What is the state of American art?

The Colby College Museum of Art’s Lunder Institute for American Art has invited six prominent art institutions across the nation to partner to respond to this question as part of its new initiative, Lunder Institute @. 

Starting in February, the de Young Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco will host the first Lunder Institute @, followed by the Broad Museum in Los Angeles, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas, the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy, Andover, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and, finally, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.

Each institution was asked to respond to the question of the state of American art by having internal conversations across departments and sharing what emerged from these through a public program. This initiative offers space and time to institutions to consider, discuss, and innovatively respond to some of the pressing issues, opportunities, and challenges within the field of American art in relation to their own institution, collection, and location within the United States. Importantly, this work also fosters necessary dialogue within and between institutions. 

Practice and methodology are core interests to the Lunder Institute, and that interest extends beyond individuals—artists, scholars, curators, etc.—within the field of American art; it also extends to institutional practices. As a think tank for the field, and part of a leading academic art museum, the Lunder Institute seeks to provide opportunities and resources for institutions to engage with questions related to American art. A primary goal of this initiative is to promote transparency in the field of American art, beyond public-facing exhibitions and scholarship, and to extend that process across each organization, and share a product of that engagement with the public. 

These convenings will promote discourse in an open and fertile space leading toward innovation, new areas of exploration, and possible answers to questions that continue to arise around what American art is and what impacts its production, its scholarship, and its research.

The schedule for each of the six remote Lunder Institute @ programs is: Lunder Institute @ the de Young Museum, San Francisco, February 10, 2024; Lunder Institute @ The Broad, Los Angeles, March 2, 2024; Lunder Institute @ Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, March 7, 2024; Lunder Institute @ the Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts, April 7, 2024; Lunder Institute @ Museum of Fine Arts Boston, May 23, 2024; and Lunder Institute @ the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, in September of 2024 (date to be determined).