From Diego Rivera to Annie Leibovitz and a diversity of engagements in between, the Bentonville, Arkansas-based museum promises an enlivening season of experiences aimed at broadening the definition of American art.
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art announces a captivating 2023 exhibition lineup, highlighting some of the most iconic artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
From the first major exhibition focused solely on Mexican artist Diego Rivera in more than 20 years to new commissions by photographer Annie Leibovitz, museum visitors will explore American identities, human relationships, current events, and more.
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“Crystal Bridges aims to tell an ever-more broadening and inclusive story of American art,” said Austen Barron Bailly, PhD, chief curator. “This year’s lineup provides ample opportunities for the community to explore new narratives, reimagine identities, and encounter beauty. We hope that people come from far and wide to immerse themselves in the art, architecture and nature of our spaces and to experience the vibrant cultural destination that is Bentonville, Arkansas.”
2023 Feature Exhibitions:
Diego Rivera’s America | March 11 – July 31, 2023
In his public murals and paintings, Diego Rivera depicted the human experience—families and workers, struggles and celebrations, histories and imagined futures. Between the early 1920s and the early 1940s, he worked in both Mexico and the United States and found inspiration in the social and cultural life of the two countries. He envisioned an America—broadly understood—that shared an Indigenous past and an industrial future, and where cooperation, rather than divisions, were paramount.
Diego Rivera’s America examines this prolific time in the artist’s life through more than 150 works, including drawings, easel paintings, frescoes, and more. The first major exhibition focused solely on the Mexican artist in over 20 years, it reveals the broad range of Rivera’s work through a series of thematic sections that bring together more works from this time period than have been seen together since the artist’s lifetime.
Diego Rivera’s America is co-organized by Crystal Bridges and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition is curated by James Oles, guest curator, with Maria Castro, assistant curator at SFMOMA and coordinated at Crystal Bridges by Jen Padgett, the museum’s acting Windgate curator of craft.
Sponsored by Goldman Sachs | Christie’s | The Coca-Cola Company | Shelby and Frederick Gans | Blakeman’s Fine Jewelry | Esther Silver-Parker | Halperin Foundation | Jim and Susan von Gremp | This project is supported in part by a grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Annie Leibovitz: Portraits (working title) | September 16, 2023 – January 29, 2024
Annie Leibovitz: Portraits centers around a new group of photographs highlighting current events and exceptional figures in today’s world. Anchored by these new works currently in production, the exhibition also features a complementary selection of Leibovitz’s works from the past decade. Displayed across both printed and digital mediums, Portraits offers a dynamic peek into the artist’s contemporary practice and focus. Whether highlighting household names or local heroes, these works link together Leibovitz’s discerning vision and desire to celebrate the extraordinary now.
With more than five decades of experience photographing some of the most influential names in entertainment, politics, business, and athletics, Leibovitz has established herself as a keen watcher of society. In 1973, at the age of 23, Leibovitz became Rolling Stone magazine’s chief photographer. Through her long-standing work with Vanity Fair and Vogue, Leibovitz further honed her signature blend of grit and grace that has come to define much of her practice. In 1991 she became the first female artist to have a solo show at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.
Annie Leibovitz: Portraits is curated by Alejo Benedetti, acting curator, contemporary art at Crystal Bridges, and will travel to four additional venues following its premiere in Bentonville.
Sponsored by ConAgra | Pat Cooper | Ramsay and Jaquita Ball | Bill and Beverly Bickell | Marybeth and Micky Mayfield | Deborah Wright.
2023 Focus Exhibitions:
Seeing One Another: New Views on the Alfred Stieglitz Collection | January 28, 2023 – January 1, 2024
Seeing One Another is a free, focus exhibition in the Crystal Bridges galleries that highlights multiple perspectives on how artworks connect individuals and groups across time. The exhibition foregrounds works from the Alfred Stieglitz Collection, co-owned by Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, and Crystal Bridges.
Curated by Jen Padgett, acting Windgate curator of craft, Seeing One Another features depictions of people in the Stieglitz Collection alongside other modern and contemporary objects from the broader Crystal Bridges collection. These artworks from the United States, Europe, and Africa tell stories about human relationships through themes of portraiture, family, and legacy.
Sponsored by Phillips.
Flagged for Discussion | April 8 – September 25, 2023
Flagged for Discussion is a free, focus exhibition that embraces disparate representations of the United States flag from across time, posing questions to viewers and creating space for conversation within the gallery. Featuring work by more than 20 artists from the nineteenth century to today and curated by Larissa Randall, curatorial associate at Crystal Bridges, this exhibition reveals how the flag functions differently within works of painting, printmaking, fiber, photography, and mixed media.
The U.S. flag is widely reproduced and circulated by American artists, providing a foundational symbol to rally around, stand against, or identify with. Flagged for Discussion prompts visitors to reflect on the question, “What does the flag of the United States of America mean to you?”
Marie Bannerot McInerney: Trace Me Back | June 24, 2023 – April 22, 2024
Inspired by the tragic love story of Orpheus and Eurydice, Marie Bannerot Mclnerney’s experiential installation Trace Me Back speaks to ideas of impermanence, loss, and those fleeting moments that cannot be undone. Her artistic practice mines recorded histories, ancient mythologies, and natural phenomena to meditate on the relationships between bodies and space, present and past, and perception and position.
For this site-specific project curated by Alejo Benedetti, acting curator, contemporary art, and Victor Gomez, curatorial assistant, contemporary art, the artist employs various materials such as silk organza, concrete, light, and sonic elements to imaginatively transform a section of Crystal Bridges’ Contemporary Art Gallery into a space that inspires wonder, contemplative stillness, and reflection.
Based in Kansas City, Missouri, Marie Bannerot McInerney is a multidisciplinary studio artist who has worked in the costume and fashion industry for over a decade. She currently serves as an associate professor in the Fiber Department at the Kansas City Art Institute.
Sonic Blossom by Lee Mingwei | September 9 – 29, 2023
Sonic Blossom involves local singers in a designed costume approaching a visitor within the museum galleries to offer a gift of a song—the singer’s choice of one of five Franz Schubert’s Lieder (Songs), accompanied by a piano recording. Begun in 2013, this ongoing participatory performance installation with chair, music stand, costume and spontaneous song was developed by Lee Mingwei while taking care of his mother when she was recuperating from surgery. Inspired by the fact they both found solace in listening to Schubert’s Lieder, the project takes the form of “gift-giving” of the Lied to invite a moment of catharsis, joy, and connection.
Curated for Crystal Bridges by Xuxa Rodriguez, assistant curator, contemporary art, Sonic Blossom has toured in Seoul, Tokyo, Beijing, Boston, Taipei, New York, Sydney, Auckland, Frankfurt, Singapore, Washington D.C., Paris, Jakarta, Cleveland, Berlin, Metz, Munich, and Helsinki and was selected as “The Best Classical Music of 2015” and “The Best in Art of 2015” in The New York Times for its presentation at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Auditions for Sonic Blossom at Crystal Bridges will take place on March 31, 2023.
Toshiko Takaezu // Lenore Tawney | October 14, 2023 – March 25, 2024
Toshiko Takaezu // Lenore Tawney debuts 12 new acquisitions to the Crystal Bridges collection that tell the story of a remarkable friendship between the two artists. Curated by Acting Windgate Curator of Craft Jen Padgett, the exhibition highlights how these two women shaped craft history in the U.S. by expanding and redefining the possibilities of their preferred mediums: Takaezu in ceramics, Tawney in weaving.
Takaezu and Tawney had a close relationship for decades, from 1957 until Tawney’s death in 2007. From 1977 to 1981, Tawney lived at Takaezu’s Quakertown, New Jersey, home and the two shared studio space. Building upon the themes presented during the museum’s popular 2021 exhibition, Crafting America, the presentation includes seven ceramic sculptures by Takaezu and two major weavings, two drawings, and an intimately scaled assemblage sculpture by Tawney. The display showcases the dramatic scale and presence of Tawney’s fiber works and the dynamic glazing and textured surfaces of Takaezu’s varied ceramic forms.
2023 North Forest Experience:
Listening Forest by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer | March 1 – May 28, 2023 | August 30 – December 31, 2023
After its successful debut last August, Listening Forest returns in 2023 for two additional runs. Created by artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, the North Forest experience uses light, sound, and projections to create an interactive walk through the woods.
The site-specific exhibition brings together eight immersive installations, each one activated by the visitor’s heart rate, body, voice, and movements, which direct the forest’s response. This project brings together art and technology in a natural setting to create poetic, shared experiences and features a soundtrack composed by electronic musician Scanner (Robin Rimbaud).
Individual installations encourage visitors to add their heartbeat to an array of 3,000 lightbulbs glimmering to the pulse of past participants, control 20-foot-tall stick figures made of light, leave a voice recording that joins a chorus of echoes left by previous forest visitors, and much more.
Sponsored by The Willard and Pat Walker Charitable Foundation and Matt and Mary Kathryn Brown.
Over the course of the year, a variety of programs associated with these exhibitions – from community days and art classes to high-profile lectures and more – will take place at the museum. General admission to Crystal Bridges is free. Visit CrystalBridges.org for exhibition and experience ticket details, membership information, hours, and planning a visit. For news updates, follow Crystal Bridges on the Blog, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.
About Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
The mission of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is to welcome all to celebrate the American spirit in a setting that unites the power of art with the beauty of nature. Since opening in 2011, the museum has welcomed more than 5.6 million visitors, with no cost for admission. Crystal Bridges was founded in 2005 as a non-profit charitable organization by arts patron and philanthropist, Alice Walton. The collection spans five centuries of American masterworks from early American to current day and is enhanced by temporary exhibitions. The museum is nestled on 120 acres of Ozark landscape and was designed by world-renowned architect Moshe Safdie. A rare Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house was preserved and relocated to the museum grounds in 2015. Crystal Bridges offers public programs including lectures, performances, classes, and teacher development opportunities. Some 300,000 school children have participated in the Willard and Pat Walker School Visit program, which provides educational experiences for school groups at no cost to the schools. Additional museum amenities include a restaurant, gift store, library, and five miles of art and walking trails. In February 2020, the museum opened a satellite contemporary art space in downtown Bentonville called the Momentary (507 SE E Street). For more information, visit CrystalBridges.org. The museum is located at 600 Museum Way, Bentonville, Arkansas 72712.
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