The Museum of Modern Art has announced a slate of summer programming to coincide with the United States’ 250th anniversary, combining exhibitions, screenings, and public participation with a new membership initiative for arts educators.
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller.
The program, running primarily from June through August 2026, centers on themes of community, migration, and vernacular creativity. It also introduces a complimentary two-year membership for New York State arts educators teaching pre-K through grade 12, granting free admission, film access, and additional institutional benefits.
The exhibition American Folk Art: Revisiting the Collection of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller (June 13–August 9, 2026) revisits the holdings of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, one of the museum’s three founders. Installed in the third-floor galleries, the show will present approximately 50 works drawn from her collection, now held by the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum in Colonial Williamsburg. The exhibition includes paintings such as The Peaceable Kingdom (1832–34) by Edward Hicks, alongside objects like weathervanes, painted portraits, and decorative works by self-taught makers. These will be shown in dialogue with works from MoMA’s collection by artists including Elie Nadelman and Charles Sheeler, reflecting early 20th-century interest in folk traditions as a precursor to modernism. The exhibition follows the museum’s 2024 presentation focused on co-founder Lillie P. Bliss and continues a broader institutional reassessment of its origins.
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Gift of David Rockefeller.
Running in July and August, Immigrant Nation: People in Transit will screen more than 100 films at MoMA’s Titus Theaters, exploring migration as a defining condition of both American history and global cinema. Organized by Francisco Valente of the museum’s Department of Film, the series includes works from countries across Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The program positions cinema as a long-standing medium for representing displacement, mobility, and the formation of new communities.
A central public-facing component of the program is Wish Quilt (June 13–August 9, 2026), an interactive installation in the Donald and Catherine Marron Family Atrium. Inspired by the 19th-century painting The Quilting Party (1850), the project invites visitors to contribute individual fabric-like squares to a growing collective artwork. Participants will create eight-by-eight-inch designs during drop-in sessions, which will be assembled into a large-scale quilt displayed on the atrium walls. The work is intended to visualize the accumulation of individual contributions within a shared institutional space.
Alongside the summer programming, MoMA has launched a new membership tier aimed at arts educators across New York State. Announced by director Christophe Cherix, the initiative offers a free two-year membership for teachers in visual and performing arts disciplines. Benefits include unlimited admission, discounted guest access, and invitations to member events, extending the museum’s engagement beyond its immediate audience.
In a statement, Cherix said the combined programming and membership initiative is intended to “underline and explore how vital creativity and community are to our nation, and how they will continue to shape what it can become.”