Contemporary Art Extravaganza Provides Time-Travel Portals

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The scale and scope of the contemporary art on display is tremendous, but how often do art-seekers also get an opportunity to travel across ancient streets and landscapes, to meet real and fictional historic characters, contemplate fables and real-life stories, and see art of the past and present side by side?

It can take days to experience and fully absorb all of the history and potential futues presented in the films, paintings, sculptures, and installations in Once Within a Time: 12th SITE Santa Fe International, on view across 15 art spaces across Santa Fe through January 12, 2026.

Exhibition banner in the courtyard of Palace of the Governors (1610) (New Mexico History Museum) – gateway to SITE installations by Daisy Quezada Ureña (Santa Fe) and Charisse Perlina Weston. (Harlem, New York)

Besides the expansive white galleries and screening rooms of SITE’s museum in Santa Fe’s always-popping Railyard District, visitors can choose to contemplate giant abstract murals in a church-like auditorium, an innovative historical-object installation in a 400-year-old seat of power, or enter an old foundry to see an evocative installation by a Silk Road artist across farm fields adjacent to the Old Spanish Trail.

SITE Santa Fe gallery theme: appears like real life and sensual free-thinkers. 2025 mixed-media sculpture “18-1-4-5-7-21-14-4” by Patricia Ayres; copper work by Santiago de Paoli; Katja Sieb’s 2025 “perpetual novice” painting; and 2020 grid painting “Atlas” by Penny Siopis (South Africa).
SITE Santa Fe gallery theme: in touch with light (spiritual) – Agnes Pelton’s paintings (1930s), Maja Ruznic’s mural (2025), and the 1895 healing rod of itinerant Southwestern mystic Francis Schlatter. Courtesy: Phoeix Art Museum; New Mexico Museum of Art; Oakland Museum of California; Maja Ruznic and Karma Gallery; and New Mexico History Museum.

In every space and art encounter, visitors may reflect upon whether history is repeating itself and whether inspiration can be drawn from futures that artists imagined nearly a century ago. Each space is designed for visitors to look, read, encounter, and reflect.

In the old foundry at Tesuque: 2024 video As We Fade by Saodat Ismailova (Uzbeckistan), showing visitors to one of Central Asia’s most sacred sites (Throne of Solomon) along the ancient Silk Road; projected across 24 suspended silk screens. Courtesy: the artist and Milan’s Pirelli HangarBicocca.

The theme for the show – Once Within a Time – is inspired by Godfrey Reggio’s most recent film – a suggestive and wordless mix of innocence, nostalgic images, visual poetry, and the future facing the next generation. The film screens continuously inside SITE, with visitors caught up in Godfrey’s dream-like images, which highlighted in this mesmerizing movie trailer:

Like Godfrey’s film, each space and gallery presents a theme, story, historic character, and provocative contemporary art that pulls back in time, creates an unforgettable experience, and asks the viewer to go inward to contemplate the future. 

Joanna Keane Lopez’s 2024 Batter my heart, three person’d God – adobe, a handmade bed, colcha embroidery showing a radiation cloud, and creosote bush, referencing her family’s experience of living downwind of the Trinity detonation.

SITE’s galleries, for example, present themes such as storytelling, technology and language, the power of spiritual energy, and New Mexico’s undeniable status as a natural Land of Enchantment.  

The exhibition presents traditional New Mexico superstars and inspirations –  Awa Tsireh and Helen Cordero (San Ildefonso Pueblo), Agnes Pelton, Rebecca Salsbury James, Florence Miller Pierce, Pop Chalee (Taos), Pablita Velarde (Santa Clara Pueblo), and Eliot Porter – alongside artists who are breaking through on the international stage.

Cochiti pueblo ceramicist Helen Cordero’s storyteller figures are paired with Pablita Velardi’s storyteller illustrations (both are inspired by grandfathers and fathers) and Simone Leigh’s epic stone and raffia goddesses.

SITE Santa Fe gallery theme: storytelling. Simone Leigh’s 2025 untiled stoneware and raffia sculpture. At rear, 2025 oil The Solemn and Dignified Burial Befitting My Beloved for All Seasons by Dominique Knowles. Courtesy: Matthew Marks Gallery; the artist and Hannah Hoffman Gallery, Los Angeles.
Gallery theme: storytelling. Helen Cordero’s 1970 painted clay Storyteller – the creator of the Cochiti Pueblo sculptural tradition, inspired by her grandfather’s stories; championed by patron Alexander Girard. Courtesy: School for Advanced Research.
SITE Santa Fe gallery theme: language Marilou Schultz’s 2024 weaving Integrated Circuit Chip & AI Diné Weaving – a reference to the controvercial 1970s Fairchild Semiconductor chip plant on Navajo Nation staffed primarily with Diné women. Courtesy: private foundation.

The story of the legendary WWII heroes, the Navajo Code Talkers, is featured in a gallery alongside Marilou Schultz’s weavings of chip technology using traditional Diné methods with Fred Hammersly’s ground-breaking IBM computer drawings at the University of New Mexico in 1968-1970. 

Fred was given an opportunity to create the first mainframe-generated art in the form of drawings programmed by traditional IBM punch-card technology and the Art1 program.  SIITE not only displays a selection of the 400 computer drawings that he generated over the course of 18 months, but some of the punch cards he used, which are now archived at the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art.

Sensual free-thinkers are represented by the story of Santa Fe gambling mogul Doña Tules (Maria Gertrudis Barceló) and her actual 1840s money chest, witty contemporary porcelain playing cards and magical paintings by Katja Seib (UK), and jaw-dropping drawings by Shanghai’s Zhang Yunyao.

SITE Santa Fe gallery theme: sensual free-thinkers. Two of three 2025 Connector drawings by Zhang Yunyao (Shanghai); pencil on stretched felt. Courtesy: the artist, Don Gallery.

Around the corner from Agnes Pelton’s transcendental paintings are Diego Medina’s landscapes reflecting the Piro-Mansa-Tiwa spiritual power inhabiting ancestral lands of Southern New Mexico and also installations about a different type of New Mexico light – the impact of the nuclear energy tests on people living downwind and the legacy of uranium mining across native lands.

SITE Santa Fe gallery theme:In touch with light (nuclear energy): Will Wilson’s 2025 series Hubris on the Land – aerial photography of abandoned 1940s uranium mines on Navajo Nation paired with his documentation of Land Art sites created by Holt, Smithson, Heiser, and Turrell in the 1960s-1970s. Courtesy: the artist

New Mexico’s natural world is paid tribute in stories and artwork by travelers and residents – watercolors of Pueblo spirits and wildlife by Awa Tsireh (Alfonso Roybal) in the 1930s, Vladimir Nabokov’s sketches of butterfly wing cells (1940s-1950s), and Eliot Porter’s spectacular photos of Tesuque jays in the 1960s.

But these examples are just snippets of Once Within a Time – the entire show deserves multiple visits, and time to visit the other locations in the city, such as the hidden basement natural wonderland epic at the Museum of Internatonal Folk Art created by Taiwan ‘s Zhang Xu Zhan. It’s not only an immersive environment, but a film, animal-spirit sculptures, and selections from the MoIFA’s paper funerary object collection.  Don’t miss the Day of the Dead altar, the 18th-century Pere Lachaise Cemetary tribute initially collected by Mr. Girard himself, and paper funerary fantasies made by the artist’s own family. Truly unforgettable.

Museum of International Folk Art: Zhang Xu Zhan’s 2020-2022 paper-animation video Compound Eyes of Tropical (Animal story series), with a Southeastern Asian deer-mouse outwitting a group of predatory crocodiles. Courtesy: the artist and Project Fulfill Art Space, Taiwan.

The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian fills the Klah Gallery (in the shape of a traditional hogan) with a meditation on healing by Cristina Flores Pescorán, a wild organic sculpture by Nora Naranjo Morse, and a mini-retrospective of paintings by the incomparable Emmi Whitehorse.

Wheelwright Klah Gallery theme: journeys. Nora Naranjo Morse’s sculpture Into the Forever; on walls, Cristina Flores Pescorán’s 2025 installation Treinta y ocho. Ofrendas para reescribir historia medica y renacer Huaca. Courtesy: the artists

The Tesuque location also features rooms with installations by Mexico’s Guillermo Galindo incorporating burned wood from the recent New Mexico fires (crossed with Picasso’s Guernica),  David Horvitz’s tribute to the men incarcerated in Santa Fe’s Japanese internment camp (and a hat from one them), and Thailand’s Korakrit Arunanondchai’s room-sized contemplation that incorporates the ashes from the burning of Zozobra.

Video of Korakrit Arunanondchai’s 2025 installation Unity for Nostalgia, with floor incorporating ashes from Santa Fe’s Zozobra’s burning and a prayer to the phoenix; layered soundtrack. Courtesy: the artist, Bangkok City Gallery, London’s Carlos/Ishikawa, CLEARNING NY-LA, Kukje Gallery, Seoul
Video of Max Hooper Schneider’s 2025 Written in Sand (Finquita Garden) installation; spheres mysteriously travel sand channels. Courtesy: the artist; Maureen Paley, London, Hove; Francois Ghebaley, Los Angeles, New York.

For more, take a walk through the main exhibit and five other sites in and around Santa in our Flickr album to see work by legendary New Mexican artists, and travel back and forth to see how contemporary art reflects epic histories and mystic systems of the Southwest.

View of historic St. Francis Auditorium (1917) with Maja Ruznic’s 2025 Kisa Pada, Trava Raste, Gora Zeleni installed atop Donald Beauregad’s painting The Conversion of St. Francis; to right, Beauregard’s The Renunciation of Santa Clara.

Sea Dragons of Nevada Brought to Life

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Most fossil fans are familiar with the spectacular Jurassic marine reptiles found by Mary Anning along England’s Dorset Coast in the early 1800s, but few are aware that their predecessors – gigantic Triassic ichthyosaurs (250-201 mya)– have been emerging from the central mountains of Nevada’s Great Basin for the last 125 years.

A beautiful exhibition – Deep Time: Sea Dragons in Nevada – shines a spotlight on these magnificent extinct creatures, brings them to life through life-size animations, and tells stories of scientific discoveries at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno through January 11, 2026.

Life-sized digital animation of swimming ichthyosaur by artist Ivan Cruz, paleontologist Martin Sander, and exhibition designer Nik Hafermaas.

The art museum reunites the state’s stunning Triassic marine reptiles from museum collections across North America, and couples this with an engaging walk through 200 years of paleo-art history starring these enigmatic Mesozoic “sea dragons.”

Triassic ichthyosaur (Cymbospondylus) (245 mya) discovered in Nevada’s Humboldt Range in 1905 by John Merriam and Annie Alexander. Courtesy: UC-Berkeley Museum of Paleontology
Reproduction of Frederick Rolle ‘s illustration Geology and Paleontology: Landscape of Europe in the Jurassic Era from Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert’s 1887 Natural History.

The most dramatic spectacle is on the far wall – a life-sized animated recreation of these gigantic swimming creatures by artist Ivan Cruz in collaboration with paleontologist Martin Sander and exhibition designer Nik Hafermaas. From the inky blackness, thousands of points of light emerge, float across the long wall, and coalesce into 3-D sea creatures that appear to swim across the entire length of the room.

Digital animation of swimming ichthyosaurs by artist Ivan Cruz, paleontologist Martin Sander, and exhibition designer Nik Hafermaas.

Take a close-up look at the gorgeous Deep Time exhibition design and ichthyosaur animations by Hafermaas°creative here.

History, adventure, art, and expeditions intertwine. The gallery tells the story of ichythyosaur discoveries across three Nevada mountain ranges – the Humboldt, Shoshone, and Augusta. Each section presents spectacular ichthyosaur fossils and along with tales of intrepid paleontologists who have toiled away in Nevada’s most remote regions for over a century.

Paleontologist and philanthropist Annie Alexander’s Kodak field camera and boots; excavated 25 ichthyosaur fossils with UC-Berkeley 1905 Saurian expedition. Courtesy: UC-Berkeley Bancroft Library and Museum of Vertebrate Paleontolgy Archives.

Nevada’s “sea dragon” story begins in the Humboldt Range in 1867-1868 as the U.S. Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, led by Charles King, discovers and collects bits and pieces of ichthyosaur ribs and vertebrae in their survey of the Great Basin. These discoveries spawned national news stories. The fossils ended up in Harvard’s museum collection, so it’s nice to see them here.

Paleontologist Annie Alexander’s field notes and photographs in scrapbook of the UC-Berkeley 1905 Saurian expedition to Nevada’s Humboldt’s Range, where she discovered and excavated 25 ichthyosaur fossils. Courtesy: UC-Berkeley Museum of Paleontolgy.

1905 was a big year for Triassic discoveries in the Humboldt Range.  James Perrin Smith and his team from Stanford collected dozens of ammonites from the Humboldt slopes, and philanthropist Annie Alexander bankrolled (and participated in) John Merriam’s UC-Berkeley Saurian expedition.

Merriam’s team excavated 25 ichythyosaur skeletons, loaded them out by horse-pulled wagons, and then got them back to Berkeley via train.  Annie’s field notebook and photo scrapbook give us a look at the fossils, camp, and the team. In 1907, Annie founded and funded the UC-Berkeley Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. Her subsequent field trips led her to collecting more than Triassic fossils, but Annie’s the one to thank for kicking off spectacular preservation efforts for Nevada’s marine-reptile riches.

And as most fossil hunters know, discoveries are often made inside the collections storage room.  It’s nice to see one of Annie’s 1905 fossils redefined as a new ichythyosaur species in the 21st century by exhibition co-curator paleontologist Martin Sanders!

Found in the Humboldt Range: 245-million-year-old Triassic ichthyosaur skull discovered in 1905; Nicole Klein and Martin Sander have recently reclassified “slender snout” as a new species. Courtesy: UC-Berkeley Museum of Paleontology

The story moves to the Shoshone Mountains near the old silver mining town of Berlin.  In 1928, paleontologist Siemon Muller came across a massive amount of ichthyosaur remains encased in super-hard limestone near Berlin.  Although he told the paleontologists at UC-Berkeley about them, no one followed up until Charles Camp went out to take a look in 1953. He found huge, articulated skeletons that were younger in age than the fossils from Humboldt.

In the Shoshone Mountains: 1954 photo of Charles Camp excavating fossils at the site that will become Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park; Camp’s book Earth Song. Courtesy: University of California Museum of Paleontology; Nevada Museum of Art.
From the Shoshone Mountains: Digital print of front flipper of 228-million-year-old Triassic ichthyosaur (Shonisaurus) discovered in the 1950s by Charles Camp. Courtesy: Nevada State Museum; scan by Alyson Wilkins, Tyler Birthisel, and Randy Irmis. 

Over the next ten years, Camp and his team found and sand-blasted out remains of 40 Triassic ichythyosaurs, which he later named Shonisaurus. In one quarry, the skeletons were so complete and numerous that Camp decided just to uncover their them and leave them exposed in place. People heard about these unique finds from news reports, and came out to marvel for themselves.

By 1957, the site was named a Nevada state park – a place where visitors could large concentrations of the world’s largest ichthyosaurs. Over time, Camp opened ten separate quarries in the area. The fossils Camp removed are now held in the Nevada State Museum in Las Vegas.

For the last ten years, palentologists Randy Irmis and Neal Patrick Kelly have been working in the same area. The exhibition includes their recent ichthyosaur discoveries, including baby Shonisaurus bones, teeth, and a snount containing tooth sockets – evidence that the animal was likely a formidable predator.

Watch their video here for a history of ichthyosaur collecting in Nevada, a digital model of Camp’s main quarry, and new fossils

From the Shoshone Mountains: Tooth sockets in snout fragment of a 228-million-year-old Triassic ichthyosaur (Shonisaurus) discovered in 2015 by Randy Irmis, Neal Patrick Kelly, Paula Noble, and Paige dePolo. Courtesy: Natural History Museum of Utah, US Forest Service, and Nevada State Parks. 

The Augusta Mountains has been the site of field work by Martin Sanders and team for nearly 30 years – – old and new ichthyosaur species, which are on display.

Fossilized sea floor with 242-million-year-old Triassic ichythyosaur (Phalarodon) and ammonites; found in 1996 by Martin Sander and Glenn Storrs in Nevada’s Augusta Mountains. Courtesy: Cincinnati Museum/BLM
From the Augusta Mountains: Skull of 243-million-year-old Triassic ichthyosaur (Cymbospondylus) discovered in the 2011 by Martin Sander (excavated 2014). Courtesy: Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County; BLM.

The exhibition includes a whimsical corridor leading to images from 19th-century paleo art and to vintage toys from a dinosaur and prehistoric-animal collector. The final room is a kaleidoscope of nostalgia – images from Europe’s earliest prehistoric ecosystem recreations to dinosaur collectibles from Chicago’s 1934 Century of Progress Fair.

It’s a fun way to observe how scientific thinking has changed about prehistoric marine lifestyles and body plans. Remember when science thought Brontosaurus spent its life submerged in lagoons? Or ichthyosaurs used their flippers to paddle around on land?

Take a look at our favorite fossils and toys in our Flickr album.

Reproduction of 1862 wall-chart illustration by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins Enaliosauria (extinct marine reptiles) produced for the UK’s Department of Science and Art, featuring land-dwelling Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus.

To see how art and science were brought together to create this immersive time-travel experience, watch this short documentary from PBS Reno, take a trip to Nevada’s Augusta Mountains with paleontologist Martin Sander and see how artists and designers brought his Triassic creatures to life:

Jewelry Reflects Cosmic Splendor at AMNH

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There’s plenty of dazzling eye candy tucked away in a corner of the Gems and Mineral Hall inside the American Museum of Natural History. Look at sparkly diamonds, rubies, emeralds, turquoise, and every other polished gem you can think of as you contemplate the mysteries of stars, planets, and distant galaxies in Cosmic Splendor: Jewelry from the Collections of Van Cleef & Arpels, on view through January 4, 2026.

The gallery is an ethereal cosmic universe – it feels like you’re floating in deep space where infinite points of light illuminate and reflect thousands of facets of about 60 astronomy-based jewelry creations by the 129-year-old luxury house. It’s a small space, but the illusion suggests the limitless night sky.

Inspired by images of the the spiral Porpoise Galaxy: 2021 Opal Nebula Clip; black opal surrounded by gold, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, tourmaline, and diamonds. From Van Cleef’s Under the Stars high jewelry collection. Courtesy: private collection.

The curators have arranged the dazzlers into loose astronomical themes, like the Sun, Moon, Planets, and Galaxies, but closer inspection demonstrates how the the designers of these works were inspired by the views of the Milky Way, knowledge about black holes or meteors, or images from the Hubble Space Telescope. 

The Moon: 1969 yellow gold Moon pendant to commemorate the first men to land there; ruby marks the spot. Courtesy: Van Cleef & Arpels.
2021 Whirlpool Galaxy Clip, inspired by the Ring Nebula in the constellation Lyra; blue tourmaline (center) with garnet outer ring. From Van Cleef’s Under the Stars high jewelry collection. Courtesy: private collection.

The masterworks in the AMNH exhibition are drawn primarily from Van Cleef’s Sous les étoiles (Under the Stars) collection, but a few pieces are showstoppers from previous collections inspired by Jules Verne’s sci-fi or NASA’s 1969 Moon landing.

Inspired by Jules Verne’s 1865 sci-fi space travel story – the 2010 gold, sapphire, garnet, and diamond Tampa Necklace. From Van Cleef’s Extraordinary Journeys high jewelry collection. Courtesy: private collection.

See some of our favorites in our Flickr album.

2021 gold, mauve and pink sapphire, ruby, and diamond Doubles Galaxies Saphir Mauve Clip; inspired by the Virgo constellation’s merging Butterfly galaxies. From Van Cleef’s Under the Stars high jewelry collection.
2010 Star Necklace; gold and diamonds flow around an Australian black opal. From Van Cleef’s Extraordinary Journeys high jewelry collection. Courtesy: private collection.

Listen as Nicolas Bos, Van Cleef’s CEO and Artistic Director describes the history and inspiration of the Sous les étoiles (Under the Stars) collection.

Here’s astrophysicist Isabelle Grenier explaining more about the scientific inspiration behind these these jeweled masterpieces.

Before January 4, take a video stroll through the exhibit courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels here.

Out of This World: 2021 gold, sapphire, and diamond Stellar Explosion Transformable Necklace; designed to be reconfigured as separate necklaces and a clip. From Van Cleef’s Under the Stars high jewelry collection. Courtesy: private collection.

Modern Art and Political Survival in 20th Century Germany

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How do artists – and their art – survive two world wars, an authoritatian dictatorship, and the bifurcation of nation’s premiere art institution? It’s the story told by the must-see exhibition, Modern Art and Politics in Germany 1910-1945: Masterworks from the Neue Nationalgalerie, on view at the Albuquerque Museum through January 4, 2026.

Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie mounted the show to bring never-before-seen works to the United States and tell the story of how modern art became an ideological battleground in Germany during the early 20th-century and how the history of politics, artistic innovation, and social commentary are reflected in the institution’s collections today.

Ernst Kirchner’s 1914-1915 vividly expressionist Self-Portrait with a Girl.

The exhibition opens with works from some of the best-known German expressionists – Kirschner, Pechstein, Schmitt-Rotluff, and Nolde. Slalshes of wild color, sharp angles, and modernist portraits nearly leap out of the frames of paintings, showing the influences of the French avant-garde fauves and Picasso’s angular Cubist planes.

Ernst Kirchner’s 1914 expressionistic city view Belle-Alliance-Platz in Berlin.
Karl Schmitt-Rotluff’s 1915 expressionist painting The Green Girl.

Another section of the exhibition presents portraits of influential German art dealers who brought the best of the avant-garde to Berlin, Munich, Dusseldorf, and other German culture capitals in the early 20th century. Works by influential modernists Picasso, Leger, and Kokolschka hang alongside works by the Russian ex-pats who formed the forerunner group to Die Brücke in 1909 – Kandinsky, Alex Jawlensky, and Marianne von Werefki.

See some of our favorite works in our Flickr album.

Austrian avant-garde: Oskar Kokoschka’s 1909 oil portrait of Viennese architect, Adolph Loos; both artists represented by Berlin gallery owner Herworth Walden.

In 1911, the German modernists formed Die Brücke – a group that celebrated getting an artist’s inner feeling out on the canvas – not just a formalist declaration against classical painting and historical norms. When World War I broke out, many went to the front. If they survived, they continued painting to process the psychological agony of the War and the economic toll it took on the homeland.

The exhibition also features a gallery full of works that are a logical outcome of experimentation – abstract works by German artists that merge the symbology and energy of Italian Futurism with the riotous colors of Orphism.

Abstract innovator: Rudolf Belling’s 1925 sculpture Head in Brass – confiscated and labeled “degenerate” by the Nazis in 1937.
Abstract innovator: Otto Möller’s 1921 oil painting City – influenced by Futurism.

Surviving hardship together, the end of World War I only motivated the survivors to come together, form societies and political action committees and keep creating.

Leading up to World War I, it seemed as though modernism would sweep the Continent and become the dominant art style collected by the progressive National Gallery. However, during the 1919-1933 democratic Weimar Republic, art preferences shifted to a highly literal, figurative style dubbed “the New Objectivity.”

This gallery shows the artistic and political shift to realistic portraits with hints of social commentary, depictions of new technology, and a new culture of enfranchised, emamcipated women (exemplified by the museum’s iconic Sonja by Christian Schad).

But over time, the political mood shifted, and the National Socialist Party rose.

New Objectivity: Christian Schad’s 1928 Sonja– a portrait of the new emancipated women
New Objectivity: Curt Querner’s 1933 oil on cardboard painting Self-Portrait with Stinging Nettle – painted in secret (and hidden) as a reaction to a violent police raid on a Communist Party meeting.

Throughout the 1930s, increasingly militaristic and anti-semetic groups formed in Germany, and as the National Socialists came to power, they fired heads of the leading art schools, shuttered the innovative Bauhaus, and banned abstract art and modernism because it did nothing to support their agenda. Artists either went underground (painting in basements) or fled the country entirely. 

Art responding to WWI and WWII: Georg Kolbe’s 1939-1940 bronze Descending Man, Horst Strempel’s 1945-1946 oil on burlap Night Over Germany, and (foreground) Wilhelm Lehmbruck’s 1915-1916 bronze (cast 1972) Fallen Man.

The exhibition concludes by showcasing works made at the end of the war by German artists reacting to the societal disruption and atrocities.  In some cases, banned artists like Karl Kunz were able to paint in secret, wait until the War ended, and emerge to help a divided Germany revive the arts in the post-war years.

Watch the exhibition’s opening lecture by Berlin curator Irina Hiebert Grun, who provides an overview of the Neue Nationalgalerie’s collecting history, responses to the changing politics that affected early 20th century art, how the museum reassembled its collections and personnel after the Nazi-era persecutions.

The war destroyed the buildings and the Allies divided the country, but the story of this museum’s incredible 21st-century renaissance is one for the ages.

After the exhibition closes in Albuquerque, it be on view at the Minneapolis Museum of Art March 7 – July 19, 2026. Don’t miss it!

Banned modernist Karl Kunz was inspired by Picasso’s Guernica to paint Germany, Awake! in secret in 1942 – Kunz survived the war in Germany and participated in its post-War artistic resurgence.

Portrait Masterworks at Home in Taos

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To see the works by one of the top virtuoso portraitists of the 20th century, drop into the home that Nicolai Fechin designed and built for his family in Taos, New Mexico. Masterful oil and charcoal portraits created throughout his life are hung in quiet, contemplative corners of his spectacular 1920s home as part of Masterful Expression: Nicolai Fechin’s Portraiture, on view at the Taos Art Museum at Fechin House through December 31, 2025.

The house itself is a masterwork with all the doors, railings, and embellishments carved by Fechin’s own hand, but the portraits and small, carved wooden busts show why he is considered one of the greatest Russian artists ever to take up residency in the United States.

Fechin’s undated charcoal portrait Manuelita. Courtesy: private collector
Fechin’s 1927-1933 oil painting Taos Studio Interior. Courtesy: private collection; Owings Gallery.

Fechin grew up during the time when Russia was ruled by the Czar, and thrived at the Higher Art School of the Russian Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, where he studied with the acclaimed Russian history painter, Ilya Rapin.

Fechin’s classical training followed the principles advocated by the French virtuoso, Dominque Ingre – subtle human expression, anatomical awareness, and verisimilitude that jumps right of the page (or canvas).

Fechin’s charcoal Head and Skull Study. Courtesy: private collector

Fechin learned his lessons well and won national acclaim in Russia by 1908 for his grand, epic depictions of peasant life, which provided an opportunity for his work to be shown internationally and gain fans in the United States.  But it was his reputation for portraits that captured the essence of human expression that cemented his reputation in the United States and provided him with continuing commissions.

When the Russian Revolution and civil war brought disruption to the domestic life he was starting to build with his new bride, Alexandra, an American benefactor arranged for them to emigrate to the United States.  As soon as the Fechin family landed in the United States, the commissions began, largely due to the enthusiastic public reaction his portraits in shows at the Grand Central Gallery and the Brooklyn Museum.

Fechin’s undated oil portrait Russian Singer with Fan. Courtesy: private collector
Fechin’s 1951 oil portrait of General Mac Arthur. Courtesy: Taos Art Museum

For health reasons, Fechin and his family left the sophisticated steets of New York City during the high-flying 1920s for the high desert of Taos – a thriving art community anchored by Mabel Dodge Luhan. Fechin figured that when the tumult in Russia died down, he would return. But that never happened.

The exhibition, with many works drawn from private collections, provides a glimpse of the Fechin family over time, with portraits and sculptures of his wife early in their courtship (an oil), a bronze bust, and drawn portraits in their life in New Mexico.

Fechin’s 1910 oil portrait of his wife Alexandra with Coral Beads. Courtesy: private collector
Fechin’s 1927-1933 charcoal portrait of his wife Alexandra; on rice paper. Courtesy: private collector

His beloved daughter Enya – who ultimately saved and restored this unforgettable home and her dad’s studio – is shown as a baby in Russia, as an older child in carved wooden busts, and in paintings in her coming of age, as well as a portrait of her as a grown woman looking out for her dad later in his life.

Fechin’s carved wooden bust of his daughter Eya.. Courtesy: private collector
Fechin’s 1940s charcoal portrait of his daughter Eya; on rice paper. Courtesy: private collector

The exhibit also includes sensitive, gorgeous portraits and studies that Fechin created in his five-month stay in Bali in 1938 – delicate features of young models and reflective expressions of respected elders. All have clean, sure lines and carefully observed, personalized nuances.

Fechin’s 1938 charcoal portrait Balinese Girl with Long Hair. Courtesy: private collector
Fechin’s 1938 charcoal portrait Balinese Man with Beard. Courtesy: private collector

This walk-through the Fechin home holds delight and awe at every turn – awe at the hand-carved interiors and delight at at the humanity and diversity of the faces greeting us in every room. Visit, if you can!

Take a look at more in our Flickr album.

Fechin’s 1950s charcoal self- portrait on rice paper. Courtesy: private collector
Fechin’s 1940s charcoal portrait of his daughter Eya; on rice paper. Courtesy: private collector
Inside the 1933 Fechin house: sunroom on the second floor features his hand-carved bed for his daughter, Eya.

Contemporary Pueblo Architecture Honors Ancient Beliefs

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Any visitor to Chaco Canyon National Historial Park (850-1250 CE) makes the journey to appreciate innovative masonry of the Great Houses, the precision of the ancient road system, and the astronomically aligned walls, windows, and kivas. But how do contemporary Pueblo architects incorporate these traditional beliefs in their 21st century projects?

A fascinating, in-depth exhibition, Restorying our Heartplaces: Contemporary Pueblo Architecture – on view at Albuquerque’s Indian Pueblo Cultural Center through December 7, 2025 – explores how modern Indigenous architects incorporate traditional world views into their work.

2023 photo Kivas at Pueblo Bonito,Chaco Canyon by curator Ted Jojola (Islela Pueblo) showing advanced masonry and architectural concepts.

For example, just look at the design of the National Museum of the American Indian’s Resource Center – an organic design, aligned to the four cardinal directions, with extensive use of cedar wood.

1999 plans for the National Museum of the American Indian Resource Center. Courtesy: Ted Jojola (Isleta Pueblo)
Views of the 1999 National Museum of the American Indian Cultural Resource Center in Suitland, Maryland. Courtesy: Lynn Paxson.

This exhibition coincides with the 50th anniversary of the 1975 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act – legislation that shifted Native American policy in the United States from assimilation to self-determination. Tribes were now able to initiate and run justice, government, health and education departments of their own – a change that triggered a construction boom for new schools and administrative buildings.

The show opens as an immersive experience in a large, circular gallery that introduces the core belief system and origin story of the Ancient Puebloans. Across a large screen in a vivid animation, the Pueblo people emerge into this world from a previous world. You watch them migrating outward in a spiral – symbols that are reflected across the art, murals, and photographs on the surrounding walls.

Mural by Dominic Aquero (Cochiti) with symbols of Pueblo creation; T-door represents the spiritual passage between two worlds (sky and Earth)

This experience sets the stage for the rest of the exhibition by showing how the stonework and beliefs reflected by the architecture of Ancient Puebloan centers points the way forward for Pueblo architects today.

2022 print by Gerald Dawavandewa (Hopi Cherokee) with T-shaped door for passage between worlds (sky and Earth]

The exhibition describes Ancient Puebloan architectural innovations – passive solar heating, precise window alignment, and masonry approaches. How did the Ancients achieve such precision in their dramatic Chaco and Mesa Verde buildings?

The curators present engineering and survey tools from archaeological excavations and modern survey backpacks side by side – plumb bobs, levels, and measuring devices.

Ancient stone and ceramic plumb bobs (from California and from Hewitt excavation at Rito de los Frijoles, Bandelier). Courtesy: Museum of Indian Arts & Culture/Lab of Anthropology.
Modern survey tools: level, tape measure, compass, brass plumb bob, wood, and string. Courtesy: curator Ted Jojola (Isleta Pueblo)

They also add comparisons of selenite used as window panels in Old Acoma’s Sky City (among the longest-inhabited communities in the US) and the contemporary architectural approach to windows in the recently built Acoma museum – a thoughtful reflection of the past

The exhibition directly addresses past HUD housing approaches on tribal lands – pushing suburban-style low-income housing, which moved families away from the traditional Pueblo plaza (the HeartPlace) and provided pitched-roof designs that blunted community cultural practices that utilized traditional Pueblo flat-roof construction.

The curators remind us of the continual upkeep required by adobe construction – a repeated communal task typically undertaken by a community’s women that happened on a regular, cyclical basis.  It’s also a reminder that Pueblo communities view buildings as living presences that evolve – not just concrete objects exist in a “finished” state.

Views of the 2000 campus for the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Courtesy: Paul Fragua (Jemez Pueblo)
Views of 2004 building designed by Janet Carpio (Laguna/Isleta Pueblos) for Pueblo of Isleta’s Headstart/Child Care Center.

Wall panels, blueprint books, and architectural models are used to demonstrate the contemporary innovations of Pueblo architects – the Resource Center of the National Museum of the American Indian (1999), the campus of the Institute of Amercian Indian Arts in Santa Fe (2000), and the Headstart Child Care Center for Isleta Pueblo (2004). Both incorporate design elements echoing the spiral migration path, alignment to the cardinal directions, and colors and elements of the Earth.

A huge multimedia interactive theater punctuates the walk-through – an immersive visit to Acoma’s new Cultural Center and Haa’ku Museum with tribal members and designers explaining the architectural details and how the buildings reflect the landscape and traditional belief systems.

Immersive interactive experience of Acoma’s new Cultural Center and Haa’ku Museum. Courtesy: Anna Seed Productions, Electric Playouse, and UNM ASPIRE.

The exhibition features the work of the Indiginous Design and Planning Institute (iD+Pi) at UNM and presents dramatic architectural models of the past, present, and future of the community of Nambe Pueblo.

Look through the exhibition in our Flickr album here – a future-forward look at the continuing progression of innovative architectural designs and the next generation of designers and architects respecting and integrating the Pueblo world view with buildings considered to be living, breathing HeartPlaces for the community. 

2023 photo by curatorTed Jojola (Islela Pueblo) North Window View from Desert View Watchtower, Grand Canyon showing the T-shaped doorway symbolizing passage between worlds

As the curators made clear in their opening-day remarks, a similarly extensive exhibition could explore architectural innovation and spiritualism across Navajo Nation. Let’s hope that happens!

Judith Lowry Retrospective and Her Great Basin Legacy

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She grew up on US military bases all over the world, and was thankful that her parents exposed her to the best museums, art, and culture in every country they resided. As an adult member of the Pit River Tribe, she moved back to her ancestors’ land in California and Nevada’s Great Basin, and began telling stories of her family’s history and modern Indigenous experience.

The Art of Judith Lowry showcases 40 years of this artist’s work in Reno, Nevada at the Nevada Museum of Art through November 16, 2025 – large-scale painting, triptychs, and installations.

Lowry’s 1997 Red Ribbons depicts herself as a light-skinned Native American teen equipped for battle. Courtesy: The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, Santa Fe.

The museum assembled Lowry’s most celebrated work from major collections across the United States, but is also using the occasion to celebrate Lowry’s own (and her husband’s) gift to the museum with a companion installation of The Lowrey and Croul Collection of Native American Art.

Take a look at some at our favorites from both shows in our Flickr album.

The entry of the exhibition shows how Lowry explores her complex family history at the turn of the last century in frontier ranch lands along the California-Nevada border – images of her biracial great-grandparents and a beautifully mystical depiction of her grandmother. Her regal portrait shows her ancestor’s face tatoos coupled with perfect Victorian dress and small references to the tragedies that befell her family – a symbolic approach Lowry adapted from her deep appreciation of Renaissance works by Bellini, da Vinci, and other masters.

Lowry’s 1997 The Good Marriage – her Native American great-grandmother and German-Irish great-grandfather at their Greenville, California ranch. Courtesy: private collection.
Lowry’s 1999/2012 Edna at Honey Lake depicts her biracial grandmother holding one of her many children who did not survive to adulthood.

A case in the center of the gallery presents Lowry’s paintings for her children’s book about her father and uncle’s Indian boarding-school experience, break out, and unauthorized journey back home.

She also presents family photos and representations of her own growing-up with rich stories and excerpts from her family photo albums. The experience of reading personal history, seeing her ancestors’ faces, and looking at the painted details on her epic canvases is a deep, warm experience that allows you to feel like you’re welcomed into Lowry’s complex and loving family.

Lowry’s 1995 triptych Family: Love’s Unbreakable Heaven showing the moment she understood her family’s unique biracial identity while living at an American military base in Germany. Courtesy: The Rockwell Museum, Corning, New York.

Many of the paintings are satiric takes on the pressures facing contemporary Native Americans navigating life in modern American society – startling theatrical juxtapositions in Indian casinos, retail emporiums, and Renaissance altarpieces.

Lowry’s 1996 Shopping – a sales associate shows the Virgin of Guadalupe’s cloak to a pre-Columbian mother and daughter who are shopping for prom. Courtesy: Peabody Essex Museum

Some of the most arresting works allow us to enter a spiritual realm – magical depictions of legends, stories, and lessons that she heard from her dad growing up.  Lowry’s large-scale, dramatic canvases are immersive – letting us enter the world of the girl-power Star Maidens, who who dance across the sky holding baskets of stars and tossing comets.

Lowry’s 2003 Northern Coast panel from the series Weh-Pom and the Star Sisters celebrating female autonomy and strength. Courtesy: National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian
Lowry’s 2003 Southern Coast panel from the story of the the Star Sisters holding their own in the sky and rejecting the advances of trickster Coyote Weh-Pom. Courtesy: National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian.

Or letting us enjoy the epic, triumphant forces of natural world that led to the environment Lowry now inhabits in the shadow of the Sierra Nevadas.

Lowry’s 2001 The Race for Fire showing animal spirits charging to retrieve fire from the mountains after a devastating flood. Courtesy: Maidu Museum and Historic Site, Roseville, California.

But at the end of her retrospective, Lowry presents the ultimate immersive experience – an imagined native Northern California roundhouse where visitors can enter, think, and see mystical images of Lowry’s inspiring female ancestors, tribal story-carriers, and cultural symbols.  Visitors enter quietly and linger respectfully, taking in all the details of the painted walls and dome.  See our short video to see Lowry’s comforting interior.

Lowry’s 2005/2025 mixed-media installation K’um de–go–i-dom (Home Place), an imagined Native California roundhouse covered in snow; built for quiet reflection. Courtesy: private collection

After immersion in this spiritual space, visitors enter a bright contemporary gallery displaying some of the 125 contemporary Indigenous works that Lowry and her husband Brad Croul donated to the Nevada Museum – honoring the accomplishments of the notable artists working in the region in the 1990s. The gallery is filled with art by famed Northern California indigenous artists (inspirations and friends like Harry Fonseca and Jean LeMarr. The gift significantly expands the museum’s indigenous contemporary collection.

It’s also a nice punctuation that the spectacular case of beaded glasswork by Lorena Gorbet also features a treasured piece of Judith’s family history – a beautiful grasshopper-stitch basket made by Judith’s great-aunt Annie Gorbet when she was only fourteen years old. 

1914 red maple and willow Grasshopper Stitch Basket by 14-year-old Annie Gorbet [Yamani Maidu (Mountain Maidu)] (Judith’s great aunt) and undated beaded glass water jug and bottles by Annie’s granddaughter, Lorena Gorbet
Car Crash Necklace by Brian Tripp (Karuk); created from auto reflector fragments, river rock, duct tape, fabric, and string.

Lowry’s work and generous collection provide a loving immersion into family, friends, and spiritual traditions of the Great Basin. It’s a rich tribute to a prolific contemporary artist – one who cares about her culture and committed to ensuring its legacy for her region.

Turning Points: Designs That Changed Everything

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It’s always fun when the MoMA design curators dig into the collection and present innovations that make you look – and think – twice. They’ve outdone themselves with the endlessly fascinating, super-popular, and throught-provoking exhibition, Pirouette: Turning Points in Design, on view through November 15, 2025.

Where (and why) did Crocs evolve?  Who improved the paper bag?  Who designed the first emojis? What’s the link between M&Ms and the US military? The exhibition celebrates designers and tells stories about eureka moments – a flash of genius in adapting industrial materials to solve everyday problems in unexpected ways. 

Early 1930s invention for the military by Forrest Mars – M&M’s candy-coated chocolates.

Each design innovation has its own little curtained cubby, giving the exhibit a luxe red World’s-Greatest-Showman vibe with surprises revealed around each bend. The show has it all – beloved technology innovations, fashion twists, furniture innovations, and ubiquitous everyday items that we take for granted.

1950 Bic Cristal Ballpoint pen designed by Marcel Bisch and the Décolletage Plastique Design Team for Société Bic, which eliminated clogs and leaks.
1962 View-Master Model G, a lightweight stereoscope viewer remodeled by Charles Harrison for Sawyer Manufacturing.

See some of our favorites in our Flickr album.

Right at the start, there’s an entire wall where you learn about Shegetaka Kurita, the Japanese innovator who designed emojis in 1998. 

Emojis, designed in 1998-1999 by Shigetaka Kurita for NTT DOCOMO in Japan; 176 designed for mobile phoes and pagers

The earliest innovation honored in the exhibition is the folding, flat-bottomed paper bag designed by Margaret E. Knight and Charles B. Stillwell in the 1870s.  MoMA honors Margaret as one of the first women in the United States to obtain a patent for her invention of the paper-bag manufacturing machine. By unfolding a paper container that “stood up” on its own, clerks were able to pack everything with two hands! Revolutionary shopping efficiency!!

1870s-1880s flat-bottomed paper bag designed by Margaret E. Knight and Charles B. Stillwell

From the early 20th century, we have two European turning points in design – the electric hooded hairdryer and the at-home expresso maker. The Thirties’ version of the Müholos hairdryer is the first invention you see, but its heavy-duty industrial design is a shocker.

The innovative Moka Express expresso pot – invented in Italy during the Great Depresssion – is in every Italian home today. But it was revolutionary in the 1930s because it finally allowed people to economize by brewing at home instead of spending more at the café.

Highly intimidating 1930s hairdryer from the Müholos company of Leipzig, Germany, founded in 1909; innovators in electric hair clippers, too
2008 version of Moka Express designed in 1933 during the Great Depression by Alfonso Bialetti to enable Italians to brew espresso at home.

Going back to 1979, the team honors  Sony Walkman, the portable music wearable that replaced ginormous boom boxes. Steve Jobs and his team gets a nod for their 1983 Mac desktop all-in-one  and everything that came with it – the Oakland font designed by Zuzana Licko for the earliest Mac word processing and Susan Kare’s graphic OS icons. Kare invented the trashcan and didn’t even own a computer!

Although the tech world seems to be bringing it back this season, it’s nice to see the design innovation that began it all – 1996 Motorola flip phone!

Sony’s 1979 “Walkman” audio cassette player (Model TPS L-2) – the first portable listening “bubble”; designed with two headphone jacks for sharing.
1996 Motorola cellular telephone (Model V3682) – the lightest, smallest mobile device (“flip phone”) – designed by Albert Nagele.

And speaking of technology at your fingertips, it’s always nice to see MoMA display full-size 1926 Frankfurt kitchen that influenced every modern kitchen that came after it. After WWI, Germany undertook a big modernization project to alleviate the housing crisis.  Grete Lihetzk, who designed this kitchen was the only woman on the design team, but she made quite a mark!  She studied efficiencies in factory designs and incorporated them into the kitchen – revolving stools, built-in storage, stain-resistant cutting surfaces, and drop-down ironing boards.

1926-1927 Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Grete Lihetzky – a revolutionary, efficient approach with features still used in kitchen design today.

Listen to MoMA’s audio guide to hear the backstories of the Rainbow Flag, early Mac OS design, graphic design improvements to familiar signs, and how artificial acrylic nails became a trend.

Here’s a short history of shapewear:

And learn about the Monobloc Chair (designer unknown). It’s everywhere!

Eternal Signs from the Australian Outback

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It’s not often you find yourself surrounded by vibrant contemporary art that directly connects you to dreams and stories that have been told and retold for tens of thousands of years. Meet some exceptional visual storytellers from nearly twenty Australian regions in Eternal Signs: Indigenous Australian Art from the Kaplan and Levi Collection, on view at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno through November 2, 2025.

This exhibition showcases well-known and emerging artists in different geographic areas of Australia’s north coast and interior desert. See our favorites in our Flickr album and consult the map to locate the communities where the featured artists work.

2011 acrylic painting Wanampi Jukurrpa by Tiger Palpatja (Pitjantjatjara) from Kaltjiti, APY Lands about the water serpent and how sacred rock forms were created.

For thousands of millenia, the indigenous groups in Australia have created rock art, painted spiritual images on eucalyptus bark, and documented their “dreams” – a mix of creation stories, confirmation of people’s integration with the land and animals, and everyday life.  These visual affirmations present a simultaneous representation of past, present, and future, hence the term “eternal signs.”

2001 Saltwater Crocodile by Craig Koometa (Wik-Alkan) from Aurukun, in far north of Queensland; at rear, paintings by artists from Utopia at the edge of the Tanami Desert.

Stories, images, culture, dreams, and language differ greatly among Australia’s 120 indigenous groups. (We’ve indicated each artist’s geographic region and particular language after their name.)

From Arnhem Land in the north, Paddy Fordham Wainburranga (Rembarrnga) from Wugularr, Northern Territory is one of the best-known artists shown. Growing up in the bush, Paddy was eleven when he first encountered anyone outside his traditional community. In the 1970s, he moved to Maningrida, a government-sponsored settlement, and began painting at the Arts & Culture Center. Paddy’s work often depicts ancestral spirits that he first encountered in rock art.

1991 Balangalngalan by Paddy Fordham Wainburranga (Rembarrnga) – a shape-shiting ancestor who guides and heals.
1994 painted wood Manjhkikilyo (Malevolent Mimih Spirit) by Paddy Fordham Wainburranga (Rembarrnga) from Wugularr, Northern Territory – a bad ancestral spirit from ancient cave art.

John Bulunbulun (Ganalbingu), another Maningrida Arts & Culture Center artist, also starts with traditional dreams and forms – for example, he uses a traditional hollow-log coffin as a basis from which to sculpt a three-dimensional dream about the long-necked turtle creator. Take a look.

More recent work by Yirrkala artists in East Arnham reflect ecological concerns and the clans’ interest in protecting ancestral lands. A dramatic sculpture by Guynbi Ganambarr (Naymil) reflects the rich, majestic, and spiritual coastal life of the Grove Peninsula. A masterful wall piece by Djambawa Marawili (Madarrpa) is one in a series that he’s used to affirm his people’s land and sea rights – even used as legal evidence in court cases challenging indigenous rights to land and sea, demonstrating the deep, spiritual meaning behind their claims.

Cormorant catches a freshwater fish: 2011 carved eucalyptus bark Wurran Ga Baypinga by Guynbi Ganambarr (Naymil) from Yirrkala, East Arnhem
2014 Source of Fire by Djambawa Marawili (Madarrpa) from Yirrkala in East Arnhem; ochres and sawdust on bark showing strong ancestral truth-tellers.

Here are two works by the award-winning Petyarre sisters from the area of Utopia on the border of the Tanami Desert in central Australia – an area that began to achieve acclaim as an art center in the late 1990s with dot paintings referencing the landscape and women’s expertise in bush medicine.

Detail of 1992 acrylic Mountain Devil Awelye by Gloria Tamerre Petyarre (Anmatyerre) from Utopia in the central Tanami Desert.
1996 acrylic My Place Atnangkere by Kathleen Petyarre (Anmatyerre) from Utopia in the central Tanami Desert; aerial view of creation story journey across the desert homeland.

We have to give a big shout-out to Robert Kaplan and Margaret Levi for donating over 70 of these amazing artworks to the Nevada Museum of Art. Their passion shows!

In case you aren’t able to enjoy this insightful, beautiful show at the Nevada Art Museum, art lovers will be able enjoy The Stars We Do Not See: Australian Indigenous Art from the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne as it tours across the North America. Right now, The Stars We Do Not See is scheduled for the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. through March 1, 2026.

2008 ochres on linen Sing Out Spring – Yiyili Country by David Cox (Goonlyandi/Walmajarri) from Warmun, Western Australia.

The Stars We Do Not See will travel to the Denver Art Museum (April 19 – July 26, 2026), Portland Art Museum (September 2026 – January 2027), Peabody Essex Museum in Salem (February – June 2027), and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto (July 2027 – January 2028).

Two 2004 acrylic paintings Ngura (Country) by Tali Tali Pompey (Pitjantjatjara) from Kaltjiti, APY Lands.

Superfine Tailoring Illuminates History of Black Style

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Fancy neck ruffles, gilt-framed portraits, sleek suits, flowing trousers, and bold plaids and stripes pop from every corner of the Costume Institute exhibition Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through October 27.

It’s a 12-chapter journey through Black men’s style that emphasizes how superb tailoring, style, and fashionable precision has been used successfully by newly emancipated slaves, Revolutionary political leaders, activists, sports and pop stars, and high-style travelers from the 17th-century through today.

So cool: 2025 wool gabardine ensemble by Jerry Lorenzo for Fear of God – a modern throwback to Fifties’ tailoring. Courtesy: Fear of God

Each section provides a deep dive into history to explain how Black men (and a few daring women) adapted high-fashion menswear in the 17th and 18th centuries to reinvent themselves as authoritative, free, cosmopolitan high-achievers. Themes include Presence, Distinction, and Cool – based on co-curator Monica L. Miller’s acclaimed 2009 book, Slaves Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity.

Dressing for distinction: 1804 Portrait of Toussaint L’Ouverture, leader of the Haitian revolution, painted by Giradin. Courtesy: La Maison de l’histoire européen, Brussels.

The curators leverage the Met’s extensive collection of photos, books, magazines, fashion, and accessories to provide visitors with the full visual story of each of the angles of Miller’s treatise.  Plus, they’ve assembled loans from recent collections of cutting-edge contemporary Black designers who themselves are pulling inspiration from these same pages of history.

The Distinction section, for example, has a wall of impressive portraits and bedazzled swords of the first leaders of the Hatian revolution dressed in military finery – emphasizing their commitment to Englightenment ideals in the first successful slave rebellion in the Western Hemisphere.

 The brilliant multi-level exhibition design features contemporary menswear inspired by 18th-century revolutionary and military style, including a swaggering great coat designed for the ever-magnificent Vogue editor-at-large, Andre Leon Talley.

Jawara Alleyne’s 2004 tailored ensemble inspired by Jamaican style; at right, ensemble from his 2021-2022 “Renegade” collection inspired by 19th-century shipwrecked sailors. Courtesy: the designer.
Worn by Andre Leon Talley; 2000-2001 haute couture coat with gold braid by John Galliano for House of Dior. Courtesy: Talley estate.

The Freedom section tells the story of the rise of the Black dandy in the 19th century and how the entrepreneurial class of African Americans dressed to impress. Historic portraits, photos, a fancy tailcoat, and a book on how to tie fancy neckwear – evidence of social upward mobility – are shown alongside cutting-edge contemporary menswear.

2023 figure-enhancing white cotton ensemble by Bianca Saunders for her “Nothing Personal” collection. Courtesy: the artist.
Freedom: Fashionable attire in 1850-1856 portrait of Thomas Howland, the first elected Black official in Providence. Courtesy: Rhode Island Historical Society.

The Champions section focuses upon how successful Black athletes – such as Jack Johnson, Walt Frazier, and Mohammed Ali – used fine clothing and style to make a statement, and how althetic wear transitioned into upscale runway fashion.

The story of Black jockeys is told – how 19th-century sports superstars got pushed out of early 20th-century racing when racial discrimination was at its peak, and how contemporary designers are incorporating this story into their designs.

EaEarliest surviving jockey suit (1830-1850): stripes appliquéd on silk jacket with and buckskin breeches made by plantation tailors. Courtesy: Charleston Museum, South Carolina.
2024 ensemble from “The Great Black Jockeys” collection by Tremaine Emory for Denim Tears; pieced lamb leather coat and trousers over silk shirt. Courtesy: Denim Tears.

The Respectability section explains how social-justice icons D.E.B. Du Bois and Frederick Douglass used their perfectionist style to draw a crown and make a statement, but it also discusses (and shows) the tools of the trade used by legions of Black tailors.  There’s also a beautifully cut in-process example from Saville Row tailor Andrew Ramroop.

2024 in-process tailored jacket by Andrew Ramroop for Maurice Sedwell of Saville Row. Courtesy: Maurice Sedwell
Hip community: 1930 lithograph of stylish Harlem Dandy on Striver’s Row by Miguel Covarrubias, a popular Vanity Fair contributor. Courtesy: University of Texas at Austin.

Of course, hip-hop takes its bow, too, with a tribute to Dapper Dan and other designers honoring the cool, ever-evolving style of Black musicians and performers.

So cool: 2017 denim ensemble by Brick Owens and Dieter Grams for Bstroy, a reference to early all-denim hip-hop fashion. Courtesy: the designers.
1987 all-over LV-monogrammed leather jacket for Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC and pants for DJ Hurricane by Dapper Dan of Harlem. Courtesy: private collections.

Take a look at some of our favorite features of the exhibit in our Flickr album – upwardly mobile campus-inspired fasion, zoot suits from the hep cats of the Forties, beautiful fashion flourishes flaunted by pop superstar Prince, and nods to African heritage.

For more, walk through this stunning, insightful, memorable exhibit with co-curators Monica Miller and Andrew Bolton: