Amy Kligman: The Salon for Possible Futures

On view Mar. 28 through Dec. 21, 2025

Join us at the Nerman Museum for our public artists talk and opening reception with Amy Kligman and Basil Kincaid on March 27, 2025, from 6 to 8 p.m. No RSVP required for in-person attendance. RSVP to receive livestream link.

a card game and a houseplant on a round, blue table

Photo: Misha Kligman

Amy Kligman: The Salon for Possible Futures is a built environment installation that takes on the familiar shape of a living room. It will act at once as a library, a gallery, a cabinet of curiosity, a third space, a common room, and a think tank.

Guests are invited to immerse themselves in the space and use it as an outlet for whatever thoughts and conversations may come. There are themes and prompts embedded in every aspect of the room’s design, from the custom wallpaper and upholstered furniture to the thematically curated curiosity cabinets densely packed with art objects, books, and ephemera. As a viewer, you are invited to open drawers, read, write, draw, sit, spend time with yourself and your thoughts, or with others who might be sharing the space with you. This is a space meant to be used, not just observed.

Curiosity and participation in this installation will be rewarded with the discovery of prompts, games, lessons, secrets, and tools for making and manifesting a future imagined together in the space. This piece is a collaboration of more than 20 artist contributors whose work is integrated into the installation. But the collaboration goes beyond the work of the artists and engages the viewers, asking them to share their own contributions and to use the collections in structured and unstructured ways.

Over time, the salon will serve not only as a catalyst, but also an archive of the activity within the space, and all that it may invoke. Documentation and artifacts from the programming will become a part of the permanent “collection” of the Salon.

The goal of the space is to act as a portal for a better collective future, fostering dialogue and collective dreaming about what such visualization even means (and doesn’t mean!) – but perhaps more importantly, fostering the relationships and community needed to establish any kind of future at all.

Artists and Collaborators featured in the Salon, which is envisioned and organized by Amy Kligman:

NedRa Bonds, Patricia Bordallo Dibildox, Melanie Bridges, Juan William Chávez, Sonia Delaunay, Kevin Demery, Charles and Ray Eames, Kim Eichler-Messmer, Rachel Ferber, Sofia + Lara Karadogan, Lilly McElroy, Sean Nash, Chiara No, Minga Opazo, Andrew Ordonez, Jada Patterson, Sally Paul, Laura Pensar, Megan Pobywajlo, Will Preman, Adams Puryear, Emily Reinhardt, Mike Sayer, Julie Schenkelberg, Smiley Projects, Dannielle Tegeder, Frank Thong, and Aleah Washington.