Have you ever been tempted to reach out and touch the smooth, cold surface of a marble statue or run your fingers across the soft tufts of a woven tapestry?

Tempting to Touch: Surface and Substance in 20th-Century American Art celebrates this universal desire to connect.

From textured surfaces and interactive objects to traces of the artist's hand, Tempting to Touch explores the powerful role of touch in American art. Featuring works created between the 1890s and 2010s by artists including Ruth Asawa, Joseph Cornell, Marcel Duchamp, Jasper Johns, Marisol, Yoko Ono, Howardena Pindell, Robert Rauschenberg, and Miriam Schapiro, the exhibition reveals how touch shapes the way we create, experience, and connect with art.

Across five thematic sections, visitors will encounter works that invite participation, play with perception, and celebrate the physical act of making. By focusing on how art feels as well as how it looks, Tempting to Touch offers a fresh perspective on American art and the sensory experiences that connect us to one another.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog, co-published by the BMA and MIT Press.

This exhibition is curated by Virginia Anderson, Senior Curator of American Art and Department Head of American Painting & Sculpture and Decorative Arts.