Exercises in Imagination

Laurie Anderson, Edgar Arceneaux, Radcliffe Bailey, Deborah Berke, Huma Bhabha, Tania Bruguera, J. Yolande Daniels, Leonardo Drew, Nicole Eisenman, Julie Eizenberg, Hank Koning, Rick Lowe, Jean Shin, Arthur Simms, Michael Van Valkenburgh, Dan Walsh, Nari Ward

Exercises in Imagination is the induction exhibition of recent work by seventeen National Academicians who were elected to the National Academy of Design in the fall of 2022.

Elected by the artist and architect members of the National Academy, the induction of this group of artists and architects last October follows a tradition that dates to 1825, when the first class of new Academicians was elected by founding artists and architects. The election process ensures that the Academy’s membership represents the range of practices and sensibilities that define contemporary cultural production in the United States.

Exercises in Imagination frames a dialogue between art, architecture, and emerging disciplines, which are at the heart of the National Academy’s founding. The exhibited works challenge accepted notions of U.S. history, collectively envisioning realms that move between shared histories and speculative futures. A notable thread in the show is the variety of ways artists and architects harness memory and history to reshape real built and social environments, as well as the fantastical imaginings and abstractions artists and architects utilize to envision a multiplicity of cultural outcomes. Experimentation as an act of survival, growth, and regeneration unites the Academicians in a collective urgency for solutions to the problems marking our existence today.

Exercises in Imagination is organized by Sara Reisman, Chief Curator and Director of National Academician Affairs, and Natalia Viera Salgado, Associate Curator, with Sophia Neitsch, NA Affairs Manager.