Art news

August 20, 2026 Final days for the National Gallery’s landmark survey of mining and American photography The National Gallery of Art in Washington is entering the final days of Beneath the Surface: Mining and American Photography. The exhibition remains on view through Sunday, August 23, bringing together roughly 150 photographs by more than 100 artists who have pictured mining, drilling, and energy production across nearly two centuries. The premise reaches beyond industrial documentation. Photography itself has always depended on extracted materials, from the silver used in early processes to the metals and minerals embedded in contemporary cameras and digital infrastructure. The exhibition asks viewers to consider both what photographs reveal about industries operating underground or at a distance and what the medium materially owes to those same systems. Historical works by Walker Evans, Lewis Hine, Dorothea Lange, Gordon Parks, and Carleton Watkins appear alongside photographs by Richard Avedon, Mitch Epstein, LaToya Ruby Frazier, David Maisel, and Will Wilson. Landscapes, portraits of workers, aerial views, photobooks, collage, and camera-less processes show how artists have approached extraction as labor, technology, environmental transformation, and lived experience. The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art in collaboration with the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. Diane Waggoner and Kristen Gaylord curated the project. After Washington, it is scheduled to travel to Milwaukee from October 23, 2026, through January 18, 2027, and then to Fort Worth from February 14 through May 9, 2027. Admission to the National Gallery of Art is free and no pass is required. The Washington presentation is installed in Gallery M74 on the main floor of the West Building.