Past Exhibitions | Smithsonian Institution

Shelley Niro: 500 Year Itch

Shelley Niro: 500 Year Itch celebrates more than a half century of Shelley Niro’s paintings, photographs, mixed-media works, and films.

May 27, 2023 – January 1, 2024

American Indian Museum New York

Why We Serve: Native Americans in the United States Armed Forces

Why We Serve honors the generations of Native Americans who have served in the armed forces of the United States—often in extraordinary numbers—since the American Revolution.

November 11, 2020 – November 30, 2023

American Indian Museum New York

Jeffrey Veregge: Of Gods and Heroes

This site-specific work includes an epic battle between Marvel characters and aliens invading the streets of New York City.

November 19, 2021 – April 9, 2023

American Indian Museum New York

Developing Stories: Native Photographers in the Field

Developing Stories: Native Photographers in the Field features photo essays by Native photojournalists Donovan Quintero, Tailyr Irvine, and Russel Albert Daniels

November 3, 2022 – March 12, 2023

American Indian Museum New York

Dakota Modern: The Art of Oscar Howe

Dakota Modern: The Art of Oscar Howe traces more than forty years of the artist’s career and development from early conventional work created while in high school in the 1930s through the emergence in the 1950s and 1960s of his innovative and abstract approach to painting.

March 12, 2022 – September 11, 2022

American Indian Museum New York

Stretching the Canvas: Eight Decades of Native Painting

On view are nearly 40 diverse, exciting paintings from the museum's rich permanent collection that transcend, represent, or subvert conventional ideas of authenticity.

November 16, 2019 – January 2, 2022

American Indian Museum New York

Patriot Nations: Native Americans in Our Nation's Armed Forces

Patriot Nations tells the remarkable history of the brave American Indian and Alaska Native men and women who have served in the United States military.

May 25, 2018 – March 13, 2020

American Indian Museum New York

Jeffrey Veregge: Of Gods and Heroes

This site-specific work includes an epic battle between Marvel characters and aliens invading the streets of New York City.

October 6, 2018 – February 17, 2020

American Indian Museum New York

Taino: Native Heritage and Identity in the Caribbean

Explore the rural roots of the Taíno movement and find information about the legacy of Native peoples throughout the Spanish-speaking Caribbean islands and their U.S. diasporas.

July 28, 2018 – November 12, 2019

American Indian Museum New York

T.C. Cannon: At the Edge of America

T.C. Cannon: At the Edge of America celebrates Cannon’s creative range and artistic legacy through numerous paintings and works on paper, as well as his poetry and music.

April 6, 2019 – September 16, 2019

American Indian Museum New York

Circle of Dance

Learn how music and dance continue to bind American Indian communities to all living things, to the earth, to the spirit world, and—when people have deep ancestral claims to their dances—to the past.

October 6, 2012 – April 14, 2019

American Indian Museum New York

Transformer: Native Art in Light and Sound

Presents the work of ten artists who use light, digital projection, and experimental media to reflect on their place in and between traditional and dominant cultures.

November 10, 2017 – January 6, 2019

American Indian Museum New York

Cerámica de los Ancestros: Central America's Past Revealed

This bilingual (English/Spanish) exhibition illuminates Central America’s diverse and dynamic ancestral heritage with a selection of more than 150 objects. For thousands of years, Central America has been home to vibrant civilizations, each with unique, sophisticated ways of life, value systems, and arts.

April 18, 2015 – May 20, 2018

American Indian Museum New York

Manifestipi

The tipi, an iconic symbol and perhaps one of the most widely recognized structures of early life for Plains Indians, gets a space-age makeover.

February 3, 2018 – March 25, 2018

American Indian Museum New York

Akunnittinni: A Kinngait Family Portrait

Grandmother, mother, and daughter each produced an oeuvre reflective of Arctic village life, rich with celebration and joy, but also sometimes taking a critical eye to the role of modernity and its effects on Inuit culture.

June 10, 2017 – January 8, 2018

American Indian Museum New York

Native Fashion Now

From vibrant street clothing to exquisite haute couture, this exhibition celebrates the visual range, creative expression and political nuance of Native American fashion with nearly 100 works spanning the last 50 years.

February 17, 2017 – September 4, 2017

American Indian Museum New York

Unbound: Narrative Art of the Plains

This exhibition reflects the dynamic tradition of narrative art among Native nations from the Great Plains. The exhibition traces the evolution of the art form from historic hides, muslins, and ledger books to more than 50 contemporary works commissioned by the museum.

March 12, 2016 – December 4, 2016

American Indian Museum New York

Glittering World: Navajo Jewelry of the Yazzie Family

Contemporary jewelry complemented by historic pieces from the museum's collection, illustrate the development of Navajo jewelry.

November 13, 2014 – January 10, 2016

American Indian Museum New York

Meryl McMaster: Second Self

Meryl McMaster (Cree) is an emerging artist from Ottawa, Ontario, whose work is comprised of visually stunning large-scale photography. This exhibition includes selections from “Second Self,” a playful but compelling series of portraits which engage with self-perception and constructed identity.

June 12, 2015 – December 11, 2015

American Indian Museum New York

For a Love of His People: The Photography of Horace Poolaw

Horace Poolaw's photographs celebrate his subjects’ place in American life and preserve an insider’s perspective on a world few outsiders are familiar with: the Native America of the Southern Plains during the mid-20th century.

September 9, 2014 – February 15, 2015

American Indian Museum New York

Robert Davidson: Abstract Impulse

Approximately 45 works—paintings, prints, jewelry, and sculpture—explore the theme of abstraction as an extension of Haida art and philosophy.

April 12, 2014 – September 14, 2014

American Indian Museum New York

Before and After the Horizon: Anishinaabe Artists of the Great Lakes

See how Native Anishinaabe artists past and present have been inspired by their deep indigenous roots in the Great Lakes region.

August 10, 2013 – June 15, 2014

American Indian Museum New York

Commemorating Controversy: The Dakota—U.S. War of 1862

Explore the causes, voices, events, and long-lasting consequences of the conflict between Dakota akicitas (warriors) and the U.S. military and immigrant settlers.

January 11, 2014 – June 1, 2014

American Indian Museum New York

Modern Spirit: The Art of George Morrison

Drawings, paintings, prints, and sculpture by Native American modernist George Morrison bring together concepts of abstraction, landscape, and spiritual reflection.

October 24, 2013 – February 23, 2014

American Indian Museum New York

Making Marks: Prints from Crow's Shadow Press

See prints by contemporary Native American artists working at Crow's Shadow Press.

May 17, 2013 – January 5, 2014

American Indian Museum New York