Visual Arts
The Momentary is open with reduced capacity.
EXHIBITIONS: ON VIEW
NICK CAVE: UNTIL
Sep 12, 2020—JAN 03, 2021
Nick Cave: Until is the largest and most ambitious project yet from the renowned artist. This immersive exhibition is a visual feast for the eyes, spanning over 24,000 square feet of gallery space at the Momentary and bursting with colorful wind spinners, wallpapers, found objects, beads, and a crystal cloud beckoning visitors to climb its ladders and discover a private garden.
FREE: No tickets required.
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EXHIBITIONS: UPCOMING
Sarah Cain: In Nature
FEB 13—MAY 30, 2021
Los Angeles-based artist Sarah Cain will create a site-responsive exhibition for the Momentary. Sarah Cain: In Nature will include colorful abstract works on canvas, functional floor paintings, sculpture, and a stained-glass window. Known for her brightly colored installations that blur the boundaries between painting and sculpture, Cain’s work moves over and off the canvas, responding to architecture at large.
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Derrick Adams: Sanctuary
FEB 20—JUN 6, 2021
From 1936 to 1967, during the Jim Crow era, Black American road-trippers referenced a guidebook, The Negro Motorist Green Book, also known as The Green Book, to identify businesses, including hotels, restaurants, state parks, beauty parlors, and nightclubs, that were nondiscriminatory and welcoming. In Derrick Adams: Sanctuary, this reference material serves as inspiration to reimagine safe destinations for the Black American traveler in an exhibition featuring mixed-media collage and sculpture.
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Diana Al-Hadid: Ash in the Trade Winds
FEB 27—JUN 13, 2021
The Momentary presents a solo exhibition of works by Diana Al-Hadid who utilizes a wide range of materials that explore notions of memory, ruin, progress, and globalism. Diana Al-Hadid: Ash in the Trade Winds will feature several wall panels and sculptures that were created between 2018 and 2020, highlighting recent developments in Al-Hadid’s signature process of layering pigments on to classical and contemporary materials, including bronze, plaster, fiberglass, and polymer gypsum.
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EXHIBITIONS: PAST
State of the Art 2020
Feb 22—Jul 12
The 61 individuals in State of the Art 2020 represent a cross-section of artists working today and their artwork will be organized into thematic sections including world-building: creating real and fictional spaces; sense of place: investigating ideas of home, family, immigration, and more; mapping: connections to and relationships with landscapes and power, and temporality: the concept of time and how we perceive it.
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PROJECTS
VENUSIAN ROSACEAE (FIVE SEEDED STAR)
Inspired by the history of the Momentary’s site as a former apple orchard, Maria Molteni’s Venusian Rosaceae explores the myriad of colors, shapes, and symbols associated with apples. Stretching 50 feet in diameter, the circular composition includes layers of five-point stars and infinitely connected braids, referencing the pentagonal shape of an apple’s core and the Dance of Venus—an astrological map of Venus retrogrades. For Molteni, the 2020 Venus retrograde (May 13 to June 25, 2020) was particularly significant as it coincided with the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement across the world. Molteni dedicates this mural to Queen Morgan and Baby Rose.
FREE: No tickets required.
Narcissus Garden
First installed in 1966, Yayoi Kusama’s Narcissus Garden invites us to slow down and appreciate our surroundings. Comprised of nearly 900 mirrored spheres, this playful installation creates unique reflections of people, architecture, and nature. The mirrored spheres symbolize those orbs that occur in nature—sun, moon, and Earth—while also referencing the polka dot, a common motif in Kusama’s work. Through this mesmerizing field of possibilities, the artist encourages us to see ourselves as one sphere within an interconnected universe.
Located in the North Courtyard. Collection of OZ Art. Courtesy of Ota Fine Art and Victoria Miro © YAYOI KUSAMA.
FREE: No tickets required.
This Land is Your Land
Inspired by Woody Guthrie’s iconic 1940 song of the same name, Iván Navarro’s series of three water towers examines the history of migration in the Americas and the United States. During the Great Depression, the water tower became a symbol of hope and opportunity for nomadic workers. According to Navarro, “every time they saw a water tower, they jumped out of the train because it signaled economic activity in that town.” Visitors can step beneath the towers and look up at the repeated messages that are inspired by Navarro’s personal history as an immigrant. “Bed” recalls our most intimate form of inhabited space. The ascending ladder symbolizes progress, while the inverted words “me” and “we” reference Guthrie’s call for collective belonging.
FREE: No tickets required.
Sponsored by: Olivia Tyson, Larry and Winnie Kearns, Visit Bentonville
The Momentary Flag Project
In the spirit of our adaptive reuse architecture, the Momentary is launching a rotating series of artist-designed flags that will be raised on the factory’s historic flag pole, located on E Street. The series will ask artists to explore the symbolic resonance of flags and consider how they shape our understanding of place and identity. Through this project, we hope to continue adding new stories and perspectives to the history of the Momentary’s site.
OCT 7, 2020—JAN 10, 2021: Gabriella Sanchez, WE REAP WHAT WE SEW (Past and Present Patterns), (2020). Read more about the flag here.
JUN 24—OCT 6, 2020: Christopher Myers, Icarus Falling (2020). Read more about the flag here.
FREE: No tickets required.
RRRolling Stones 2.0
Constructed with 3D printed concrete, RRRolling Stones 2.0 is an adaptable outdoor seating system that explores a range of seating archetypes: chairs, benches, stools, and lounge chairs. While they may look similar, each seat is one-of-a-kind. This project was manufactured in collaboration with Cornell RCL (Robotic Construction Laboratory) and Cornell UCL (Urban Construction Laboratory) and designed by HANNAH, an experimental design practice based in Ithaca, NY.
FREE: No tickets required.
YOU BELONG HERE
Tavares Strachan’s monumental neon sculpture, You Belong Here, is installed on the east-facing exterior wall of the Momentary, stretching 78 feet across and 25 feet high. This work is part of an ongoing series of site-responsive neon sculptures, and the affirmative statement initiates a dialogue about how we define place and create a sense of belonging in our community.
FREE: No tickets required.