On Site Exhibitions
Meridian serves as both the starting point for our traveling exhibitions and as the host for the international exhibits that come to the United States.

On View Now through July 13, 2008,
at Meridian

Jam Session: America's Jazz Ambassadors Embrace the World – Opened April 3, 2008

dizzy gillespie, pakistan, 1956_web
Meridian presents a photographic exhibition that chronicles the international tours of legendary jazz musicians selected by the U.S. State Department to serve as roving cultural "ambassadors" from the 1950's through the 1970's.  Over 100 compelling images, together with posters and other materials, portray the journeys of music greats such as Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Dave Brubeck, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Benny Carter, and Sarah Vaughan. 

Jam Session illustrates the ways in which this innovative approach to cultural diplomacy helped the United States share its message successfully -- often in moments critical to American foreign policy. Read more...

Photo: Dizzy Gillespie, Pakistan, 1956.
Courtesy of the Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University

 

Recent Exhibitions 
Five American Voices: Selections from the Freedom Place Collection of Stuart Marshall Bloch and Ambassador Julia Chang Bloch (February 7 - March 16, 2008)
freeman_hidden_hands
Five American Voices showcased over 30 paintings, watercolors and collages by distinguished 20th century African-American artists Romare Bearden, Benny Andrews, Alma Woodsey Thomas, Robert Freeman and Richard Yarde, whose art, though distinct, is united by their grounding in the 20th century African-American experience. These artists became preeminent in their time and created innovative, expressionistic works drawing from their social environment. Read more... 

Image: Hidden Hands, by Robert Freeman, 1987

 

Life at the Edge: The Big Thaw
Meridian International Center partnered with National Geographic Magazine to present an exhibition which highlighted the increasing fragility of the Arctic regions as a resmm7354_0004a1ult of rising temperatures in the atmosphere. Life at the Edge: The Big Thaw included 50 compelling photographs by renowned photographer Paul Nicklen, with additional photographer James Balog, which chronicle the powerful change taking place in the Arctic landscape. Read more...  

Photo by Paul Nicklen/National Geographic


Spirit Into Shape: Contemporary Italian Sculpture
The exhibit Spirit Into Shape: Contemporary Italian Sculpture included works by five of Italy’s most prestigious young artists: Giuseppe Bergomi, Pietro Coletta, Wolfgang Alexander Kossuth, Oliviero Rainaldi, and Luca Zanchi. Read More


Wishes and Dreams: Iran’s New Generation Emerges (now on tour)
Meridian International Center in Washington, D.C, in partnership with the Tehran University Art Gallery in Tehran, has organized a new exhibition of Iranian art, entitled Wishes and Dreams: Iran’s New Generation Emerges, which focuses on the young artists at work there today. Read More