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October 28, 2024 to March 16, 2025 | Leir Gallery, Klein Kenealy Gallery, Project Space, Sculpture Garden

A Garden of Promise and Dissent

October 28, 2024 to March 16, 2025 (Galleries)
November 17, 2024 to November 2025 (Grounds)

A Garden of Promise and Dissent inaugurates The Aldrich’s newly renovated campus and Sculpture Garden. This intergenerational group exhibition of twenty-one artists explores the animation of the “garden” as a site of private expression (poetics) and public action (praxis). Gardens offer solace, community, nutrition, and well-being; they provide safe spaces for rebellion and empowerment; they alleviate climate change, revitalize, and widen access to land use–providing localized food resources and alternative medicine. Gardens symbolize growth, death, and regeneration as well as represent care, resilience, and hope. Gardens can be highly ordered and aestheticized or anarchic indicators of aspiration and failure. The artists in this exhibition radicalize the garden as a theme to tackle moral, social, economic, and ecological afflictions that trouble our planet. Spanning the galleries and grounds, works will be sited within the natural world and against the built environment, unsettling the gulf that exists between the two.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue.

Artists participating in the exhibition include Terry Adkins, Kelly Akashi, Teresa Baker, Alina Bliumis, Carolina Caycedo, Carl Cheng, Rachelle Dang, Anders Hamilton, Maren Hassinger, Hugh Hayden, Max Hooper Schneider, Athena LaTocha, Gracelee Lawrence, Cathy Lu, Jill Magid, Suchitra Mattai, Mary Mattingly, Brandon Ndife, Meg Webster, Faith Wilding, and Rachel Youn.

A Garden of Promise and Dissent is curated by Amy Smith-Stewart, Chief Curator.

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Funders

Major support for A Garden of Promise and Dissent is provided by The Aldrich Council. Generous support is provided by Diana Bowes and Jim Torrey and the Further Forward Foundation. Significant support is provided by Kristina and Philip Larson and The Cowles Charitable Trust. The catalogue is supported by the Eric Diefenbach and James-Keith Brown Publications Fund. Preferred Art Logistics Provider: Crozier Fine Arts.


Related Events

November 16, 2024 at 3:00 pm | Exhibition Opening, Member Event, Member Preview, Special Event

VIP and Member Opening for A Garden of Promise and Dissent, Martha Diamond, Miles Huston, and Moko Fukuyama

Members and friends, please join us to celebrate the reopening of our Sculpture Garden and explore A Garden of Promise and Dissent, Martha Diamond: Deep Time, and Moko Fukuyama before the exhibitions open to the public, and Miles Huston: Overshoot.

November 17, 2024 at 12:00 pm | Free Admission, Public Programs

Community Day in Celebration of the Sculpture Garden

The community is invited to join us for a free afternoon at The Aldrich to celebrate the opening of the newly renovated campus and Sculpture Garden!

November 20, 2024 at 1:00 pm | Group Tours

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Join us for this in-person gallery tour of highlighted works from our current exhibitions, guided by Education and Access Specialist Holly Lapine, reserved specifically for senior adults ages 60 and above!

November 24, 2024 at 2:00 pm | Group Tours

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Have you ever looked at contemporary art and wished you knew what it meant? Have you ever entered a museum not knowing where to start? If you answered yes, join Education Assistant Antonio Paone for a free tour of the exhibitions designed to activate your curiosity and engage your attention.

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Join us for this in-person gallery tour of highlighted works from our current exhibitions, guided by Education and Access Specialist Holly Lapine, reserved specifically for senior adults ages 60 and above!

December 18, 2024 at 5:30 pm | Group Tours

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Join Chief Curator Amy Smith-Stewart for a tour of Martha Diamond: Deep Time, a five-decade survey exhibition of the artist's work. Members please join us for a 5pm reception with refreshments prior to the tour.

December 21, 2024 at 10:00 am | Third Saturdays, Free Admission

Third Saturdays

Visit the Museum for FREE the third Saturday of every month as part of our Third Saturdaysprogram.

December 21, 2024 at 1:00 pm | Third Saturdays, Free Admission, Group Tours

All Ages Discovery Tour

Have you ever looked at contemporary art and wished you knew what it meant? Have you ever entered a museum without knowing where to start? If you answered yes, this free, interactive, and judgment-free tour of our current exhibitions guided by a Museum Educator is perfect for you!

December 29, 2024 at 2:00 pm | Group Tours

All Ages Discovery Tour

Have you ever looked at contemporary art and wished you knew what it meant? Have you ever entered a museum not knowing where to start? If you answered yes, join Education Assistant Antonio Paone for a free tour of the exhibitions designed to activate your curiosity and engage your attention.



Top image: Kelly Akashi, Heirloom, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and Lisson Gallery. Photo: Paul Salveson