Many Wests brings together artworks from the permanent collections of all five museums and shows how art can help us reflect on history and envision a more inclusive future.Īmy Chaloupka, Curator of Art, Whatcom Museum Since 2019, SAAM has partnered with four Western region museums-the Boise Art Museum (Boise, Idaho), the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (Salt Lake City, Utah), the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (Eugene, Oregon), and the Whatcom Museum (Bellingham, Washington). This exhibition is the culmination of a multi-year Art Bridges Initiative organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum that aims to expand access to, and experiences of, American art. They reveal that “the West” has always been a place of many stories, experiences and cultures. The exhibition’s three sections-Caretakers, Memory Makers, and Boundary Breakers-highlight the various ways artists challenge mythic conceptions of the American West, often demonstrating the resilience of marginalized communities. Their artworks question old and racist clichés, examine tragic and sidelined histories, and illuminate the multiple communities and events that contribute to the past and present of this region. ![]() Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea offers counterviews of “the West” through the perspectives of forty-eight modern and contemporary artists. Over this period, the United States fought and displaced Indigenous people, stripped the region of its natural resources, and seized lands through treaties and wars. government aggressively expanded westward across the continent. These stereotypical associations took hold in the eighteenth century, as the U.S. For some, “The West” can conjure images of rugged colonial settlers, gun-toting-cowboys, or scenic expanses of vacant land. ![]() ![]() Commonly accepted ideas about the American West are often based on a past that never was and frequently diminish, if not overlook entirely, the experiences of Indigenous and Black people and people of color.
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