The human body has the potential to serve as a universal point of connection. The feats the human body can achieve, the wonder it can inspire, and the pain it can endure offer possibilities for uniting us through shared experience. Everyone has a body—one that comes into existence, changes through time, and eventually succumbs to death.

Yet, the body is also individual and intimate, shaped both by cultural context and personal circumstance. It serves as a site of violence and debate, providing visible ways to identify and label difference that can lead to widespread, harmful injustice.

This exhibition explores these complexities and contradictions through works of art from the Spencer Museum of Art’s collection, as well as site-specific commissions and loans from contemporary artists and regional institutions. Together, these diverse pieces reveal the many ways that artists, scientists, healers, and others have come to understand the body through time and across cultural contexts.

Our galleries are open Thursday through Sunday from 1–5PM. You can also explore an online version of this exhibition on our website.