Every time I stroll through the Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties, I gain new insights into the complex decade of the 1920s. This time I was struck by how many different roles women play in the paintings, drawings, sculptures, and photographs on view. The 1920s was a time of rapid social change that offered new freedoms to women, who had slipped out of the corset and into the voting booth just a few years earlier.

Photographer and contemporary visual artist, Hank Willis Thomas, will be giving a free lecture on Saturday, January 28, at 2:30 p.m. in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Recital Hall.

The museum will host an innovative dialogue on Wednesday, January 4, 2012 to explore how Cleveland can benefit from China’s emergence as one of the world’s leading economies. A distinguished panel of regional and national business, academic, journalism, and government leaders whose organizations have significant ties with China will offer insights for The Art of Reinvention: China, Ohio, and the New Global Economy.