Des Moines Art Center

Join the Des Moines Art Center’s August Social Saturday event: Great Outdoors! Enjoy crafts in the Art School studios, a scavenger hunt, a guided tour, story time, treats in the Art Center Café, and so much more.
Schedule of Events: 11 am, 12 pm, and 1 pm | Curator and CEO Chat Join at the top of the hour for a chat and Q&amp;A about the Art Center’s newest acquisition to the collection, “nashoba holba / wayaha / coyote / they are witty and transform themselves in order to guide us,” (2025) by artist Jeffery Gibson. Lower Richard Meier Gallery, Kyle and Sharon Krause Atrium
11:15 – 11:30 am | Storytime Levitt Auditorium
1:30 pm | Conversation with Artist Elle Pérez and Associate Curator Ashton Cooper Join artist Elle Pérez in conversation with Ashton Cooper; the two will discuss and dive into the body of photographs presented in the exhibition “Elle Pérez: La Despedida.” Registration required. <a href="https://desmoinesartcenter.org/event/conversation-with-artist-elle-perez/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">desmoinesartcenter.org/event/conversation-with-artist-elle-perez/</a>
 Drop-in Activities (11 am – 2 pm): Museum Galleries
Find the Social Saturday interactive Art Cart in the galleries. Complete a scavenger hunt in the galleries and return your findings to the front desk for a small prize. Macomber Lobby
Enjoy the Art Center’s Paint-n-Play station. Art School Studios
Explore creativity and your inner artist! Free drawing available in the studio space, as well as a unique Social Saturday: Great Outdoors activity. Art Center Café
Stop by for a sit-down lunch, a delicious pastry, and a full coffee and tea menu. Art Center members receive a 10% discount in the café. Package up a picnic to-go and enjoy your meal on the grounds of the Art Center or in Greenwood Park. Museum Shop
Browse the Museum Shop to find gifts and souvenirs. Art Center members receive a 10% discount in the Museum Shop.

Local Event: Social Saturday: Great Outdoors

Polk County

Des Moines

Iowa

Social Saturday: Great Outdoors

Join the Des Moines Art Center’s August Social Saturday event: Great Outdoors! Enjoy crafts in the Art School studios, a...

The Des Moines Art Center invites visitors to join artist Elle Pérez in conversation with Associate Curator Ashton Cooper. The two will discuss and dive into the body of photographs presented in the exhibition “Elle Pérez: La Despedida,” on view in the A. H. Blank Gallery through November 29, 2026.
Elle Pérez is an artist working across photography, collage, and moving image. Their work depicts intimate moments, emotional exchanges, and visceral details within the love and violence of everyday life. Pérez’s photographs balance casual observation with conceptual and formalist considerations: intentionally sequenced installations, collages that act as mind maps, and structuralist films that highlight the tension between image and text, description and embodiment. Their work celebrates the ambiguity inherent to photography and queerness — a photograph is not an illustration, it can both resist discursive limitations and hold meaning beyond language. Pérez made their first photographs as a teenager while attending punk shows in the Bronx. They have continued making artwork made for the audience it grows out of, rather than simply being about them.
The artist’s 2025 series “La Despedida (the world is always ending, the world is always again beginning)” encompasses photographs taken in the gardens of two very different sites: Pérez’s grandfather’s backyard in Puerto Real, Puerto Rico, and Impressionist painter Claude Monet’s home in Giverny, France. In the eleven photographs on view, Pérez deploys close cropping, zooming in on expanses of blooming flowers, lace curtains, and breaking waves.
Image: Artist Elle Pérez. Photo: KL Mays.

Local Event: Conversation with Artist Elle Pérez and Associate Curator Ashton Cooper

Conversation with Artist Elle Pérez and...

The Des Moines Art Center invites visitors to join artist Elle Pérez in conversation with Associate Curator Ashton Cooper. The...

Conversation with Artist Elle Pérez and Associate Curator Ashton Cooper

The Des Moines Art Center invites you to join us for a free artist lecture with Valentin Noujaïm – “What Caïn saw, and other variations on the desire to destroy.” This lecture is presented alongside the Art Center’s exhibition, “Valentin Noujaïm: La Défense,” on view in the Pamela Bass-Bookey and Harry Bookey Gallery September 10 – December 6, 2026.
Noujaïm is a French-Lebanese artist and filmmaker based between Paris, France and Athens, Greece. His work explores how individuals and territories navigate forms of collapse, treating contemporary architecture as spaces charged with narratives, tensions, and latent imaginaries. Through film and video, he examines how power, memory, and collective imaginaries are inscribed in built environments and what survives when they unravel. Moving between documentary and fiction, he weaves together personal histories, political landscapes, and the silent weight of spaces to construct layered works.
 Image: Valentin Noujaïm; photo by Boris Camaca

Local Event: Artist Lecture: Valentin Noujaïm – “What Caïn saw, and other variations on the desire to destroy”

Artist Lecture: Valentin Noujaïm – “What Caïn...

The Des Moines Art Center invites you to join us for a free artist lecture with Valentin Noujaïm – “What Caïn saw, and other...

Artist Lecture: Valentin Noujaïm – “What Caïn saw, and other variations on the desire to destroy”

We invite you to join the Des Moines Art Center in welcoming artist Alison Saar as the featured speaker of our annual Fingerman Lecture series. Saar’s work examines the place of the female body in the realms of politics and spirituality. She explores Black female identity, and the powerful, multifaceted roles women play — from everyday life to timeless, legendary figures.
Saar has exhibited artworks at many galleries and museums throughout the United States. Her art is represented in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Baltimore Art Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her 1997 piece, “Sweeping Beauty” was added to the Des Moines Art Center’s permanent collection in 2003.
The Fingerman Lecture series is made possible through generous gifts by Lois and the late Dr. Louis Fingerman. Alison Saar is the 36th installment in the series.
Free; registration required. Photo: Alison Saar

Local Event: 2026 Fingerman Lecture: Artist Alison Saar

2026 Fingerman Lecture: Artist Alison Saar

We invite you to join the Des Moines Art Center in welcoming artist Alison Saar as the featured speaker of our annual Fingerman...

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Posting Activity

Social Saturday: Great Outdoors

SEP

12

11:00 AM

Des Moines Art Center, 4700 Grand Ave, Des Moines, IA

Conversation with Artist Elle Pérez and Associate Curator Ashton Cooper

SEP

12

1:30 PM

Des Moines Art Center, 4700 Grand Ave, Des Moines, IA

Artist Lecture: Valentin Noujaïm – “What Caïn saw, and other variations on the desire to destroy”

SEP

22

6:00 PM

Des Moines Art Center, 4700 Grand Ave, Des Moines, IA

2026 Fingerman Lecture: Artist Alison Saar

OCT

4

1:30 PM

Des Moines Art Center, 4700 Grand Ave, Des Moines, IA