Mounted during the celebration of the United States semiquincentennial, Folk Nation: Crafting Patriotism in the United States draws from the American Folk Art Museum’s rich collections to explore links between vernacular art and the construction of an American sense of self. Introducing visitors to the concept of “folk” as a category developed in conjunction with the art and antiques markets, this exhibition positions works as multilayered in their meanings, imbued with cultural significance by not only their creators, but also their collectors and subsequent owners. Americans have long preserved objects as a way of telling stories about themselves. Beginning after the Revolutionary War and gathering momentum in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, people turned to early American things to construct a national history and sense of collective identity—an impulse often driven by lingering insecurity about the young nation’s perceived cultural provinciality compared to Europe.
This concentrated exhibition illuminates how makers both historical and contemporary have employed a kaleidoscopic variety of media to express love of country while also revealing the complexities and contradictions embedded in such expressions.
Folk Nation is curated by Emelie Gevalt, PhD, AFAM’s Deborah Davenport and Stewart Stender Deputy Director & Chief Curatorial and Program Officer, and Caroline Culp, PhD, AFAM’s former Warren Family Assistant Curator and now Brock Curator of American Art at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, VA.