August Exhibitions and Event Listing for The Cleveland Museum of Art

Tags for: August Exhibitions and Event Listing for The Cleveland Museum of Art
  • Press Release
Monday July 31, 2023
exterior of the CMA building

Contact the Museum's Media Relations Team:
(216) 707-2261
marketingandcommunications@clevelandart.org

Please contact Jacqueline Bon, director of communications, at jbon@clevelandart.org for additional information and images.

Events

MIX: Bourbon Street Parade

Friday, August 4, 2023, 6:00–10:00 p.m.

CMA members FREE; nonmembers, online purchase before day of event $12; nonmembers, online purchase day of event $15; nonmembers, purchase at the door (subject to availability) $20

Ticket required

Join us on August 4, the birthday of famed jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong, at MIX: Bourbon Street Parade to celebrate Armstrong’s birthplace and musical legacy. Mike Wade’s Nasty Nati Brass Band, a New Orleans second line–inspired brass band, performs its red-hot fusion of jazz, funk, and soul. DJ Pillo bookends the evening with sets that take guests on a musical journey through the ages, featuring R & B, soul, hip-hop, and jazz. Creole-inspired food items and cocktails, beer, and wine are available to purchase from Bon Appétit. Guests are invited to view the Cleveland Museum of Art’s newest special exhibition, A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur. We can’t wait to see you at this Friday night spectacular.

More information about Mike Wade’s Nasty Nati Brass Band can be found on the group’s website.

The entertainment schedule for the evening is as follows:

6:00 p.m.: DJ Pillo

7:15 p.m.: Mike Wade’s Nasty Nati Brass Band

8:45 p.m.: DJ Pillo

 

Hasu Patel: Mystical Ragas

Friday, August 25, 2023, 7:30–9:00 pm

Gartner Auditorium

CMA members $22; nonmembers $25

Ticket required

World-renowned and Cleveland-based sitarist Hasu Patel performs a concert of ragas that coincides with the exhibition A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

In India, it is currently monsoon season, and the annual rains bring new life and a dramatic transformation of the landscape from arid to lush. For centuries, poets have reveled in describing the feelings of lovers separated and reunited on account of the heavy rains. In paintings, artists from Udaipur celebrated the moods of the rulers during the monsoon, satisfied with the abundance of the kingdom. Trained in Gujarat, a region bordering the kingdom of Mewar where the Udaipur paintings were made, Hasu presents a concert that aurally portrays the various moods of the monsoon season.

Hasu Patel, composer, performer, and educator, is one of the few contemporary world-class female artists performing classical music on sitar, the most popular string instrument of India. Hasu plays sitar in a very special style known as gayaki ang, where the sitar replicates the fluidity and subtle nuances of the human voice. This innovative technique, which is credited to her guru, sitar legend Ustad Vilayat Khan Sahib of Imdadkhani Gharana, is the most significant contribution to her musical inheritance. She has dedicated her life to preserving and propagating, in its pristine purity, the fascinating and highly evolved classical music of ancient India.

Born in the culturally rich city of Baroda, India, Hasu began her musical studies in early childhood. She is the first woman to receive a music degree with a gold medal in the 75-year history of the Faculty of Performing Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda, India. At age 21, she won first prize in Gujarat State for the stringed instrument competition held by All India Radio. Her performance highlights include playing at the 1999 Woodstock anniversary concert, the Chicago Asian American Jazz Festival, and the Women’s Composers Festival of Harford. The United Nations awarded Hasu its Lifetime Achievement Award for her extraordinary service to humanity.

Krish Dewan is a proponent of the Imdadkhani/Etawah gharana of sitar and a student of Hasu Patel’s. He received his foundational training in Hindustani classical vocal music and tabla from Ustad Hamid Hussain. Through his playing, he brings out the subtle dynamics and microtones that are characteristic of Hindustani classical vocal music while maintaining the purity of each raga and its development. Krish’s style aims to marry the beauty of each raaga (raagdari) with the virtuosity of rhythmic cycles (laykari).

Sudhanshu Deshpande studies tabla under the guidance of Shri Nihar Paranjpe, Shri Sandeep Hattangady, and Shri Prabhakar Betrabet in the Farrukhabad and Lucknow styles of training. He was awarded first place for the Swarayogita Hindustani Classical Competition.

Tejas Nair plays the esraj, a rare Indian bowed instrument, in the Imdadkhani Gharana style, which he inherited from Hasu Patel. Tejas pursued studies in classical composition and music theory at the New England Conservatory of Music.

Tom Cvetkovich began his sitar studies with Hasu Patel in the late 1990s. Mr. Cvetkovich is primarily a visual artist, and sitar music combined with Hasu Patel’s devotion, love, and rigor for Hindustani classical music has helped inform and inspire Mr. Cvetkovich’s many Indian iconography-inspired artworks. For this performance, Mr. Cvetkovich performs on the tanpura, an instrument that looks similar to a sitar but provides the drone sounds necessary for the performance.

Season or Series: Performing Arts Series 2023–24

 

New this month!

Liturgical Textiles from Late Medieval Germany

Saturday, August 11, 2023, through Sunday, August 4, 2024

Gallery 115

The Cleveland Museum of Art has a particularly rich selection of liturgical textiles (textiles used during religious ceremonies) from the Middle Ages (about 500–1500). In cathedrals, monasteries, and parish churches, they were used at many different points of church life. They covered the altar table, were used during mass, or served as vestments, or garments, for the clergy. They were usually richly decorated with pictorial programs, allowing insights into the thinking and piety of each time period.

They were often produced within monastic communities. Nuns, in particular, are believed to have made textiles. In the late Middle Ages (about 1200–1500), production increased sharply, and especially in Italy, textiles were also produced industrially on a large scale and delivered throughout Europe.

Textiles are particularly sensitive to light, and accordingly, they can only be exhibited for a limited period of time in order to preserve their colors and fabrics for later generations by keeping them in a dark, climate-controlled space.

 

Colors of Kyoto: The Seifū Yohei Ceramic Studio

Saturday, August 19, 2023, through Sunday, March 10, 2024

Julia and Larry Pollock Focus Gallery | Gallery 010

Colors of Kyoto: The Seifū Yohei Ceramic Studio showcases works in porcelain and stoneware made by the Kyoto-based studio of Seifū Yohei from the late 19th to the mid-20th century. While the studio is known for the role of Seifū Yohei III (1851–1914) as an Imperial Household Artist (Teishitsu gigei’in), it has only recently received sustained scholarly attention. The exhibition is the first in North America to comprehensively examine the studio’s output from the time of its founder, Seifū Yohei I (1801–1861), through that of its fourth-generation head, Seifū Yohei IV (1871–1951). This fulsome presentation of their creations is made possible through a gift of more than 100 individual and sets of works from the James and Christine Heusinger Collection, an assemblage strategically acquired over the past three decades with the goal of representing the full range of forms and styles produced under the Seifū Yohei name. The show and its catalogue also use the collection as a lens through which to analyze aspects of the modernization of Japan and to consider the history of international trade. 

Just over 400 years ago, ceramists in Japan first successfully fired porcelain, and from the mid-1600s, Japan took advantage of a gap in the global porcelain trade left by the temporary exit of China from the market, following the demise of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and the maritime prohibitions of the early Qing dynasty (1644–1911), to secure orders for its porcelains in Europe.

From the late 1800s, participation of Japanese ceramists in international expositions also became a forum for constructing national identity. While it has garnered less attention in exhibitions and publications outside Japan, there was a robust domestic market for Japanese porcelains as well, including vessels for use in sencha, or Chinese-style tea, gatherings. Colors of Kyoto features works by members of the Seifū family that reflect both the ceramics culture of Kyoto, an ancient city and former capital of Japan, as well as the artists’ engagement with Chinese forms and techniques as an alternative way to bring Japanese porcelain into the modern era at a time when Western cultures were leaving a major mark in Japan. 

Colors of Kyoto: The Seifū Yohei Ceramic Studio is funded in part with a generous award from the Japan Foundation 2023 Exhibitions Abroad Support Program.

All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Principal annual support is provided by the John and Jeanette Walton Exhibition Fund and by the late Roy L. Williams. Generous annual support is provided by an anonymous supporter, the late Dick Blum and Harriet Warm, Gary and Katy Brahler, Cynthia and Dale Brogan, Dr. Ben and Julia Brouhard, Brenda and Marshall Brown, Richard and Dian Disantis, the Jeffery Wallace Ellis Trust in memory of Lloyd H. Ellis Jr., Leigh and Andy Fabens, the Frankino-Dodero Family Fund for Exhibitions Endowment, Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Carl T. Jagatich, Cathy Lincoln, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Bill and Joyce Litzler, Carl and Lu Anne Morrison, Jeffrey Mostade and Eric Nilson and Varun Shetty, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, Betty T. and David M. Schneider, the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, Margaret and Loyal Wilson, and the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

 

On-Site Activities

Lunchtime Lecture

Learning Things: The Evolution of the Education Art Collection

Tuesday, August 1, 2023, 12:00 p.m.

Gartner Auditorium

FREE; ticket required

Speaker: Sabine Kretzschmar, Manager, Education Art Collection

Come to the CMA for a quick bite of art history. Every first Tuesday of each month, join curators, conservators, scholars, and other museum staff for 30-minute talks on objects currently on display in the museum galleries.

The CMA’s remarkable education art collection (EAC), comprising about 10,000 cultural heritage objects from around the globe, spans 5,000 years of art making. Originally founded in 1914 to spread awareness of the visual arts and the newly opened Cleveland Museum of Art, it is now used for a suite of innovative educational programming. In this lecture, Sabine Kretzschmar, manager of the education art collection, gives an overview of the EAC and its history. Explore highlights of the collection that were designed to capture the imagination, teach artistic practices, connect with global cultures, and spark wonder.

This program is made possible with support from Gail C. and Elliot L. Schlang.

All education programs at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Education. Generous annual support is provided by an anonymous supporter, Brenda and Marshall Brown, Florence Kahane Goodman, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, Bill and Joyce Litzler, Mandi Rickelman, Roy Smith, Betty T. and David M. Schneider, the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, and the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Additional annual support is provided by the M. E. and F. J. Callahan Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., Char and Chuck Fowler, the Giant Eagle Foundation, the Lloyd D. Hunter Memorial Fund, the Logsdon Family Fund for Education, and the Trilling Family Foundation.

The Cleveland Museum of Art is funded in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

Education programs are supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts.

 

Material Matters Gallery Talk

Silken Expression: Japanese Paintings on Silk

Wednesday, August 16, 2023, 12:00 p.m.

Ames Family Atrium

FREE; ticket required

Speaker: Sara Ribbans, Conservator of Asian Paintings

Have you ever wondered how artworks in the CMA’s collection are cared for? Join CMA conservators and technicians for guided tours of the galleries. Investigate artists’ materials and processes and learn about how the museum preserves artworks for the future. 

Silk has been a highly valued material for the creation of not only textiles and clothing but also beautiful works of art. Learn about the tradition of painting on silk in Japan and how this material plays an important role when mounting paintings as hanging scrolls.

Gallery talks meet in the Ames Family Atrium at the information desk. 

All education programs at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Education.

Generous annual support is provided by an anonymous supporter, Brenda and Marshall Brown, Florence Kahane Goodman, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, Bill and Joyce Litzler, Mandi Rickelman, Roy Smith, Betty T. and David M. Schneider, the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, and the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Additional annual support is provided by the M. E. and F. J. Callahan Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., Char and Chuck Fowler, the Giant Eagle Foundation, the Lloyd D. Hunter Memorial Fund, the Logsdon Family Fund for Education, and the Trilling Family Foundation.

The Cleveland Museum of Art is funded in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

Education programs are supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts.

 

Artist in the Atrium

Photography in Focus

Saturday, August 19, 2023, 11:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m.    

Ames Family Atrium

FREE 

Every third Saturday of each month, stop by the Ames Family Atrium between 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. to get a firsthand look at the art-making process. Each session will provide you the opportunity to engage and interact with a different Northeast Ohio maker during pop-up demonstrations and activities. See their work unfold and learn how artists create. Explore a related selection of authentic objects from the CMA’s education art collection in a pop-up Art up Close session. See, think, and wonder.  

At this month’s event, celebrate World Photography Day. Learn about the collodion photographic process, which is more than 170 years old, during demonstrations with artist Greg Martin. Enter a special drawing for the chance to have your portrait taken by the artist, explore the surfaces of photographs with the museum’s Mellon Fellow in photograph conservation, Ivey Barker, and discover photographic works from the CMA’s education art collection. 

All education programs at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Education. Generous annual support is provided by an anonymous supporter, Brenda and Marshall Brown, Florence Kahane Goodman, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, Bill and Joyce Litzler, Mandi Rickelman, Roy Smith, Betty T. and David M. Schneider, the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, and the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Additional annual support is provided by the M. E. and F. J. Callahan Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., Char and Chuck Fowler, the Giant Eagle Foundation, the Lloyd D. Hunter Memorial Fund, the Logsdon Family Fund for Education, and the Trilling Family Foundation.

The Cleveland Museum of Art is funded in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

Education programs are supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts.

 

Lecture

Imperial Household Artist Seifū Yohei III and the Birth of Modern Japanese Ceramics
Sunday, August 20, 2023, 2:00 p.m.

Gartner Auditorium

FREE; ticket required

Speaker: Shinya Maezaki, Kyoto Women’s University

Across four generations of makers from the late- 19th to the mid-20th century, the Kyoto-based studio of Seifū Yohei created distinctive porcelain for both Japanese elites and global audiences. In this lecture, scholar Shinya Maezaki focuses on the life and work of artist Seifū Yohei III as a lens through which to analyze aspects of the modernization of Japan and to consider the history of international trade.

Shinya Maezaki is currently a professor at Kyoto Women’s University, where he teaches art and design history. He recently authored the principal essay for Colors of Kyoto: The Seifū Yohei Ceramic Studio (2023), the publication that accompanies the exhibition of the same name on view at the CMA from August 19, 2023, through March 10, 2024. His many publications include the book Made in Kyoto (2020), for which he was coeditor, and the chapter “Unifying Science and Art: The Kyoto City Ceramic Research Institute (1896–1920) and Ceramic Art Education during the Taisho Era,” in Ceramics and Modernity in Japan (2019). His 2009 doctoral dissertation for the University of London, School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS), examined the life and art of ceramist Seifū Yohei III (1851–1914). 

This lecture is funded in part through a generous award from the Japan Foundation’s 2023 Exhibitions Abroad Support Program. 

All education programs at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Education. Generous annual support is provided by an anonymous supporter, Brenda and Marshall Brown, Florence Kahane Goodman, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, Bill and Joyce Litzler, Mandi Rickelman, Roy Smith, Betty T. and David M. Schneider, the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, and the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Additional annual support is provided by the M. E. and F. J. Callahan Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., Char and Chuck Fowler, the Giant Eagle Foundation, the Lloyd D. Hunter Memorial Fund, the Logsdon Family Fund for Education, and the Trilling Family Foundation.

The Cleveland Museum of Art is funded in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

Education programs are supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts.

 

In the Mood: Place and Plenitude in Udaipur Painting

Saturday, August 26, 2023, 2:00 p.m. 

Gartner Auditorium

FREE; ticket required

Speaker: Dr. Debra Diamond, Elizabeth Moynihan Curator for South and Southeast Asian Art at the National Museum of Asian Art

Dr. Debra Diamond, cocurator of A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur (on view at the CMA through September 10, 2023), discusses why and how the court painters of Udaipur created a new and spectacular genre of painting in 1700. Her wide-ranging talk addresses the politics of pleasure, while looking closely at how artists combined multiple perspectives, visual puns, and observations from life to evoke moods and memories.  

Dr. Diamond is the Elizabeth Moynihan Curator for South and Southeast Asian Art at the National Museum of Asian Art (NMAA) in Washington, DC. In addition to A Splendid Land, she also recently curated The Art of Knowing in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Himalayas, currently on view in the NMAA’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. A specialist in Indian court painting, her work addresses ecologies, aesthetics, and connections across cultures.

The exhibition A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur has been cocurated by Debra Diamond, the Elizabeth Moynihan Curator for South Asian and Southeast Asian Art at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, and Dipti Khera, associate professor, Department of Art History and Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.

The annual Dr. Ranajit K. Datta Lecture brings nationally and internationally recognized experts in the fields of art history and archaeology to discuss new scholarship, museum exhibitions, and archaeological discoveries in Indian art. 

The annual Dr. Ranajit K. Datta Lecture is made possible through the Dr. Ranajit K. Datta in Memory of Kiran P. and S. C. Datta Endowment Fund. 

 

Final weeks!

Raja Deen Dayal: The King of Indian Photographers

Through Sunday, August 13, 2023

Mark Schwartz and Bettina Katz Photography Galleries | Gallery 230

FREE

In 2016, the museum acquired 37 photographs made by Raja Deen Dayal (1844–1905), hailed as the first great Indian photographer. This exhibition marks the Cleveland debut of these rare images, all of which come from a single album and were shot in 1886 and 1887, an important juncture in the artist’s life. On display alongside Dayal’s photographs are historical Indian paintings, textiles, clothing, and jewelry from the museum’s collection. These objects provide viewers with insight into the cultural context and help translate the objects in the photographs from monochrome into color.

Dayal was a surveyor working for the British government when he took up photography as a hobby in 1874. In 1885, he attempted to make it his career and by 1887 had cemented his stature as one of the country’s top photographers, British or Indian. This rare early album pictures both the maharajas of princely India and the British colonial elite.

Dayal produced formal portraits but also more personal views of the Indian nobility. In a moving portrait of a 10-year-old maharaja, Dayal reveals the boy beneath the crown. Weighed down by necklaces and jewels, he occupies a chair that is too tall for him; his stockinged feet curl under so they touch the ground.

Dayal’s talent also won him access to the highest levels of British society. He photographed government meetings and leisurely afternoons of badminton and picnics, costume parties and even a private moment of communion between an Englishman and his bulldog. Dayal portrayed how the British brought England with them to India and in some images, the Indian servants who supported that lifestyle. The photographer cultivated his relationship with the military by documenting troop maneuvers, several views of which are included.

Visually striking, seductively charming, and highly informative, these photographs and objects offer new insights into the early career of India’s most important 19th-century photographer and into British and Indian life at the height of the colonial “Raj.”

Raja Deen Dayal: The King of Indian Photographersis made possible with support from Raj and Karen Aggarwal and Anne T. and Donald F. Palmer.

All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Principal annual support is provided by Michael Frank and the late Pat Snyder and by the late Roy L. Williams. Major annual support is provided by the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Generous annual support is provided by an anonymous supporter, the late Dick Blum and Harriet Warm, Gary and Katy Brahler, Cynthia and Dale Brogan, Dr. Ben and Julia Brouhard, Brenda and Marshall Brown, Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., Richard and Dian Disantis, the Jeffery Wallace Ellis Trust in memory of Lloyd H. Ellis Jr., Leigh and Andy Fabens, Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Carl T. Jagatich, Cathy Lincoln, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Bill and Joyce Litzler, Carl and Lu Anne Morrison, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, Henry Ott-Hansen, Michael and Cindy Resch, the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, and Margaret and Loyal Wilson.

 

Continuing Exhibitions 

A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur

Through September 10, 2023

The Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Gallery

During the 1700s, Udaipur, a royal capital in northwest India, was developed as a destination to entertain political leaders, build diplomatic relationships, and demonstrate righteous authority of the court. The rulers commissioned a new kind of painting: immersive, large-scale depictions of actual events that convey the mood (bhava) of the city’s palaces, lakes, temples, and mountains. Fifty dazzling paintings on paper and cloth—many on public view for the first time—invite us into the story of this endlessly fascinating kingdom in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s newest exhibition, A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur.

On view throughSeptember 10, 2023, in the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Gallery, the exhibition reveals how artists elicited emotions, depicted places through time, celebrated water resources, and fostered personal bonds over some two hundred years in the rapidly changing political and cultural landscapes of early modern South Asia.

Emphasizing the lived experience, A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur also explores how painters creatively manipulated architectural space, mapped terrains, and triggered memories to foster political and personal attachments to the land. The visitor travels from island pleasure palaces to the sprawling City Palace, into the city streets, and to the hunting grounds beyond the city. They experience the mood of the monsoons and witness how the rulers, through their piety, brought heaven to earth in Udaipur.

The National Museum of Asian Art gratefully acknowledges support from exhibition cochairs Farhad and Mary Ebrahimi and Dr. Vijay and Ms. Nanda Anand, along with members of the A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur Leadership Council.

The Cleveland Museum of Art’s presentation of A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur is made possible with principal support from Raj and Karen Aggarwal. Additional support is provided by Anne T. and Donald F. Palmer.

All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Principal annual support is provided by Michael Frank and the late Pat Snyder and by the late Roy L. Williams. Major annual support is provided by the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Generous annual support is provided by an anonymous supporter, the late Dick Blum and Harriet Warm, Gary and Katy Brahler, Cynthia and Dale Brogan, Dr. Ben and Julia Brouhard, Brenda and Marshall Brown, Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., Richard and Dian Disantis, the Jeffery Wallace Ellis Trust in memory of Lloyd H. Ellis Jr., Leigh and Andy Fabens, the Frankino-Dodero Family Fund for Exhibitions Endowment, Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Carl T. Jagatich, Cathy Lincoln, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Bill and Joyce Litzler, Carl and Lu Anne Morrison, Jeffrey Mostade and Eric Nilson and Varun Shetty, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, Henry Ott-Hansen, the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, and Margaret and Loyal Wilson.

 

Imagining Rama’s Journey

Through September 17, 2023

Gallery 242B

FREE

The Hindu epic Ramayana, or “Rama’s Journey,” was a source of inspiration for artists throughout India. Working in different contexts, they continually reimagined the way scenes and characters should be depicted. For at least two millennia, in Sanskrit and many vernacular languages, authors and bards have been retelling the sweeping story of the divine hero Rama, his wife Sita, his brother Lakshmana, and their demonic enemy Ravana. In effect, many different Ramayana accounts developed in localized regions and communities. 

Unifying the varied styles and media of the works on view, dating from the 1700s to 2000s, are the core narrative and consistent cast of characters. The scenes provoke questions about the nature of divinity, good and evil, justice, and destiny through a story that is endlessly adaptable, simultaneously specific and universal.

 

Material and Immaterial in Korean Modern and Contemporary Art

Through October 21, 2023

Korea Foundation Gallery | Gallery 236

FREE

This thematic display explores how artists have manipulated materials and techniques as affective modes of communication to voice their thoughts, beliefs, and emotions. Lee Bul, a leading contemporary artist, is known for exploring issues of gender, oppression, and inequity. In her recent work Perdu CX (2021), Lee challenges the binary categories of organic and artificial and free-style drawing and crafted texture through her manipulation of lacquer and synthetic acrylic. Yun Hyong Keun’s Umber-Black (1975), one of the museum’s most recent acquisitions, on the other hand, illuminates how materials and processes echo the energy and psychology underneath: here, suppressed anger and frustration about South Korea’s postwar dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s. Finally, Lee Ufan, known for his minimalist sculptures and paintings, in Dialogue (2016), poetically explores the interrelationship between materiality, abstract concepts, and processes.

 

Love Gardens / Forbidden Fruit

Through October 29, 2023

James and Hanna Bartlett Prints and Drawings Gallery | Gallery 101

Before the advent of landscape as an independent genre in European art (a development usually placed in the 1600s), depictions of the natural world appeared on the borders of manuscripts and as the backdrop for portraits, devotional works, and biblical narratives. In these contexts, nature held symbolic and metaphorical meanings tied to natural cycles, God’s generative power, Christian spirituality, and human love. Ranging from the Garden of Eden and courtly love gardens to the biblical deluge, prints and drawings in Love Gardens / Forbidden Fruit highlight humankind’s fraught but interdependent relationship with the natural world. The 60 works on paper in the exhibition, spanning the late medieval through the Renaissance periods (about 1460 to 1600), are assembled entirely from the CMA’s collection.

The Garden of Eden was the prototypical landscape for European artists, and the many themes of the Genesis story—such as creation, fertility, procreation, and sin—inform images throughout the exhibition. For example, prints portraying the Virgin Mary in an “enclosed garden” characterize her purity and chastity but also her fertile womb; in other cases, verdant gardens are places for illicit encounters and the exploration of carnal love. Nature’s simultaneously nourishing and destructive dynamic also features prominently throughout the exhibition. Hermit saints retreat to the wilderness to strengthen their connection to God; yet, for some, the wilderness holds the potential for spiritual temptation, despair, and physical peril. Other images explore how landscape provides the metaphorical ground for the journey through life, but one that is rife with challenging terrain—and likely pitfalls. Using the new medium of printmaking as well as drawing, and with increasing attention to realistic renderings, Renaissance artists created images in which nature and its many meanings profoundly resonated with contemporary life. Love Gardens / Forbidden Fruit examines these themes through works by some of the era’s most significant artists, including the Master E. S., Martin Schongauer, Albrecht Dürer, Fra Bartolommeo, Titian, Jacopo de’ Barbari, Giulio Campagnola, Giorgio Ghisi, Nicolò Boldrini, Albrecht Altdorfer, and Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Principal annual support is provided by Michael Frank and the late Pat Snyder, the John and Jeanette Walton Exhibition Fund, and the late Roy L. Williams. Generous annual support is provided by an anonymous supporter, the late Dick Blum and Harriet Warm, Gary and Katy Brahler, Cynthia and Dale Brogan, Dr. Ben and Julia Brouhard, Brenda and Marshall Brown, Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., Richard and Dian Disantis, the Jeffery Wallace Ellis Trust in memory of Lloyd H. Ellis Jr., Leigh and Andy Fabens, the Frankino-Dodero Fund for Exhibitions Endowment, Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Carl T. Jagatich, Eva and Rudolph Linnebach, Cathy Lincoln, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Bill and Joyce Litzler, Carl and Lu Anne Morrison, Jeffrey Mostade and Eric Nilson and Varun Shetty, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, Betty T. and David M. Schneider, the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, Margaret and Loyal Wilson, and the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

The Cleveland Museum of Art is funded in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

This exhibition was supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts.

 

When Salt Was Gold: Yangzhou, City of Riches and Art

Through November 5, 2023

Clara T. Rankin Galleries of Chinese Art | Gallery 240A

When Salt Was Gold: Yangzhou, City of Riches and Art features over a dozen paintings, from monumental wall hangings to intimate album leaves, from the museum and private collections that illustrate the artistic production of Yangzhou, the most flourishing city of 18th-century China.

Situated north of the Yangzi River along the Grand Canal, Yangzhou linked cities in the lower Yangzi delta with major political headquarters in the north. A center of Buddhism and bronze mirror production during the Tang dynasty (618–906), the region’s coastal marshes provided sea salt for the empire and generated unprecedented income for Yangzhou merchants, who had been managing its distribution on behalf of the government since the 1600s.

Yangzhou’s wealth attracted artists, craftsmen, and literati who sought to make a living. Their patrons, mostly salt merchants, had mansions and gardens so grand that they hosted the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) emperors on their Inspection Tours. The merchant class sought recognition through establishing close ties to the court and by socializing with literati-officials.

Painters catered to the tastes of merchants and urban dwellers, combining the aesthetics of the literati with novelties in subject matter and style. Eccentricity, humor, a sketchy approach, and close-up compositions are characteristic of their works for sale, innovations that would later inspire modern artists in Shanghai.

 

Ancient Andean Textiles

Through December 3, 2023  

Jon A. Lindseth and Virginia M. Lindseth, PhD, Galleries of the Ancient Americas | Gallery 232

FREE 

The six textiles in the current installation from the permanent collection were made by weavers of the ancient Chimú civilization, which took root on Peru’s north coast in the year 1000. Over the next four centuries, the Chimú created an empire that lasted until the 1460s, when the Inka swept out of the Andes Mountains to incorporate it into their own imperial domain. The garments—fabricated from undyed, white cotton and surely worn by Chimú nobility—represent the major articles of ancient Andean men’s wear; several may have been part of a matched set. They embody important principles of the Chimú textile aesthetic, one being a love of combining different textures, some dense and sculptural and others so open and airy they are nearly invisible.

 

Native North American Textiles

Through December 3, 2023  

Sarah P. and William R. Robertson Gallery | Gallery 231

FREE 

Newly on display from the permanent collection are two Diné (Navajo) garments from the late 1800s—a woman’s dress and a rug woven for the collector’s market, modeled on the Diné shoulder blanket. Also new on view is a watercolor from the 1920s by the Pueblo artist Ma Pe Wi (Velino Shije Herrera), who was key to a major development in Southwest Indigenous arts as Native people took control of representing their own cultures after centuries of marginalization.

 

Animals in Japanese Art

Through December 12, 2023

The Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Japanese Art Galleries | Galleries 235A–B 

The relationship of people to animals is ever evolving as we continue to learn more about the other life-forms with which we share our planet. Each culture offers unique perspectives on our connection to animals. The history of representing the finned, furry, and feathered residents of the worlds of sea, land, and sky in Japan began with clay figurines of mammals—wild boars, for example—made around 2,500 to 900 years before the common era. These days, they include robotic animals made of metal, plastic, and synthetic fibers, such as dogs and seals. In the future, we may look upon them as art too. This installation features images of animals made in Japan for a variety of purposes over the past 1,500 years and explores the often overlapping decorative, functional, and symbolic roles they have served.

 

Egyptomania: Fashion’s Conflicted Obsession

Through January 28, 2024

Arlene M. and Arthur S. Holden Textile Gallery | Gallery 234 | Gallery 107

FREE

Egyptian art has long served, and continues to serve, as a primary inspiration for fashion designers, solidifying the legacy of Egyptomania—the influence of the art of ancient Egypt. This exhibition, on view in the CMA’s textile and Egyptian galleries, brings together around 50 objects that explore the influence of Egyptomania in fashion by juxtaposing contemporary fashion and jewelry loaned from around the world with fine and decorative artworks from the CMA collection. Egyptomania: Fashion’s Conflicted Obsession examines designers’ interpretations of themes, such as Egyptian dress, funerary process, and religion, that shape our contemporary perceptions of ancient Egyptian culture.

The complex history of European imperialism in Egypt, which dates back to the ages of the Greeks and Romans, has made Egyptomania in European and American art controversial. After a lull in diplomatic European interactions with Egypt from the Middle Ages to the 18th century, the 1798 invasion of the country by the French army, led by Napoleon Bonaparte, reinvigorated European and American interest in ancient Egyptian art and culture.

European archeological expeditions throughout the 19th and 20th centuries sent back massive amounts of Egyptian art to European and American museums, rousing a recurring interest in its forms in decorative arts, architecture, and fashion. After the 1922 discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb, fashion’s leading minds, from Paul Poiret to accessory enterprises like Cartier, fiercely embraced ancient Egyptian art as inspiration, making Egyptomania a staple design element. Since then, interest in ancient Egyptian culture has expanded rapidly across media, particularly platforms adjacent to the fashion industry. The exhibition also displays videos of runway shows that demonstrate fashion’s continued discourse with Egyptian art.

Numerous questions raised by the intersection between Egyptomania and fashion in today’s social climate are also examined in the exhibition. Dialogues about cultural appropriation, ancient Egypt’s place in African history, and Black empowerment continue to bubble to the surface, critiquing fashion’s conflicted obsession with Egyptian art.

Generous support ofEgyptomania: Fashion’s Conflicted Obsession is provided by Maison Yeya. Additional support is provided by the Textile Art Alliance.

All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Principal annual support is provided by Michael Frank and the late Pat Snyder and by the late Roy L. Williams. Major annual support is provided by the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Generous annual support is provided by an anonymous supporter, the late Dick Blum and Harriet Warm, Gary and Katy Brahler, Cynthia and Dale Brogan, Dr. Ben and Julia Brouhard, Brenda and Marshall Brown, Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., Richard and Dian Disantis, the Jeffery Wallace Ellis Trust in memory of Lloyd H. Ellis Jr., Leigh and Andy Fabens, Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Carl T. Jagatich, Cathy Lincoln, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Bill and Joyce Litzler, Carl and Lu Anne Morrison, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, Henry Ott-Hansen, Michael and Cindy Resch, the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, and Margaret and Loyal Wilson.

 

On-Site Collection Tours 

Guided Tours 

Tuesday through Friday, 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. 

Saturday and Sunday, 1:00 p.m.

FREE; ticket required 

Join a public tour to learn new perspectives and enjoy great storytelling about works in the museum’s collection. Tours depart from the information desk in the Ames Family Atrium. Tickets may be reserved at cma.org or on-site at the ticket desk. Tours are limited to 15 participants per group. 

 

Transformer Station On-Site Activities  

1460 West 29th Street, Cleveland, OH 44133 Cleveland, OH 44113

Tabaimo: Blow

Through February 3, 2024

Fusing traditional Japanese art forms with contemporary digital animation, the Japanese artist Tabaimo’s 2009 artwork Blow will be on view at Transformer Station for the first time since its 2012 acquisition by the Cleveland Museum of Art. A pioneering video artist, she created Blow as a four-channel, immersive video installation that blurs lines between fantasy and reality.

Upon entering the immersive exhibition, visitors are transported to a constructed world of the artist’s creation. Animated bubbles, fragmented body parts, and various plants float through space in a five-minute looped video. Using a kind of printmaking technique that recalls the artist’s inspiration from Japanese woodcut prints, she often layers different drawings to create her digital videos. For the human body parts seen throughout Blow, she drew the musculature, skeleton, veins, and skin separately, then scanned and combined them for a result that is realistic yet imperfect. The accompanying audio, which mimics the dripping and rushing of water, is an acoustic collage of digitally invented sounds. 

The open-ended, fragmentary nature of the piece is intentional, as the artist often draws from personal experiences and emotions, but she says, “I leave fifty percent up to the viewer. The core of my work is something to be thought through, experienced.” 

On view in the Crane Gallery is another work by Tabaimo, The Obscuring Moon (2016), which draws on the artist’s inspiration from traditional Japanese prints, taking them to animated, fantastical ends.

Learn more about Transformer Station, including hours of operation.

Blow is a presentation of the Cleveland Museum of Art at Transformer Station. All exhibitions organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions.

Principal annual support is provided by Michael Frank and the late Pat Snyder, the John and Jeanette Walton Exhibition Fund, and by the late Roy L. Williams. Generous annual support is provided by an anonymous supporter, the late Dick Blum and Harriet Warm, Gary and Katy Brahler, Cynthia and Dale Brogan, Dr. Ben and Julia Brouhard, Brenda and Marshall Brown, Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., Richard and Dian Disantis, the Jeffery Wallace Ellis Trust in memory of Lloyd H. Ellis Jr., Leigh and Andy Fabens, the Frankino-Dodero Family Fund for Exhibitions Endowment, Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Carl T. Jagatich, Cathy Lincoln, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Bill and Joyce Litzler, Carl and Lu Anne Morrison, Jeffrey Mostade and Eric Nilson and Varun Shetty, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, Henry Ott-Hansen, Betty T. and David M. Schneider, the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, Margaret and Loyal Wilson, and the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

 

CMA Community Arts Center On-Site Activities  

2937 West 25th Street, Cleveland, OH 44113 

Free parking in the lot off Castle Avenue | Estacionamiento gratis en la Avenida Castle 

Comic Club | Club de Cómic

Saturday, August 5

11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. 

FREE

Learn to juggle words with images in unexpected ways with artist Juan Fernandez. Work in the company of others to create a page of comics, drawings, or poetry for a published zine to be released for free at the following workshop. Reserve your spot today!

Free. All ages. All experience levels. Supplies included.

Artist | Artista: Juan Fernandez (habla español)

 

Family FUNdays | Día De Alegria Familiar  

Every first Sunday of each month | Cada Primer Domingo del mes, 1:00–4:00 p.m. 

Enjoy free family fun and explore art celebrating community. This event features family-friendly games, movement-based activities, art making, and even a family parade! All activities are COVID-19 conscious and open to all ages and abilities.  

Únase a nosotros para divertirse con familia, mientras exploramos el arte celebrando comunidad. Gratis para participar. Juegos para toda la familia, actividades basadas en movimientos, creación de arte e incluso un desfile familiar. Todas las actividades son conscientes por el covid y abiertas a todos los edades y habilidades. 

 

Open Studio | Al Arte Libre 

Every Saturday | Cada Sabado, 1:00–4:00 p.m. 

Enjoy free, drop-in art making for the whole family. A monthly theme connects community, art, and exploration.  

Disfrute actividades de arte gratuita para toda la familia. Un tema mensual conecta la comunidad, el arte y la exploración. 

 

Hours | Horario 

Friday, 2:007:00 p.m. | Viernes, de 2:00 a 7:00 p.m. 
Saturday and Sunday, 10:00 a.m.5:00 p.m. | Sábado y Domingo, de 10:00 a.m. hasta las 5:00 p.m. 
Closed Monday to Thursday | Cerrados Lunes a Jueves