Current Exhibitions
It Happened Here: Expo '74 Fifty Years After
May 4, 2024-January 26, 2025
This 50th anniversary exhibition revisits the historical roots of Expo ‘74’s environmental theme and the community spirit it kindled and features familiar, nostalgic, and lesser-known stories from the MAC’s largest archival collection. Highlights include a bejeweled denim costume that Liberace wore for one of his Expo ’74 performances, Sister Paula Turnbull’s model for Spokane’s now-famous Garbage Goat, an original Sky Ride gondola, and films from the MAC's archives.
Expo '74 image: NWC 129 – Dormaier, Jacob #164, Spokane Public Library (Jacob Dormaier Expo '74 Collection)
It Happened Here: Expo '74 Fifty Years After Exhibition Info
Woman, Artist, Catalyst: Art from the Permanent Collection
June 22, 2024-March 9, 2025
Focusing on locally, nationally, and internationally known woman-identifying artists, this exhibition of work from the MAC's permanent collection showcases the quality and varied focus of leading artists and art movements in the Inland and Pacific Northwest.
Z. Vanessa Helder, Palouse Rhythm, 1939-1941, watercolor on paper. Gift of Ms. Ruth Thompson.
Woman, Artist, Catalyst: Art from the Permanent Collection Exhibition Info
1924: Sovereignty, Leadership, and the Indian Citizenship Act
February 17, 2024-February 2, 2025
On June 2, 1924, Congress enacted the Indian Citizenship Act, granting citizenship to all American Indians born in the United States. Shortly after this act, Spokane announced it would host the first American Indian Congresses in 1925. These were some of the first events where tribal leaders, government officials, and community members from around the United States gathered to formally participate in talks on rights and advocacy. 1924 commemorates this 100-year anniversary, centering on early local tribal leadership as they and their people navigated the sometimes-conflicting nature of being both U.S. citizens and citizens of their own sovereign nations.
L-R: Chief William Yallup, Mrs. William Yallup, Tom Yallup - Son of Chief, 1925. Frank Guilbert, Photographer. Photograph from the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture Frank Guilbert Collection (L97-2.3)
1924: Sovereignty, Leadership, and the Indian Citizenship Act Exhibition Info
Charlie Palmer: Pacific Northwest Landscapes
Sept 6-Nov 10, 2024
Artist reception, September 25, 5-8 pm
Charlie Palmer travels the Northwest, painting scenes from the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean. His thick buttery strokes have a fresh, impressionistic feel that he calls “naturalistic.” Up close, the art appears somewhat abstract. At a distance, they arrange into realism.
Charlie Palmer, Sunset in Airway Heights, 2020, oil on canvas.