Exhibitions Overview

The museum-wide 2024 Long Island Biennial is the 8th edition of the juried show and the first to be a themed competition. It features artwork by 60 contemporary artists from across Nassau & Suffolk counties. In this year of global elections, as some 60 countries representing half of the world’s populations hold regional and national leadership votes—The Heckscher Museum of Art invited Long Island artists to submit work that engages with contemporary social, cultural, or political issues.  762 artwork entries were received, with 79 selected for exhibition representing artists living in communities stretching from Floral Park to Montauk.

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Embracing the Parallax: Berenice Abbott and Elizabeth McCausland will showcase twenty-two gelatin silver prints from the collection that span key points in the artist’s career. Including photographs from the “Changing New York” series of the 1930s and her documentations of scientific phenomena in the 1950s, this exhibition will unpack Abbott’s expansive oeuvre and explore how it contributed to key moments in the crystallization of modernity. A part of the Heckscher’s 2025 Pride initiative, this exhibition raises questions about the politics of visibility and invisibility by examining Abbott’s photographs and their relation to her identity as a lesbian. Abbott’s life and career can be viewed through the lenses of change and transformation, as her keen eye captured fleeting moments that would otherwise be lost.

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Robert Graham Carter (American, b. 1938) is a visual artist best known for his mixed media works including drawings; sculptural, high relief paintings; and works on wood. This exhibition explores Carter‘s studio practice and traces important themes from his lifelong career.  Created over the last sixty years, his figurative compositions balance personal and universal truths, with a focus on centering topics pertinent to the African American experience growing up in the Jim Crow South: the joy and importance of family, the legacy of segregation, the charm of childhood, important figures of the Black church, and the histories of Blackface in American visual culture. In 1973, Carter became the first African American artist to present a solo show at The Heckscher Museum of Art, exhibiting pencil drawings and collages. The artist explains that his art is inspired by “social experiences, political experiences, economic experiences. Almost whatever you’re going through personally, what the community is going through, find their reflection in the work.”

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Don’t miss the chance to see this exhibition of extraordinary art created by high school students from across Long Island! Each year, this exhibit challenges students to choose a work of art in the Museum as the starting point for their own creative exploration. Hundreds of students submit artwork in a broad range of subjects, styles, media, and techniques, with approximately 80 selected for display in the exhibition.

This museum-wide exhibition features LGBTQ+ artists drawn from the Heckscher’s collection. It will include art from a wide range of time periods and mediums, showcasing the diverse worldviews and subject matters depicted by LGBTQ+ artists. Victoria Munro, the Executive Director of the Alice Austen House, will guest curate the exhibition.