Future Minded: New Works in the Collection

Examine the museums’ recent acquisitions, spanning centuries and media.

Future Minded highlights a selection of works acquired in recent years that exemplify the Harvard Art Museums’ collecting vision and strategies. Nearly all are on display for the first time.

The museums are committed to acquiring art that expands the range of artists and cultures represented in the collections; that moves museum practice toward more nuanced understanding of both histories and contemporary issues; and that pushes boundaries and embraces experimentation. Many of the works on view are by living artists, an area of focused growth for the museums.

Staged across two adjacent galleries, the exhibition presents a range of drawings, photographs, prints, paintings, and sculptures spanning centuries and continents. The works are by roughly 30 artists, including Jean (Hans) Arp, Edward Mitchell Bannister, Willie Cole, Pietro Damini, Svenja Deininger, Jeffrey Gibson, Baldwin Lee, Ana Mendieta, Lucia Moholy, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Noriko Saitō, Melissa Shook, Jane Yang-D’Haene, and many others.

Organized by Soyoung Lee, Landon and Lavinia Clay Chief Curator; with Jackson Davidow, John R. and Barbara Robinson Family Curatorial Fellow in Photography, and through close consultation with and contributions from curators and fellows across divisions and conservators in the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies.

Funding for Future Minded: New Works in the Collection is provided by the Melvin R. Seiden and Janine Luke Fund for Publications and Exhibitions. Related programming is supported by the M. Victor Leventritt Lecture Series Endowment Fund. Modern and contemporary art programs at the Harvard Art Museums are made possible in part by generous support from the Emily Rauh Pulitzer and Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., Fund for Modern and Contemporary Art. Acquisition of each work in our collection is made possible thanks to our supporters, past and present.