The Amon Carter Museum of American Art (the Carter) recently announced a partnership as big as the state of Texas.
With a grant of more than $250,000 from the Art Bridges Foundation, the Fort Worth museum is partnering with three Texas museums to bring a series of special exhibitions drawn in part from the Carter’s collection to every corner of the Lone Star State.
The new partnership is part of the nationwide Art Bridges Cohort Program, a program that supports multi-year exhibition partnerships among museums nationwide. For each cohort, an organizing museum and its regional partners collaborate to create exhibitions that inspire and deepen engagement with local audiences. The program builds on the mission of the Art Bridges Foundation, a foundation inspired by the vision of philanthropist and arts patron Alice Walton and dedicated to expanding access to American art in all regions across the United States.
The Carter’s cohort partners are Amarillo Museum of Art in Amarillo, the Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi, and the Ellen Noël Art Museum in Odessa. Over the next several years, each partner will present exhibitions that reframe and broaden traditional ideas about American art. This partnership is centered on sharing collections and museum resources to establish a new model for accessible and inclusive community engagement. The exhibitions are the result of a multiyear-long exchange and collaboration among the staff of the institutions.
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“Expanding access through collaboration and collection-sharing is at the heart of the Art Bridges Cohort Program, and we’re delighted to have the Amon Carter Museum of American Art leading a cohort with museums across Texas. Countless visitors will be introduced to the Carter’s collections through these exhibitions, and we’re confident the program will deepen engagement with their communities. We are proud to support this new Art Bridges Texas Cohort and we are eager to see the inspiring exhibitions and programs come to life,” said Paul R. Provost, Art Bridges Foundation CEO.
Native Impressions: In Our Own Words, will be the Texas cohort’s inaugural exhibition. The exhibition features a portfolio of 26 vibrantly colored printed portraits by artists Daniel Heyman (b. 1963) and Lucy Ganje (b. 1949). These two artists collaborated in portraying present-day members of the North Dakota Indian Nations, including those around Standing Rock. Heyman traveled to North Dakota in the summer of 2015 to begin work with Ganje on a project that chronicles the stories of individuals who live within the state's various nations.
The Scene
The artists combined portraits and text from a range of people in the communities they visited including a former marine, two university presidents, and a grieving mother, among others. The exhibition features each sitter’s personal oral history in his or her own words, as told to the artist while sitting for a portrait, giving voice to those historically denied a voice. Recurring motifs include climate, energy, and the legacy of boarding schools to which elder relatives were sent during forced assimilation.
Native Impressions will be on view from April 21 through August 6 at the Art Museum of South Texas. The exhibition will then travel to the Amarillo Museum of Art where it will be on view from Dec. 16, 2023, through March 17, 2024. Ellen Noël Art Museum will host the exhibition following its re-opening in 2024.
Dates are subject to change. Visitors are encouraged to visit the websites of each partner institution for the most up-to-date exhibition information.
The second exhibition centers on one of the Carter’s great strengths: photography. Slated for winter - fall 2024, Photography Is Art tells the story of American photographers’ efforts, from the late 19th century on, to explore and proclaim photography’s artfulness. The exhibition features a selection of work from the Carter’s expansive and renowned photography collection, revealing how artists shaped their medium’s artistic language.
With this cohort partnership, the Carter isn’t just sharing its collection beyond the walls of the museum. It’s sharing art beyond the borders of Fort Worth.
Learn more: Amon Carter Museum of American Art
