The Brooklyn Rail

Seen from the vantage point of the dense, multilevel, and multifaceted address of 1976, it is marked that today few art institutions are making use of the semiquincentennial to open debates about the state of the nation, of history, and of culture. The muted response is disappointing, though not surprising, given that the federal government has created an atmosphere of fear and retribution around raising those questions, and also radically diverted cultural funding, creating near impossible conditions for museums and art centers to engage meaningfully with the anniversary. There are, nonetheless, a number of interesting exhibitions and programs scheduled for the 2026 anniversary, and we wanted to acknowledge some of them. The texts below are adapted from statements shared by the organizing institutions.

America 250: Common Threads, Crystal Bridges, Bentonville, AR

At a time when the federal government promotes “restoring truth and sanity to American history,” what American histories can we see in a crazy quilt? Or in the historic mania for collecting George Washington memorabilia? America 250: Common Threads considers the unstable truths that shape American histories, looking to artists from 1776 to 2026 to better understand how individuals engage in political communities. The exhibition foregrounds unofficial acts of commemoration and documentation, from souvenir cookie cutters to an engraving of the Declaration of Independence, with a plethora of quilts throughout. The selection of contemporary artworks culminates in a large-scale speech bubble by Marie Watt that points to community engagement and civic participation as a model for the future.

— Ella Nowicki, Windgate Curatorial Fellow and Larissa Randall, Associate Curator of American Art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

Radical Americana, The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA

Radical Americana stretches across Philadelphia in a series of twenty-five exhibitions that span museums, historic sites, and arts organizations, led by The Clay Studio. Forty-five artists conducted research with partner institutions, drawing inspiration from the art and history of Philadelphia in 1776 and the subsequent commemorations in 1876, 1926, and 1976. The resulting artworks reflect their historical research and add contemporary perspectives to conversations about America’s present, and future.

At The Clay Studio itself, artist, activist, and educator Roberto Lugo presents American Crib: What’s Happening?, celebrating his Philadelphia roots and Puerto Rican heritage, blending historical pottery traditions with pop culture, humor, and social commentary.

Art of the Americas Reinstallation, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, MA

To mark the 250th anniversary of American Independence, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has planned a major reinstallation of its eighteenth century Art of the Americas galleries, the first since the American Wing opened in 2010. Through a series of themes, including “Power and Resistance" and “Communities of Makers,” the installation emphasizes transcultural relationships over national independence, tracing, for example, the economic ties between Boston and the Caribbean, and artistic exchange between the Americas and Asia. Indigenous histories play a significant role in historical objects, such as furniture made in Oaxaca, as well as new commissions from artists Julia Marden (Aquinnah Wampanoag), and Hartman Deetz (Mashpee Wampanoag).

Folk Nation: Crafting Patriotism in the United States, American Folk Art Museum, New York

A collection exhibition timed to commemorate the semiquincentennial of the nation, Folk Nation highlights the role of vernacular art in the construction of American identity. The category “folk art” itself speaks to a hierarchical judgment that historically placed self-trained artists in the US below or outside academic European traditions. Since the early twentieth century, that diagnosis of inferiority and provincialism has faded, giving way to the positive characterization of American art, and particularly folk art, as authentic and autonomous. This installation seeks to unfold those complexities, as well as the romanticization of the national past, through artworks and everyday objects.

Democracy Matters, The New York Historical, New York

The inaugural exhibition in the new Tang Wing for American Democracy at the New York Historical focuses on key moments in US history that defined and redefined the concept of democracy. Monuments such as the five paintings in Thomas Cole’s “The Course of Empire” (1834–36) and Norman Rockwell’s “Four Freedoms” (1943) are joined by less familiar artworks illustrating pivotal historical events and historical objects from the events themselves. With a slate of programs and talks scheduled to run throughout the year, the New York Historical stands out among major institutions for the ambition of its semiquincentennial programming, culminating this fall with an exhibition addressing its own local conditions: You Should Be Dancing: New York, 1976 and Beyond.

LA2026, Los Angeles, California

In 2026, six institutions across Southern California—the Autry Museum of the American West, the Huntington, LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes / El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument, Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and USC Libraries—are hosting a series of conversations intended to expand our understanding of US history. Beginning with specific objects from the respective checklists, exhibitions at each institution provide the contexts for the public and humanities scholars to discuss the anniversary of 1776 from the perspective of California and the West. Overall, LA2026 asks what happens if we shift the commemorative lens on American history from Philadelphia and Boston to Los Angeles, with an emphasis on the city’s unique demographics.

Regeneration: Long Island’s History of Ecological Art and Care, Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY

Responding to language in the Declaration of Independence that states “life” as one of the inalienable rights, Regeneration explores our responsibility to the various forms of life that sustain us. The exhibition adopts a regional focus, featuring eleven intergenerational artists—Scott Bluedorn, Jeremy Dennis (Shinnecock), Sasha Fishman, Maya Lin, Tucker Marder, Mamoun Nukumanu, Randi Renate, Cindy Pease Roe, Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos), Alan Sonfist, and Michelle Stuart—who have created work about the ecological conditions of Long Island’s East End and the environmental pressures that threaten them. At the heart of the exhibition is a presentation of newly commissioned work by Siestreem and the Shinnecock Kelp Farmers, an intergenerational collective of Indigenous women who are restoring the ancestral Shinnecock tradition of seaweed harvesting to reduce nitrogen pollution in local waters.

Mni Sóta: Traditions & Innovations, Textile Center, Minneapolis, MN

Mni Sóta: Traditions & Innovations is a celebration of the Indigenous textile histories of Minnesota and the ways artists from the Tribal Nations of Minnesota continue to innovate within these traditions. The exhibition honors Native textile and fiber arts as living knowledge—held in the hands of artists and shaped by place. Curated by Delina White of the design house IamAnishinaabe (Leech Lake Band of Anishinaabe), Mni Sóta brings together Minnesota artists whose work invites close looking and thoughtful appreciation. Each piece carries labor, intention, and story, affirming Native textile arts as a living and evolving presence.

Mni Sóta: Traditions & Innovations is presented as part of Minnesota Handwork, a program partner of Craft in America’s Handwork: Celebrating American Craft 2026.

Who is America at 250?: Artist Books on the State of Democracy, San Francisco Center for the Book (San Francisco, CA) traveling to the Boston Athenæum (Boston, MA) and Minnesota Center for Book Arts (Minneapolis, MN)

Through artists’ books and related artworks, Who Is America at 250? reflects on the current state of the American experiment, examining how ideals of democracy have been interpreted, contested, and reshaped in contemporary life. Curated by Betty Bright, Mark Dimunation, Maymanah Farhat, Yuka Petz, and Ruth Rogers, the exhibition brings together works by forty artists from across the United States that address urgent issues facing individuals and communities today, including immigration, social injustice, racial inequity, income inequality, and more. More than ever, the identity of America is in flux and under pressure or outright attack. Rather than retreat, artists have created works that touch upon memory, place, and ritual to carry us into reflection on the critical issues faced by America in a manner that provides depth and perspective, and hopefully prompts conversation and clarity.

Some American Dreams, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA

Drawing its title from June Jordan’s 1986 essay calling for practices of collectivity, Some American Dreams proposes: what if there is not one America, but many? Made by past Artists-in-Residence in collaboration with the FWM Studio, twenty-seven exhibited projects employ a range of media including furniture, sculpture, textiles, and photography. Considering America(s) beyond the confines of the United States as a nation, its borders and ostensible 250 years of history, the works grapple with themes of Indigeneity and race, alternative origin stories, landscape and the environment, the construction of historical narrative, modes of resistance, and expanded visions of kinship and community. As poet Hanif Abdurraqib writes of Jordan’s work, “one must be as inventive with their commitments to loving others as they are with their commitments to immediately and urgently dismantling every brutality, every cruelty that places any limitations on our hearts.” In Some American Dreams, I take this invocation seriously, asking how artists might affirm, resist, or remake these Americas in the midst of ongoing apocalypses and from them, the making of new worlds.

—Hilde Nelson, Curatorial Fellow and curator of Some American Dreams

Rising Up: Rocky and the Making of Monuments, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA

The Rocky statue is among Philadelphia’s most visited landmarks—more than double the visitors to the Liberty Bell and approximately five times as many visitors to the museum itself. For decades the museum and the statue have been pitted against one another as adversarial. Organized around a central curatorial question “Why do millions of people visit the Rocky statue at the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art each year?” Rising Up looks to the statue of Rocky Balboa—the most famous Philadelphian who never lived but who thrives in the public imagination—to better understand our complex relationships to our monuments. The exhibition explores the meanings and mythologies of the Rocky statue, and extends that line of inquiry toward how we take comfort in fictionalizing our history.

—Paul M. Farber, Monument Lab, Curator of Rising Up: Rocky and the Making of Monuments

Buffalo Nation, Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody, WY

Buffalo Nation, an interdisciplinary exhibition honoring our national mammal, invites visitors into the story of the American buffalo—from its past and near extinction to its remarkable comeback, with a focus on its enduring significance. In recognition of the US semiquincentennial, the two-year long immersive exhibition centers the buffalo as a witness to sweeping change in America whose story precedes but was profoundly shaped by nation-building, and as an icon of resilience and possibility. The primary exhibition surrounds audiences with sights, sounds, art, and science, bringing the buffalo’s cultural and ecological importance into full view. Buffalo Nation was shaped by a curatorial team working with outside experts, and enriched by collaboration with an exhibition advisory council, students, tribal communities, nonprofit groups, filmmakers, photographers, and audiovisual innovators.

—Karen Brooks McWhorter, Margaret and Dick Scarlett Curator of Western American Art