Past Exhibitions | Smithsonian Institution

Farmers, Warriors, Builders: The Hidden Life of Ants

This exhibition provides a look at life from an ant's point of view through large-format photographs of ants going about their daily business, a cast of an underground ant city, and a live ant colony.

May 30, 2009 – October 12, 2009

Natural History Museum

Black Box: Guido van der Werve

Guido Van der Werve is multi-talented, focusing first on painting, then performance art, and finally, film.

April 20, 2009 – October 11, 2009

Hirshhorn Museum

Universal Dimensions: The Space Art of Wang Ming

See 35 works by Chinese painter and former air traffic controller Wang Ming.

April 9, 2009 – October 9, 2009

Air and Space Museum

Pile of Loot from Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

View the "pile of loot" from the Twentieth-Century Fox movie Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.

May 4, 2009 – October 1, 2009

Smithsonian Castle

Portraiture Now: Feature Photography

This exhibition features six photographers who, by working on assignment for publications such as the New Yorker, Esquire, and the New York Times Magazine, each bring their distinctive "take" on contemporary portraiture to a broad audience.

November 26, 2008 – September 27, 2009

Portrait Gallery

The Welsh Table

See ceramics by ten contemporary makers whose work builds on and reinterprets traditional Welsh styles of pottery and their decoration.

June 22, 2009 – September 21, 2009

Ripley Center

The Tale of Shuten Doji

Explore modes of visual narration through the museum's exceptional collection of works illustrating the Tale of Shuten Doji.

March 21, 2009 – September 20, 2009

Asian Art Museum, East Building

Jubilee: African American Celebration

Through images of captured moments from throughout the years, look at the history, traditional music, and regional folklore of African American holidays and celebrations around the country from the 18th century to the present.

December 7, 2008 – September 20, 2009

Anacostia Community Museum

Student Art Exhibition: Tradition Is My Life, Education Is My Future

View works by the 2009 Native American Student Artist Competition winners.

August 19, 2009 – September 17, 2009

American Indian Museum DC

The Tsars and the East: Gifts from Turkey and Iran in The Moscow Kremlin

View some 64 objects offered as lavish gifts and tributes by the Ottomans and Safavids to the Tsars, and understand the aesthetic and ceremonial etiquette they inspired.

May 9, 2009 – September 13, 2009

Asian Art Museum, East Building

Judges Desk and Chairs from American Idol

See the judges' desk and chairs from the Fox television show American Idol.

June 27, 2009 – September 13, 2009

Smithsonian Castle

Directions: Walead Beshty: Legibility on Color Backgrounds

Beshty creates photographs and sculptures that reconsider some of the fundamental premises of modern art.

April 30, 2009 – September 13, 2009

Hirshhorn Museum

Fashioning Felt

Explore the varied new uses of felt -- an ancient material, believed to be one of the earliest techniques for making textiles.

March 6, 2009 – September 7, 2009

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Shahzia Sikander Selects: Works from the Permanent Collection

Explore the relationship between the present and the past and the richness of multicultural identities with internationally acclaimed artist Shahzia Sikander, who serves as the ninth guest curator of the Selects exhibition.

March 6, 2009 – September 7, 2009

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Fritz Scholder: Indian/Not Indian

See paintings, bronze sculptures, and lithographs that highlight the more-than-40-year career of contemporary Native artist Fritz Scholder (Luiseno, 1937-2005).

November 1, 2008 – August 16, 2009

American Indian Museum DC

Outdoor Sculpture: Obelisk

Obelisk (1987, ed. 2/6) is a 15 1/2 foot-tall, 1,500-pound, cast-bronze sculpture by renowned Native American artist Fritz Scholder (1937-2005; Luiseno) that was inspired by his long fascination with all things Egyptian.

September 11, 2008 – August 16, 2009

American Indian Museum DC

The Art of African Exploration

In these cases are books, periodicals, sketchbooks, and journals featuring artists's vivid illustrations of the astonishing landscapes, exotic animals, and unfamiliar peoples of 19th-century Africa.

December 9, 2008 – August 16, 2009

Natural History Museum

Reflections-Refractions: Self-Portraiture in the Twentieth Century

This exhibition of approximately 75 works probes the complex issues of understanding self-identity in the past century.

April 10, 2009 – August 16, 2009

Portrait Gallery

Inventing Marcel Duchamp: The Dynamics of Portraiture

This exhibition examines the artistry of Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) who harnessed the power of portraiture and self-portraiture to secure his reputation as an iconoclast and establish himself as a major figure in the art world.

March 27, 2009 – August 2, 2009

Portrait Gallery

Stonewall: Fortieth Anniversary

Archival materials relating to the LGBT community are on view to mark the 40th anniversary of the modern gay rights movement.

May 30, 2009 – August 2, 2009

American History Museum

From Earth to the Universe

Visit a bilingual (English and Spanish) exhibition that features some 50 large-scale images of a variety of astronomical objects -- from Earth to the farthest corners of the universe.

July 6, 2009 – July 27, 2009

Air and Space Museum

Of the Moment: A Video Sampler from the Archives of American Art

See video highlights from the Archives' collections that document scenes from the lives of selected artists.

April 4, 2009 – July 27, 2009

Archives of American Art

Jean Shin: Common Threads

Jean Shin employs a meticulous process of dismantling, altering, and reconstructing discarded and worn materials -- such as old shoes, lost socks, lottery tickets, and broken umbrellas -- to create textural installations that give new form to life's leftovers.

May 1, 2009 – July 26, 2009

American Art Museum

Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and Its Diasporas

Explore 500 years of the visual culture and history of the water spirit, Mami Wata, that is celebrated throughout much of Africa and the African Atlantic world.

April 1, 2009 – July 26, 2009

African Art Museum

Berlin Airlift—A Legacy of Friendship

Revisit the Berlin Airlift, one of the defining events of the Cold War, in this exhibition of photographs.

June 15, 2009 – July 23, 2009

Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center