Exhibitions

Context Shift

A 11,000-square-foot mural by artist Carlos Rosales-Silva on the exterior walls of the Momentary’s parking garage.

The composition highlights a core pillar of Rosales-Silva’s work: how individuals interpret color as contextual. The vibrant colors on the mural are inverted to represent how context shifts; colors in the background on one side are in the foreground on the other side of the mural. The mirroring design of the mural is meant to shift perspectives on how the design elements blend together.

The shapes Rosales-Silva draws are abstract combinations of architecture and landscape, two forms that are often categorized in an oppositional binary. Rosales-Silva says that binary does not exist.

Courtesy of OZ Art NWA.

FREE: No tickets required.

Buckyball

Leo Villareal sculpts with light. The artist creates ever-changing displays of moving light and color using LED bulbs and computer software that Villareal himself designs. Named to honor the theorist and engineer Buckminster Fuller, Buckyball features two nested geometric spheres shaped like a Carbon 60 molecule. The structure features LED tubes capable of producing 16 million distinct colors.

Buckyball operates from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day. The light display changes from the white-light daytime sequence to a vibrantly colored evening sequence shortly after dark.

FREE: No tickets required.

blue riff, 2023

This mural features animated drawings, or as artist Katie Merz calls them, “urban hieroglyphics.” The design of blue riff, 2023 speaks to the culture of Northwest Arkansas, referencing the outdoor recreation industry, the Momentary, and the region’s vibrant arts scene. Created with high-intensity paint markers, Merz and her crew made this work entirely freehanded and spontaneously. They were “quick to the draw” and completed the wall in a week and a half.

Courtesy of OZ Art NWA.

FREE: No tickets required.

Wind Sculpture (SG) VIII

In Wind Sculpture (SG) VIII, artist Yinka Shonibare CBE RA created the dynamic movement of a piece of fabric caught in a gust of wind, rendered in a gravity-defying, solid fiberglass form at monumental scale. Evocative of the sails of ships that crossed the Atlantic to connect nations through the exchange of ideas, products, and people, its form captures histories that can be inspiring, brutal, and complex. It speaks to how the opening of the seas led not only to the transatlantic slave trade and colonization, but also gave rise to the dynamic contributions of Africans and African heritage worldwide.

Courtesy of OZ Art NWA.

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 initiates a dialogue about how we define place and create a sense of belonging in our community.

FREE: No tickets required.

Planck

Alexandre Farto, aka Vhils, destroys to create. His large-scale, detailed compositions are achieved by carving, drilling, and using explosive charges to tear away at exterior walls. The art intervention devised for the Momentary took this technique and gave it a performative edge by staging the incision of the institution’s logo on the building’s façade. Playing with the concepts of moment/momentary, the title, Planck, alludes directly to the connection between the briefness of the explosion that created the final work, and the smallest unit of time, known as “Planck Time”.

Mural by VHILS, production JUSTKIDS.

FREE: No tickets required.

Sway

In 2018, Oklahoma-based artist Addie Roanhorse became the first artist commissioned to create a work of art for the Momentary. Her arrow pattern artwork, called Sway, is featured on the exterior glass of the Tower, the Container, and main entryway. A member of the Osage Nation, Roanhorse took inspiration from Osage attire to create the pattern, paying homage to the history of the land around the Momentary. With this artwork, we invite all to think about the Indigenous peoples with a connection to Northwest Arkansas.

FREE: No tickets required.

ABOVE & BELOW

Chad “Nish” Earles (Caddo) designed the glass scrim titled Above & Below that is located on the southwest and southeast corners of the structure. The design entails a pattern providing cultural reference to the Indigenous peoples of Arkansas and the land the Momentary currently occupies. The pattern references designs found in pottery created by ancestors of the Caddo Nation. The name of the design, Above & Below, recognizes that the Caddo are still here today, above and below the ground.

FREE: No tickets required.