Crystal Bridges and the Momentary Present 2026 Exhibitions Celebrating the American Spirit
Crystal bridges’ 15th anniversary marked by opening of major expansion
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BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Momentary today announced its complete list of 2026 exhibitions, which celebrate the American spirit. Crystal Bridges will present a trio of exhibitions that explore distinct facets of American identity featuring iconic artists. America 250: Common Threads will open at Crystal Bridges in March, exploring how 250 years of American art – from historic documents to art made today – have shaped civic participation, national symbolism, and community memory across generations. In the summer, Keith Haring in 3D, the first exhibition to reimagine iconic artist Keith Haring’s work in three dimensions, will open concurrently with Crystal Bridges’ major expansion. The museum’s fall exhibition, Grandma Moses: A Good Day’s Work, reexamines the legacy of Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma” Moses as a legendary American artist whose vibrant depictions of rural life, created late in her century-long life, had a lasting cultural impact.
At the Momentary, two exhibitions will explore how everyday objects serve as powerful conduits for storytelling, reflecting American identity, consumer culture, and the emotional resonance of material life across time. Lucy Sparrow: The Beginning of Convenience, will take visitors back in time through an immersive “time capsule” installation of a 1980s-90s Walmart-inspired supermarket, featuring more than 20,000 hand-crafted felt replicas of supermarket products. In a solo exhibition featuring the work of artist Chuck Ramirez, photographs will prompt viewers to consider that the goods people buy, consume, discard, or treasure are more than just things; they are evidence of life. The Greatest Wildlife Photographs, which opens this weekend, and The Machine Behind the Art: Inside JR’s Printing Press will remain on view through June 7, 2026.
On the global stage, visual artist and multi-platinum singer-songwriter, Jewel, will debut a major installation of her visual art practice at the Salone Verde in Venice, Italy, running concurrently with the Venice Biennale 2026. Presented in association with Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and curated by Joe Thompson, Matriclysm: An Archeology of Connections Lost explores themes of motherhood, feminine power, and the consequences of its loss.
Celebrating 15 years in 2026, Crystal Bridges will open its 114,000-square-foot expansion to the public June 6 and 7, 2026. Designed by the acclaimed Safdie Architects and increasing the size of the museum by 50 percent, design highlights of the expansion include two new galleries, educational spaces, art studios, a community floor, a new café, and an outdoor plaza, all designed to deepen engagement and broaden access. While remaining open to the public throughout the construction period, Crystal Bridges is reinstalling every gallery, moving every work of art in the building to take visitors on a thematic journey through American art, architecture, and nature.
CRYSTAL BRIDGES
America 250: Common Threads | March 14, 2026 – July 27, 2026
In 2026, the United States will mark 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. America 250: Common Threads will both commemorate the events of 1776 and reflect on 250 years of American art and civic participation. An early engraving of the Declaration of Independence will anchor a group of historic documents displayed alongside textiles, paintings, toys, and other works from 1776 to the present. The exhibition considers how artists and national leaders document American history. America 250: Common Threads explores how American artists historically foster civic participation and strengthen community relationships.
Visitors will experience how people have celebrated national and personal moments in history, from a display of hundreds of 20th century patriotic snapshots to souvenirs collected from America’s Centennial in 1876. The exhibition explores the symbols artists turn to when celebrating or commenting on the United States: George Washington’s many faces, eagles appearing across books, baskets, and coverlets, flags seen as quilts or as documentation of the moon landing, and more. Contemporary artists featured in the exhibition, such as Robert Colescott, Kay WalkingStick, and Howard Finster, continue to revisit national symbols and explore their resonance.
The exhibition will also feature live quilting, as local quilters and quilting guilds work in the galleries to piece quilt squares made by K-12 students across Arkansas and designed by artist Basil Kincaid.
America 250: Common Threads is organized by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art with special thanks to the American Folk Art Museum. Major support provided by Stout Executive Search and Becky and Bob Alexander.
Keith Haring in 3D | June 6, 2026 – January 25, 2027
Keith Haring in 3D is the first exhibition to reimagine Keith Haring’s work in three dimensions, inviting visitors to move through, around, and within his art like never before. In the course of his short life, Keith Haring manifested his vision across a dizzying range of creative channels: painting, sculpture, installation, video, murals, performance, printmaking, early digital art, and more. While Haring helped define the look and mood of the 1980s, he also saw clearly a future that has become our present.
Haring is typically thought of as primarily a two-dimensional artist, but Keith Haring in 3D focuses on a lesser-known and highly compelling aspect of Haring’s practice as a sculptor. He created hundreds of three-dimensional artworks, beginning with painting objects he found in the street. Eventually, Haring made monumental sculptures in wood and metal, and even a whole store for his art.
Haring was, above all, a master of line, with an instinctive ability to compose on multiple scales. Haring’s work in three dimensions has never been the focus of a major exhibition and has rarely been shown. Keith Haring in 3D will fill this gap in public understanding by showcasing a wide range of Haring’s works, including sculpture, totems and masks, skateboards, clothing, boomboxes, paintings, drawings, and even a 1963 Buick Special. The exhibition will be accompanied by a major book published by Phaidon/Monacelli.
Crystal Bridges is in many ways the ideal institution to organize Keith Haring in 3D, as its mission of making art accessible to all is a principle that Haring himself exemplified and pursued with incredible energy over the course of his all-too-brief career. The exhibition will be on view in the museum’s new temporary exhibition space as part of its major expansion. The new gallery features 14,000 square feet of naturally illuminated architectural space.
Keith Haring in 3D is sponsored by Stout Executive Search.
Grandma Moses: A Good Day’s Work | September 12, 2026 – March 29, 2027
Grandma Moses: A Good Day’s Work repositions Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma” Moses (1860–1961) as a multidimensional force in American art, whose beloved painted recollections of rural life earned her a distinctive place in the post-World War II cultural imagination. The exhibition reveals how Moses’ art fused creativity, labor, and memories from a century-long life.
Moses spent the majority of her life in rural New York and Virginia working as a housekeeper, farmer, and mother, occasionally painting or embroidering in her spare time. She was 80 years old in 1940 when she stepped tentatively into the limelight with her first solo exhibition. “Grandma Moses,” as she was dubbed by the press, became a media sensation, achieving a superstar celebrity that raised questions in her time and remains intriguing today. Moses wielded creativity, hope, and unity as tools for shaping a life that she would later reflect on as “a good day’s work.”
Grandma Moses: A Good Day’s Work sheds new light on a beloved body of work, introduces Moses to younger generations, and examines the artist’s legacy in the context of America today. The exhibition brings together approximately 80 paintings, as well as embroideries, objects of ephemera, and photographic reproductions, revealing the ways she defied social norms and confirming her as a central figure in the story of American art.
Grandma Moses: A Good Day’s Work is organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and curated by Leslie Umberger, senior curator of folk and self-taught art, and Randall R. Griffey, head curator, with support from Maria R. Eipert, curatorial assistant. Crystal Bridges’ presentation of the exhibition is sponsored by Stout Executive Search.
THE MOMENTARY
Lucy Sparrow: The Beginning of Convenience | Summer 2026
British artist Lucy Sparrow is internationally renowned for her unique and immersive installations filled with thousands of items, all meticulously handcrafted from felt. Through her work, Sparrow transforms everyday retail environments into playful, nostalgic, and tactile worlds that are both familiar and entirely new. Lucy Sparrow: The Beginning of Convenience, Sparrow’s first museum exhibition in the United States, will take visitors back in time through an immersive “time capsule” installation of a 1980s-90s Walmart-inspired supermarket.
Expanding on her extensive archival research practice, The Beginning of Convenience includes more than 20,000 individually hand-crafted and exquisitely detailed felt replicas of supermarket products, ranging from food and beverage items to beauty products and household goods typical of a not-so-distant past. Throughout the exhibition, Sparrow will explore a particular moment in history that she refers to as the “beginning of convenience,” a time when the rise of dual-income households in the 1980s necessitated consumer goods that prioritized speed and convenience over effort and taste. Changing roles within the household led to the development and proliferation of quick and easy consumer goods, such as microwave dinners, frozen foods, and out-of-the-box meals.
In addition to the supermarket experience, The Beginning of Convenience will feature a built replica of Sparrow’s studio – known as the Felt Cave – and a new self-made documentary that follows Sparrow’s work in the months leading up to the exhibition at the Momentary.
Chuck Ramirez at the Momentary (Title TBD) | Summer 2026
Chuck Ramirez (1962-2010) was a San Antonio-based artist with a reverence for material culture. For many years, his day job was as a graphic designer and art director for the Texas grocery chain H-E-B. In his commercial work, he helped sell products that lined store shelves and filled home pantries. In the Momentary exhibition, Ramirez’s photographs will prompt viewers to consider that the goods people buy, consume, discard, or treasure are more than just things; they are evidence of life. In the photographs, the artist positioned material culture as reflections of humanity, community, memory, and loss.
In his artwork, Ramirez often recast commercial products as windows onto the people who consumed them. Ramirez’s affinity for everyday “stuff” was a continuous thread throughout his practice. The artist’s ability to find wonder in the ordinary takes center stage in the Momentary’s exhibition.
GLOBAL PRESENCE
Matriclysm: An Archeology of Connections Lost | May 10, 2026 – November 22, 2026
Visual artist and multi-platinum singer-songwriter, Jewel, will debut a major installation of her visual art practice at the Salone Verde in Venice, Italy, running concurrently with the Venice Biennale 2026. Presented in association with Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and curated by Joe Thompson, curator-at-large for the museum, Matriclysm: An Archeology of Connections Lost explores themes of motherhood, feminine power, and the consequences of its loss. The exhibition will feature never-before-seen painting, sculpture, tapestry, installation, and sound works that Jewel has created specifically for the exhibition, the largest presentation of this multi-faceted artist to date.
Through shifting sculptural forms, rhythmic soundscapes, myth-inspired textiles and paintings, and data-driven works, the entire exhibition is accompanied by a mesmerizing soundtrack with original music and voicework by Jewel, at times abstract and at other moments melodic, driven by close observation of the seas and stars gathered from oceanographic sensors and celestial mathematical observation. Matriclysm: An Archeology of Connections Lost will be on view May 10 to November 22, 2026.
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About the Momentary
Opened in February of 2020 in Downtown Bentonville, the Momentary is a venue for the music, art, and food of our time; and a catalyst for creativity and economic vitality. An extension to Crystal Bridges, the Momentary is ‘a living room’ where community gathers to be inspired, connected, and joyful. The Momentary was founded by the Walton family, based on the vision of Tom, Olivia, and Steuart Walton. Its commitment to cultivating arts and cultural experiences provides more opportunities for education, engagement, and enjoyment in our region. The Momentary is an extension of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, founded by Alice Walton. The Momentary welcomes all with free general admission. Additional offerings include live music, visual and performing arts, an artist-in-residence program, culinary experiences such as Onyx Coffee Lab and the sky-high Tower Bar, indoor and outdoor gathering spaces, an outdoor festival space, and a retail shop. For more information, visit theMomentary.org. The Momentary is located at 507 SE E Street, Bentonville, Arkansas 72712. The Momentary’s Founding Funders are Walton Family Foundation, Walmart, RØDE Microphones, The Coca-Cola Company, Tyson Family Foundation, and Willard and Pat Walker Charitable Foundation.
About Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
The mission of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is to welcome all to celebrate the American spirit in a setting that unites the power of art with the beauty of nature. Since opening in 2011, the museum has welcomed more than 14 million visitors across its spaces, with no cost for admission. Crystal Bridges was founded in 2005 as a non-profit charitable organization by arts patron and philanthropist, Alice Walton. The collection spans five centuries of American masterworks from early American to current day and is enhanced by temporary exhibitions. The museum is nestled on 134 acres of Ozark landscape and was designed by the world-renowned Safdie Architects. A rare Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house was preserved and relocated to the museum grounds in 2015. Home of the prestigious Don Tyson Prize for the Advancement of American Art and Tyson Scholars of American Art Program, Crystal Bridges offers public programs including lectures, performances, classes, and teacher development opportunities. Some 478,375 school children have participated in the Willard and Pat Walker School Visit program, which provides educational experiences for school groups at no cost to the schools. Additional museum amenities include a restaurant, gift store, library, and five miles of art and walking trails. In February 2020, the museum opened the Momentary in Downtown Bentonville (507 SE E Street), conceived as a platform for the art, food, and music of our time. In 2026, Crystal Bridges will complete a 114,000 square foot expansion that will allow the museum to expand access for all. For more information, visit CrystalBridges.org. The museum is located at 600 Museum Way, Bentonville, Arkansas 72712.
About Crystal Bridges Campus
Crystal Bridges Campus in Bentonville, Arkansas features 134 acres dedicated to art and wellness. It is home to three landmark institutions designed by acclaimed architecture firms: Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (Safdie Architects), Heartland Whole Health Institute (Marlon Blackwell Architects), and Alice L. Walton School of Medicine (Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects). Envisioned by founder and philanthropist Alice Walton, the campus unites art, architecture, nature, education, and wellness to create transformative experiences that foster learning and enhance health and well-being. More than five miles of trails connect the iconic buildings, featuring art installations both inside and outside. The campus terrain varies from Ozark forest to display gardens, and includes streams, ponds, and Crystal Springs. In 2024, the campus received Arboretum accreditation. The campus is open daily from dawn to dusk. Additionally, the Momentary, an extension of Crystal Bridges, is located 1 mile south of campus.
Media Contact: media@crystalbridges.org