current, upcoming & past

Two women and a man sitting on an outdoor porch with one man and woman looking at an iPad

Jennifer Crandall: Whitman, Alabama

April 1–July 17, 2022
Jennifer Chang Crandall, Smith College’s Lakes Writer-in-Residence for spring 2022, is the creator of the 52-part film "Whitman, Alabama."
Red ropes hanging from a gallery ceiling with large knotted blue rope laying on the gallery floor

Red Hook at Bedford Terrace

On view March 11, 2022

During the 1980s, Sheila Pepe worked at SCMA in multiple roles, beginning as a gallery guard before working as a preparator’s assistant and a curatorial and administrative intern. In 2008, she returned to SCMA, to make Red Hook at Bedford Terrace. For Pepe, Red Hook at Bedford Terrace is a celebration of intersections and connectivity, of places, people, and their labor.

Group of young adults standing facing front and white shirts and blue pants, with some people singing

FX Harsono: NAMA

February 18–October 23, 2022
This installation focuses on the historical erasure and oppression suffered by Indonesia’s ethnic minority Chinese community, who were forced to change their names. The mournful collective performance indicates the artist’s choice of healing and reconciliation over anger or protest when dealing with injustice and trauma.
Close up of a page on an atlas that has been carved to look like a topographical map, with depth.

Maya Lin: Mappings

January 28–August 7, 2022


Each of my works originates from a simple desire to make people aware of their surroundings, not just the physical world but also the psychological world we live in. —Maya Lin
 

This exhibition showcases art by Maya Lin (American, born 1959). The exhibition brings attention to environmental issues like climate change, species extinction and the relationship between humans and the world we inhabit. 

Photograph based on Isaac Julien's Lessons of the Hour of a woman in 19th century floor length saturated blue dress, sitting for a photo portrait

Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour

December 17, 2021–July 10, 2022
Isaac Julien, CBE RA is one of the most important artists working in film and time-based media. Lessons of the Hour is inspired by episodes in the life of freedom fighter Frederick Douglass (1818–1895).
Photo of the Ancient Gallery Installation

The Ancient World Gallery

Ongoing
In 2019, the display of SCMA’s ancient art collection was reimagined to provide a more global view of the ancient world. Previously, this gallery’s scope had been limited to Egyptian, Greek and Roman art. The gallery now includes ancient objects from China, Japan, Korea, Persia and the Americas. Arranged in thematic groupings, these artworks span several millennia and encompass a wide range of media.
Installation photo of African Art Gallery

Arts of Africa, c. 1825–1960

Ongoing
This installation, guest-curated by Dr. Christa Clarke, features a selection of African art from SCMA’s collection. They are displayed prominently on the third floor and in proximity to works from Europe and the United States, with a shared thematic emphasis on tradition and transformation. This framework highlights the entangled histories of these regions and centers African visual culture within a broader art history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, enriching the stories we tell about art.
Amanda Wiliams's hand holding photo of a detail of a BLM banner outside Smith College droms/houses

Amanda Williams: An Imposing Number of Times 

November 2020 through spring 2022
“How do you bring closure to something that lingers? How do you memorialize an injustice that is ongoing?” These are two of the questions that artist Amanda Williams asks with An Imposing Number of Times (2020–22), a multipart, site-specific artwork that explores how campus traditions create and transmit forms of belonging.
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