on view through August 1st, 2021
A recently acquired akwanshi stone monolith from the Cross River region of Nigeria forms the centerpiece of a focus exhibition featuring stone as a material used in ancestral veneration among West African cultures. Read More
on view through May 31st, 2021
Nearly seventy of the finest examples of Asian art in the United States, collected by John D. Rockeller 3rd and his wife Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller between the 1940s and ’70s, will be showcased in an exhibition on loan from the Asia Society Museum. The extraordinary range of bronzes, ceramics, and metalwork reveals great achievements in Asian art spanning more than two millennia. Read More
on view through June 6th, 2021
Over the past two decades, the ways in which we create, collect, and compile photographs have shifted dramatically. In broad strokes, we might define this shift as away from photographs as singular, iconic, and private objects to a ubiquitous, public, and collective phenomenon that is now often immaterial. This exhibition presents the work of four photographers, all of whom work with, and critique, these new practices in photography. Unified by their understanding of the photograph as an ambiguous messenger, each of these artists creates, collects, or compiles photographs to trace narratives about identity, community, and power. Read More
on view through June 20th, 2021
In the centuries following the arrival of Francis Xavier, a Catholic missionary, in 1542, the state of Goa in western India became the administrative and economic center of a Portuguese empire that extended west to Africa and east to Malaysia, China, and Japan. The vast trade networks established by the Portuguese and Spanish allowed not only for the spread of Christianity, but also an unprecedented artistic exchange within these colonial empires. This exhibition, from the collection of Dr. Siddharth Bhansali, reveals both the global influence of European seventeenth- and eighteenth-century styles, as well as the transformation of these styles in the hands of Indian artists creating a new visual tradition. Read More
on view through June 20th, 2021
The Jain faith has been continuously practiced in India since at least the sixth century BCE. Nonviolence, a respect for all living beings, and the belief in the existence of a permanent soul whose true nature is obscured by accumulated karma are core principles of Jainism. Created over a period of more than fifteen hundred years — the second through nineteenth centuries — the sculptures, paintings, and manuscripts on view in this exhibition of works loaned from the collection of Dr. Siddharth Bhansali illuminate iconographic and stylistic change as well as regional variation. Read More
on view through April 11th, 2021
In 2019, the New Orleans Museum of Art commissioned Philadelphia-based artist Roberto Lugo to create “Stunting,” a set of three ceramic pots inspired by NOMA’s traditional collection. Best known for cultural mash-ups that blend contemporary social issues with traditional porcelain pottery, Lugo’s powerful commentary on poverty, inequality, and racial injustice has made him a defining artist for our moment. Read More
on view through July 4th, 2021
A selection of recently bequeathed photographs from the collection of Dr. H. Russell Albright represents the core of NOMA’s modern and contemporary photography collection. Read More
on view through January 2nd, 2022
Drawn from NOMA’s permanent collection, this installation addresses shades of oppression, racism, and superficial cultural understanding layered in 19th-century Orientalist paintings, photographs, and decorative arts. Read More
on view starting April 23rd, 2021
When chemists first successfully extracted aluminum from the earth in the mid-19th century, the raw element was as precious as gold. Today we take this ubiquitous material for granted, though aluminum allows for nearly every facet of modern life through its use in architecture, industry, and flight. This exhibition, drawn from NOMA’s permanent collection, explores the changing role of aluminum in twentieth-century design. Read More
ended on March 7th, 2021
Working with natural elements like earth, wind, water and fire, the contemporary artists in Ear to the Ground show how nature can spur artistic innovation and spark new thinking about human culture and community. Read More
Brian Piper, Mellon Foundation Assistant Curator for Photography, spoke with photographer Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. Brown’s work is featured in the exhibition New Photography: Create, Collect, Compile. The exhibition presents the work of four photographers, all of whom work with, and critique, these new practices in photography. Read More
