Bundle of three 1.5" round buttons (Eye, Hand, and Heart) celebrating the Objects: USA 2020 exhibition
In 1969, the groundbreaking exhibition Objects: USA opened to crowds at the Smithsonian Institution before traveling across the country and abroad. Uniting more than two hundred artists who were inventing new approaches to artmaking by way of craft media, this revolutionary event altered the course of American art and introduced the world to some of today’s most celebrated artists.
A half-century later, Objects: USA 2020 revisits this legendary show—and its accompanying catalog, which has become a bible of sorts to many researchers—and extends its legacy by assembling fifty participants from the original exhibition and fifty contemporary artists. In their own ways, both generations radically upend the traditional methods and materials of craft to create new forms of art.