Past Exhibitions | Smithsonian Institution

Creating Hawai'i

This case features objects from the museum's collection that highlight the unique culture and history of Hawai'i.

August 21, 2009 – March 14, 2011

Editors' Picks: The Best of Smithsonian Magazine's 7th Annual Photo Contest

See the finalists from Smithsonian magazine's 7th annual photo contest. View 30 photographs from the 45,000 entries received from around the world .

July 1, 2010 – February 28, 2011

Smithsonian Castle

Perspectives: Hai Bo

As part of the Perspectives series of contemporary Asian art, view five large-scale photographs from Hai Bo's Northern Series.

March 27, 2010 – February 27, 2011

Asian Art Museum, East Building

The Healing Power of Art: Works of art by Haitian children after the earthquake

View nearly 100 paintings and drawings created by Haiti's young people at Plas Timoun (The Children's Place), arts centers housed in converted buses at two locations in Port-au-Prince after the 2010 earthquake.

June 17, 2010 – February 27, 2011

African Art Museum

Crux: (as seen from those who sleep on the surface of the earth under the night sky)

View a mobile by Brian Jungen (b. 1970, Dunne-za First Nations/Swiss-Canadian) that depicts five animals that describe the Australian constellations.

July 30, 2009 – February 25, 2011

American Indian Museum DC

Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture

More than 100 major works are featured in the first museum exhibition to focus on sexual difference in the making of modern American portraiture.

October 30, 2010 – February 13, 2011

Portrait Gallery

Lost and Found: The Lesbian and Gay Presence in the Archives of American Art

Get a glimps into the sometimes private, sometimes "out" lives, careers, and communities of gay American artists through letters, photographs, unpublished writings, and rare printed materials.

October 29, 2010 – February 13, 2011

Archives of American Art

Gods of Angkor: Bronzes from the National Museum of Cambodia

Learn about the fascinating story of bronze sculpture and casting in Cambodia through 36 exceptional works.

May 15, 2010 – January 30, 2011

Asian Art Museum, East Building

Beauty Surrounds Us

The exhibition features 77 extraordinary objects showcasing the integration of art and daily life in Native cultures throughout the hemisphere.

September 23, 2006 – January 30, 2011

American Indian Museum New York

The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946

The exhibit features more than 120 arts-and-crafts objects made by Japanese Americans in U.S. internment camps during World War II, along with photographs illustrating life in the camps.

March 5, 2010 – January 30, 2011

Renwick Gallery

A Revolution in Wood: The Bresler Collection

This exhibition features 66 objects produced in the 1980s and 1990s from the Charles and Fleur Bresler Collection to highlight contemporary wood turning's growing sophistication.

September 24, 2010 – January 30, 2011

Renwick Gallery

Southern Identity: Contemporary Argentine Art (Identidad del Sur: Arte Argentino Contemporaneo)

Gain a contextual overview of Latin American artistic movements and trends reflected in works by 32 of Argentina's best living contemporary artists.

October 11, 2010 – January 23, 2011

Ripley Center

Elvis at 21: Photographs by Alfred Wertheimer

Wertheimer's 1956 photographs captured Elvis's transit to superstardom and the cultural transformation this singer helped launched.

October 23, 2010 – January 23, 2011

Portrait Gallery

Fiona Tan: Rise and Fall

See how artist Fiona Tan's photos, drawings, and video installations reveal the power of images in constructing memories and identities.

September 25, 2010 – January 21, 2011

Asian Art Museum, East Building

John Gossage: The Pond

Gossage's photographs of a small pond in Maryland reveal moments of grace and elegance in a seemingly mundane place and recall Henry David Thoreau's Walden.

August 27, 2010 – January 17, 2011

American Art Museum

Guillermo Kuitca: Everything—Paintings and Works on Paper, 1980-2008

This retrospective examines over two decades of Argentinean Guillermo Kuitca's artworks.

October 21, 2010 – January 16, 2011

Hirshhorn Museum

Hide: Skin as Material and Metaphor: Part II

The featured artists draw upon this rich subject in multifaceted ways, using the material and concept of skin as a metaphor for widespread issues.

September 4, 2010 – January 16, 2011

American Indian Museum New York

Cornucopia: Ceramics from Southern Japan

Discover the engaging variety of local styles of glazing and decoration invented by Kyushu potters over three centuries.

December 19, 2009 – January 9, 2011

Asian Art Museum, West Building

National Design Triennial: Why Design Now?

Enjoy the most innovative designs at the center of contemporary culture in this series, that addresses and explores human and environmental problems across many design fields.

May 14, 2010 – January 9, 2011

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Ted Muehling Selects: Lobmeyr Glass from the Permanent Collection

Appreciate 163 rare examples of glass dating from 1835 to the 21st century from J. and L. Lobmeyr of Vienna, Austria, that tell the history of glassmaking in central Europe.

April 23, 2010 – January 2, 2011

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Up Where We Belong: Native Musicians in Popular Culture

Learn about Native people who have been active participants in contemporary music during the past century.

July 1, 2010 – January 2, 2011

American Indian Museum DC

Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg

This exhibition showcases 57 major Rockwell paintings and drawings from the private collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.

July 2, 2010 – January 2, 2011

American Art Museum

Losing Paradise: Endangered Plants Here and Around the World

Compelling botanical illustrations convey the vital importance of plant conservation.

August 14, 2010 – December 12, 2010

Natural History Museum

Cosmos in Miniature: The Remarkable Star Map of Simeon De Witt

This exhibition features the oldest surviving Anglo-American star map, hand-drawn by Simeon De Witt, surveyor for George Washington.

May 28, 2010 – December 5, 2010

American History Museum

View From Up North: Americans Experience Mexico, circa 1890-1945

As part of the museum's celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, on view in several cases are artifacts that show how Americans have experienced Mexico from the late 1800s to the mid-1900s.

September 23, 2010 – November 30, 2010

American History Museum