Dallas, TX—June 12, 2025— The Dallas Museum of Art is excited to transition its Barrel Vault and Quadrant galleries to showcase the Museum’s important postwar and contemporary art collection. Fan favorites from Jackson Pollock to Bridget Riley to Jean-Michel Basquiat are coming out of storage and into the spotlight, all included in free general admission. On June 14, the Museum will unveil a dynamic new installation of cutting-edge 20th- and 21st-century art. The installation will feature some of the DMA’s most iconic and beloved works, spanning from around 1945 to today, that will rotate quarterly. The “spine” of the Barrel Vault will trace the history of postwar art chronologically, while the Quadrant galleries will be organized thematically, featuring installations of time-based media, figuration, Minimalism and a selection of prints, drawings and photography.
"We look forward to welcoming DMA guests to take in some of our most exceptional works in the context of the broader postwar and contemporary collection,” said Dr. Katherine Brodbeck, Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art. “These new installations will be a great opportunity for our visitors to see artworks that they know and love, while also discovering new favorites, seeing the DMA’s latest acquisitions and getting a glimpse of never-before-seen works.”
For the last decade, these galleries, a spacious nearly 12,000-square-foot exhibiting area, have showcased many rotating special exhibitions, including such ambitious shows as Afro-Atlantic Histories, Dior: From Paris to the World and An Enduring Legacy: The Margaret and Eugene McDermott Collection of Impressionist and Modern Art. This shift to showcase our expansive contemporary collection in the Barrel Vault and Quadrant galleries under our free general admission policy marks a key advance in our strategic plan.
“As an industry-leading global museum, it is central to our mission to be a guiding force in contemporary art,” said Tamara Wootton Forsyth, Interim Director and The Marcus-Rose Family Deputy Director. “We’re looking forward to spotlighting the artists who are continuing the legacy of art making and storytelling that our collection is built upon.”
About the DMA’s Postwar and Contemporary Art Collection
The Dallas Museum of Art has one of the leading collections of contemporary art in an American encyclopedic museum. The collection encompasses over 4,000 works from 1945 to the present, including major holdings of Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism; Conceptualism, time-based media and installation works; photography; and the work of emerging artists. The Museum has particular strengths in German, Italian, East Asian and Latin American art, as well as in art of the African diaspora. Additions of work by today’s established and emerging artists continue the DMA’s distinguished history of collecting the art of the present, including recent acquisitions of works by Chris Ofili, Lorna Simpson, Carolee Schneeman, Mel Bochner, Alex Katz, Jaune Quick-to-See-Smith, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Nari Ward, Barbara Kruger, Salman Toor and Cecilia Vicuña. Works by Texas artists, including Ja’Tovia Gary, Annette Lawrence and Nic Nicosia, have consistently been acquired.