The Museum of Contemporary Art Connecticut has announced its 2026 summer exhibition season, titled Looking for History: Rick Shaefer, Ellen Harvey, and Michael Borders. The trio of solo presentations will examine how personal, local, and national histories are preserved and contested as the United States marks its 250th anniversary. The full exhibition series is scheduled to run from June 25 through November 15, 2026, with each artist featured in a dedicated gallery space at the Westport venue.

The full seasonal anchor, Rick Shaefer: Colossi, runs the entire duration of the summer season from June 25 to November 15. Shaefer’s installation explores themes of human ambition and legacy through structural imagery, utilizing detailed line work to build monumental forms. The presentation includes his specific works Water Crossing from the Refugee Trilogy alongside the series Liberty Dismantled. Shaefer has previously held solo presentations at the Fairfield University Art Museum, the National Academy of Design, and the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.

The second presentation, Ellen Harvey: The Disappointed Tourist, will be on view from June 25 through August 2, 2026. This ongoing participatory project features monochrome acrylic and oil paintings of global locations that no longer exist, based on public submissions gathered from more than 40 countries since 2019. For the Westport engagement, the museum has integrated local community submissions into the installation to bring regional history into conversation with the global collection. Harvey’s past exhibition history includes presentations at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum der Moderne in Salzburg.

The final solo feature, Michael Borders: Connecticut Industry, will occupy the entrance gallery from August 13 through November 15, 2026. The immersive environment showcases large-scale paintings highlighting the labor, people, and historic industries that shaped the Hartford region and the state of Connecticut. Borders draws stylistic influence from historic creators including Diego Rivera, Frederic Church, and Aaron Douglas to engage with regional community experiences. The Bloomfield, Connecticut-based artist has previously exhibited at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art and the New Britain Museum of American Art.

The exhibition season begins with a public opening reception for the Shaefer and Harvey galleries on Thursday, June 25, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., following a member preview earlier that afternoon. The museum has scheduled an artist walkthrough with Shaefer on July 9 and a community conversation event with Harvey on July 16. A separate opening reception for the Borders exhibition will take place on Thursday, September 10, followed by subsequent autumn programming including an encaustic collage workshop, a member-only studio visit, an author talk, and a concluding community discussion in October.

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