Past Exhibitions | Smithsonian Institution

Up Where We Belong: Native Musicians in Popular Culture

This banner exhibition highlights Native people who have been active participants in contemporary music for nearly a century.

August 4, 2012 – August 11, 2013

American Indian Museum New York

C.Maxx Stevens: House of Memory

See how this contemporary artist addresses memory through cultural and personal symbols.

December 1, 2012 – June 16, 2013

American Indian Museum New York

Julie Buffalohead: Let the Show Begin

See how contemporary artist Julie Buffalohead (Ponca) addresses parenting and identity using the iconography of childhood.

October 20, 2012 – April 28, 2013

American Indian Museum New York

IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas

This exhibition explores the cultural integration and diffusion of African American and American Indian people, especially those of blended heritage.

February 9, 2012 – October 1, 2012

American Indian Museum New York

We Are Here! Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship

Paintings, photos, installation art, videos and sculpture reveal the issues, concerns, and methods of leading contemporary Native artists.

June 2, 2012 – September 23, 2012

American Indian Museum New York

Small Spirits: Dolls from the National Museum of the American Indian

Dolls from Native cultures throughout the Western Hemisphere are on view.

March 5, 2011 – July 19, 2012

American Indian Museum New York

Time Exposures: Picturing a History of Isleta Pueblo in the 19th Century

See how the lives of Native American people of the American Southwest were changed by the arrival of the railroads after 1881.

September 17, 2011 – June 10, 2012

American Indian Museum New York

Carl Beam

See many of Carl Beam's Ojibwe, 1943-2005) epic works in this retrospective.

October 29, 2011 – April 15, 2012

American Indian Museum New York

Preston Singletary: Echoes, Fire, and Shadows

Some 54 works by internationally renowned glass artist Preston Singletary (Tlingit) illustrate his evolution as an artist over the past two decades.

March 19, 2011 – September 5, 2011

American Indian Museum New York

GRAB

Photographs document the Laguna Pueblo tradition of Grab Day, a community-wide prayer of abundance, thanks, and renewal.

January 29, 2011 – July 31, 2011

American Indian Museum New York

A Song for the Horse Nation

The story of the horse's influence on American Indian tribes from the 1600s to the present is depicted.

November 14, 2009 – July 7, 2011

American Indian Museum New York

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

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

Annie Pootoogook

Visit 39 works that chronicle the social, economic, and cultural realities of Inuit life in the Canadian North by Annie Pootoogook (Inuit, b. 1969).

June 13, 2009 – October 10, 2010

American Indian Museum New York

Ramp It Up: Skateboard Culture in Native America

This exhibition features rare and archival photographs and film of Native skaters, as well as skatedecks from Native companies and contemporary artists, to celebrate the vibrancy, creativity, and controversy of American Indian and Native Hawaiian skate culture.

December 11, 2009 – August 8, 2010

American Indian Museum New York

Hide: Skin as Material and Metaphor: Part I

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

March 6, 2010 – August 1, 2010

American Indian Museum New York

Identity by Design: Tradition, Change, and Celebration in Native Women's Dresses

This exhibition highlights Native women's identity through traditional dress and its contemporary evolution.

September 26, 2008 – February 7, 2010

American Indian Museum New York

Andrea Carlson

More than 20 works by Minnesota-based artist Andrea Carlson (Anishinaabe/European, b. 1979) reflect cultural narratives and stories while offering a sharp commentary on museums, collections, and contemporary storytelling.

June 13, 2009 – January 10, 2010

American Indian Museum New York

Fritz Scholder: Indian/Not Indian

Paintings, bronze sculptures, and lithographs highlight the career of contemporary Native artist Fritz Scholder (Luiseno, 1937-2005).

November 1, 2008 – May 17, 2009

American Indian Museum New York

Through the Eyes of the Eagle: Illustrating Healthy Living for Children

See nearly 70 original watercolors used in the Eagle Books -- a diabetes-prevention series developed for Native schoolchildren.

October 3, 2008 – January 4, 2009

American Indian Museum New York

Remix: New Modernities in a Post-Indian World

Artists of mixed Native/non-Native background explore issues about the meaning of race and ethnicity in an increasingly global society, and the tension between individual self-expression and cultural identity.

June 7, 2008 – September 21, 2008

American Indian Museum New York

Listening to Our Ancestors: The Art of Native Life Along the North Pacific Coast

See more than 400 ceremonial and everyday objects featuring the art and culture of the people of the Northwest Coast.

September 12, 2007 – July 20, 2008

American Indian Museum New York

James Luna: Emendatio

This multimedia installation by James Luna (Luiseno) pays tribute to Pablo Tac, a 19th-century Luiseno Indian who traveled to Rome in 1834 from the San Luis Rey Mission in California to study for the priesthood.

March 1, 2008 – April 20, 2008

American Indian Museum New York

Norval Morrisseau: Shaman Artist

This retrospective of Canada's renowned Native artist Norval Morrisseau (Anishnaabe) includes both early works painted on unusual surfaces through the artist's later large-scale canvases.

October 20, 2007 – January 20, 2008

American Indian Museum New York

Off the Map: Landscape in the Native Imagination

Native artists use landscapes to show longing and emotion, and connection to and detachment from the land that is universal to contemporary Native experience.

March 3, 2007 – September 3, 2007

American Indian Museum New York