Exhibition

Best Laid Plans: Unrealized Projects from the Archives of American Art

Best Laid Plans examines unrealized projects preserved in the Archives of American Art. While centered on unfinished artworks, the exhibition also brings together proposals for publications, exhibitions, and other creative initiatives that, for various reasons, were never realized. Rarely exhibited or published, these materials often survive only in archival form. By foregrounding them, the exhibition reveals an essential dimension of the Archives’ holdings and introduces little-known—or entirely unknown—projects by influential artists and thinkers.

Included in the show are projects from Carl Andre, Stephen Antonakos, Gregory Battcock, Gretchen Bender, Dara Birnbaum, Bruce Conner, Lowell Darling, Nancy Holt, Robert Irwin, Gyorgy Kepes, Sol Lewitt, Robert Morris, Matt Mullican, Paul Ramirez Jonas, Ilene Segalove, Robert Smithson, Nancy Spero, Jessica Stockholder, Athena Tacha, and Mierle Laderman Ukeles. 

On View At

Related to:
Art & Design
American History
Art & Design
Front entrance of the National Portrait Gallery with tall columns and wide stone steps
With visual arts, performing arts, and new media, the National Portrait Gallery introduces you to the people who have shaped the country—poets, presidents, actors, activists, visionaries, villains...and everyone in between.
Location
Washington, DC
11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily