Installation Art Archives

Los Angeles Art Shows- Todd Gray at Perrotin and LACMA

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, California Art Shows, Installation Art, Los Angeles Art Shows, New York Art Shows, Photographers / Photography

Apr 212026

Todd Gray, “The Song Remains (assumptions about the nature of time)”, 2024, Two UV pigment prints on Dibond, artist’s frames

In LA-based artist Todd Gray’s The Song Remains (assumptions about the nature of time), two images, one of Iggy Pop and the other of a statue in Italy, merge both visually and conceptually. It was on view as part of While Angels Gaze, his exhibition at Lehmann Maupin in NYC in 2025.

About the work from the gallery-

In The Song Remains (assumptions about the nature of time) (2024)—one of the exhibition’s smallest works, composed of just two panels—Gray depicts Iggy Pop in black and white, his image overlaid against a statue from Villa Torlonia of a figure holding a pan flute. The gesture of the statue’s outstretched arm on the left is mirrored in Iggy’s raised hand on the right, connecting the two figures across time as if by an invisible thread. The image suggests an enduring human archetype, different and yet unchanged over the course of many centuries, and invites wider questions about the essence of human nature.

Gray’s latest solo exhibition, Portals, is currently on view in Perrotin‘s new Los Angeles gallery through until 5/30/26. His commissioned piece, Octavia’s Gaze, was installed last year at LACMA in the new David Geffen Galleries, which are opening to the general public in May (they are currently open to members only).

Flashback- Los Angeles Art Shows- Noah Davis at MOCA and the Underground Museum

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, California Art Shows, Installation Art, Los Angeles Art Shows, Sculptors / Sculpture

Apr 172026

Today’s flashback is to Noah Davis‘s Imitation of Wealth installation which was shown in MOCA’s storefront space in 2015. Sadly, Davis passed away before it opened.

Some of these works are currently on view as part of his gorgeous retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

From MOCA’s website about the installation-

One of the unique characteristics of the contemporary art scene in Los Angeles is the proliferation of artist-run spaces, many of which are located in storefronts across the city. MOCA was founded by artists and, due to its philosophy of placing artists at the center of its mission, has long been known as “the artist’s museum.” Storefront continues this tradition by inviting two artist-run organizations to take over MOCA’s Marcia Simon Weisman Works on Paper Study Center each year.

Founded in 2012, The Underground Museum is a storefront space developed by artist Noah Davis. Located at 3508 West Washington Avenue in Los Angeles’s Arlington Heights neighborhood, The Underground Museum has a gallery space, offices that serve as editing suites and a painting studio, and an outdoor garden which hosts parties, events, and film screenings. Davis wanted to bring what he called “museum-quality art” to a traditionally African American and Latino working-class neighborhood. However, when The Underground Museum first opened, no museums were willing to lend such works. Undaunted, Davis decided to recreate iconic artworks by famous artists such as Marcel Duchamp, On Kawara, and Jeff Koons. The title for his inaugural exhibition, Imitation of Wealth, alludes to Douglas Sirk’s classic film Imitation of Life (1959), a pre-civil rights era melodrama about passing. Just as the film’s protagonist pretends to be white in order to escape the fate of the second-class citizenship offered to African Americans, the works in the exhibition masquerade as famous works of art in an attempt to break down the traditional class and ethnic barriers to high culture. Irreverent and tongue-in-cheek, Imitation of Wealth stages many of art’s time-honored questions about the nature of truth and authenticity.

The Underground Museum, where this work was first shown, was a unique and special place that held many great exhibitions and events. After Davis’s death it was run by his wife, artist Karon Davis (who co-founded the space), and his brother filmmaker Kahlil Joseph. The museum closed in 2022.

Below are some images from a visit in 2019.

Front doors of the Underground Museum

Two views of the outdoor space at the museum-

Along with the galleries, bookstore, and outdoor spaces, you could even find artwork in the bathrooms. The unique wallpaper collage seen below was created by Genevieve Gaignard.

Objects in the bathroom at the Underground Museum

Wallpaper detail

Delaware Art Shows- “This Place Meant” at The Delaware Contemporary

Architecture, Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Collage, Conceptual Art, Delaware, Drawing, Installation Art, Mixed Media, Painting / Painters, Photographers / Photography, Sculptors / Sculpture, Wilmington

Apr 092026

Thea Abu El-Haj, “Architecture of Exile”, 2023, oil on board

Rayan Elnayal, “The courtyard lit up-Al Hoash Nawar”, 2023, digital print

Shira Walinsky’s installation

For This Place Meant at The Delaware Contemporary, artists Thea Abu El-Haj, Rayan Elnayal, and Shira Walinsky each present work that reflects aspects of what home means to them.

From the museum about the exhibition-

This Place Meant explores how three artists think about and imagine home when they are far from it. Each artist explores their lived or past relationship with the place they call home and where they are now. Thea Abu El-Haj remembers the home she once knew, Rayan Elnayal imagines a home she hopes to know, and Shira Walinsky shares the home she knows with new neighbors. If you were forced to leave your home, whether to be closer to family, to find a better life, to escape natural disasters or political trouble, how would you share memories from where you once lived? What parts of that place would you describe: the colors, the smells, the sounds?

We hope you tell them what that place meant to you.

Below are some additional works and the artist bios from The Delaware Contemporary’s website.

Paintings by Thea Abu El-Haj

As a Palestinian American artist, Thea’s work excavates personal and collective narratives of loss, exile, and resistance, even as it celebrates the beauty and joy around us. She is drawn to the imprint of human history on the natural landscape. Growing up in the Middle East, the colors, quality of light, and traces of millennia of human presence continue to resonate through her work, even as the landscapes of the Northeastern U.S. where she has lived her adult life influence what she paints. Buildings and stone walls in the process of decay; light coming through dark and dark through light; the quality of color at different times of day are all sources for her work.

Digital prints by Rayan Elnayal

Rayan Elnayal is a Sudanese artist, designer, and educator based in London, with a background in architecture. In 2020, she transitioned from traditional practice to an alternative one that fosters a more equitable and creative approach to design but also nurtures her artistic pursuits. She is also the co-founder and director of Space Black, a collective of Black professionals in the built environment, dedicated to imagining alternative spatial futures for marginalised communities.

Her pieces invite viewers to step into these imagined spaces and explore them. Her work challenges us to reflect on our personal attitudes toward futurism and futuristic aesthetics, while reminding us that our envisioned future built environments can honour our heritages, communities, and shared joy.

Shira Walinsky is an interdisciplinary artist and teacher. Her work centers on people and places in the City of Philadelphia. She has worked in Philadelphia for 20 years on murals, paintings, photography, films and other public participatory work. The map can be a portrait of places and the face a map of our experiences. She is interested in how the vibrant and the sensory can amplify the stories of people and place. This manifests in bus wraps, films, photography, painting and murals. In 2012 she co-founded Southeast by Southeast with Mural Arts Philadelphia. Southeast by Southeast is a community space co-created with social workers and artists and community leaders for and with refugee and immigrant communities. Shira strives to create innovative projects which elevate the resilience of immigrant and refugee stories.

This exhibition, part of the museum’s Winter/Spring exhibitions, closes on 4/26/26.

Pennsylvania Art Shows- Ava Blitz at Philadelphia International Airport

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Glasswork, Installation Art, Pennsylvania Art Shows, Philadelphia

Mar 262026

Ava Blitz created this glass mosaic, Pink, in 2012 for Philadelphia International Airport. It is part of Philadelphia’s Percent for Art Program.

From Art at PHL-

Philadelphia artist Ava Blitz works in various artistic disciplines including sculpture and photography. In either medium, Blitz is inspired by nature and natural forms. In her sculptural work, she is known to mass similar objects together to suggest continual growth and to emulate the abundance of repetitive forms found in nature. Her sculpture is often large-scale and abstract with minimal detail to capture nature’s basic essence and to encourage the viewer’s imagination. Blitz also photographs nature, usually imagery that she has taken while on walks near her home. The photographs, typically of trees, feature variations of dense, lush foliage. Using digital photography, Blitz is able to heighten the color and alter the imagery to emphasize the beauty and mystery that inspires her artwork.

In Pink, Blitz has incorporated her photography and her interest in nature, abstraction, and repetition to create a glass tile mosaic. She describes the artwork as “playing with the edge between realism and abstraction to create a magical forest or garden – a virtual reality that viewers can enter, explore, and experience on multiple levels.” Seen from a distance, the branches and pink blossoms are recognizable. Yet up close, the tree dissolves into an abstraction of tactile, colorful, iridescent glass tiles.

Pennsylvania Art Shows- Sarah Zwerling at Philadelphia International Airport

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Installation Art, Pennsylvania Art Shows, Philadelphia, Photographers / Photography

Mar 262026

Sarah Zwerling‘s digital collage Hamilton Street, Philadelphia, is on view at the Philadelphia International Airport as part of their exhibition programming.

From Art at PHL’s website–

Philadelphia artist Sarah Zwerling was invited to create a site-specific artwork installed directly on two interior glass enclosures located in Terminal A-East. Zwerling, whose work often features nature and architectural structures, has combined these influences as she has re-imagined her neighborhood street — an area in West Philadelphia characterized by its abundance of twin homes. Using digital photography, Zwerling focused on the rooflines of the Hamilton Street homes in combination with various trees found throughout nearby Fairmount Park. The imagery lines both sides of the concourse similar to the experience of walking along a narrow residential street like Hamilton. Zwerling has emphasized and altered aspects of the homes and the trees, even adding stylized blossoms and birds to animate the landscape and enhance the overall beauty and sense of wonderment.

Flashback- NYC Public Art- Davina Semo- “Reverberation”

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Brooklyn, Installation Art, New York Art Shows, Public Art, Sculptors / Sculpture

Mar 132026

Today’s flashback is to Davina Semo‘s public art installation Reverberation in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Curated by Daniel S. Palmer and organized by Public Art Fund, the sculptures were on view from August 2020 until April of 2021.

From Public Art Fund about the work-

A ringing bell organizes our civic life, inviting us to come together in public space. Its unmistakable sound marks the hours, calls us to assemble, alerts us to danger, and announces momentous occasions. These and other modes of public address can unify communities and define the auditory landscape of our city, even when all else is silent and still.

Davina Semo (b. 1981, Washington, DC) has created five cast-bronze bells to be rung by visitors in the Brooklyn Bridge Park, recalling the maritime communication once common at this waterfront site. While their percussive function is familiar, the traditional bell form has been reimagined by the artist as an elongated streamlined sculpture that dangles aloft from a heavy industrial galvanized steel frame. The holes she has drilled through each bell create constellations of light in their darkened interiors and staccato patterns on their exterior shells. These arrangements give them unique identities that are characterized through their evocative titles: Reflector, Singer, Dreamer, Listener, and Mother. Their distinctive voices are also expressed in the subtle nuances in their tones when rung.

Semo’s bells are coated with a lustrous pearlescent paint that glows hot orange to evoke the international color of urgent alarm—meant to heighten our attention in precarious times. During this turbulent year, auditory interventions have characterized our collective experience, whether through the evening cheers for essential workers or the chanting voices of protesters demanding justice. The exhibition builds upon this moment, encouraging audiences to add their own contribution to our urban soundscape. Ultimately, Semo intends for these bells to sound an optimistic note. As we ring out the old and ring in the new, each bell reverberates in concert with its neighbors, creating a collective resonance together.

In this video she and the curator discuss the work and you can see more of the installation-

Pennsylvania Exhibitions- Philadelphia International Records 50th Anniversary Installation at Philadelphia International Airport

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, History, Installation Art, Music, Musicians / Bands, Pennsylvania Art Shows, Philadelphia

Mar 062026

If you have time between flights at Philadelphia International Airport, in addition to the many artworks on view, you can also learn about some of Philadelphia’s musical history. An installation dedicated to the 50th Anniversary of the music label Philadelphia International Records is currently on display in Terminal A.

Flashback- Nick Cave at Columbus Museum of Art

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Columbus, Conceptual Art, Dance, Fiber Arts, Installation Art, Mixed Media, Ohio Art Shows, Performances, Sculptors / Sculpture, Video and Film, Washington D.C.

Feb 272026

Pictured is one of Nick Cave‘s Soundsuits, created using found fabrics and metal and wood toys. It was on view at Columbus Museum of Art in 2024.

From the museum about the work-

Nick Cave’s Soundsuits are sculptural costumes, some of which were made to be worn, others to remain stationary. Although these suits often appear whimsical and joyful, they also respond to suffering and injustice. Cave created his first suit in response to the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers in 1991, an event that focused attention on discriminatory policing and racial profiling. Reflecting the artist’s lived experience as an African American man, the Soundsuits camouflage the wearer’s body, concealing markers of race, gender, and class.

In the Art21 video below you can see some of his Soundsuits in motion. He studied with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and that influence can be seen here as well.

Art 21-Nick Cave in Chicago- Season 8

Cave’s latest exhibition, Mammoth, recently opened at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C. and will be on view until January of 2027.

About that show from SAAM-

In Mammoth, Cave remakes the museum’s galleries into an immersive environment marked by the crafted hides and bones of mammoths, a video projection of the long-dead animals come to life, and hundreds of transformed found objects—from vintage tools to his grandmother’s thimble collection—presented like paleontological specimens on a massive light table. By showcasing the ordinary and often forgotten bits and pieces of the world we live in, Cave’s work shines light on what we value and how we make meaning together. It evokes the lives and cultures we have lost, as well as the magical possibilities of a universe created through imagination and the humblest of materials.

Focused on the fundamental connections between people and their environment, Cave asks how we can begin to make sense of our relationship with a landscape that continues to evolve. How might we adapt, persevere, even thrive? As the contemporary world increasingly challenges what it means to be human, Cave envisions a space of both grief and possibility.

Pennsylvania Art Shows- “King Saladeen: Create Your Gold” at Philadelphia International Airport

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Installation Art, Painting / Painters, Pennsylvania Art Shows, Philadelphia, Public Art

Feb 182026

King Saladeen created these murals for the Philadelphia International Airport’s Exhibitions Program.

From Art at PHL about this exhibition–

Philadelphia artist King Saladeen has created his largest painting installation to date currently on view at Philadelphia International Airport. Saladeen’s art is motivational and energetic. His paintings are filled with vibrant colors, shapes, patterns, markings, and text, along with representational imagery that includes his trademark JP the Money Bear and Philadelphia’s skyline. The work represents his passion to inspire as he says, “Dream Big, Love What You Do!” A message evident in this epic four-part painting.

Saladeen created this artwork partially in his studio as four paintings scaled to the proportions of the four gallery walls. The original paintings were scanned, printed on vinyl, and adhered on site. Over two nights, Saladeen painted atop the vinyl to complete his vision. It was an amazing performance to watch as he intuitively added more colors, shapes, and details until it was deemed complete.

Pennsylvania Art Shows- “It’s A Wrap 2” at Philadelphia International Airport

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Fiber Arts, Illustration, Installation Art, Mixed Media, Pennsylvania Art Shows, Philadelphia, Public Art, Sculptors / Sculpture

Feb 132026

Currently on view at Philadelphia International Airport, It’s A Wrap 2, brightens a section of the airport with art work and installations by several local artists.

Included in this post are works by Nicole Nicolich (pictured above), Tim Eads of Tuft the World, Olivia Chiaravalli, and on the ceiling tiles- work by Miriam Singer and Eurhi Jones.

From the airport about the exhibition–

This exhibition features work by Philadelphia area artists who were invited to create unique architectural interventions within the Airport terminal. Using yarn, fabric, felt, found objects, tape, paint, wheat paste, and wood, the artists applied their work to the ceiling tiles, columns, rockers, walls, walkway, and windows. They have visually transformed this location into an immersive and experiential art-filled passageway.

The artists responded to the existing architectural elements to create an unexpected visual experience and an engaging space for people to pass through. It is a form of urban interventionism where art activates the built environment with the intention to see a public space in a new and creative way.

Work by Tim Eads of Tuft the World

Olivia Chiaravalli, “Brick by Brick”

Miriam Singer, “Dreamliner”

Eurhi Jones, “Tinicum”

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