A histolircal exhibit tells a story through objects, graphics, images and re-created spaces. It is a unique medium for communicating history to the public, a form of visual poetry and imagination that is not constrained by the limitations of a written essay or textbook. Historians can use exhibitions to communicate cultural debates, research results and socio-political messages. These exhibitions are often more complex than art exhibitions and may include interpretive graphics that explain scientific and historical subjects.
This exhibition explored the many ways in which people, past and present, have decorated their bodies. It featured more than 600 objects and images from the Museum’s collections and from private and public collections in the United States and abroad. Sculptures, paintings, photographs, dioramas and interactive displays explained the importance of body art to human culture and compared its significance with other forms of art.
While the majority of the objects in this exhibition were from the Museum’s collections, staff members at other museums contributed to the exhibition by loaning objects and drafting labels. It was a co-production with the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
A re-created cabin that was the home of a renowned 19th century Alaskan Eskimo artist was the focal point of this exhibition. Five small prehistoric ivory carvings from the Museum collections were included to show the continuity of artistic tradition in the Arctic region. The exhibit also showed how the Ipiutak people of northeastern Alaska adapted and modified the European artistic traditions they encountered to create their own.
The Museum’s permanent collection is a testament to the richness and diversity of American history. The Museum brought together a wide range of artifacts and documents to explore the many ways Americans have assigned cultural meaning to money. The exhibition examined a variety of themes including patriotism, race and class, and included a large number of objects that illustrate the changing roles of banks, government, soldiers and citizens in modern society.
In addition to the Museum’s Civil War collection, this exhibition drew on the holdings of the Richmond Museum of Fine Arts and the Virginia Historical Society for its display of objects associated with General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. The exhibit included the uniform coat and sword that Lee wore to surrender, as well as 400 other artifacts.
The Museum’s first comprehensive social history exhibition explored the antebellum lives of artisans, yeoman farmers, planter aristocrats, merchants and manufacturers, slaves and free blacks, and soldiers. Designed to include many of the Museum’s most extraordinary objects, the exhibit gained national attention and received an award from the American Library Association for its companion book. The Museum also produced a semi-permanent version of the exhibition with new content and an updated title, Sun Up to Sun Down: African-American Daily Life, 1860-1865.