SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY.- The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College presents All These Growing Things, a year-long exhibition of contemporary and historical paintings, prints, textiles, photography, and sculpture from the Tang Museum collection that explores questions of becoming and belonging.
Organized around four central ideas—Ancestries, Masks, Transformations, and Hybrids—the exhibition traces personal, ancestral, and cultural histories; considers masking as both revelation and concealment; explores the transformative possibilities of our lives; and highlights interconnections among humans, plants, and animals. Hybrids functions as a cross-cutting thread that weaves through the other three sections to draw out these interconnections. The exhibition will be on view from August 23 through July 19, 2026.
The exhibition raises compelling questions about how we experience and understand the world—now and in the future. How do individual, familial, cultural, and national ancestries present themselves in our daily lives? When, why, and how do you choose to mask? What transformations are happening around you—for yourself, your community, and the natural world? How can we be more intentional in connecting to all that surrounds us?
“All These Growing Things promises to spark new ideas about the interconnections between all of us,” said Ian Berry, Dayton Director. “As we celebrate our 25th anniversary, this exhibition reflects our mission as a hub of interdisciplinary art and ideas—where exhibitions can catalyze creative thinking.”
Many of the works on view are recent acquisitions that are being exhibited at the museum for the first time, including gifts from Ann and Mel Schaffer, Peter Norton, Jack Shear, Eileen and Michael Cohen, and Dieu Donné, a nonprofit that supports artists and papermaking:
• Polly Apfelbaum, Crazy Green, Bruised Orange, 2000
• Ruth Asawa, untitled life masks of Joan and Vincent Mastropaul, c. 1980s
• Willie Cole, Stowage, 1997
• Chitra Ganesh, Dancer, 2012
• Brad Kahlhamer, Apache Girl Surrounded by Taxidermy, 2001
• Whitfield Lovell, So Soon, 2001
• Shirin Neshat, I Am its Secret, 1993, published 1999
• Barbara Takenaga, Wheel (Zozma), 2008
• William Villalongo, Specimen, 2023
As part of the Museum’s 25th anniversary in 2025, the Tang is re-engaging the Accelerate initiative, which aims to enhance academic excellence, build broader and more diverse audiences for museum exhibitions, and strengthen humanistic inquiry through the museum collection. Beginning with All These Growing Things, the Museum will host three collection exhibitions through 2029, each organized around a distinct theme, offering interdisciplinary teaching and learning opportunities to campus and wider audiences.
The exhibition includes extended labels written by faculty members, underscoring the Tang’s interdisciplinary mission. Contributors include Jason Breves (Biology), John Brueggemann (Sociology), Rachel Cantave (International Affairs), Winston Grady-Willis (Black Studies), Talia Lieber (Art History), Harrison Schmitt (Psychology), and Jessica Somerville-Braun (Education Studies).
All These Growing Things is organized by Rebecca McNamara, The Frances Young Tang ’61 Associate Curator, and is supported by the Friends of the Tang.
