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MUSEUM FOR ART IN WOOD PRESENTS A USABLE PAST: REFLECTIONS ON A NATION AND ITS INHERITANCE, AN EXHIBITION OF SCULPTURAL WORKS BY A DIVERSE GROUP OF 12 ARTISTS
The featured works illustrate how our nation’s past continues to shape these artists and their experiences by drawing on their respective family lineages and ancestral myths.
Photos: HERE
Philadelphia, PA | November 5, 2025 – On November 7, the Museum for Art in Wood (141 N. 3rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106) unveils A Usable Past: Reflections on a Nation and Its Inheritance, a new exhibition of sculptural works by twelve artists who each reckon with America’s layered histories. Ahead of the nation’s semiquincentennial celebrations, the Museum invited the featured artists to interpret their respective identities into form, giving a human scale and substance to the abstract character of our collective national identity. From family lineages and ancestral myths to rooted or shifting values, the ideas that drive these works illustrate how the nation’s past continues to shape these artists and their experience of the present. A Usable Past is curated by the Museum for Art in Wood’s Executive Director and Chief Curator Jennifer-Navva Milliken and will be on display in the Museum’s gallery from November 7, 2025, to February 15, 2026.
The phrase “a usable past” describes how we draw meaning from history to navigate the present. For the twelve artists in this exhibition, that examination unfolds through the medium of wood—a living, documentary material. Like families and nations, trees inherit traits that strengthen and sustain them, and in the artists’ hands, this living archive becomes a site for reflection on what is passed down: liberty and revolution, labor and belonging, resilience and repair. Together, the featured artists probe how history shapes identity, labor, and imagination, asking what we consciously carry forward and what we allow to decompose, nourishing new growth. Two and a half centuries after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, A Usable Past invites us to consider art as a form of documentation—an act of inheritance and renewal through which the stories of a nation are carved, carried, and reimagined.
“In A Usable Past, we set out to explore how artists treat history as something alive and responsive, much like wood itself, which holds memory and chronology in every grain and growth ring,” said Milliken. “Each artist in this exhibition uses their craft to reflect on what has been inherited and what can be reimagined. Together, their works create a space where the stories of a nation are remembered and renewed, allowing the past to serve as a resource for shaping a more conscious present.”
For A Usable Past, Milliken has curated a selection of works by Richmond-based contemporary wood artist Vivian Chiu; Newark-based visual artist Damien Davis; Minneapolis-based sculptor Michael De Forest; Mexican-born, New York City-based sculptor Raul De Lara; New Hampshire-based furniture artist Aspen Golann; Los Angeles-based cabinet-maker and artist Terry Holzgreen; Worcester-based multi-media artist James Maurelle; New York City-based visual artist Jordan Nassar; Atlanta-based multidisciplinary artist Ato Ribeiro; Massachusetts-based interdisciplinary artist Gina Siepel; New York City-based sculptor David J. Wilson; and Tennessee-based furniture maker and artist Kimberly Winkle.
As visitors explore the gallery, they’ll find works by several artists who have previously exhibited in the Museum for Art in Wood over the years. Terry Holzgreen’s work, “Coz Democracy’s Still Got Legs,” shows his knack for twisting the quasi-functional with political satire in this oversized, ungainly work created from a menagerie of wood pieces. After their 2024 Museum for Art in Wood exhibition To Understand a Tree, Gina Siepel returns to the museum with “The Boy Mechanic Project: Preparations for a Voyage,” a large installation and mini-library that mirthfully examines early American ideals of gender-coded self-reliance. Artist Raul De Lara was 12 when his family immigrated to the United States and settled in Austin, Texas. His work often draws on the wildflowers and plant life native to Texas and Mexico, using their dual origins to show his own split identity. De Lara’s autobiographical piece “Cavalle II” takes this approach with his charming take on a rocking horse, substituting the traditional mount with a spiny cactus sporting a full saddle and horse-like tail. In his piece “Matilde,” James Maurelle demonstrates how artistic practice bridges labor and creativity, treating sculpture like a musical composition—where tools and materials engage in a rhythmic call-and-response. Guided by the improvisational spirit of jazz, his works translate cultural and industrial histories into physical compositions that harmonize mind, hand, and material.
Throughout the exhibition, A Usable Past makers weave in imagery and symbols from their family’s cultural histories and traditions to represent their individual identities. For her contribution, Vivian Chiu’s piece, “A Hundred Fortunes,” is inspired by the platters used to serve Hong Kong dim sum, featuring fish, shrimp, and sauces that represent a communion of tradition and family gatherings. Artist Jordan Nassar also draws from his Palestinian roots by using tatreez embroidery to reflect his hybridized upbringing growing up in the US. In A Usable Past, Nassar presents wood panels with brass inlay patterns inspired by traditional Middle Eastern woodworking. Similarly, Ghanaian-American artist Ato Ribeiro combines symbolic languages of the African diaspora, transforming African textile traditions into intricate wooden tapestries in his piece “Home Away From Home #10.” His interlocking patterns draw inspiration from Ghanaian adinkra and kente cloth, as well as African-American quilts that were coded with secret messages from the Underground Railroad.
Many works in A Usable Past demonstrate artists’ use of craft to evoke social critique. Michael De Forest’s “This Is My Handle, This is My Spout” from his Suture Series takes pieces of laminated, individually shaped wood and lashes them together into a teapot shape before decorating it with painted depictions of arrested suspects taken by legendary American photographer Weegee. David J. Wilson investigates the material and psychological traces of power within institutional and carceral systems, translating these dynamics into sculptural form. Through labor-intensive manipulation of wood and silicone, he exposes how material transformation can mirror societal structures, revealing the human cost and complexity embedded within systems of justice and governance.
While some artists draw from their own experiences and family histories, others tap into the traditions of American craft to inform their work. Woodworker, artist, and educator Aspen Golann’s furniture and objects merge traditional craftsmanship with a modern sensibility and critique. Through her training in 17th- to 19th-century woodworking, her handmade works, such as her A Usable Past piece “Union,” explore themes of history, labor, and collective memory.
Together, these artists provide a framework for understanding the diverse cultures, histories, traditions, and mythologies that have shaped our nation’s rich and complex identity over the last 250 years.
A Usable Past is generously supported by the Cambium Giving Society of the Museum for Art in Wood, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Bresler Foundation, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Philadelphia Cultural Fund, and Windgate Foundation.
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About the Museum for Art in Wood:
The Museum for Art in Wood is the international leader for contemporary art and creativity in the material of wood. The Museum engages, educates, and inspires the public through the exhibition, collection, and interpretation of contemporary art in wood. Founded in 1986 and sited in Philadelphia, the Museum for Art in Wood serves a local and international community. It has built its reputation by providing opportunities for makers and visitors to experience craft directly, through participatory programming; seminal exhibitions and documentation; and the growth, conservation, exhibition, and care of its permanent collection. The Museum’s practice of keeping these resources free and available to the public emphasizes its commitment to building a democratic and inclusive community. Visit museumforartinwood.org to learn more.