Past Exhibitions | Smithsonian Institution

My Iran: Six Women Photographers

The artists featured in My Iran: Six Women Photographers explore the complexities of life within and outside their home country.

August 10, 2019 – February 9, 2020

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Empresses of China's Forbidden City, 1644-1912

The lives of the Qing dynasty empresses offer a compelling tale of opulence and influence as told in this first-ever, in-depth exhibition of the subject.

March 30, 2019 – June 23, 2019

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Subodh Gupta

The Freer|Sackler features the artist’s monumental installation Terminal.

October 14, 2017 – February 3, 2019

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Japan Modern: Prints in the Age of Photography

From the collapse of the traditional woodblock-printing industry to the medium’s resurrection as an art form, this exhibition explores Japanese artists’ reactions to modernity in the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries.

September 29, 2018 – January 24, 2019

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Japan Modern: Photography from the Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck Collection

Celebrating the Freer|Sackler’s recent acquisition of a major Japanese photography collection, this exhibition features iconic works dating from the 1920s to the 1980s.

September 29, 2018 – January 24, 2019

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

The Prince and the Shah: Royal Portraits from Qajar Iran

Through a selection of about thirty works from the Freer and Sackler collections, this exhibition explores how Persian artists transformed modes of representing royalty and nobility.

February 24, 2018 – August 5, 2018

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

To Dye For: Ikats from Central Asia

Thirty of the finest historical Central Asian ikat hangings and coats from the Freer|Sackler collections, donated by Guido Goldman, as well as seven of Oscar de la Renta’s iconic creations are on view.

March 24, 2018 – July 29, 2018

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Secrets of the Lacquer Buddha

Secrets of the Lacquer Buddha unites the only sixth- and seventh-century, life-size Chinese lacquer buddha sculptures known: one from the Walters Art Museum, one from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and one from the Freer Gallery of Art.

December 9, 2017 – June 10, 2018

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Divine Felines: Cats of Ancient Egypt

Dating from the Middle Kingdom to the Byzantine period, the nearly 70 works include statues, amulets and other luxury items decorated with feline features, which enjoyed special status among Egyptians. The exhibition also dedicates a small section to cats’ canine counterparts.

October 14, 2017 – January 15, 2018

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Sculpture of South Asia and the Himalayas

Several centuries of sculptures from South India are on view.

November 26, 1992 – July 9, 2017

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

The Glazed Elephant: Ceramic Traditions in Cambodia

The Glazed Elephant explores these unconventional forms, their supposed functions, and the people who made and used them during this famous period in Cambodia’s history.

April 15, 2017 – July 9, 2017

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Perspectives: Michael Joo

Inspired by the migration patterns of Korean red-crowned cranes, Brooklyn-based artist Michael Joo has created a monumental installation visualizing the bird's movements as lines in space.

July 2, 2016 – July 9, 2017

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Inventing Utamaro: A Japanese Masterpiece Rediscovered

For the first time in nearly 140 years, Snow at Fukagawa, Moon at Shinagawa, and Cherry Blossoms at Yoshiwara, reunite in Inventing Utamaro.

April 8, 2017 – July 9, 2017

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Body of Devotion: The Cosmic Buddha in 3D

Like all Buddhas (fully enlightened beings), the Cosmic Buddha, a life-size limestone figure of Vairochana, is wrapped in the simple robe of a monk. Body of Devotion is an interactive installation that explores not only the work itself, but also the evolving means and methods of studying sculpture, from rubbings and photographs to the technological possibilities of today.

January 30, 2016 – July 9, 2017

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Chinamania

Contemporary artist Walter McConnell interrogates the nineteenth century craze for Chinese blue-and-white ceramics through his reinstallation of Kangxi porcelains similar to those originally displayed in the Peacock Room.

July 9, 2016 – June 4, 2017

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Peacock Room REMIX: Darren Waterston's Filthy Lucre

Filthy Lucre, an immersive interior by painter Darren Waterston, reinterprets the James McNeill Whistler’s famed Peacock Room as a resplendent ruin.

May 16, 2015 – June 4, 2017

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Kung Fu Wildstyle

This month-long exhibition and program series highlights connections between African American and East Asian art, music, and film.

April 1, 2017 – April 30, 2017

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

The Art of the Qur'an: Treasures from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts

Almost seventy sumptuous manuscripts are featured in The Art of the Qur’an, the first major presentation of Qur’ans in the United States.

October 22, 2016 – February 20, 2017

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Red: Ming Dynasty/Mark Rothko

Created more than five centuries apart, an imperial Chinese porcelain dish and a painting by Mark Rothko—unexpectedly brought together in visual dialogue—reveal the immensity of the color red.

September 3, 2016 – February 20, 2017

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Notes from the Desert: Photographs by Gauri Gill

Since the late 1990s, Gauri Gill has been photographing marginalized communities in western Rajasthan, India. Featuring nearly sixty of her prints, this exhibition showcases Gill's work in the remote desert region.

September 17, 2016 – February 12, 2017

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Symbolic Cities: The Work of Ahmed Mater

Born in 1979 in southern Saudi Arabia and trained as a medical doctor, Ahmed Mater has been a practicing artist since the early 1990s, creating works that offer an unparalleled perspective on contemporary Saudi Arabia.

March 19, 2016 – September 18, 2016

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Heart of an Empire: Herzfeld's Discovery of Pasargadae

Pasargadae was the first capital of the ancient Achaemenid Persian Empire (circa 540 BCE) and the last resting place of Cyrus the Great. Featuring selections from the Freer|Sackler Archives’ rich holdings of Ernst Herzfeld’s drawings, notes, and photographs, this exhibition illuminates one of the most important sites of the ancient world.

February 13, 2016 – July 31, 2016

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Painting with Words: Gentleman Artists of the Ming Dynasty

Poetry, painting, and calligraphy: Known as the “Three Perfections,” these genres were regarded as the ultimate expressions of Chinese literati culture during the Ming dynasty (1369–1644). Painting with Words celebrates Wu School works, examining the relationship between their imagery, brushstrokes, and, especially, words.

April 16, 2016 – July 24, 2016

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Vietnam's Ceramics: Depth and Diversity

The twenty-three works in this exhibition reflect the wide variety of form and decoration in vessels for cooking, dining, storage, transport, and ritual. Vietnamese ceramics have been traded across Southeast Asia and to West Asia and Japan since the fourteenth century.

July 11, 2015 – June 10, 2016

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Perspectives: Lara Baladi

Egyptian-Lebanese artist Lara Baladi (born 1969) experiments with the photographic medium, investigating its history and its role in shaping perceptions of the Middle East—particularly Egypt, where she is based.

August 29, 2015 – June 5, 2016

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery