The Joslyn’s dynamic program of exhibitions brings people together to experience art across time and cultures.
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Exhibitions

Featuring works from The Joslyn’s collection, this exhibition explores more than two centuries of prints produced in Japan. From artists like Katsushika Hokusai and Utagawa Hiroshige, who developed influential styles and techniques during the nineteenth century, to modern practitioners who adapted these traditions, printmaking has long been crucial in shaping the country&#8217;s art and culture.
Among many techniques, woodblock printing (木版画, mokuhanga) became prevalent in Japanese art in the seventeenth century. Under the military government of the Tokugawa clan (1603–1868), Japan experienced an era of economic development, urbanization, and cultural flourishing. Prints depicted scenes of everyday life, folk tales, landscapes, flora and fauna, and they featured all spheres of Japanese society. Described as ukiyo-e, or “pictures of the floating world,” these images gained popularity in the nineteenth century in Europe and North America, where artists and collectors purchased, copied, and imitated them.
In the early 1900s, a woodblock revival led to movements such as Shin-hanga (新版画, &#8220;new prints&#8221;), exemplified in the works of Kawase Hasui and the Yoshida family. Contemporary artists have paid homage to historical prints while reflecting shifts in Japanese society since the Second World War.
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Pictured: Katsushika Hokusai (Japanese, 1760–1849), Under the Wave Off Kanagawa, also known as The Great Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, c. 1830–32, color woodcut on paper, 9 1/2 × 14 3/8 in. (24.1 × 36.5 cm), Gift of the Omaha Public Library, 2021.4.146

From Hokusai to contemporary artists, this exhibition presents two hundred years of Japanese works on paper and explores the impact of printmaking on the country’s art and culture.

The Floating World and Beyond: 200 Years of Japanese Prints

Bill Viola was a central figure in video art for more than fifty years. Known for his immersive moving image and sound installations, Viola explored topics including spirituality, community, the cycle of life, and the power of the natural world. Captured in slow-motion, The Raft is a startling and poignant depiction of what unfolds during and after a crisis. The video opens on a diverse group of individuals who gather for unknown reasons. Their collective demeanor projects ease, even boredom, yet Viola’s ominous soundtrack suggests that something is amiss, and the once-calm scene soon turns chaotic. As the situation devolves, the subjects’ responses span curiosity to bewilderment, panic to heroism, and suffering to relief. Against the backdrop of increasing social, economic, and environmental instability, The Raft is both a warning and a remarkable display of the human capacity for resilience.
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Pictured: Bill Viola (1951—2024), The Raft, May 2004, color high-definition video projection, 10 min. 33 sec. Performers: Sheryl Arenson, Robin Bonaccorsi, Rocky Capella, Cathy Chang, Liisa Cohen, Tad Coughenour, James Ford, Michael Irby, Simon Karimian, John Kim, Tanya Little, Mike Martinez, Petro Martirosian, Jeff Mosley, Gladys Peters, Maria Victoria, Kaye Wade, Kim Weild, and Ellis Williams. © Bill Viola Studio 2025. Courtesy Bill Viola Studio and James Cohan, New York.

A central figure in video art for more than fifty years, Bill Viola explored spirituality, community, the cycle of life, and the power of the natural world. The Raft is a startling and moving depiction of what unfolds during and after a crisis, offering a warning about the future while also celebrating the human capacity for resilience.

Bill Viola: The Raft

In the installation Appliqué sur le terrain, Henry Payer views the cultural landscape of present-day Nebraska through the vibrant lens of Indigenous ribbonwork appliqué. This artform involves sewing layers of silk ribbons, cotton, wool, and glass beads to make regalia for special occasions. The distinctive symmetrical patterns reflect kinship, ecological knowledge, and oral histories of various Indigenous communities.
Inspired by The Joslyn’s collection of Karl Bodmer watercolors, Payer created eight appliqué collages that layer Missouri River landscapes, calico fabric, and texts about the colonization of the region. He hand-stitched the designs in the Ho-Chunk appliqué style, called zeenįba hirarucak. Each floral and geometric pattern references historical examples created by Umónhon, Ponca, Ho-Chunk, Pawnee, Ioway, and Otoe-Missouria women, honoring the legacy of artists whose names were not documented. As part of this collaborative project, contemporary artists have generously shared their appliqué stories and regalia.
Pictured: Henry Payer (Ho-Chunk, b. 1986), Omaha, Bellevue Agency, Post of Major Dougherty (After Ancestor Artist), from the series Appliqué sur le terrain, 2024, calico, digital print on polyester fabric, and thread, 36 × 48 in. (91.4 × 121.9 cm), © Henry Payer, Courtesy the artist

Henry Payer views the cultural landscape of present-day Nebraska through the vibrant lens of Indigenous ribbonwork appliqué in a special installation featured in the American galleries.

Henry Payer: Appliqué sur le terrain

Across time and cultures, people have looked to animals for artistic inspiration. Whether wild or domesticated, presented within their own ecosystems or in our homes, animals appear as subjects for artists working in a variety of media, styles, and traditions. Artists consider the relationships between animals and humans, utilize animals as symbols, and explore their roles in myth, religion, or folklore. Animals are sometimes depicted as part of scientific investigations; elsewhere, they are admired for their beauty. These myriad portrayals reflect cultural beliefs, societal values, and human understanding of the natural world. The works in this exhibition are drawn from The Joslyn’s collection and offer a glimpse into some of the ways that furry and feathered creatures have left their mark on art history.
Pictured: Rosa Bonheur (French, 1822–1899), Landscape with Cattle, c. 1850s, oil on panel, 7 × 9 in. (17.8 × 22.9 cm), Bequest of Mrs. C. N. Dietz, 1939.34

Featuring art spanning centuries and continents, this exhibition explores some of the ways that animals of all kinds—wild, domesticated, and mythical—have inspired human creativity.

Animals in Art

Born in Guyana, Suchitra Mattai descends from Indian indentured servants who Britain forcibly relocated to the Caribbean in the nineteenth century. Using colorful South Asian saris, Mattai explores stories of migration and the search for identity that diasporic communities often experience. Her site-specific installation in the Riley CAP Gallery takes inspiration from Guyana’s Kaieteur Falls, one of the largest single-drop waterfalls in the world. The exhibition features hundreds of braided saris that encircle a pool of glass shards Mattai gathered following a break-in at her former studio. Mattai believes that her repurposed materials hold mysteries tied to their origins and cultural applications. The broken glass—the product of a painful personal experience—serves as a metaphor for the collective trauma of Mattai’s ancestors and casts the gallery space as a site of healing, reclamation, and future imagining.
Pictured: Suchitra Mattai (Indo-Caribbean, born Guyana, 1973), The Fall, 2025, worn saris, broken glass from an attempted studio break-in, installation dimensions variable, Courtesy the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, Photo by Paul Salveson.

Suchitra Mattai explores stories of migration and the search for identity that diasporic communities often experience. Comprising hundreds of colorful South Asian saris encircling a pool of broken glass, The Fall reflects on the collective trauma of Mattai’s ancestors, indentured servants who were forcibly relocated to Guyana, and casts the gallery space as a site of healing and future imagining.

Suchitra Mattai: The Fall

Showcasing the vibrant and diverse artistic communities of the region, Made in the Plains features new and recent work by twenty artists living in Nebraska, Iowa, and South Dakota. While not a comprehensive survey of art being produced here, the exhibition highlights a range of materials and approaches artists engage to respond to the current moment. Universal human themes, including history, landscape, and representation will be explored alongside timely concerns, like climate change, land use, gender norms, bodily autonomy, and geopolitical conflict. Through painting, sculpture, photography, installation, ceramics, and performance, these artists exemplify the creative landscape of the Plains today.
Featured artists (pictured above in alphabetical order, left to right, top to bottom): Wesaam Al-Badry (Lincoln, NE), Jess Benjamin (Omaha, NE); Larry Buller (Lincoln, NE), Andrew Casto (Iowa City, IA), Rachel Cox (Iowa City, IA), T.J. Dedeaux-Norris (Iowa City, IA), Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez (Lincoln, NE), Neil Griess (Omaha, NE), Becky Grismer (Spearfish, SD), Shabnam Jannesari (Hastings, NE), Larassa Kabel (Des Moines, IA), Sarah Rowe (Omaha, NE), Nathaniel Ruleaux (Rapid City, SD), Lee Emma Running (Omaha, NE), Angie Seykora (Omaha, NE), Lauren Simpson (Omaha, NE), Francisco Souto (Lincoln, NE), Christine Stormberg (Omaha, NE), Mallory Wetherell (Kearney, NE), Jave Yoshimoto (Omaha, NE).

Featuring new and recent work by twenty artists, this exhibition celebrates the vibrant and diverse artistic communities of the Plains—Nebraska, Iowa, and South Dakota.

Made in the Plains

An ambitious and immersive exhibition, Dripping Earth: Cannupa Hanska Luger invites visitors on a journey into the acclaimed artist’s world, where time is nonlinear, scale is skewed, and cultural identity is fluid. The exhibition takes its title from Luger’s Hidatsa clan, the Awa xee (Dripping Dirt), who oversaw the repair of earth lodge dwellings. A trained ceramicist, Luger cites his application of clay as a natural extension of his lodge-building forebears’ labor and care for their communities. New work for the exhibition incorporates customary clay practices into a range of forms, from vessels to monumental sculptures. In using his hands to shape and transform wet earth, Luger connects with ancestors past, present, and future.
An important point of departure for Dripping Earth is The Joslyn’s renowned collection of watercolors, journals, and archives documenting the North American expedition (1832–34) of the German naturalist Prince Maximilian of Wied and the Swiss artist Karl Bodmer. Luger references depictions of his Mandan and Hidatsa ancestors in sculptures that combine materials sourced from the land with the detritus of consumer culture. Clay, willow branches, crocheted blankets, industrial-grade felt, and used sports equipment come together to tell new stories and disrupt expectations.
Presenting new work across media, this exhibition expands Luger’s speculative fiction series, Future Ancestral Technologies, an ongoing project spanning sculpture, printmaking, video, and performance that embraces the role of imagination in shaping cultural narratives. The artist draws inspiration from his ancestral connection to the Northern Plains, referencing the arts and technologies of past generations to envision a future rooted in Indigenous knowledge. Situating visitors within Missouri River landscapes now submerged by colonial damming projects, Luger reveals how such interventions continue to shape the land and its people.
Dripping Earth: Cannupa Hanska Luger is organized by the Margre H. Durham Center for Western Studies at the Joslyn Art Museum. It is accompanied by an exhibition catalogue featuring reflections by the artist, scholars, and knowledge bearers.
Pictured: Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara/Lakota, b. 1979), We Survive You—Midéegaadi, editorial photograph featuring 7 mixed media buffalo regalia made of repurposed materials, © Cannupa Hanska Luger, Photograph courtesy of the artist and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York, Photograph by Brandon Soder, 2023

With this ambitious and immersive exhibition, Cannupa Hanska Luger draws inspiration from his ancestral connection to the Northern Plains in newly created ceramics, video projections, prints, and monumental sculpture. Luger’s playful and innovative approach invites visitors to envision a future where land, identity, and culture are reclaimed and transformed.

Dripping Earth: Cannupa Hanska Luger

More to See

September 10, 2024–September 4, 2025
Joslyn Building 
Merriam Gallery J8
Henry Payer views the cultural landscape of present-day Nebraska through the vibrant lens of Indigenous ribbonwork appliqué in a special installation featured in the American galleries.

April 29, 2025–April 29, 2026
Joslyn Building 
Focus Gallery
Featuring art spanning centuries and continents, this exhibition explores some of the ways that animals of all kinds—wild, domesticated, and mythical—have inspired human creativity.

The Joslyn is closed today (Wed, Mar 19) due to inclement weather.

Art, architecture, and a storied history make The Joslyn a premier event venue that your guests will talk about for years to come. Your vision, paired with our one-of-a-kind spaces, equals unforgettable moments. From large celebrations to intimate gatherings, social occasions to business meetings, there is no event quite like a Joslyn event. Explore your options and contact our events staff today to start planning.