"Museums should be places where you raise questions, not just show stuff."

-- William Thorsell, former director, Royal Ontario Museum

One of the great aspects of walking through Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville is being surrounded by great works that have stood the test of time. Whether it's a scene sampling the life of an African-American in the immediate wake of the Civil War or a 20th century still life abstraction, the art takes visitors on a journey through American history as seen by the artists.

Art, however, isn't always in the past. And Crystal Bridges has taken the initiative to remind visitors that our contemporaries continue to produce art influenced by the American experience.

The museum announced last week a coming exhibition called "State of the Art: Discovering American Art Now," to display the works from 102 artists from all over the nation. Four of them live in Arkansas.

Perhaps limited schooling in art appreciation and sophistication will be revealed by our reaction to the announcement: That's cool.

Nonetheless, the idea behind the exhibit is exhilarating.

Curators for the museum traveled across the country, visiting nearly a thousand art studios and conducting interviews with artists most people haven't even heard of. They were searching for some of the most compelling art being created today.

Museum promoters call it a one-of-a-kind exhibition, and we have no doubt it will be. Don Bacigalupi, president of Crystal Bridges, described the significance of the effort in the context of the museum's permanent collection.

"Presenting the exhibition at Crystal Bridges provides us an opportunity to see contemporary art in the broader historical context of the five centuries of American art in our collection, as well as connect us to what's happening in American art at this moment," he said. "By examining a wide range of works by artists from across the country, we can gain insight into our nation as a whole: our collective passions, challenges, and concerns."

The news business is about what's happening now, so that may explain why an exhibit focused on today's artists and what their art has to say captures our imagination. Artists are trying to communicate through visual means. While they may hope their art lives on past their time on this Earth, there's something exciting about their art speaking to their contemporaries.

"The artists are responding to the same things we're all responding to in our daily lives," said assistant curator Chad Alligood.

The idea behind this exhibit creates an immediacy to the already stellar works on display at Crystal Bridges. The museum, filled with masterpieces from years gone by, is creating a new opportunity to let art engage our minds about current perspectives.

It's also exciting to see four Arkansas artists among the 102 selected for the exhibition. They include Guy Bell and Delita Martin of Little Rock, Linda Lopez of Fayetteville and John Salvest of Jonesboro. Other artists reside in places across the nation, with the works about evenly split divided from artists in the South, Northeast, Mid-West and West. The works will occupy an estimated 19,000 square fee of gallery space at Crystal Bridges, with some installed outdoors.

The exhibition will open Sept. 13 and continue through early 2015. We can't wait to see it.