Cleveland’s hottest summer music festival returns on Saturday, June 22 from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Now in its fifth year, this annual celebration brings some of the most innovative world music performers to Northeast Ohio. Guests to this year’s Solstice festival will be among the first to see the new North Wing galleries, featuring art from the Americas, Japan and Korea.

The Cleveland Museum of Art presents DIY: Photographers & Books, the first museum exhibition to examine the print-on-demand photobook and explore its impact on contemporary photographic practice. The free exhibition, which features over 150 books and 18 framed photographs, will be on view from August 11 to December 30, 2012 in the museum’s photography galleries. The exhibition contains work of the most innovative print-on-demand books being published today by international, national and local artists as well as the winners of college competitions organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art.

The Cleveland Museum of Art presents William H. Johnson: An American Modern, a free exhibition showcasing a rarely seen selection of works by the African American artist whose career spanned two decades and three continents. On view through January 27, 2013, the exhibition highlights Johnson’s artistic achievements through 22 objects in a variety of subjects and media. Drawn from the collection of the James E. Lewis Museum of Art at Morgan State University, Baltimore and supplemented by two works from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Smithsonian traveling exhibition charts the pivotal stages of Johnson’s fascinating artistic evolution. William H. Johnson: An American Modern inaugurates the museum’s new Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Exhibition Gallery and is complemented by a diverse schedule of related programming.

The Cleveland Museum of Art presents Tantra in Buddhist Art, an exhibition that explores the concepts and characteristics of Tantra, a system of esoteric techniques used to reach the Buddhist spiritual goal of enlightenment, through twenty objects. It includes some of the earliest representations from India and works from as far away as Indonesia, Cambodia, Tibet and Japan. The exhibition reveals the importance of this tradition across Asia and showcases tantric practices of visualization in yogic meditation, repetition of codified syllables (mantras) and prolific use of diagrams and images.

For more information, please contact:
Caroline Guscott, 216-707-2261, cguscott@clevelandart.org
Saeko Yamamoto, 216-707-6898, syamamoto@clevelandart.org

The Cleveland Museum of Art presents Less is More: Minimal Prints, an exhibition of over 50 artworks that examines the avant-garde Minimal Art movement that emerged in America around 1960. The spare style, consisting of single or repeated geometric forms depicted in solid, flat colors, was in stark contrast to the emotive, handmade look of Abstract Expressionist works, popular during the preceding two decades. Influential artists like Sol LeWitt, Ellsworth Kelly, Brice Marden, Donald Judd, Frank Stella and Robert Mangold all embraced this pared-down aesthetic and are featured in the exhibition, along with several others. A variety of printmaking techniques, such as woodcut, etching, aquatint, screenprint and lithograph will be represented. Organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art, the free exhibition will be on view June 16 through October 20, 2013 in the museum’s Prints and Drawings Galleries.

Forty-Part Motet, a work showcasing Janet Cardiff’s pioneering approach to sound and multimedia installation, consists of a recording of Spem in Alium, a 16th-century sacred choral motet, broadcast from 40 high-fidelity loudspeakers. The motet, by Tudor composer Thomas Tallis (ca. 1505–1585), features England’s Salisbury Cathedral Choir along with other professional singers and was recorded in 2000. Loudspeakers mounted on stands will be displayed in a circle around the museum’s Italian Baroque gallery, allowing visitors to listen to the individually recorded voices as well as experience the immersive environment of the combined vocals, an effect that is both approachable and haunting. Played on a continuous loop, the 14-minute work consists of a three-minute vocal warm-up and an 11-minute recording of the motet. Forty-Part Motet will be presented May 4 through June 9, 2013, and is from the collection of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

The Cleveland Museum of Art presents The Caporali Missal: A Masterpiece of Renaissance Illumination, a focus exhibition that examines the Caporali Missal, a stunning Renaissance manuscript recently acquired by the museum. The missal is presented in a unique setting that brings together liturgical objects that place the manuscript in ceremonial, cultural and art historical contexts. Many of these works have never been on view in the United States, including Bartolomeo Caporali’s monumental painted crucifix from the Church of San Michele Arcangelo in Perugia, Italy. Organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art, the exhibition will be on view from February 17 through June 2, 2013.

The Cleveland Museum of Art presents British Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art, the first exhibition to showcase the collection of British drawings ranging from the 18th century through the Edwardian era. Visitors will have a rare opportunity to see more than 50 fragile, light sensitive drawings in graphite, ink, chalk, pastel and watercolor, revealing over 150 years of artistic achievement in Britain. Works by some of Britain’s best known artists, such as Thomas Gainsborough, William Blake, J.M.W. Turner, John Ruskin and Edward Burne-Jones will be on view. Organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art, the exhibition will be on view from February 10 through May 26, 2013.