Events and Programs
Grinnell College Museum of Art has a full array of programs year-round to enrich the experience of art-viewing and art-making for both campus and community.
Fall 2026 Events
Opening Reception, Abstract Expressionists: The Women
Sept. 17, 5–7 p.m.
Remarks by Katharine J. Wright, PhD, American Federation of Arts Curator, at 5:30 p.m. Refreshments will be served.
Artists @ Grinnell: Johnnie Chatman
Sept. 25–Oct. 4, 2026
Feb. 5–14, 2027
Artist Johnnie Chatman will engage with the Iowa landscape at CERA and other Iowa locations in a two-part residency: sponsored by GCMoA, Center for Prairie Studies, CERA, and the Art Department.
Johnnie Chatman is a lens-based artist, researcher, and historian. He is currently a Katzin Fellow and doctoral student in Art History, Theory, and Criticism (with a concentration in Art Practice) at the University of California San Diego. Chatman holds an MFA in Photography, Video, & Related Media from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. His interdisciplinary research explores American visual culture, the history of photography, Black history, and theories of landscape/place. His scholarly and artistic practice interconnects by analyzing the American West as a geographical, cultural, and economic crossroads defined by complex connectivity.
Chatman's artistic work has been featured in exhibitions across the United States, including at Fraenkel Gallery, HereArts, Marshall Gallery, and SF Camerawork. His work can be found in many public museum collections, including the Center for Creative Photography, Crocker Art Museum, Figge Museum, Harvard Art Museums, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. In 2020, he was a recipient of the En Foco Photography Fellowship. His work has been featured in numerous publications and books, including Dear Dave, Nueva Luz, Zoetrope All-Story, and Wild Visions by Mark Klett (Yale University Press). He is also the founder and curator of Terms & Conditions, an experimental film screening series.
A@G Gallery Talk: Johnnie Chatman: The Artist as Researcher
Oct. 1, 4:15 p.m.
For more details about the residency and opportunities please contact Tilly Woodward at woodward@grinnell.edu.
Gallery Talk: Robert General
Oct. 7, 4:30 p.m.
Robert General is a Chicago-based author and screenwriter whose work explores identity, loyalty, and the quiet forces that shape lives long before they become legend. A lifelong student of American history and dramatic craft, he draws on years of storytelling and performance to create emotionally layered, character-driven fiction. Growing up in Chicago helped spark his fascination with the larger-than-life figures who shaped America’s past—and the choices that defined them. “I’m a writer drawn to moments where people become who they will later deny having been.” This is the first event for the Sherman Fairchild Grant, sponsored by the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies.
Yoga in the Museum
Tuesdays, Sept. 22–Dec. 8, 12:15–12:45 p.m.
Enjoy a free 30-minute yoga practice with Joy Jones. Open to all levels, mats provided. Co-sponsored by Live Well Grinnell.
Gallery Talk: Ellen G. Landau. Abstract Expressionists: The Women
Oct. 27, 4:15 p.m.
Since its inception, critical reception of Abstract Expressionism—widely considered the “triumph” of American painting—overwhelmingly marginalized its women participants. Curator Ellen G. Landau will explore in detail the truly vital role women played in the advancement of America’s avant-garde. Ellen G. Landau is Andrew W. Mellon Professor Emerita at Case Western Reserve University. An independent art historian and curator, she writes widely on Abstract Expressionism, with a frequent focus on women painters.
ParasWani Kvletktif presents Batu Buah: Planting Seeds of Indonesian Creativity
Oct. 29, 7 p.m.
Tickets are required for this performance and are available through the Bucksbaum Box Office.
How are Indonesian artists responding to the changing world around them? Cahaya Drucilla (Ohio/Bali), Dion Nataraja (California/Yogyakarta), D. Wibowo (Boston/Jakarta), Natalia Granquist (Minnesota/Bali), Dewa Ayu Eka Putri (Iowa/Bali), Putu Hiranmayena (Colorado/Bali/Surakarta) will perform a manifestation of creative “keramaian” (noise as performance) as socio-political critique using various modalities of Indonesian contemporary sound, theater, dance, and poetry. Directed by Putu Tangkas Adi Hiranmayena, Assistant Professor of Music, Grinnell College.
Gallery Talk: Carrie Moyer: My Heroine Paint(ers)
Nov. 12, 4:15 p.m.
Carrie Moyer is an artist known for her sumptuous, materially-experimental paintings which explore and extend the legacies of American abstraction through a feminist lens. Moyer will speak on her own evolution, process, and scholarship in relation to the work of Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner, Betty Parsons, and others featured in Abstract Expressionists: The Women. For over 30 years, Moyer has exhibited throughout the US and Europe. Her most recent solo exhibition, Always Venus, Never Mars, opened at Pilar Corrias, London, in January 2026. Between 1991 and 2008, Moyer and photographer Sue Schaffner collaborated as Dyke Action Machine!, a public art project that dissected commercial advertising through the insertion of lesbian imagery.
Grinnell Dance Ensemble presents A Journey of Grief
Nov. 19 and 20, 7 p.m.
Tickets are required for this performance and are available through the Bucksbaum Box Office.
This performance brings Grinnell students and community members together to move communally through visual and poetic representations of grief. Through explorations of personal movement, and collective global experiences, this performance asks us to activate our diverse journeys through loss, separation, displacement, and temporary existences using dance as creative process. Directed by Dewa Ayu Eka Putri, Lecturer in Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, Grinnell College.
Opening Reception: Graphic Medicine
Dec. 9, 1:10 p.m.
Join us for an exhibition of student comics generated as an assignment for Professor of Anthropology Maria Tapias' class, Graphic Medicine: Reading Medical Comics Anthropologically in partnership with GCMoA's Curator of Academic and Community Outreach, Tilly Woodward. The course explored the burgeoning field of graphic medicine, works from the museum’s collection, and the ways comics can give voice to the patient experience and increase empathy among health care practitioners. Students conducted ethnographic interviews that became the basis for their comics and will be available for conversation about their preparatory work and final projects during the reception. Refreshments will be served. The Graphic Medicine exhibition will continue in the Bucksbaum Center for the Arts Rotunda through Jan. 31.Co-sponsored by GCMoA and the Department of Anthropology.