The Hall Art Foundation is reopening its Vermont campus for the 2026 season with three major exhibitions running through November 29. The centerpiece, "A Farewell to the Western World," is a group show of roughly 70 works exploring global power shifts and political instability, featuring artists such as Ai Weiwei, Aleksandra Mir, and Philip Guston. Also on view are Christian Marclay's video installation "Made To Be Destroyed," which compiles film scenes of artworks being damaged or destroyed, and Piotr Uklański's photographic installation "The Nazis," examining how film and popular culture have shaped representations of the Third Reich. The campus, set on a former dairy farm in Reading, includes converted gallery buildings and outdoor sculptures by Olafur Eliasson, Antony Gormley, Richard Long, and Marc Quinn.
This season matters because it demonstrates how a private foundation can mount a cohesive, intellectually ambitious program that engages directly with urgent political and historical themes—power, authoritarianism, destruction, and collective memory—through a mix of established and emerging international artists. By juxtaposing indoor exhibitions with a permanent outdoor sculpture collection, the Hall Art Foundation offers a model for immersive, site-specific art experiences that go beyond traditional museum presentations. The exhibitions also highlight the growing role of foundations in commissioning and presenting challenging contemporary art outside major urban centers.