A Space for Powerful and Thought-Provoking Art Experiences
The Grinnell College Museum of Art presents exhibitions of regional, national, and international artists throughout the year in the Faulconer Gallery, a 7,420 square feet of state-of-the-art exhibition space at the heart of the Bucksbaum Center for the Arts. Exhibitions in the Print and Drawing Study Room and Burling Gallery, located on the lower level of Burling Library, focus on objects in the Grinnell College Art Collection as well as objects directly related to Grinnell College classes during the spring and fall semesters. Click on the links below for exhibitions current, future, and past, as well as student-curated exhibitions resulting from Mentored Advanced Projects (MAPs) and the gallery's triennial Exhibition Seminar.
Upcoming Exhibitions
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Jan. 28 — Apr. 9, 2022
Digital Vision
In Digital Vision, six artists draw inspiration from electronics: the images on the screen and the screen itself; digital animations and the code behind them; even the inner guts of our machines to create works of art. These artists are adept as digital creators, but they are equally entranced by computers, projectors, and peripherals as things, as subjects, and as materials for their art. Nam June Paik might be the best ancestor for these 21st century creators.
Digital Vision builds on the work of Matthew Kluber, associate professor of art at Grinnell College, who brings together printing, painting, digital art, and sculpture to make wholly new art. In a studio practice that combines paint, 3D printers, and computer programming, Matthew finds a new interface between physical and virtual.
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Apr. 22 — May 23, 2022
BAX
The Bachelor of Art Exhibition presents work in the creative arts by third- and fourth-year Grinnell College students.
With support from GCMoA staff, students manage all the exhibition details: from the submission of proposals, to the selection of a juror, to the installation process, and the creation of an exhibition catalog and website. The exhibition includes photographs, drawings, sculpture, paintings, video, installations, and works created digitally.
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June 28 — Sept. 3, 2022
Jewel Box Quilt Guild
This exhibition features quilts of all sizes, techniques, colors, and patterns, designed and quilted by local guild members. This will be their first exhibition at the museum since a pattern has been set for all of us by the pandemic: isolation, stasis, discovery, emergence, renewal.
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Sept. 23 — Dec. 10, 2022
Reverent Ornament: Art from the Islamic World
Comprising works of fine glassware, ceramics, metalwork, painting, weaponry, weaving, and much more, Reverent Ornament shares 45 timeless treasures from a region whose everyday life, history, and culture offer many parallels to our own. If it is true that peace begins through understanding, then this ambitious collection offers us a rare opportunity for artistic exchange — a living bridge between cultures.
Reverent Ornament: Art from the Islamic World was organized by the Huntington Museum of Art, and is toured by International Arts & Artists, Washington, DC.
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Opening January 27, 2023
William Villalongo: Myths and Migrations
Over the past 20 years, William Villalongo has expressed in his work the absurdity, beauty, and vulnerability of black presence against the backdrop of race. The works become portals or navigational devices for thinking about the mystery within human experience through the poetics of history, myth, and satire. This exhibition will present more than fifty paintings, collages, and signature velour paper cut-outs by Villalongo, who is a 2021 recipient of the Rome Prize in the visual arts, awarded by the American Academy in Rome, where he is in residence, creating new work for this exhibition, through August 2022.
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Opening June 29, 2023
To the Modern Eye: Stephen Appleby-Barr
A table; an assortment of objects; a face drawn from the street; and a mind steeping in literature and a history of art. This exhibition traces a quirky path — Grinnell, Parry Sound, Toronto, London — to discover the fruits of labor and invention on the canvases of a sumptuous imagination.
Stephen Appleby-Barr was born in Toronto in 1981 and is now based in Europe. This exhibition of his new paintings is a partnership with Canada House, the High Commission of Canada in the United Kingdom, Trafalgar Square, London.
Recent Exhibitions
Sept. 7–Dec. 12, 2021
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Fall 2021 Exhibition
Queer/Dialogue
This exhibition presents eight artists — Louis Fratino, Jordan King, Jeremy Laing, Doron Langberg, Catherine Opie, Christina Quarles, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, and Devan Shimoyama — whose works enable dialogue at the intersections of identity expression: race, gender, individuality, and otherness, equality within differences, with a focus on the body as expressive terrain. The artists represent distinct voices across a spectrum of media, reflecting diversity in identity expression where it intersects with contemporary political, social, and economic issues, always relevant but particularly charged at this moment.
Curated by Associate Director Daniel Strong and Guest Curator Greg Manuel.
June 25–Aug. 15, 2021
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June 25–Aug. 15, 2021
Our Voice: Celebrating the Coretta Scott King Awards
The Coretta Scott King Illustrator Awards annually recognizes outstanding African American artists of children’s books who demonstrate an appreciation of African American culture and universal human values. Our Voice is the first retrospective of all winners and honorees since the establishment of the award in 1974. This exhibition is organized by the National Center for Children's Illustrated Literature, Abilene, Texas. Special thanks to Nick Glass and TeachingBooks.net.
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Bachelor of Arts Exhibition
BAX 2021
BAX features works in the creative arts by third- and fourth-year Grinnell College students.
With support from GCMoA staff, students manage all the exhibition details: from the submission of proposals to the selection of a juror to the installation process and creation of an exhibition website. The exhibition includes photographs, drawings, sculpture, paintings, video, installations, and works created digitally. This year at least half of the work by the 30 student artists are available only on the exhibition website since many of the artists have done their creative work while working remotely around the U.S. and the world. During the pandemic, a team of students has taken the lead in organizing BAX for this year. They include: Sophie Doddimeade ’21, Clara Dingle ’22, Tess Kerkhof ’21, Tommy (Guhn) Lee ’22, Caroline Shea ’22, and Hannah Taylor ’21.
The juror this year is J.M. Culver of Minnesota, who awards Best in Show and other prizes. Additional prizes are awarded by the Office of Student Affairs, the Student Government Association, and the Studio Art Department.
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Face Forward
How many faces (besides your own in the mirror) have you laid eyes on in the past year? It’s time to look again, and so we're pleased to present Face Forward, an opportunity to present the diversity of portraiture and figurative works we have in our collection, as well as feature new acquisitions that you have not seen on campus before.
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Face Forward
Introduction to the Exhibition
Daniel Strong, associate director and curator of exhibitions, discusses works of art featured in Face Forward.
Fall 2020 Exhibitions
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Fall 2020 Virtual Exhibition
Let Yourself Continue
August 2020 marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
In commemoration of this event, the Grinnell College Museum of Art is presenting work by more than 50 women artists represented in the Museum of Art’s collection.
Jacob Lawrence: The Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture
Sept. 15–Dec. 11, 2020
In 2020, the Grinnell College Museum of Art acquired 13 prints by Jacob Lawrence based on his painted series, completed in 1938, of scenes from the life of Toussaint L’Ouverture. A leader of the Haitian Revolution, which resulted in the founding of the Republic of Haiti in 1804, L’Ouverture was one of the historical Black figures that Lawrence found lacking in the history books of his time. He completed 41 paintings in all, now in the collection of the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University. Of the 15 prints based on these paintings that Lawrence produced between 1980 and 1997, the College now has 13 of them, including the portrait of L’Ouverture himself. These prints, the first works by this pivotal American artist to enter our collection, are being shown in the Museum of Art for the first time.
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Jacob Lawrence: The Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture
Professor Fredo Rivera speaks about the prints in Jacob Lawrence's Toussaint L'Ouverture Series
In this video, Assistant Professor of Art History Fredo Rivera talks about prints from Jacob Lawrence’s The Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture series.
Past Exhibitions
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April 17–Aug. 2, 2020
Nature, Made
What happens when an artist doesn’t just represent the natural world, but makes it anew, through a creative lens?
Five alumni artists work with animals, plants, and environments, crafting them into personal expression and commenting on the human impulse to alter the world around us. The exhibition, curated by Lesley Wright, director of the Museum, will include painting, printmaking, sculpture and drawing by artists Fay Stanford ’72, Pamela Crockett ’76, Aaron Rothman ’96, Regan Golden ’00, and John Martin Bell ’08.
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May 29 - July 31, 2020
Our Voice: Celebrating the Coretta Scott King Awards
The Coretta Scott King Illustrator Awards annually recognizes outstanding African American artists of children’s books who demonstrate an appreciation of African American culture and universal human values. Our Voice is the first retrospective of all winners and honorees since the establishment of the award in 1974. This exhibition is organized by the National Center for Children's Illustrated Literature, Abilene, Texas. Special thanks to Nick Glass and TeachingBooks.net.