As part of their programming for the nation’s 250th birthday, Delaware Art Museum is showing the work of local artists in their current exhibition, The People’s Gallery. It is a non-juried exhibition which allowed artists at all levels to contribute work.
It’s a fantastic opportunity to see what this community of artists has created and to purchase local art. Check it out before it closes on 9/6/26.
Leonard A. Harmon, “Untitled”, c.1980s, Oil on masonite
Leonard D. Harmon, “Last Copper Moon”, 2025, Acrylic, spray paint, oxidized copper shavings, paper on wood panel
Leonard D. Harmon, “Last Copper Moon”, 2025 (detail)
Delaware Art Museum‘s Living Indigenous showcases and celebrates Indigenous communities and artists in multiple locations in the museum. The exhibition is part of the museum’s programming for the 250th anniversary of the United States.
Developed in partnership with the Nanticoke Indian Museum, one room dedicated to works created by Indigenous artists includes paintings by Leonard A. Harmon and his nephew, Leonard D. Harmon.
From the museum and artist about Last Copper Moon (pictured above):
Leonard D. Harmon notes the rich artistic legacy that precedes him. He explains, “I draw inspiration from my ancestors to infuse a modern twist into traditional arts.” This painting references the architectural forms his uncle, Leonard A. Harmon, was creating in the 1980s. A copper moon, or total lunar eclipse, is a sacred Indigenous occurrence, and the images Harmon includes refer to associated rituals.
The exhibition continues upstairs with two different series of portraits of members of Delaware’s Indigenous communities– Will Wilson‘s Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange (CIPX) and Andre’ L. Wright, Jr.’s Indigenous Faces of Wilmington. In 2022 the museum invited Wilson to continue his CIPX project in Delaware and facilitated a photoshoot of citizens of the Lenape Indian Tribe of Delaware (The Original People) and the Nanticoke Indian Tribe (The Tidewater People). That same year the museum also commissioned Andre’ L. Wright, Jr. to create a project showcasing diverse Wilmingtonians, two of which are pictured below.
Two portraits by Andre’ L. Wright, Jr. from his series “Indigenous Faces of Wilmington”
Living Indigenous is on view until 8/23/26 and the museum is free to visit every Thursday from 4-8pm.
Caproni Brothers, “The Boxer at Rest”, 19th century Painted plaster cast from the original bronze which was produced between the late fourth and second centuries BCE
Lisa Brice “Untitled”, 2025 Pigment and natural water-soluble binders on linen
Jeffrey Gibson, (l to r) “Power, Power, Power”, 2017, “People Like Us”, 2014, and “You Can Feel It All Over”, 2015, Repurposed punching bags, glass beads, artificial sinew
Rashid Johnson, “Self-Portrait Laying on Jack Johnson‘s Grave”, 2006, Durst Lambda print mounted on panel
Approaching the front steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, you will find people of all ages and backgrounds taking photos with the statue of Rocky out front, often imitating his famous pose. Through a variety of works from antiquity to the present day, Rising Up looks at the history of this statue, the meanings attached to monuments, and the allure of boxers and boxing culture.
From the museum about the exhibition:
Blending the worlds of art, sports, and popular culture, Rising Up takes on the life of monuments by exploring the meanings and mythologies of the Rocky statue. The exhibition looks to the statue of the most famous Philadelphian who never lived as a way to better understand our complex and vital relationships to our public monuments.
The statue first appeared on-screen in the Oscar-winning Rocky film series. The third installment, Rocky III (1982), featured the dedication of a monument that celebrated the boxer as both an underdog and a hero. The movie-made statue was placed outside the actual museum during filming, a dynamic blurring of art and life that continues to this day. Since that introduction, and through the statue’s departure and prolonged absence from the museum grounds to its prodigal return to the steps, the statue has sparked debate over its aesthetic value and its role in the city. Today, the power of the Rocky statue as a monument stems from its ability to summon public participation.
From antiquity to modernity, Hollywood to contemporary art, Rising Up spotlights both popular narratives and undertold stories surrounding the Rocky statue. Each gallery offers a response to the exhibition’s central question — why do millions of people visit the Rocky statue at the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art each year? — and further explores the relationship between art, boxing, and civic identity. It offers a renewed context to consider the statue through works and artifacts that reflect on the deep legacies of boxing monuments across time.
Rising Up marks the first time that the Rocky statue has been displayed inside the museum, explored alongside Philadelphia’s landmark boxing culture and multigenerational artists’ interpretations of sport and society. At its core, the exhibition looks at how monuments are made — by artists and by us — through the lens of the Rocky statue and the ways people engage, debate, and gather around this site of memory.
This exhibition closes on 8/2/26.
Along several walls at the Barnes, Native American (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians) artist Sky Hopinka‘s installation, Red Metal Dust, layers photographs and transparencies of a variety of landscapes with cut copper shapes to form dreamlike vistas.
About the work from the museum (in the artist’s words):
Red Metal Dust is a body of work that considers landscape as a place shaped as much by what remains as by what has been removed. Each panel layers photographic prints with transparencies of concurrent landscapes, allowing images to pass through and across one another rather than resolve into a single view.
Geometric silhouettes, cut into polished copper and placed over the image, follow the contours of the transparencies beneath them. These copper forms both interrupt and clarify the landscape, using the logic of the silhouette to define presence through reduction. The copper reflects light and the viewer’s image, bringing the body and present moment into the work.
The title draws from the Ho-Chunk way of describing copper, naming the material not as monument but as remainder-something carried, scattered, and endured. Here, copper becomes less a surface than a witness, resilient and reflective, shaped through contact rather than display. Across these works, landscape is approached as a layered field of return, where images accumulate, echo, and settle into one another over time.
For more information on the work, this interview with Hopinka from ARTNews is also worth checking out.
Below is another section located on a different wall.
Red Metal Dust is on view until January of 2027. The Barnes is also free for Philadelphia residents for the month of July.
New Deal Posters
Willie Cole, “Rolanda”, November 5, 1978, Pastel on brown paper bag. This work was created while Cole was a CETA employee in Delaware
Photographs from the 1975 CETA-funded project “CITYSIGHTS/CITYSOUNDS” in Wilmington
Dorothea Lange, “Migrant Mother, Nipomo, CA”, 1936
Clockwise from top left: William Davidson White, “Children in the Tree”,1934; Michael J. Gallagher, “A Man’s Job”, c.1933-1934; Philip N. Yates, “Broken Nets”, 1934; Walter Willoughby, “Winter Landscape”, c. 1933-1934
Helen Farr Sloan, “W.P.A. Theater”c.1935, Oil on board. It depicts a Federal Theater production during the Depression in NYC’s Washington Square Park. These productions were often free or heavily discounted.
At a time when government arts funding and jobs programs are needed more than ever, Citizen Artist at Delaware Art Museum reminds visitors of the positive and long lasting impact of two past initiatives- The New Deal in the 1930s and 1940s, and the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act of 1973 (CETA). Featuring artwork created during these both of these time periods, the exhibition also highlights the important contributions made by artists in their communities.
From the museum about the exhibition:
Citizen Artist highlights diverse artists working for America during 1930s and 1940s Depression-era programs and federally funded initiatives of the 1970s. The New Deal and the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act were catalysts in Delaware and across the nation as economic relief programs amplified the arts, creating new possibilities for creative employment. This exhibition centers artists as historians, storytellers, and visionaries during the Semiquincentennial.
Through the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act of 1973 (CETA), the Department of Labor supported a nation’s worth of art programs on a scale not seen since the conclusion of the New Deal in 1943. Those New Deal artists that outlived the Federal Art Project never forgot the significance of their work for the public, and they took that knowledge to the classrooms and administrative offices where they carried out the rest of their careers. CETA was designed as a jobs program, not an arts program, but Title VI of the legislation funded opportunities for the cyclically unemployed —artists—in public service roles. When CETA arrived in the 1970s, artists and their allies across the nation quickly understood its potential in the context of the legacy of the New Deal.
Citizen Artist is a story about reciprocal support between artists and communities. The exhibition celebrates artists who found lasting success through their participation in fine art programs like the Public Works of Art Project and CETA-funded contemporary art spaces. We also honor the public service work undertaken by tens of thousands of New Deal and CETA-funded artists, especially the painters, puppeteers, and photographers who produced educational resources and performances for children across the nation. Citizen Artist looks back at the intertwined histories of CETA and the New Deal to elevate how artists can and do support the public. By working in graphics offices, writers’ programs, and darkrooms, New Deal and CETA artists created and transformed the physical and cultural infrastructure of the United States.
Included within Citizen Artist is Citizen Photographer, an exhibition of images created by Delaware photographers for the U.S.’s 250th anniversary.
From the museum about Citizen Photographer:
What does it mean to be a Delawarean at the nation’s 250th anniversary? The Delaware Art Museum, collaborating with Wilmington’s Teen Warehouse, the Smyrna Opera House, and the Lewes Public Library, invited residents across the state to engage in civic reflection and contribute to shaping public perceptions of identity through photography. Citizen Photographer is inspired by the federally funded initiatives of the past, such as the Farm Security Administration and the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act. These were times when documenting the nation and the many people who called it home was an earnest endeavor, the means to understand and appreciate our individuality, humanity, and common needs.
At the United States 250th anniversary in 2026, this project offers multiple ways for Delawareans to engage as learners, artists, and citizens contributing to the state’s shared story. Photographers Morris Brown II, B. Proud, and Andre’ Wright, Jr. led workshops across the state and selected the 24 photographs on view. For Wright, Jr., Citizen Photographer is “about perspective, voices, and the stories people choose to tell about where they come from.” Proud reflects how local photographers “captured the many facets of Delaware, from its cities to its farmlands, from its people to its landscapes, revealing why the state truly lives up to one of its nicknames, ‘Small Wonder.'” Morris invites us to “take the time to treasure each photograph and to experience each Delaware love story on exhibit.”
This exhibition closes 7/19/26.
Protesting injustice is a powerful way for individuals to come together to create change. In the exhibition How We Stay Free at Tilt Institute for the Contemporary Image, photos by Mike Arrison, Harvey Finkle, Joe Piette, and Sunny Singh vividly capture past protests that have taken place in Philadelphia over the years, reminding visitors of the power of community.
From the gallery about the exhibition:
Following the widely publicized murders of George Floyd and other Black citizens by police, an unprecedented wave of public outcry swept the nation. Despite the pervasive uncertainty and restrictions imposed by the global COVID-19 pandemic, Philadelphians organized and sustained mass protests, taking to the streets to emphatically demand racial justice, police accountability, and structural reform. Later that same year, the tragic shooting death of Walter Wallace Jr. by police officers in the West Philadelphia neighborhood of Cobbs Creek further underscored these systemic issues. His family had called 911 seeking assistance for a mental health crisis, only for the encounter to escalate fatally, tragically illustrating the severe gaps in the community’s support and emergency response systems.
Inspired by the energy generated from these events, West Philadelphia residents Fajr Muhammad and Christopher Rogers published How We Stay Free: Notes On A Black Uprising. This project is not merely a book but a dynamic, living archive of community resistance, featuring powerful, multi-modal contributions from a diverse coalition of artists, writers, poets, and scholars who were active participants in the struggle. This exhibition, which shares the same title, serves as an essential visual and experiential archive. It documents the work initiated by the authors, alongside the tireless efforts of local organizations, grassroots collectives, and community-based activists. Philadelphia’s legacy of civil disobedience is both deep and enduring, stretching from the national Black Lives Matter protests to localized calls for Palestinian liberation and the No Arena fight against a proposed sports complex in the historic Chinatown neighborhood.
The visceral imagery and compelling narratives presented on the gallery walls emphasize a crucial point, a collective and sustained response is necessary to ensure meaningful and lasting progress is achieved. This philosophical approach—that change requires unity and shared purpose—serves as the foundational connective tissue binding both the publication and the exhibition. Spanning several decades of resistance and activism, the collection functions as a series of time capsules. These suspended moments deliberately position the artist not as detached photojournalists, but as participant-observers—marching alongside a broad and diverse coalition of revolutionaries united by the inalienable right of all people to be truly free.
This show closes 6/27/26.
Curry J. Hackett, “The Gilded Block (Porch)”
mk. “you are so much to me pt. 1.” 2022
A golden inflatable porch by artist Curry J. Hackett welcomes visitors from outside the entrance to Spaces of Encounter, the current exhibition at Temple Contemporary, Temple University’s art gallery. Inside the gallery, Rokh Research & Design Studio founder and PhD student Danicia Monét Malone’s public arts research combines with NYU MA candidate Alyse Tucker‘s art curation to present an interesting selection of artwork, installations, and infographics that explore public art and shared spaces.
From the press release:
… Spaces of Encounter explores public space across North and Latin America and the Caribbean through the lens of public art. The exhibition brings together research and artistic material from Albuquerque; Cartagena; and Indianapolis, examining how people interact with public artworks across different urban contexts. Visitors are invited to reflect on who is welcomed into shared spaces—and who is made to feel excluded.
At the center of the exhibition is a guiding question: What does public space ask the body to believe about safety, care and belonging?
“For Black residents navigating environments marked by surveillance, neglect or misrecognition, aesthetic conditions operate as cumulative exposures that influence how safety, care and civic participation are felt in the body,” says Malone.
Through documentation, archival material and sculptural elements, Spaces of Encounter considers how public art mediates lived experience and contributes to collective memory. One featured work includes preserved fragments of a dismantled Black Lives Matter street mural in Indianapolis, foregrounding the fragility and afterlife of public artworks. Even when removed or destroyed, such works persist through memory, documentation and community impact.
“We’re interested in the afterlife of public art—what remains when the physical object is gone,” says Tucker.
The exhibition is particularly resonant in Philadelphia, a city shaped by one of the nation’s most expansive public art and mural programs. As development continues to transform neighborhoods, Spaces of Encounter offers an opportunity to reflect on how public artworks are preserved, displaced or erased—and what those changes mean for communities.
“Our gallery commissioned Spaces of Encounter to demonstrate Tyler’s commitment to being a beacon for art, architecture and community imagination in North Philadelphia and beyond,” says Temple Contemporary’s Director of Exhibitions and Public Programming Matthew Jordan-Miller Kenyatta, PhD. “By blurring inside and outside, the interior versus exterior, it smartly knits together the intimate, culturally specific meanings with public moments of spectacle that anyone can enjoy.”
This exhibition closes 6/27/26.
John Baldessari, “One and Three Persons (with Two Contexts-One Chaotic)”, 1994-2012, 14-color screenprint
California artist John Baldessari was born today, June 17, in 1931. The print above was part of The Cleveland Museum of Art‘s 2024 exhibition, New Narratives: Contemporary Works on Paper.
From the museum about this work:
John Baldessari often incorporated appropriated (or “found”) imagery into his artwork, such as the photographs of architecture and rubble appearing in this print. He juxtaposed these elements with outlined figures in a typically obtuse manner to suggest a narrative or simply a feeling with strange or even ominous undertones. The artist’s interest in the formal qualities of art, such as dimensionality, highlighted by his use of the irregularly shaped sheet of paper, white cut-outs, and silhouettes, adds to the sense of suggestion and uncertainty in the print.
Duane Michals, “The Spirit Leaves The Body”, 1968, courtesy of DC Moore Gallery
“Magritte with Easel”, 1965, courtesy of DC Moore Gallery
“A Letter From My Father”, 1975, courtesy of DC Moore Gallery
Innovative photographer Duane Michals passed away on Tuesday, 6/9/26, at the age of 94. He was famous for both his portraits of famous artists and celebrities, and for more personal work that often included his writing on the prints, something not done at the time.
He continuously worked up until his death, even shooting the campaign, What are Dreams, for Bottega Veneta last year. Featuring actor Jacob Elordi, it includes a short film along with a photo series, both based on a poem by Michals.
Jacob Elordi and Duane Michals in Bottega Veneta’s “What Are Dreams” campaign, photographed by Duane Michals in 2025. Photo courtesy of Bottega Veneta (image via Artnet)
His 2019 exhibition, Illusions of the Photographer at The Morgan Library and Museum included The Spirit Leaves the Body, and A Letter From My Father (pictured above), along with a few handwritten notes in his distinctive style, like the one below on death. Many of his photographs reflected an interest in mortality, but there was also a lighthearted aspect to many others.
For more on the artist, also check out this 2022 interview in Aperture magazine. In it he talks about his work, his partner of over 50 years (architect Fred Gorrée), his dreams, the importance of curiosity, and more. He also had a fun Instagram worth taking a look through.
Donald Lipski, “Who’s Afraid of Red, White and Blue #37”, 1990, White wool gabardine, made in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum
Rose B. Simpson, “Tonantzin”, 2022, Linen, cotton, clay, and thread, made in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum
(L to R) Rev. Howard Finster, “George Washington Meets Martha Custis, 1984, Pigment on cotton t-shirt; James Luna, “High Tech War Shirt”, 1997-98, Smoked hide, nylon setting, silk suiting, horse hair, metal, shell buttons, bead work with watches and necklace (shell, thermometer, and plastic toys); Hock E Aye VI Edgar Heap Of Birds, “Who Owns History”, 1992, Pigment on cotton t-shirt (all works made in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum)
S.A. Bachman, “Are You Telling Yourself A Little White Lie?”, 1988, Edition of 5, Halftone photographic silkscreen pigment on nylon, made in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum
Pictured are just a few of the many excellent artworks currently on view in Some American Dreams at The Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia. Exploring the concept of America and the American dream, all the works were created by an impressive list of artists who were Artists in Residence at the museum over the past four decades.
From the museum and curator Hilde Nelson:
In her 1986 essay “Waking Up in the Middle of Some American Dreams,” poet June Jordan calls for a multiplicity of American dreams rather than a singular paradigm. For Jordan, those in pursuit of these dreams include:
the white people the black people the female people the lonely people the terrorized people the elderly people the young people the visionary people the unemployed people the regular ordinary omnipresent people who crave grace and variety and surprise and safety and one new day after another.
On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, this presentation of works from The Fabric Workshop and Museum’s collection explores the complexity of American-ness through lenses of history, memory, and mythology. Made by past Artists in Residence in collaboration with the FWM Studio, the projects reimagine symbols of nationhood and belonging, critique ongoing legacies of inequity, and offer expanded visions of kinship and community.
The works on view represent four decades of making at FWM. They meditate on themes including indigeneity and race, alternative origin stories, landscape and the environment, the construction of historical narrative, memory and resistance, and images of cultural affiliation. Sections of the exhibition invite additional voices, drawing their titles from a chorus of American poets, songwriters, essayists, abolitionists, and historians.
The artists featured in Some American Dreams break down borders and categorical distinctions to propose a polyphony of American dreams shaped by hybridity, friction, and affinity. They ask: what if America is not one project, but many? And how might these Americas be affirmed, resisted or remade, in Jordan’s words, to envision “one new day after another?”
This exhibition closes 6/14/26.