New Exhibit Challenges Children, Adults to “Reorder” their Perspective of the World Around Them; to Explore Issues and Objects From Multiple Viewpoints

Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling Presents Order / Reorder: Experiments with Collections, A Collaboration with the Hudson River Museum that Offers Kaleidoscopic Perspectives of American Art

Opening September 10, 2024

The Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling and the Hudson River Museum are excited to present Order / Reorder: Experiments with Collections, opening to the public on September 10, 2024. Bringing together selections of sculptures, works on paper, paintings, and photography from the Hudson River Museum’s collection, Order / Reorder offers a multifaceted exploration of American art through the lenses of landscape, abstraction, and family. The exhibition, which originated at the Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY, has been reimagined for the Sugar Hill’s audiences that include young children, their families, and art enthusiasts alike.

Art, as both a creative output and a curated object, is in constant dialogue with the past and present, inviting us to continually reimagine how we see ourselves and the world. Order / Reorder: Experiments with Collections explores approaches to looking at American art and identity from multiple perspectives. The exhibition also offers young children an introduction into the art of curation and storytelling through the objects on display. Presented in two iterations, the exhibition will open first in September 2024, with a second phase that opens in February 2025, where some works will be swapped out, and others reconfigured to cultivate new connections and perspectives. The works are installed in constellatory arrangements to spark discussion by juxtaposing different styles, outlooks, and eras. Works by renowned artists are in conversation with those now emerging. 

“Order / Reorder: Experiments with Collections is an imaginative and exploratory exhibition that, at its core, is about storytelling through multiple perspectives,” said Charlene Melville, Executive Director of the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling. “By ordering and reordering the same objects in new and varied contexts, different and more nuanced interpretations can emerge. Encouraging young people to see familiar things in new ways is crucial, and this exhibition sparks these kinds of revelations.”

The exhibition invites visitors to discover connections among a diverse array of artworks. For instance, landscapes by Afro-Native artist Richard Mayhew, Shinnecock Nation photographer Jeremy Dennis, sculptor Louise Nevelson, and Hudson River School artist James Fairman are juxtaposed to provoke conversations around land sovereignty, power, and emotion. Collages, paintings, and textiles by artists such as Tuesday Smillie, Derrick Adams, and Alvin C. Hollingsworth offer visions of futurity interwoven with narratives of community, family, and belonging. Additionally, abstraction is explored as a means of expressing the energy of civic movements in works by artists like Jamel Robinson and Charles Foreman, as well as more intimate, familial forms in pieces by Lee Hall and an anonymous 19th-century quiltmaker.

List of exhibiting artists, in both the fall and spring: Derrick Adams, Richard Joseph Anuszkiewicz, Seongmin Ahn, Jeremy Dennis,  James Fairman, Ralph Fasanella, Charles W. L. Foreman, Mary Frey, Guy Gillette, Lee Hall, Valerie Hegarty, Alvin C. Hollingsworth, Frances Hynes, Janelle Lynch, Richard Mayhew, Alison Moritsugu, Louise Nevelson, Renata Rainer, Winfred Rembert, Jamel Robinson, and Tuesday Smillie

Laura Vookles, Chair of the Hudson River Museum’s Curatorial Department, said “It was inspiring and invigorating to look at our collection with fresh eyes, considering new ways it can spark interaction and wonder, as well as meaningful conversations about current issues. We are pleased to share this reimagined iteration of the exhibition with a new audience at Sugar Hill, and hope that these artworks help them find joy in art, consider new viewpoints, and explore their own creativity.”

The exhibition was organized by the Hudson River Museum and co-curated by Laura Vookles, Chair of the Curatorial Department at the Hudson River Museum, and Bentley Brown, Adjunct Professor of Art History at Fordham University and PhD Fellow at the NYU Institute of Fine Arts. The presentation at the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling is organized by Allie Tepper. 

At the Hudson River Museum, several works were lent by Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, as part of the Art Bridges’ Collection Loan Partnership initiative, and generous support was provided by the New York State Senate and Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins.

About the Hudson River Museum

The Hudson River Museum is a preeminent cultural institution in Westchester County and the New York metropolitan area. The Museum is situated on the banks of the Hudson River in Yonkers, New York, with a mission to engage, inspire, and connect diverse communities through the power of the arts, sciences, and history.

The HRM offers engaging experiences for every age and interest, with an ever-evolving collection of American art and dynamic exhibitions that range from notable nineteenth-century paintings to contemporary art installations. The campus, which recently expanded to include a West Wing with exhibition galleries and sweeping views of the Hudson River, features Glenview, an 1877 house on the National Register of Historic Places; a state-of-the-art planetarium; an environmental teaching gallery; and an outdoor amphitheater. The Museum is dedicated to collecting, preserving, exhibiting, and interpreting these multidisciplinary offerings, which are complemented by an array of public programs that encourage creative expression, collaboration, and artistic and scientific discovery. The Museum is accredited by the American Association of Museums (AAM), an honor awarded to only 3% of museums nationwide.

About the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling

The Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling is a contemporary art institution specifically programmed for children and designed to engage all family members in moments of discovery, creation, and connection. The museum invites visitors of all ages to experience the work of important legacy, contemporary, and emerging artists, to explore their own creative interests in our well-equipped art-making facilities, and to connect through our storytelling programs. 

Primarily serving children ages 3-8, our museum—through interactive exhibitions, a site-specific artist in residency program, storytelling, and public programming—supports the cognitive and creative growth of children, ignites the joy of creativity, and encourages intergenerational community building.

Since opening, the museum has hosted many of today’s leading cultural figures and has exhibited works from celebrated international artists, including Faith Ringgold, Ana Mendieta, Chester Higgins, Derek Fordjour, Deborah Willis, and Nina Chanel Abney, and have hosted Grammy-nominated social justice artist Fyütch, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Len Cabral, and Nina Crews, among others, to lead storytime. Alumni from the artist residency program have gone on to produce works exhibited and acquired at major institutions such as the Brooklyn Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Bronx Botanical Gardens.