Layered Looking: Making Sense of Art
March 10, 2026 — July 19, 2026
Mary and Charlie Babcock Wing Gallery
What if looking at art felt more like playing a game, or solving a puzzle, or turning on a song you forgot you loved?
Layered Looking: Making Sense of Art invites you to move through Reynolda’s collection not with a guidebook or a lecture, but through sound, touch, memory, movement — even making things with your own two hands. It’s an exhibition about what happens when we give ourselves permission to engage art with our whole bodies and our full curiosity.
Instead of spotlighting one artist, period, or theme, the exhibition is organized around different ways of doing art appreciation — looking closely, listening deeply, striking a pose, building a bridge between your life and what you see. In one space, hear a saxophone solo as you reflect on brushstrokes. In another, you might sketch a mystery scene left unfinished by a painter two centuries ago. Around every corner, you’ll find playful provocations and gentle invitations to imagine more.
There’s no one right way in. That’s the point.
Whether you’re a first-time visitor or a lifelong art lover, you’ll walk away with a set of tools for seeing — tactile, sensory, reflective — that you can carry into any museum (and frankly, any moment of daily life). As G.K. Chesterton once said, “The true object of all human life is play.” We believe art is asking the same of us: Show up curious. Stay long enough to be inspired.
