A national story in a different format
American Stories: Artists’ Books opens October 8 at the National Museum of American History. The Smithsonian’s exhibition records describe books by artists including Sol LeWitt, Adrian Piper and Ed Ruscha, alongside more recent acquisitions. These are artworks made in book form, rather than simply illustrated accounts of other artworks.
The distinction changes how a national-history exhibition can be read. Sequence, paper, folding and the relationship between pages can carry meaning that is lost when a book is reduced to its cover or a single reproduced image.
The flag is one point of entry
The museum identifies Babette Katz’s 1995 My Flag among the works. Its imagery connects people’s activity to the making of a national symbol. The October calendar also describes subjects involving Native Hawaiian commemoration, Louisiana hurricane experience and African and American textile heritage.
Together, those examples suggest a curatorial argument about who constructs American stories and what forms can hold them. That is an interpretation of the announced selection, not a claim about how effectively the installed exhibition presents each work.
What the preview can establish
The official pages establish the opening date and the kinds of objects planned for display. They do not supply a substitute for seeing how fragile books are opened, supported or made legible in the gallery. A displayed spread inevitably reveals one part of an object whose sequence extends beyond it.
Official descriptions use differing artist and book counts, so this preview does not collapse them into one exact total. The substantive point is the exhibition’s focus on artists’ books as historical evidence and artistic constructions. No firsthand visit, interview or review of the finished installation is claimed.
Sources and further reading
National Museum of American History: American Stories exhibition ↗
Smithsonian Libraries and Archives: American Stories ↗
Museum’s October 2026 calendar ↗