On The Road

Below, we offer a taste of some of the Smithsonian exhibitions traveling across the country, organized and sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Click here for information on more SITES exhibitions and to see if they are coming to a museum near you. To learn more about the American Art Museum’s traveling shows, please click here.

 

SITES: Becoming American: Teenagers and Immigration

Oregon Historical Society,
3/20/2010 - 5/30/2010
Fredericksburg Area Museum and Cultural Center,
6/19/2010 - 8/29/2010

In 1999, photographer Barbara Beirne documented the transport of refugees from overcrowded camps in Macedonia to military housing in New Jersey. The experience left her pondering the true uncertainty and upheaval of the immigrant experience in the United States. In an attempt to answer these questions, Beirne began interviewing and photographing immigrant teenagers from all parts of the world, recording the shared hopes and challenges of the nation’s newest residents. The SITES exhibition, “Becoming American: Teenagers and Immigration,” features 50 of Beirne’s black-and-white portraits accompanied by each subject’s reflections on the challenges and opportunities of their new home. 

 

SITES: Bittersweet Harvest

Museo Alameda,
5/22/2010 - 8/1/2010
El Museo Latino,
8/21/2010 - 10/31/2010
Branigan Cultural Center,
5/22/2010 - 8/1/2010
Center for Community Engagement, John Spoor Broome Library, California State University, Channel Islands,
8/21/10 - 10/31/10

“Bittersweet Harvest,” a bilingual exhibition in Spanish and English from the National Museum of American History, explores the little-known story of the Bracero program; the largest guest-worker program in U.S history. Between 1942 and 1964, millions of Mexican men came to the United States on short-term labor contracts. The Bracero experience tells a story of not only exploitation, but also of opportunity. This exhibition is organized into three main sections that explore the braceros’ motivations and expectations for the journey north, the work they did and the effects the Bracero program had on family and communities in Mexico and the United States. “Bittersweet Harvest” features the work of famed photojournalist Leonard Nadel as well as oral histories collected by the Bracero Oral History Project. 

 

SITES: Exit Saigon, Enter Little Saigon

Grout Museum of History and Science,
3/20/2010 - 8/29/2010

Vietnamese Americans are a vibrant and diverse ethnic group—nearly 1.5 million in number—and an integral part of the American fabric. This exhibition recounts a journey more than 30 years in the making. Images of overcrowded refugee camps across the Pacific Rim provide a visual starting point, conveying the profound sense of displacement experienced by war-weary people en route to the United States. When the U.S. government opened its gates to thousands of Vietnamese in 1975, migrants faced the idea of permanent resettlement with a mixture of survivors’ guilt and overwhelming relief. Once here, equality and acceptance were not always guaranteed, but Vietnamese Americans have adapted to life in the United States while maintaining their linguistic, cultural, and religious traditions. 

 

American Art Museum: Modern Masters from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Dayton Art Institute,
July 23, 2010-Oct. 13, 2010
Telfair Museum of Art,
Nov. 13, 2010-Feb. 5, 2011
Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art,
March 19, 2011-June 19, 2011
Reynolda House Museum of American Art,
Oct. 7, 2011-Jan. 1, 2012

This exhibition features 43 key paintings and sculptures by 31 of the most celebrated artists who came to maturity in the 1950s. Through three broadly-conceived themes that span two decades of creative genius —"Significant Gestures," "Optics and Order" and "New Images of Man"—Modern Masters examines the complex and heterogeneous nature of American abstract art in the mid-twentieth century. Featured artists include Jim Dine, David Driskell, Sam Francis, Philip Guston, Grace Hartigan, Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline, Louise Nevelson, Anne Truitt and Esteban Vicente. 

 

American Art Museum: What Does It All Mean: William T. Wiley in Retrospect

Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive,
3/17/2010 – 7/18/2010

Enter the world of artist William T. Wiley, who has created a distinctive body of work during a 50-year career that addresses critical issues of our time. Art, politics, war, global warming, foolishness, ambition, hypocrisy, and irony are summoned by Wiley’s fertile imagination and recorded in the personal vocabulary of symbols, puns and images that fill his objects. His wit and sense of the absurd make his art accessible to all with multiple layers of meaning revealed through careful examination. 

 

American Art Museum: 1934 A New Deal For Artists

Frick Art & Historical Center,
1/30/2010 – 4/25/2010
Fort Wayne Museum of Art,
5/21/2010 – 8/22/2010
Whatcom Museum of History and Art,
9/16/2010 – 1/9/2011
The Mennello Museum of American Art,
2/3/2011 – 5/1/2011

In 1934, Americans grappled with an economic situation that feels all too familiar today. Against the backdrop of the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration created the Public Works of Art Project—the first federal government program to support the arts nationally. Federal officials in the 1930s understood how essential art was to sustaining America's spirit. Artists from across the United States who participated in the program, which lasted only six months from mid-December 1933 to June 1934, were encouraged to depict "the American Scene." The Public Works of Art Project not only paid artists to embellish public buildings, but also provided them with a sense of pride in serving their country. They painted regional, recognizable subjects—ranging from portraits to cityscapes and images of city life to landscapes and depictions of rural life—that reminded the public of quintessential American values such as hard work, community and optimism.

Continue your cultural journey with Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, monthly features of affiliate museums and their collections and special events and programming throughout the year.