft, they develop responses to the contemporary political landscape while also analyzing and challenging their own cultural histories.”
Image below: Dustin Farnsworth, XLIII, 2016, poplar, reclaimed wood, chair, pencil, and various polychrome. Collection of Sandy Berlin. Photo by Ben Premeau
The American Art Museum has extended the exhibition of Between Worlds: The Art of Bill Traylor, thru April 7.Bill Traylor (1853/54-1949) is "one of the most celebrated American self-taught artists. His drawn and painted imagery embodies the crossroads of multiple worlds: black and white, rural and urban, old and new. This exhibition is the first retrospective ever organized for an artist born into slavery and the most comprehensive look at Traylor’s work to date."
Image below:Bill Traylor, Man on Crutch and Woman with Umbrella, ca. 1939-1942, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr.
Bloom: Flowers from the Archives of American Artwill be on exhibit in the Lawrence A. FleischmanGallery, March 2-September 2.The exhibition will featuresketches and drawings of flowers from the museum’scollections that offer an opportunity to examine flowers from both an artistic and scientific point of view. The exhibition coincides with Smithsonian Gardens' biannual Orchid Show, which will be held this year in the Kogod Courtyard of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, which are directly adjacent to the Archives of American Art. Please see the "Gardens" column of this edition for information about the Orchid Show.
Image below: Watercolor study, 19--. Polly Thayer (Starr) papers, 1846-2008, bulk 1921-2008. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Visit www.aaa.si.edu/
