U.S. Museums Reach Deep into America’s Past
Museums around the country are celebrating the nation’s heritage in ways that go beyond what might be considered traditional.
As the nation’s 250th anniversary looms, museums are using art to celebrate, explore and uncover the heterogeneous meanings of being an American.
While some museums rolled out their exhibitions last year, most planned them for this spring and summer. The exhibitions showcase both the traditional and the unexpected, from portraiture to multimedia installations, from founding documents to found objects. Across the country, the joy, sorrow and humor of the nation’s history are on display. Here are some highlights:
Regeneration
“Regeneration: Long Island’s Pursuit of Ecological Art and Care,” is the “life” part of the Parrish Art Museum’s yearlong program “USA250: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
“Regeneration,” which consists of 76 works by 11 artists with the theme of “how humans have interacted with the natural environment,” said Monica Ramirez-Montagut, president of the regional museum, which is based in Water Mill, N.Y., on the East End of Long Island.
A central point of the exhibition is art by Sara Siestreem, a Native American artist from Oregon, who created her pieces in collaboration with a Long Island collective of Shinnecock Indian Nation kelp farmers. The five works, which were commissioned for the show, consist of 30 objects, including panel boards covered with acrylic, graphite, and Xerox copies and 13 ceramic baskets that are made with a combination of materials like tobacco, kelp and beads.
Two other featured artists are Scott Bluedorn and Cindy Pease Roe, both of whom incorporate in their works — in very different ways — discarded material found locally.
And a piece initially made for the Parrish, which is now housed at the Whitney Museum of American Art in Manhattan, is back on loan for the exhibition: Maya Lin’s “Bay, Pond and Harbor” depicts three East End bodies of water using recycled silver.