100th Anniversary of the National Museum of Asian Art Begins November

The National Museum of Asian Art announced on October 6, the plans for its 100th anniversary. Beginning in November and continuing through 2023, the museum will celebrate its centennial with a year-long series of events and programs that deepen the understanding of Asian arts, and cultures to expand its new audiences.

A Two-week festival, May 1, 2023-May 13, 2023 will celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month- the museum’s first large-scale festival in recognition of this heritage month, and a cornerstone of the centennial celebrations. For the past 100 years, the national museum has built one of the world’s most important museums of Asian arts and its history.

According to the National Museum of Asian Art, the museum’s rich holdings bring the arts of Asia into direct dialogue with an important collection of 19th-and early 20th-century American works, providing an essential platform for creative collaboration and cultural exchange between the United States, Asia, and the Middle East. New acquisitions are continually added to the collections, and the museum now showcases the richness of pre-modern Asian arts and evolving visual cultures of Asia in the 20th and 21st centuries.

“The museum’s centennial will serve not only as a milestone for the institution and the Smithsonian but as a catalyst for the century ahead,” said Chase F. Robinson, Dame Jillian Sackler Director of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and Freer Gallery of the Art, the National Museum of Asian Art. “Our vision is to transform the National Museum of Asian Art into a space where a wide range of visitors can come together to celebrate, learn about, and interact with Asian art and cultures, including their intersection with America. In our second century, we’re becoming a space to convene, learn, reflect and forge connections through art.

More plans and programs for the public, from May 1,2023-May 13, 2023, the museum and its surroundings on the National Mall will celebrate Asian arts and cultures with keynote speakers, headline performers, interactive experiences, culinary adventures, and community projects.

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