PHILADELPHIA, PA.- The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts invites you to explore the idea of space and unique spaces in Infinite Spaces: Rediscovering PAFA’s Permanent Collection, on view June 30 – September 9, 2018, and occupying both the Fisher Brooks Gallery in the Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building and the Richard C. von Hess Foundation Works on Paper Gallery in the Historic Landmark Building.

Infinite Spaces brings together a range of objects, including paintings, sculpture, works on paper, photographs, video, and installation to explore the ways in which artists have navigated their surroundings from the eighteenth century to the present day. Placing historic works in conversation with modern and contemporary works, Infinite Spaces highlights more than 100 new acquisitions and rarely seen gems from PAFA’s historic collection of American art. One of the new acquisitions on view, Frederic Edwin Church’s masterful oil painting, Valley of Santa Isabel, New Granada, 1875, was purchased by PAFA at auction on May 23. Church is arguably one of the artists most integral to the history of American art and this will be the first of his works to enter the Museum’s permanent collection.

“It is so exciting to share the collection, particularly artworks that are new to the collection through gifts and purchases, with our Philly communities,” said Brooke Davis Anderson, Edna S. Tuttleman Director of the Museum. “I am especially excited that so many contemporary artists will be featured this summer. Having three future curators research the collection is really helping us to see it anew.”

Infinite Spaces presents five exhibition themes—Urban Zones, Environmental Expanses, Interior Realms, Psychological Passages, and Fantastical Universes. Through these unique spaces, visitors will have the opportunity to explore space both as an artistic element and a powerful signifier of public and personal meaning.

The foundational challenge of space—how to define it, render it, and manage its infinite meanings—has occupied American artists in myriad ways. Infinite Spaces uses this artistic conundrum as its starting point and revisits how artists have configured space in imaginative ways throughout the history of American art.

Infinite Spaces: Rediscovering PAFA’s Permanent Collection is on view June 30 – September 9, 2018. The exhibition will be accompanied by programming and an online blog.