During American Art Week 2026!
Boundless Horizons
IAC’s 30th Annual American Art Conference
May 13 (evening) – 15, 2026
Heritage Auctions
445 Park Ave.
New York, NY
For 30 years, Initiatives in Art and Culture (IAC)’s annual American Art Conference has been at the forefront of critical inquiry in the field, pushing the boundaries of accepted thinking and spotlighting pioneering perspectives. It has become the premier gathering of collectors, curators, dealers, museum professionals, academics, artists and everyone else interested in American Art.
We mark our 30th anniversary with Boundless Horizons, taking place May 13 (evening) – 15, 2026 in New York City, celebrating as well America’s semiquincentennial, the 250th anniversary of our nation’s founding. In the Conference, we will revisit the notion of the “horizon” a concept central to American cultural identity and American Art. Through compelling and wide-ranging talks, panels, and conversations, we will explore how American art has been constantly invigorated by artists pushing against boundaries, leaving behind or aside the tropes of pilgrims, cowboys and pioneers, transcending limits and challenging artificial distinctions. Artists in the United States should be understood as being boundlessly engaged with limitless horizons, challenging Frederick Jackson’s Turner’s notion that in reaching the Pacific, the frontier closed and “the vital forces dominating American character” were no longer engaged.
American art has also pushed boundaries with respect to geography. Regions, locales, wilderness, and waterways have served as fruitful prompts or subjects for creative exploration. Region-specific approaches to Impressionism and Modernism have reshaped our understanding of those movements. And we’ll ask: should we now consider the United States in the context of a larger “continental” or even “hemispheric” movement?
As part of our exploration of boundaries, we’ll challenge the acceptance of “hierarchy of form.” Additionally, we’ll insist on the criticality of craft to art (rather than its separateness) and the importance of previously marginalized media, such as photography, fiber arts, and ceramics, as vital components of the canon. As new media—video, land, and performance art— flourish, we’ll explore their contributions. And we’ll view the stars and space as terrain worthy of artistic consideration. Finally, we’ll transcend the canvas to consider the frame and how it can both express an artist’s intentions and affect our experience of the work.
IAC’s 2026 American Art Conference, like those that have come before, is informed by the profound conviction that in American Art, reaching the end of one vista only reveals another, larger terra incognita, and American art—with respect to technique, subject, and medium— has persisted in a relentless quest into uncharted territory
Conference attendees will attend a private preview and reception for the American Art sale at Heritage Auctions and received an invitation to the Gala Opening of the American Art Fair at the land-marked Bohemian National Hall.
The 2026 Conference (May 14 – 16) coincides with the American Art Fair (May 16 – 19), TEFAF New York (May 15 – 19) and Frieze Art Fair (May 13 – 17) and is made possible by Leadership Funding from O’Brien Art Foundation and Anchor Sponsorship from Heritage Auctions.
We gratefully acknowledge Leadership Funding from O’Brien Art Foundation and Anchor Sponsorship from Heritage Auctions.
