Spring Break Hours (3/18–3/22)

Amherst College's Spring Break will be from March 18th to March 22nd this year. The Mead will close at 5pm that Thursday, March 21st, but otherwise keep normal hours.  

On View Now:

Pathways, 2023 by Sierra Henries

Boundless

February 27 - July 7, 2024

The second iteration of Boundless roots itself in the shared aesthetics, intellectual, and spiritual traditions that connect Indigenous peoples from across the globe. 

Trópico es Político: Caribbean Art Under the Visitor Economy Regime

Jan 26 - May 5, 2024 

Trópico es Político: Caribbean Art Under the Visitor Economy Regime is a group exhibition that considers notions of natural and fiscal paradise through the work of artists living in the Caribbean and its diaspora. 

A figure with a leopard mask and an orange vest walks through a field with evergreen trees in the background

Like a Slow Walk with Trees: Alicia Grullón

Jan 26 - June 23*, 2024 

Like a Slow Walk with Trees is a meditation on land and labor by Alicia Grullón. The body, the banner, photography, and video with text are employed as part of her artistic practice, which centers activism. *Closed May 3-24

Black Art Matters: Visual Art Showcase 2024

The seventh iteration of the annual festival celebrating the creative accomplishments of student artists. On view February 27th to July 7th, 2024. 

Rotherwas Room

The Rotherwas Room, (built England, 1611) is always on view at the Mead, and open as a study spot, an area for classes visiting the museum to convene, and available to community partners upon request. 

Contact MeadEdu@amherst.edu for more information.

Upcoming Exhibitions

The Juncture: Ukrainian Artists in Search of Modernity and Identity

May 24 - October 13, 2024

This exhibition showcases the work of three leading modern artists from Ukraine who produced work during an astonishing period of the country’s cultural renaissance in the early twentieth century.

Past Exhibitions

Back cover of a birch bark book with woven dyed porcupine quills in the shape of a wreath with a heart in the center.

Boundless

Boundless is a nearly museum-wide exhibition that features work by Native American writers and artists, grounded in but not contained to the Northeast. On view August 29, 2023-January 7, 2024.

Architectural Ghosts

This exhibition features objects from antiquity to the 21st century that examine what it means to be in ruin, as a material state and theoretical concept, each with ethical and political dimensions. On view January 31–June 25, 2023. 

A pile of candies with blue plastic wrappers heaped into a corner formed by black walls.

“Untitled” (Blue Placebo)

Felix Gonzalez-Torres left flexible guidelines for the installation of his candy works.  While at the Mead, “Untitled” (Blue Placebo) will change locations and take new shape. On view January 31–July 9, 2023. 

Black and white photograph of James Baldwin dancing the “hitchhike” with a CORE worker.

God Made My Face: A Collective Portrait of James Baldwin

This group exhibition is a special iteration of God Made My Face, organized by Hilton Als. On view February 24–July 9, 2023. 

detailed oil painting of a cell

Black Art Matters

The Sixth Annual Black Art Matters Festival is a student-led celebration highlighting Amherst's Black students' work and artistic achievement. On view from March 7 – June 25, 2023. 

Virtual tours of Past Exhibitions

 A silhouette figurine in a dress is set on a red background. It casts a shadow, and its arms are bent upward at the elbow.

Liliana Porter: Two Realities

This exhibition foregrounds Argentinian-born, U.S.-based artist Liliana Porter’s decades-long consideration of “two realities”— “virtual reality” (a depiction of a thing) and the “real thing.”

Painting of a woman pictured from behind, looking over her right shoulder. Her right hand rests on her hip. She has dark brown skin & wears a blue sundress and red headscarf. People, trees, & bright blue sky are visible in the background

The Living Room

The exhibition is curated by DeLyna Hadgu, a senior and Advanced Student Museum Educator at Amherst College in collaboration with the Black Art Matters Festival. The show explores how Black artists represent Black subjects.

Painting of a seascape, featuring a ship in a body water, which runs between rock formations on each each side of the image.

Founding Narratives

Presenting artworks produced in the United States between 1800 and today that offer opportunities to consider the role of art in creating, reinforcing, and challenging stories about national identity. On view through July 18, 2021.

George Benjamin Luks (American (1866/67-1933). Child Eating. Oil on canvas. Mead Art Museum. Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Edward F. Babbott (Class of 1945).

Embodied Taste

Join students in a conversation on food, culture, art, and power, culminating in an exhibition at the Mead Art Museum.