Rubell Museum DC to Present Two New Exhibitions in Museum-Wide Reinstallation this Fall
Basil Kincaid: Spirit in the Gift, a solo exhibition
presenting four large-scale quilted artworks
Material Witness features work by 30 artists working
with non-traditional materials and processes
WASHINGTON DC (August 25, 2025) – The Rubell Museum DC announced today that it will open two new contemporary art exhibitions as part of a museum-wide reinstallation on September 3, 2025.
Basil Kincaid: Spirit in the Gift marks the first solo museum exhibition in Washington DC for Kincaid (b. 1986, St. Louis, MO). Four large-scale quilted artworks created during the artist’s residency at the Rubell Museum in Miami in 2023 will be presented in the DC museum’s largest gallery.
Kincaid’s work pays homage to the long history of quilt-making while exploring the relationships between identity, ancestry, and place. Some themes are deeply personal and autobiographical, others are more universal, but all evoke the joy inherent in the artist’s love for and nurturing of community. The entailed and labor-intensive process of creating these monumental works is balanced by an improvisational, spontaneous, and fluid quality that runs throughout them. The result is as indebted to freehand drawing and jazz music as it is to patchwork quilt making and embroidery.
Material Witness presents 30 of today’s most compelling and innovative artists employing non-traditional materials and processes. Squid ink, Coca-Cola, ostrich eggs, anointing oil, lipstick, discarded metal, and animal hides are several of the preformed, natural, and unnatural mediums incorporated into three-dimensional works that expand upon the storied legacy of assemblage—a critical approach to artmaking that was first formalized in the 1961 exhibition The Art of Assemblage at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
With echoes of land art, Arte Povera, abject art, and readymades these artists employ industrial waste, organic detritus, and mass-produced commodities to explore formal, environmental, political, and social concerns. Found objects in various entropic states provide the backbone for many of these works, illuminating cycles of consumption, decay, and renewal.
Material Witness spans 23 galleries across the museum’s three floors and presents individual artist rooms as well as group presentations connecting artists who share similar materials and motives. For many of these artists, Material Witness represents their first exhibition in our nation’s capital or at the Rubell Museum.
Artists in the exhibition:
Patricia Ayres (b. 1975, New York, NY)
Danica Barboza (b. 1988, New York, NY)
Peter Buggenhout (b. 1963, Dendermonde, Belgium)
Lucy Dodd (b. 1981, New York, NY)
Leonardo Drew (b. 1961, Tallahassee, FL)
Josh Faught (b. 1979, St. Louis, MO)
Urs Fischer (b. 1973, Zürich, Switzerland)
Isa Genzken (b. 1948, Bad Oldesloe, Germany)
He Xiangyu (b. 1986, Kuandian County, Liaoning Province, China)
Evan Holloway (b. 1967, La Mirada, CA)
Samuel Levi Jones (b. 1978, Marion, IN)
Paul Kneale (b. 1986, Toronto, Ontario)
André Komatsu (b. 1978, São Paulo, Brazil)
Miler Lagos (b. 1973, Bogotá, Colombia)
Rodney McMillian (b. 1969, Columbia, SC)
John Miller (b. 1954, Cleveland, OH)
Dianna Molzan (b. 1972, Tacoma, WA)
Maria Nepomuceno (b. 1976, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
Solange Pessoa (b. 1961, Ferros, Brazil)
Paulo Nimer Pjota (b. 1988, São José do Rio Preto, Brazil)
Rudolf Polanszky (b. 1951, Vienna, Austria)
Shinique Smith (b. 1971, Baltimore, MD)
Diamond Stingily (b. 1990, Chicago, IL)
Henry Taylor (b. 1958, Ventura, CA)
Kaari Upson (1970-2021, b. San Bernardino, CA)
Erika Verzutti (b. 1971, São Paulo, Brazil)
Marianne Vitale (b. 1973, East Rockaway, NY)
Raphaela Vogel (b. 1988, Nuremberg, Germany)
La Monte Westmoreland (b. 1941, Racine, WI)
Kennedy Yanko (b. 1988, St. Louis, MO)
Basil Kincaid: Spirit in the Gift and Material Witness are both drawn entirely from the Rubells’ unparalleled and ever-growing collection of contemporary art of more than 7,700 works. This presentation marks the fourth installation at the Rubell Museum DC, which opened in fall 2022 in the former Randall Junior High School, a historic school in Southwest DC that counts Marvin Gaye as one of its distinguished alumni. The exhibitions extend throughout the museum’s 32,000 square feet, which preserves the original layout of the historic school, with classrooms, teachers’ offices, the auditorium, and foyers transformed into galleries. The setting reinforces the role of artists as students and teachers making meaning of our world and encourages audiences to reflect upon the insights and perspectives communicated through their work.
About the Rubell Museum DC
Located at 65 I Street in the Southwest neighborhood, the Rubell Museum DC brings the Rubell Family’s extensive contemporary art collection to the nation’s capital. Dedicated exclusively to contemporary art, the Rubell Museum DC reinvigorates the building of the former Randall Junior High School, a historically Black public school built in 1906 and closed in 1978. The museum serves as a place for the public to engage with the most compelling national and international artists of our time. Admission is free for Washington DC residents.
Shortly after Mera and Don Rubell married in New York in 1964, they began visiting artists’ studios and collecting art. Their son, Jason Rubell, joined them in 1982 in building the collection, creating the exhibitions, and developing the museums, reflecting the multi-generational family passion for discovering, engaging, and supporting many of today’s most compelling artists. The Rubell Family Collection was established in 1993 in the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami, and in 2019 was relocated to the Allapattah neighborhood. Following the move and expansion, the institution was renamed the Rubell Museum to emphasize its public mission and expanded access for audiences.
The Rubell Museum’s collection is distinguished by its unprecedented range and depth that has enabled the Museum to organize over 50 exhibitions during the last three decades drawn entirely from its holdings in painting, sculpture, photography, video, and installation. These have included such groundbreaking and diverse exhibitions as Against All Odds: Keith Haring (2005), Red Eye: Los Angeles Artists (2006), 30 Americans (2008) which has since traveled to 23 museums around the country), Beg Borrow and Steal (2009), NO MAN’S LAND (2015), Purvis Young (2018), Yayoi Kusama (2020), and She Said, She Said: Contemporary Artists from the Rubell Museum (2024). Many of these exhibitions have toured to museums nationally and internationally and are accompanied by catalogues.
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