Crystal Bridges, Momentary announce 2024 exhibition lineup

Dec. 20—Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Momentary, both in Bentonville, have announced their 2024 exhibitions.

Crystal Bridges

—"Exquisite Creatures," March 16-July 29.

According to Crystal Bridges: "Exquisite Creatures is a dialogue with art, nature and science that asks the question: What is it about the natural world that calls to us? Throughout the exhibition, artist and naturalist Christopher Marley reflects on humanity's intimate relationship with nature, revealing its intricate beauty and diversity through three-dimensional works comprised of animal, mineral and plant specimens arranged in precise, geometric compositions. Shown together, the works create an immersive environment which inspires wonder and fosters a desire to preserve the natural world."

—"Space Makers: Indigenous Expression and a New American Art," April 13-Sept. 30.

This "examines the mid-century American art movement known as the Indian Space Painters and the relationship between those painters, the Indigenous visual and material culture that inspired them, and the artists from the modern Native art movement who expanded upon such creative explorations through their own visual heritage." The free exhibition features loans from the Charles and Valerie Diker collection.

—"North Forest Outdoor Lights: Klip Collective," Sept. 4, 2024 — Jan. 5, 2025

Philadelphia-based Klip Collective — a collaborative group of artists, sound designers, composers, and technologists — will present "an immersive nighttime light and sound experience that simultaneously transforms the museum's North Forest. Guests are invited to meander along the forest paths like never before with awe-inducing installations that cast the woods as a near-magical space of joyful discovery. Opening right at the end of summer and running into early winter, Klip's exhibition leans into the passage of time and changing environment, unraveling as a mesmerizing journey through time and space."

Klip's founder and creative director, Ricardo Rivera, said in a statement: "Our exhibit will showcase a layered, meditative experience. Through sonic and illuminated landscapes, our work will explore cycles in nature and experiment with distortions in time."

—"Knowing the West," Sept. 14, 2024-Jan. 27, 2025

"The first major traveling exhibition to focus on the coexistence of art created between 1785 and 1922 by Native American and non-Native American artists, Knowing the West celebrates the American West as inclusive, complex, and reflective of the diverse peoples who contributed to art and life there," the museum sad in its announcement. "Americans often feel they 'know the West,' whether informed by direct experience or popular culture. Knowing the West embraces these impressions and expands ideas of art of the West by presenting more than 100 artworks including textiles, baskets, paintings, pottery, sculpture, beadworks, saddles, and prints. This exhibition recontextualizes historic artwork, encourages deeper exploration of a familiar topic, and celebrates the rich cultures that reflect the complexity of the American West."

—Exhibition collaboration with the Arkansas Coalition of Marshallese, Oct. 19, 2024 — March 31, 2025

Crystal Bridges and the Arkansas Coalition of Marshallese are partnering to present a new exhibition that focuses on the Marshallese community "by infusing a reverence for tradition with an eagerness to celebrate Marshallese Indigenous culture here and now. ACOM will develop and navigate the direction for the show, weaving in objects and stories shared from the community and works created by local artists and makers."

Momentary

—"Kristine Potter: Dark Waters," May 19-Oct. 13, 2024

"In Dark Waters, a tour de force of Southern Gothic Noir, Kristine Potter reinvents a centuries-old genre with coolness and clarity. With this recent collection of seductive and darkly brooding photographs, Potter reflects on the Southern Gothic mythos found in the popular imagination of 'murder ballads' — traditional songs from the 19th and 20th centuries that often end in death and despair."

—"Awol Erizku: Mystic Parallax," May 19-Oct. 13, 2024

Encompassing photography, film, painting, sculpture, and installation, Awol Erizku's work "references and reimagines African American and African visual culture, from hip-hop vernacular to iconic symbols from across history, including the Pan-African flag and the image of Nefertiti. Erizku's vision is expansive, drawing on traditions of spirituality, Surrealism, and Conceptualism to create uniquely powerful art."

—"Best in Show: Pets in Contemporary Photography," Nov. 23, 2024-April 13, 2025

"Through Best in Show, Momentary visitors will have the opportunity to explore the role that furry (and feathered) friends have played in culture and how they stand in as representations of status, power, loyalty, compassion and companionship through the perspectives of 25 global artists. Works on view will include examples by William Wegman, famed for his portraits of his Weimaraners; Walter Chandoha, the world's first professional cat photographer; and Sophie Gamand, known for her touching, sensitive photographs of dogs taking baths."

Crystal Bridges is at 600 Museum Way in Bentonville; the Momentary is at 507 SE E St. in Bentonville.