Precious; The Value of Ornament

On View March 13 through July 19, 2026

Using works from the PMA’s permanent collection, the exhibition Precious: The Value of Ornament will examine how significance and value have been historically assigned to objects. Along the way, it will prompt audiences to reconsider the narratives museums choose to preserve and revisit those they leave behind.

Highlighted in this exhibition will be the powerful presence of works by Indigenous, Black, queer, and women artists, alongside exquisite examples of jewelry and decorative arts—areas of the PMA’s growing collection that have historically been marginalized by traditional disciplinary boundaries. Precious will also feature new acquisitions, including Shane Perley-Dutcher’s Kikehtahsu (Healing) and Kamrooz Aram’s Untitled (Arabesque Composition).
As the next chapter in the PMA’s exploration of how collections are formed and shared, Precious will follow exhibitions like Passages in American Art (2023) and + collection (2024) in interrogating past practices of display to develop new perspectives that will define the future.