The National Academy of Design is pleased to present Past as Prologue: A Historical Acknowledgment, a two-part exhibition conceived as a call and response between the National Academy’s historical collection and contemporary art, with the first installment on view from October 17, 2024 to January 11, 2025, and the second part on view from February 5 through April 26, 2025. Past as Prologue: A Historical Acknowledgment Part I will focus on landscape and territory, featuring works that document U.S. expansion in the 19th Century.
Past as Prologue: A Historical Acknowledgement brings together politically potent historical works from the Academy’s collection with contemporary works from the National Academy's current community of esteemed National Academicians and contemporary artists from beyond the National Academy. The exhibition explores themes of representation of race and indigeneity, political and social commentary, landscape, colonialism, migration, and borders. With selections from the Academy’s vast collection, which spans nearly 200 years, Past as Prologue: A Historical Acknowledgement is staged to raise questions about how the contemporary cultural landscape has shifted and will continue to transform in the future, serving as an apt lead-up to the National Academy of Design’s 200th anniversary year, which officially begins in the fall of 2025.
The first part of the exhibition is focused on landscape and territory. Included artworks depict scenes of grand tours and expeditions in which several early Academy members took part, as well as the formation of ideas of the United States abroad, with works depicting colonialism and imperialism and the notion of ‘manifest destiny.’ Additional works in the exhibition highlight idyllic images of nature, in dialogue with projects that examine the effects of extraction - impacting both natural and cultural landscapes - and the complexities intertwined with policies that have determined geographical borders and migration.
October 17, 2024 - January 11, 2025
519 W 26th St, 2nd floor, New York, NY 10001
