Past Exhibitions

"Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea" examines the perspectives of 48 modern and contemporary artists who offer a broader and more inclusive view of this region, which too often has been dominated by romanticized myths and Euro-American historical accounts. Featuring artwork from the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) and four partner museums in the western region of the United States, Many Wests is the culmination of a multi-year, joint curatorial initiative made possible by the Art Bridges Foundation. This exhibition presents an opportunity to examine previous misconceptions, question racist clichés, and highlight the multiple communities and histories that continue to form this iconic region of the United States. | Angel Rodríguez-Díaz, The Protagonist of an Endless Story, 1993, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase made possible in part by the Smithsonian Latino Initiatives Pool and the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program, 1996.19, © 1993, Angel Rodriguez-Diaz

This year's project, Hear My Voice, was led and curated by UO art students Kayla Lockwood (2022, ATCH BFA) and Sam Berry (2023, Product Design) and Malik Lovette (2024, M.Arch). The exhibition documents multiple community conversations with UO students, primarily students of color, and documents their experiences surrounding stereotyping.

The JSMA’s recent acquisition of Untitled by Raymond Saunders (American, b. 1934) marked the first work by this esteemed Bay Area painter and installation artist to enter the collection. Untitled combines many of the visual and thematic elements Saunders has repeated throughout his long artistic career.

On Earth: A Fragile Existence highlights works from the JSMA’s permanent collection that reflect a multi-layered understanding of humanity's role in our shared ecology with the non-human, or more-than-human, world.

Featuring icons, manuscript pages, and other pre-modern Christian objects, After Life: The Saints of Russian and Greek Orthodoxy explores the artistic narrative of hagiography --- the stories of the lives of saints. Zoey Kambour, 2021-22 post-graduate fellow in European & American art, curated this selection of works from the JSMA’s icon collection.

On February 5, 2022, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art will open the “Remember This: Hung Liu at Trillium” in the museum’s Barker and Soreng galleries. In this exhibition, renowned contemporary Chinese-American artist Hung Liu explored subjects ranging from portraits to landscapes to still lifes and reflects upon history, memory, tradition, migration, and social justice.