SAAM and Renwick Reopening With Three Major Exhibitions Shuttered Last Fall

The Smithsonian American Art Museum and its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, are among those museums set to reopen to the public on Friday, May 14. This is the second reopening of the museum following closures on March 14, 2020 and again on Nov. 23, 2020 as a public health precaution due to the COVID-19 global pandemic.

While its three major exhibitions were closed last Fall, the museum has negotiated extensions for all of them so that guests can still make plans to experience such exciting pieces as Chicanz artists, a fossilized mastodon skeleton, and new site-specific artwork.

“I am overjoyed to welcome visitors back to the Smithsonian American Art Museum and our Renwick Gallery to experience our relevant and impactful exhibitions,” said Stephanie Stebich, the Margaret and Terry Stent Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. “We also are deeply grateful to the collectors, museums, and foundations for their continued generosity during these unprecedented times by agreeing to extend loans, in some cases for a second time, as well as the extraordinary effort of our staff to develop and install these thought-provoking projects.”

The landmark exhibition, “¡Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphics, 1965 to Now” was open for only three days in November 2020 before the Smithsonian closed for the second time due to the pandemic. The Chicanx artist exhibition of 119 works is the first to unite historic civil rights-era prints alongside works by contemporary printmakers, including artists that came of age during the civil rights, labor, anti-war, feminist and LGBTQ+ movements. It channels early periods of social activism into the political and cultural consciousness of people of Mexican descent, exploring the rise of Chicanx graphics within early social movements and the ways in which Chicanx artists and their collaborators advance printmaking practices attuned to social justice. Make sure to see the portrait of the late George Floyd along with others who were killed during altercations with U.S. law enforcement since 2014.  The exhibition will be on view at the museum’s main building from Friday, May 14, through Sunday, Aug. 8. Following its run in Washington, D.C., it will travel to the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth.

The museum’s critically acclaimed exhibition “Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature and Culture” reveals how the influential naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) shaped American perceptions of nature and the way American cultural identity became grounded in our relationship with the environment. It is the first exhibition to examine Humboldt’s impact on five spheres of American cultural development: the visual arts, sciences, literature, politics and exploration, between 1804 and 1903. Make sure to see the original “Peale Mastodon” skeleton, on loan from the Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt, with ties to Humboldt, the influential artist Charles Willson Peale, and an emerging American national identity in the early 19th century, which hasn’t been in the U.S. since 1847! The exhibition will be on view from Friday, May 14, through Sunday, July 11. It will not travel.

At the museum’s Renwick Gallery, the exhibition “Forces of Nature: Renwick Invitational 2020” heightens ecological awareness with pieces from artists Lauren Fensterstock, Timothy Horn, Debora Moore, and Rowland Ricketts. The artists, who use a wide range of craft media—from fiber and mosaic to metal and glass—examine the long history of art’s power to engage with the natural world through unconventional and highly personal perspectives. “Forces of Nature” is the ninth installment of the Renwick Invitational. Established in 2000, this biennial showcase highlights mid-career and emerging makers who are deserving of wider national recognition. The exhibition will be on view from Friday, May 14, through Sunday, Aug. 15. It will not travel.

Other installations that return to public view at the museum’s main building include a focused installation that features recently acquired photographs by Dawoud Bey in conversation with a painting by African American modernist William H. Johnson that refer to the Underground Railroad; and “The Automobile and American Art,” featuring a study collection of 100 model cars recently donated by Albert H. Small. At the Renwick Gallery is Janet Echelman’s “1.8 Renwick,” the popular fiber and lighting installation suspended from the ceiling of the Grand Salon.

The museum’s main building will be open five days a week, Wednesday through Sunday, from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Its Renwick Gallery will be open five days a week, Wednesday through Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Visitors must reserve separate timed-entry passes in advance to visit either location, and masks are required while at the museum. Passes can be reserved online beginning May 7 at si.edu/visit or by phone at 1-800-514-3849, ext. 1. An individual will be able to reserve up to six passes for personal use.