Opening Day: For the People, By the People: America at 250

For the People, By the People: America at 250 looks to the nation’s impending semiquincentennial as an opportunity to reflect on America’s enduring ties to liberty, justice, and identity. Drawing inspiration from the democratic ideals articulated in the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner, this exhibition considers how the promise of freedom has been expressed, questioned, and reimagined across generations. Organized into four thematic sections, For the People, By the People brings together artworks from the KIA’s collection and loans of historic significance and bold contemporary voices to examine the symbols, struggles, and aspirations that shaped and continue to inform American life.
Spanning photography, printmaking, painting, sculpture, and installation-based works, this exhibition juxtaposes notable artists such as Dorothea Lange, Jacob Lawrence, Alfred Stieglitz, Hank Willis Thomas, and Andy Warhol with rising artists like Erica Lord, Julio Cesar Morales, and Cara Romero, among many others. From iconic images of migration and protest to neon text works and staged portraits that center Indigenous, African American, and diasporic experiences, the artists featured in For the People, By the People fashion and challenge the rhetoric and visual language of patriotism, social consciousness, labor, visibility, and belonging.
Simultaneously celebratory and contemplative, this exhibition invites visitors to reflect on America’s founding principles and our current lived realities. By placing historic works in dialogue with contemporary practices, For the People, By the People: America at 250 not only commemorates the nation’s 250th anniversary, but it also serves as a timely meditation on who “the people” were then—and who we aspire to be now.
Image credit: Flo Ngala, Hot Girl Summer, 2020, color digital print. Collection of the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts; Elisabeth Claire Lahti Fund, 2020.41.