The Cleveland Museum of Art Announces ArtLens Reimagined Opening July 23, 2026

CLEVELAND (July 21, 2026)—The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) announced today the opening of ArtLens Reimagined: The Intersection of Art, Technology, and Innovation. Featuring 21 new interactive experiences across 10,000 square feet, the completely reimagined gallery transforms how visitors create, engage and connect with art through immersive, inclusive, and deeply impactful experiences using the museum’s collection. Member Preview Days are Thursday, July 23 through Sunday, July 26, 2026, with the gallery opening to the public on Tuesday, July 28, 2026.

Beginning with the launch of Gallery One in 2012, the CMA has pioneered new models for using digital experiences to make art more approachable, meaningful, and accessible. Now using more than a decade of visitor research and leveraging collaboration among the museum’s curatorial, education, conservation, design, and technology teams, ArtLens Reimagined seamlessly blends physical works of art with innovative interactive experiences to help visitors of all ages and abilities look closer, ask questions, and forge connections with art.

“ArtLens Reimagined reflects the CMA’s commitment to continually finding new ways to connect people with art,” said the CMA’s Sarah S. and Alexander M. Cutler Director William M. Griswold. “Drawing on the CMA’s renowned collection of art from all periods and places, ArtLens Reimagined unlocks new opportunities for visitors to engage with art in meaningful ways while expanding access to one of the world’s great museums.”

“The most powerful museum experiences are the ones that create personal connections with art,” said Jane Alexander, chief digital innovation and information technology officer at the Cleveland Museum of Art. “Technology is not the destination—it is the bridge that helps people engage more deeply with the collection.”

NEW EXPERIENCES CONNECT VISITORS TO ART

ArtLens Reimagined offers visitors 21 new experiences created in collaboration with award winning studio, Design I/O. Each ArtLens Reimagined experience begins with a work of art that changes regularly, offering return visitors fresh encounters with each visit. 

ArtLens Reimagined is organized in the following areas:

RELATE invites visitors to make immediate, personal connections with art through intuitive experiences that encourage observation, movement, and play.

• Art Mirror—As a dramatic entrance to ArtLens Reimagined, this experience presents a digital collage of artworks from the CMA’s collection dynamically composed into a reflection that changes as you move in front of the digital mirror. 
• Art in Arm’s Reach—As you move your hands closer or farther apart, this experience presents art that fits in that space, offering new ways to discover the scale of art in the collection. 
• Hand Model—Using advanced motion tracking, this experience matches your gestures and hand position with similar depictions in artworks, putting the collection in the palm of your hand. 
• Strike a Pose—Strike a pose and discover art that mirrors your movement. With responsive pose and figure matching capable of tracking multiple people simultaneously, this experience analyzes your position to reveal the closest matching in artworks from the collection. 

INVESTIGATE reveals the hidden stories behind works of art through conservation, artistic techniques, history, materials, symbolism, and AI-powered conversations with artworks.

• Talk to the Art—This voice-driven interactive invites you to ask any question and receive thoughtful responses based on research from CMA curators. Learn more about the art, the artist, details in the artwork or anything else. 
• What Does Art Sound Like? —Two stations explore the sights, sounds, and stories of a quiet Civil War scene and a historical Cleveland landmark by using 3D reproductions that visitors can touch to feel the art and hear visual descriptions and atmospheric audio of these paintings.
• Paint the Past—Uncover the colorful past of an ancient Assyrian relief (883–859 BCE). Move your arms to reveal the pigments that once covered its surface and gesture outside the object area to see projections of how this art appeared in historical context.
• Look Closer—Use an interactive lens to examine 3D models of an artwork from any angle. Discover clues that uncover hidden stories and provide insight into how the objects were created, authenticated, or restored.

SACRED SITES REVISITED — An immersive video room, created in collaboration with Harvard University’s FAS CAMLab (Cognitive Aesthetics Media Lab), and hands-on tactile reproductions of five CMA artworks, developed with ThinkBox, invite visitors to reconnect with the artworks' cultural, ritual, and architectural origins across three sites in Asia. 

CREATE encourages visitors to experiment, design, and express themselves as they explore and connect with the museum’s collection.

• Portrait Maker—This evolution of a visitor favorite transforms your selfie into a portrait inspired by art from the CMA collection.
• Art Morph—Transform tactile materials using real-time generative AI to create original art inspired by the museum’s open access collection. New materials are added on a regular basis.
• Endless Threads—Choose from a selection of textile artworks from the collection to design your own customized creation, selecting the color, patterns, and technique. A camera feed lets you add yourself to your creation, weaving in your face or detail into the design, while matching the look and style of the tapestry.
• Pottery Explorer—A new spin on an ArtLens favorite, Pottery Explorer lets you use your hands to sculpt and shape clay. As you work, an array of pots from the collection are revealed based on visual similarity, blending creation and inspiration into a seamless experience.

INFINITE LANDSCAPE + YOU ON VIEW presents work that visitors have created and a never-ending panorama of the natural world. These experiences change automatically every few minutes. 

• Infinite Landscape—Watch the world go by as one artwork blends seamlessly into another. AI connects this endless stream of landscapes by generating the transitions between artworks in real time.
• You on View—See the creations of other visitors and use them as inspiration for your own journey through the gallery.

EXPLORE celebrates the museum as a shared experience by encouraging visitors to collaborate, contribute, and create together.

• Community Mural—Create, arrange, and remix artworks from the collection. Contribute to the mural based prompts that are changed regularly.
• ArtLens Puzzles—Three Interactive challenges explore the collection with new editions launched each week. 
• ArtLens Wall, the beloved 40-foot interactive multitouch interactive wall—one of the largest in the world—returns. This digital visualization of the collection allows visitors to browse all artworks currently in the galleries as well as a few artworks that are not on view (The existing ArtLens Wall remains in place for this phase. A newly redesigned, more accessible ArtLens Wall will debut in 2027).

Binocular Tension Installation—Serving as a powerful centerpiece for the gallery, Binocular Tension (2024), a site-specific installation by internationally acclaimed media artist Rafael Lozano Hemmer demonstrates how artists are using technology to expand the possibilities of artistic expression. Using advanced eye-tracking technology, the installation follows visitors throughout the gallery, inviting reflection on observation, perception, surveillance, and the evolving relationship between artwork and audience. As a work of art created through technology, Binocular Tension extends ArtLens Reimagined’s exploration of how artists are using new tools to deepen engagement and expand the ways we see and experience the world around us.

ARTLENS APP 

The new ArtLens mobile app, developed in collaboration with Dome Collective, has been completely rebuilt to take full advantage of the accessibility features available on iOS and Android. Designed as a companion for every museum visit, the app supports visitors throughout the entire museum, not just within the ArtLens gallery. Features include accessible wayfinding, screen reader support, voice and text search, audio experiences, and customizable tours, making it easier for every visitor to explore the museum in the way that works best for them.

Together, ArtLens Reimagined and ArtLens mobile app create one of the most comprehensive integrated experiences offered by any art museum, helping every visitor discover, explore, and connect more deeply with art.

DESIGNED FOR EVERY VISITOR. BUILT WITH LEADING ACCESSIBILITY PARTNERS

The Cleveland Museum of Art worked alongside Design I/O and Prime Access Consulting (PAC) to create experiences that are welcoming, intuitive, and engaging for visitors of all ages and abilities. Through visual, auditory, tactile, and movement-based interactions, visitors of all ages and abilities can explore the collection in the ways that work best for them.

The CMA is one of the first art museums in the world to create visual descriptions for every primary image in its permanent collection. These descriptions are integrated throughout ArtLens Reimagined and the completely rebuilt ArtLens mobile app, enhancing the experience for all visitors while expanding access for people who are blind or have low vision.

“What stands out about ArtLens Reimagined is the way accessibility, interpretation, technology, and visitor experience are being considered together,” said Corey Timpson, principal, Prime Access Consulting. “That kind of integrated approach is what inclusive design requires. We appreciate the Cleveland Museum of Art’s willingness to examine not only what visitors encounter, but how different visitors move through, understand, and connect with the gallery.”

“ArtLens Reimagined reflects a commitment to making accessibility and inclusive design part of the experience itself, rather than an accommodation added after the fact,” said Sina Bahram, principal, Prime Access Consulting. “The Cleveland Museum of Art has long understood that digital interpretation can help visitors engage with the collection in more personal and flexible ways, and this next iteration creates an important opportunity to make that engagement more equitable, usable, and meaningful for more people.”

Audience Experience Demonstrates Impact

Research demonstrates that ArtLens changes visitor behavior. Visitors who spend just 5 to 10 minutes in the ArtLens gallery spend an additional 30 to 60 minutes exploring the museum’s galleries, demonstrating that the experience inspires deeper engagement with the collection.

Research from previous iterations of ArtLens also found that:

• 76% of visitors said ArtLens enhanced their overall museum experience.
• 74% said it encouraged them to look more closely at works of art.
• 73% said it increased their interest in the museum’s collection.

Visitors who entered the museum with less confidence in their understanding of art reported significant gains in confidence after experiencing ArtLens, reinforcing the museum's mission to make art welcoming, meaningful, and relevant for everyone.

Responsible Use of AI

All AI models in ArtLens Reimagined operate locally within the museum, allowing the CMA to limit power usage and maintain control of data use and reliability. “Talk to the Art” and “What Does Art Sound Like?” use a finite library of materials approved by the CMA curators as reference material. “Art Morph” and “Community Mural” only reference artworks from the CMA’s Open Access collection, which has provided the public the ability to download, share, collaborate, remix, and reuse images of public domain artworks from the museum’s collection since 2019. All ArtLens Reimagined models are trained specifically on the CMA’s collection, reflecting the museum’s commitment to scholarship and ethical, mission-driven innovation. ArtLens Reimagined does not access any art or training material that may not have been ethically sourced, ensuring responsible use of AI while creating meaningful interpretive experiences. 

AI is one of many technologies we use in service of art, audiences, and supporting discovery and learning while preserving the museum’s commitment to scholarship, creativity, and human expertise. More details on how ArtLens Reimagined uses AI for accessibility are available at this link.

As the Cleveland Museum of Art celebrates its 110th anniversary, ArtLens Reimagined represents the next chapter in the museum’s long-standing commitment to innovation, accessibility, and visitor-centered experiences. By combining groundbreaking digital experiences with one of the world’s great art collections, ArtLens Reimagined furthers the museum’s mission to make art meaningful, welcoming, and relevant for everyone—inviting every visitor to explore, discover, and build lasting connections with more than 6,000 years of human creativity.

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About the Cleveland Museum of Art 

The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is renowned for the quality and breadth of its collection, which includes more than 68,000 artworks and spans 6,000 years of achievement in the arts. The museum is a significant international forum for exhibitions, scholarship, and performing arts and is a leader in digital innovation. One of the foremost encyclopedic art museums in the United States, the CMA is recognized for its award-winning open access program—which provides free digital access to images and information about works in the museum’s collection—and is free of charge to all. The museum is located in the University Circle neighborhood with two satellite locations on Cleveland’s west side: the Community Arts Center and Transformer Station. 

The museum is supported in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture and made possible in part by the Ohio Arts Council (OAC), which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts. The OAC is a state agency that funds and supports quality arts experiences to strengthen Ohio communities culturally, educationally, and economically. For more information about the museum and its holdings, programs, and events, call 888-CMA-0033 or visit cma.org.