Guest curator Elizabeth S. Hawley considers the history of American art through the collection at Auburn University. Pairing paintings from the museum’s iconic Advancing American Art Collection with other contemporary collection objects, this exhibition encourages visitors to ask what being and belonging in American art might mean in the past, the present and the future.

Binh Danh explores his Vietnamese heritage, landscapes and memory through experimental and vintage photography techniques. Chlorophyll prints of the past and daguerreotypes of the present blur the line between history and the now, examining a transformation of American identity.

Artists Natalia Lassalle-Morillo and Sofía Gallisá Muriente gather testimonies and imaginaries of Puerto Ricans who migrated to Central Florida following 2017’s Hurricane Maria. This immersive, four-channel video installation layers fictional and non-fictional narratives, speculating about how community is created anew. The title, Foreign in a Domestic Sense, comes from the 1901 Supreme Court case in which a justice described the island nation as “unincorporated territory” of the U.S.

Acclaimed poet Nicole Sealey will engage faculty, students and the Auburn community as a poet-in-residence at The Jule. Working with Auburn’s collection by the 19th-century naturalist John James Audubon, Sealey will marry language and art by pairing works from Audubon’s monumental “The Birds of America” with both contemporary and historical poetic responses, inviting visitors to question the symbolic and cultural meanings we ascribe to the natural world.

Featuring objects on loan from the Whitney Museum of American Art alongside the university art collection, Women Artists in Ascendance pulls back the curtain on the story of modern American art by displaying works from a dozen women artists who were goliaths in their own right, including Helen Frankenthaler, Grace Hartigan and Lee Krasner.Organized in partnership with Art Bridges

Want to learn even more about the art in our galleries? Join one of The Jule’s Student Guides for a tour! Student Guides are Auburn University students in our Education, Engagement and Learning unit who lead tours through the exhibitions, teaching visitors of all ages, learning levels and interests more about the art on display. No need to register in advance—just sign in at our front desk, look for a student in an “Ask Me About Art” t-shirt, and you’ll be well on your way to learning even more about The Jule, museum work and the art on the walls.