2018 Excellence in Exhibitions Awards Announced

The Office of the Under Secretary for Finance and Administration and the Office of the Provost have announced the winners of the 2018 Smithsonian Excellence in Exhibitions award, a new awards program that began in January 2017.  This award recognizes outstanding work in the field of exhibitions and acknowledges the dedication and creativity of exhibition staff throughout the Institution.

The Excellence committee was delighted to see that submissions represented the full array of Smithsonian disciplines—science, humanities, art and culture—and included both larger and smaller units. Overall, the judges were impressed with the depth, sophistication and dedication to audience engagement demonstrated by all submitting teams.

Award for Exhibition Excellence

The 2018 Smithsonian Award for Exhibition Excellence is awarded to the National Museum of the American Indian for Americans. The project team will receive $5000 in recognition of its exemplary work.

American Indian images, names, and stories infuse American history and contemporary life.

The images are everywhere, from the Land O’Lakes butter maiden to the Cleveland Indians’ mascot, and from classic Westerns and cartoons to episodes of Seinfeld and South Park. American Indian names are everywhere too, from state, city, and street names to the Tomahawk missile. And the familiar historical events of Pocahontas’s life, the Trail of Tears, and the Battle of Little Bighorn remain popular reference points in everyday conversations.

Images of Native Americans ossified in kitsch awaken complicated, living truths. (Courtesy National Museum of the American Indian)

Americans highlights the ways in which American Indians have been part of the nation’s identity since before the country began. It will surround visitors with images, delve into the three stories, and invite them to begin a conversation about why this phenomenon exists.

Pervasive, powerful, at times demeaning, the images, names, and stories reveal the deep connection between Americans and American Indians as well as how Indians have been embedded in unexpected ways in the history, pop culture, and identity of the United States.

Special Achievement Award

The Special Achievement Award goes to the National Portrait Gallery for Black Out: Silhouettes Then and Now. The project team will receive $3000 for its work.

George Washington Whistler and Lady Whistler Haden by Auguste Edouart, 1842. National Portrait Gallery, gift of Robert L. McNeil, Jr.

Silhouettes—cut paper profiles—were a hugely popular and democratic form of portraiture in the 19th century, offering virtually instantaneous likenesses of everyone from presidents to those who were enslaved. The exhibition Black Out: Silhouettes Then and Now explores this relatively unstudied art form by examining its rich historical roots and considering its forceful contemporary presence. The show features works from the Portrait Gallery’s extensive collection of silhouettes, such as those by Auguste Edouart, who captured the likenesses of such notable figures as John Quincy Adams and Lydia Maria Child, and at the same time, the exhibition reveals how contemporary artists are reimagining silhouettes in bold and unforgettable ways.

Honorable Mention

Two teams will receive Honorable Mention: the Freer|Sackler Galleries for Encountering the Buddha: Art and Practice across Asia and the Smithsonian American Art Museum/Renwick Gallery for No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man. Each team will receive $1500 in recognition of its fine work.

Buddhism—and the art it inspired—helped shape the cultures of Asia. Today, its extraordinary art is a source of beauty and contemplation for audiences across the world.

Encountering the Buddha brings together more than two hundred artworks, spanning two millennia, to explore Asia’s rich Buddhist heritage. They represent diverse schools that arose from the Buddha’s teachings.

Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room, from the Alice S. Kendall Collection, courtesy the Freer and Sackler Galleries.

Each year in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, a city of more than 70,000 people rises out of the dust for a single week. During that time, enormous experimental art installations are erected and many are ritually burned to the ground. The thriving temporary metropolis known as Burning Man is a hotbed of artistic ingenuity, driving innovation through its principles of radical self-expression, decommodification, communal participation, and reverence for the handmade. Both a cultural movement and an annual event, Burning Man remains one of the most influential phenomenons in contemporary American art and culture.

No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man brought the large-scale, participatory work from this desert gathering to the nation’s capital for the first time.

No Spectators, The Art of Burining Man at the Renwick Gallery (Photo by Ron Blunt)

Award winners will be recognized at a ceremony at NMAI in early April. Stay tuned for details!Please congratulate your colleagues!

2019 Awards

The 2019 Awards program is now open and ready to accept applications. Please consider submitting exhibitions from your unit for the 2019 award program.Submissions will be accepted on a rolling basis throughout the calendar year.  Winners will be announced in Spring 2020.

Guidelines and application forms are available on the Award tab at exhibits.si.edu.
You can also find the application at the SharePoint site:
https://collab.si.edu/sites/SI/ExhAward/Pages/default.aspx

This program is being coordinated by Smithsonian Exhibits and PEEPS (Promoting Excellence among Exhibit Professionals at the Smithsonian), with funds awarded through the Office of the Under Secretary for Finance and Administration and the Office of the Provost. For questions about this program, please email Julia Garcia at ExhibitAward@si.edu.

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