Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts
American Academy of Arts and Letters

March 12 – May 22, 2022

The Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts is an annual event for members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters to honor contemporary artists who they believe are making some of today’s most important and timely work.

The Invitational is an exhibition without a theme or a single author, and yet, certain tendencies emerge in this year’s installment. In many cases, the finished works destabilize, even disregard, old disciplinary questions rooted in hierarchy—is it a painting or a sculpture; art or craft? Instead, they opt for plenitude, for and, and, and. Objects in the exhibition extend the art historical archive to include artifacts of incarceration, migration, and climate emergency. They heighten our attention to color and scale. Artists employ a range of techniques: marbling, weaving, glazing, animation, found-object manipulation, collage, dark-room processing, and more, often in “wrong” or unconventional ways. We witness art’s capacity for surprise, and the enduring pleasure of material experimentation.

Artists included in the exhibition:
Candida Alvarez, Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio, Andrea Belag, Ellen Berkenblit, Kerstin Brätsch, Cynthia Daignault, Carl D’Alvia, Thomas Eggerer, Hadi Fallahpisheh, Keltie Ferris, Judy Fox, Joanne Greenbaum, Rachel Harrison, Anna Sew Hoy, Tishan Hsu, Jacqueline Humphries, Suzanne Jackson, Tomashi Jackson, Elisabeth Kley, Pam Lins, Rodney McMillian, Laura Newman, Janice Nowinski, Eileen Quinlan, Matt Saunders, Arlene Shechet, Arthur Simms, Michael Smith, Shinique Smith, Martine Syms, Kennedy Yanko

To learn more, please visit American Academy of Arts and Letters website.