Past Exhibitions | Smithsonian Institution

Time Magazine: Person of the Year at 75

Bring to life the dynamic assembly of history and individuals in this exhibition of Time's Person of the Year.

July 3, 2002 – September 5, 2002

Chicano Visions: American Painters on the Verge

See some 70 works by more than 20 Chicano artists -- from several private and museum collections -- that reflect the depth and multifaceted nature of the country's fastest-growing community.

May 2, 2002 – September 3, 2002

Arts and Industries Building

Kaho'olawe: Rebirth of a Sacred Hawaiian Island

Explore the culture, spiritual practices, and political aspirations of Native Hawaiians by focusing on the history of the Hawaiian Island of Kaho'olawe.

June 5, 2002 – September 2, 2002

Arts and Industries Building

The Silk Road Ensemble: Portraits and Places

See approximately 10 photographic panels that highlight Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, an international group of young musicians.

June 19, 2002 – July 11, 2002

Arts and Industries Building

New York, September 11 by Magnum Photographers

View photographs by legendary Magnum photographers that document the events of September 11, 2001.

May 3, 2002 – June 30, 2002

Arts and Industries Building

Heart and Hands: Musical Instrument Makers of America

View approximately 90 large, color, digital photographs by Jake Jacobson depicting more than 250 craftspeople constructing, displaying, and playing a variety of musical instruments.

March 7, 2002 – April 24, 2002

Arts and Industries Building

The Smithson Land Express

Watch two electric trains, with engines modeled after those in the American History Museum's collection, travel on separate tracks over bridges and through tunnels in an imaginary place called Smithson Land.

November 15, 2001 – April 21, 2002

Arts and Industries Building

Corridos sin Fronteras: A New World Ballad Tradition

Explore the historical development of the corrido (ballad) in the New World over the past 200 years in this bilingual exhibition of vintage and modern recordings, broadsides, photographs, posters, musical instruments, and other memorabilia.

February 14, 2002 – April 17, 2002

Arts and Industries Building

Cherokee Nation: A Portrait of a People

See 55 images by photographer David Fitzgerald that offer insight into contemporary daily Cherokee life in Oklahoma.

October 26, 2001 – April 9, 2002

Arts and Industries Building

Margaret Mead: A Portrait

View 44 photographs of the world-famous anthropologist Margaret Mead by photographer Ken Heyman, taken between 1957 and 1976.

February 5, 2002 – February 28, 2002

Arts and Industries Building

Silent Screens: The Decline and Transformation of the American Movie Theater

View photographs by Michael Putnam of abandoned single-screen movie theaters that punctuated small-town America's main streets and city neighborhoods since the 1920s but are now nearly gone.

November 21, 2001 – January 31, 2002

Arts and Industries Building

Brain: The World Inside Your Head

Visit a child-friendly, interactive exhibition that explores the basic workings of the brain and reveals brain function from neurons and synapses to electricity and chemistry.

July 14, 2001 – January 6, 2002

Arts and Industries Building

Game Face: What Does a Female Athlete Look Like?

Photographs and text are used to trace the evolution of women's athleticism before and after Title IX.

June 27, 2001 – January 2, 2002

Arts and Industries Building

Young Americanos: Photographic Visions of Our Community

See photographs taken by children from 5 major U.S. cities that offer a special perspective on the Latino community.

September 21, 2001 – November 15, 2001

Arts and Industries Building

On Gold Mountain: A Chinese American Experience

Relating history from a personal dimension, this exhibition tells the story of 6 generations of a Chinese American family in Los Angeles from 1867 to the present.

May 18, 2001 – September 30, 2001

Arts and Industries Building

Fly to Freedom: The Art of the Golden Venture Refugees

The exhibition tells the story of the incarcerated refugees of the ship Golden Venture and features 25 of the 10,000 of folded-paper and paper-mache artworks the prisoners made during their incarceration.

June 8, 2001 – September 30, 2001

Arts and Industries Building

Gateway to Gold Mountain

See 5 photomural vignettes, photographs, and a video used to chronicle the immigration experience of more than 175,000 Chinese immigrants who came to America between 1910 and 1940.

July 9, 2001 – August 27, 2001

Arts and Industries Building

Star Wars: Art of the Starfighter

On view is the full-scale, 34-foot, yellow and chrome Naboo starfighter model used in the making of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

April 28, 2001 – June 24, 2001

Arts and Industries Building

Madam on the Mall

This case discusses the archaeological findings on the site of the American Indian Museum.

mid-January 2001 – May 28, 2001

Arts and Industries Building

After the Splendor: The Art of the Last Romanov Grand Duchess of Russia

Visit a case featuring art by Olga Alexandrovna, the sister of Czar Nicholas II.

Mid-January 2001 – May 28, 2001

Arts and Industries Building

The Smithsonian at the Turn of the (20th) Century

Explore the Smithsonian Institution in 1900 when it consisted of the SI Building, the United States National Museum (now the Arts & Industries Building), the National Zoological Park, and the International Exchange Service.

January 11, 2001 – April 18, 2001

Arts and Industries Building

Santos: Substance and Soul

Explore the history of 40 Santos --painted wood carvings of saints -- which can be traced in Hispanic communities back to the 16th century.

September 17, 2000 – March 31, 2001

Arts and Industries Building

Exploring Garden Transformations, 1900-2000

See photographs, garden benches, and urns that document how 5 gardens appeared at the beginning and the end of the 1900s and how they evolved over time.

September 30, 2000 – January 8, 2001

Arts and Industries Building

The Chautauqua Idea

See photographs, paintings, and artifacts that demonstrate the contribution to American cultural history of the Chautauqua Institution, founded in 1874.

October 17, 2000 – November 14, 2000

Arts and Industries Building

Gifts from the Desert

View 34 paintings of wildlife of the Saudi Arabian desert by Northern Ireland wildlife artist Julian Friers.

September 28, 2000 – October 11, 2000

Arts and Industries Building