Past Exhibitions
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- Reverend Albert Lee Wagner: Miracle At Midnight
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July 1, 2017 - September 6, 2020
3rd floor gallery, Zanvyl A. Krieger Main Building
This first national retrospective celebrates one of America's most prominent visionary artists. Artist Reverend Wagner and his autobiographical art provides rich visual testimony to a life begun amidst dire poverty to sharecroppers in the South, to his final attainment of spiritual peace, filled with a love for all humanity. Curated from 50+ Wagner masterpieces gifted to the museum by Gene and Linda Kangas, this show will also include two of Reverend Wagner's largest works, donated to AVAM's permanent collection ten years ago by Pat Handal.
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- Parenting: An Art without a Manual
- October 6, 2018 – September 1, 2019
Main BuildingAn exhibition that focuses on what might be humanity's most essential performance art — the intuitive, transformative, and complex art of parenting. AVAM's exhibition showcases works by 36 artists, created out of every conceivable medium, to best express their own personal life experience of parenting and being parented — be it good, bad, horrific, and/or sublime, alongside revelations from the latest scientific research, globally sourced wisdoms, and fun.
- The Great Mystery Show
- October 7, 2017 – September 2, 2018
Main BuildingFrom psychics to physicists, The Great Mystery Show artfully peels away the veil of the unknown, playfully exploring mystery as that one secret power behind great art, science, and pursuit of the sacred.
- Yummm! The History, Fantasy and Future of Food
- October 8, 2016 - September 3, 2017
1st and 3rd Floors, Main BuildingInside Yummm! 34 visionary artists join forces with food scientists, farmers, nutritionists, environmental activists, psychologists, poets and humorists to publicly explore humankind's complex, multi-layered relationship with food. As George Bernard Shaw wryly observed, "There is no love more sincere than love of food."
- MATT SESOW: Shock and Awe
- May 27, 2016 - May 28, 2017
3rd Floor, Main BuildingAn all-new original art exhibition of Washington, D.C.-based self-taught artist Matt Sesow's "raw, visceral, good to the bone" paintings. Among the original 150 plus works on display, visitors will witness Sesow's salute to the first 100 American soldiers killed in the Iraq War, his fantastical depictions of animals and birds, personalized tributes to great humanitarians, his own autobiographical paintings, and an illustrated "Key" to the artist's repeated personal language icons.
- The Big Hope Show
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October 3, 2015 - September 4, 2016
2nd Floor, Main BuildingThe Big Hope Show opens on the eve of the American Visionary Art Museum's 20th anniversary celebration and is an original and unabashedly idealistic, art exhibition that champions the radiant and transformative power of hope. Over twenty-five visionary artists, among them many "super survivors" of enormous personal traumas, exhibit soulful creations reflecting their personal transcendence, and often, a heightened or newfound creativity and sense of humor.
- The Visionary Experience: Saint Francis to Finster
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October 4, 2014 – August 30, 2015
AVAM's 20th original exhibition champions life's grand "Aha!" and "Eureka!" moments, held in common by Earth's most dynamic and intuitive "evolutionaries:" inventors, scientists, America's founding fathers, dreamers and saints; each touched by some lightening bolt of greater understanding, insight, grace and muse.
- Special exhibit of Heaven's Carousel by Tim Otto Roth
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April 24 – May 2, 2015 • Outside in AVAM's JRVC plaza
In celebration of The Hubble Space Telescope's 25th Anniversary, a special light and sound installation created by German artist and composer Tim Otto Roth was installed in AVAM's Jim Rouse Visionary Center plaza. The installation, titled Heaven's Carousel, links together the fields of art, music and astronomy. This special temporary exhibition ran from April 24 thru May 2, 2015, and was a public event in partnership with the Space Telescope Science Institute and The Hubble's 25th Anniversary public events.
- Donald Pass: The Hope We Seek
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February 28, 2014 – March 1, 2015
American Visionary Art Museum's celebration of the late British visionary artist's ethereal spirit paintings, inspired by his own life-changing glimpse into the afterworld. Donald Pass (1930–2010) was a well-known painter of lyrical abstract landscapes until the late 1960s when he experienced a series of spiritual visions of the Resurrection that radically and forever changed his view of reality, and subsequently, his artwork.
- Human, Soul & Machine: The Coming Singularity!
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October 5, 2013 – August 31, 2014
This stirring show harnesses the enchanting visual delights of remarkable visionary artists and their masterworks. Among them: Kenny Irwin Jr.'s Robotmas; a selection of Alex Grey's Sacred Mirrors; O.L. Samuels' 7-ft tall Godzillai; Rigo 23's delicate anti-drone drawings; Allen Christian's life-sized Piano Family—a love song to string theory; Fred Carter's massive wooden carvings—created as a warning of destruction from industry's manipulation of nature; and much more!
- Frank Bruno: A Life Devoted to
THE END. -
July 9, 2013 – February 2, 2014
A hot hellfire and damnation exhibition featuring 14 masterworks created over the last five decades by visionary true believer Frank Bruno, with mind-blowing attention to detail. An apocalyptic painter and fierce social critic, Frank Bruno's work and thinking have been fueled by his study of Messianic and end of the world books and preaching.
- Gretchen Feldman: Love Letter to Earth (1934-2008)
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April 2012 – June 2013
This luminous retrospective of 40+ vivid paintings exalt the exquisite, eternal themes of "Perfect Unions:" where land meets sea, day embraces night, sky kisses earth – opposites inherent to life's sacred cycle of union and touch. Among Feldman's bright, abstract works are vibrant, colorful landscapes and scenes depicting idyllic country life, contrasted with an artful examination of cancer cells which cut short the artist's most loving and happy life.
- THE ART OF STORYTELLING: Lies, Enchantment, Humor & Truth
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October 6, 2012 – September 1, 2013
From scripture to fairy tale, cartoons to cyberbullying, the raw power of stories to inspire and enchant, spread lies or to inform, simply has no equal. THE ART OF STORYTELLING: Lies, Enchantment, Humor & Truth is the American Visionary Art Museum's brand-new, supremely original exhibition featuring embroidery, diorama, sculpture, film, graffiti, and PostSecret confession—promoting all manner of acute 'visual listening' and delight for the whole family.