June 2021 On-Site Exhibitions and Virtual Event Listings for the Cleveland Museum of Art
- Press Release

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Please contact Kelley Notaro Schreiber at KNotaro@clevelandart.org for additional information and images.
On-site Exhibitions
Opening this month!
From Caves to Tombs: Chinese Pictorial Rubbings from Stone Reliefs (從石窟到墓祠—石刻拓片)
June 11 to November 14, 2021
Gallery 240A
The exhibition explores the tradition of making and mounting ink rubbings from stone reliefs, practiced in China at least since the 500s. Before high-resolution color photography was available, life-size rubbings taken from ancient sites and cultural relics in China played an important role as primary source and study material. This display celebrates the recent conservation of two monumental rubbings from the Buddhist caves of Longmen in central China.
Opening this month!
New Histories, New Futures
CMA at Transformer Station
June 26 to September 12, 2021
This exhibition centers on three contemporary artists’ engagement with time and historical revisionism. Johnny Coleman (based in Oberlin, Ohio) revitalizes the marginalized history of one family’s journey on the Underground Railroad. His deep archival research on Lee Howard Dobbins, a four-year-old enslaved child whose journey north ended in illness and who was laid to rest in Oberlin in 1853, is the source of an ongoing series of large-scale installations. Antwoine Washington (based in Cleveland, Ohio) paints portraits of his own young family to counteract the stereotype of the absent Black father in a style that pays homage to artists of the Harlem Renaissance. The North Star series by Kambui Olujimi (based in Queens, New York) features paintings and video of weightless, floating Black bodies “freed from the gravity of oppression,” imaging a future in which a politics of resistance can result in true bodily freedom.
Art of the Islamic World
Now open
Gallery 116
Artwork from the Islamic world is as diverse and vibrant as the peoples who produced it. The objects presented in this gallery were created during the 8th through 19th centuries, a period of great cultural and geographic expansion. As a result, these works represent a vast area including Spain, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. While these pieces originate within the Islamic world, they reflect the unique artistic and cultural traditions of disparate regions.
Final weeks!
Bruce Davidson: Brooklyn Gang
Through June 13, 2021
Mark Schwartz and Bettina Katz Photography Gallery
Bruce Davidson’s 1959 series Brooklyn Gang—his first major project—was the fruit of several months spent photographing the daily lives of the Jokers, one of the many teenage street gangs worrying New York City officials at the time. Bruce Davidson features 50 photographs from that series, which are part of a recent anonymous gift to the museum of extensive selections from the artist’s archives. Included are several sets of variant images, affording a rare glimpse into Davidson’s working process.
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.
Final weeks!
Gustave Baumann: Colorful Cuts
Through June 27, 2021
James and Hanna Bartlett Prints and Drawings Gallery
The exhibition celebrates the 2005 gift to the CMA of 65 color woodcuts and 26 drawings by the artist. It illustrates how Baumann worked and features his color woodcuts and drawings inspired by the landscapes, architecture and cultures of Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, New Mexico and New York.
Principal support is provided by Kenneth F. and Betsy Bryan Hegyes, Leon* and Gloria Plevin and Family, and the Print Club of Cleveland. Major support is provided by the Ann Baumann Trust.
*deceased
Variations: The Reuse of Models in Paintings by Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi
Through August 22, 2021
Julia and Larry Pollock Focus Gallery
Recent conservation of the CMA’s Italian Baroque painting Danaë by Orazio Gentileschi (1563–1639) has revealed a more vibrant and refined painting than has hitherto been possible to perceive. It is an extraordinary work now conveying the artist’s trademark virtuosity in painting drapery and flesh tones. Danaë is the second version of a picture painted in Genoa around 1621–22 by Orazio, who often copied his own works; these subsequent versions can rival the original in quality. In the exhibition, Danaë is at the center of an intimate group of paintings by Orazio and his daughter, Artemisia, that beautifully distill the artists’ capacity to modify and manipulate forms across subjects.
Generous support is provided by an anonymous gift in honor of Professor Edward J. Olszewski.
Generous support for public programs related to this exhibition is provided by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.
Rinpa (琳派)
Through October 3, 2021
Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Japanese Art Galleries | Galleries 235A & B
Rinpa is a style of Japanese art focused on abstracted natural motifs and allusions to classical literature. Coined in the early 1900s, Rinpa means “Rin School,” after painter Ogata Kōrin (1658–1716), whose work was critical to the later transmission of the tradition. This rotation tells the story of later Rinpa style, introducing works by important artists active in the 1700s, 1800s and early 1900s, including Kōrin and his brother Ogata Kenzan (1663–1743); Sakai Hōitsu (1761–1828), the Edo-based (present-day Tokyo) dynamo who revolutionized Rinpa painting; and Kamisaka Sekka (1866–1942), the Kyoto-based master of graphic design who delighted with his prints and drawings.
Interpretation of Materiality: Gold
Through October 25, 2021
Korea Foundation Gallery
This exhibit illuminates how Korean artists from ancient times to the present day creatively used and interpreted gold and its distinctive materiality. One highlight is the 13th-century Buddhist text Avatamsaka Sutra No. 78. Mixed with ink and glue, refined gold powder was applied on the smooth surface of the dark blue, indigo-dyed mulberry paper. In the practice of copying a Buddhist sutra, gold served as the perfect medium to visualize the splendid world of Buddhas and their awakening teachings.
The establishment of this gallery was made possible by the support of the Korea Foundation and the National Museum of Korea, Republic of Korea.
The casework in the Korea Foundation Gallery has been generously funded by the National Museum of Korea, Republic of Korea.
Fashioning Identity: Mola Textiles of Panamá
Through January 9, 2022
Arlene M. and Arthur S. Holden Textile Gallery
The exhibition explores the mola, a hand-sewn cotton blouse and a key component of traditional dress among the Guna women of Panamá, as both a cultural marker and the product of an artistic tradition. It demonstrates the important role women artists play in the construction of social identity.
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.
Medieval Treasures from Münster Cathedral
Through August 14, 2022
Gallery 115
Gold and silver reliquaries, jeweled crosses, liturgical garments and illuminated manuscripts are among the rare treasures kept in the Cathedral of Saint Paul in Münster, in northwestern Germany. Because the cathedral was the heart of both the diocese and the secular territory of the bishop, many art objects were commissioned for, or gifted to, the cathedral. For the medieval Christian, collections of relics and reliquaries held spiritual power and political clout. Many of Münster’s reliquaries, created between the 1000s and 1500s, were permanently displayed on the altar, while others were brought out only during liturgical celebrations. Medieval Treasures includes eight of these reliquaries.
This exhibition is supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Contemporary Art Reinstallation
Betty and Max Ratner Gallery | Contemporary Corridor 224A
Toby’s Gallery for Contemporary Art | Galleries 229A, 229C
Paula and Eugene Stevens Gallery | Gallery 229B
These galleries fall within the S. Mueller Family Galleries of Contemporary Art.
The reimagined galleries focus on the careers of women artists and artists of color and present fresh conversations among artworks. Spanning the past six decades, the contemporary reinstallation carries forward in time stories whose beginnings are told throughout the CMA’s collection.
The reinstallation of these galleries is made possible with principal support provided by the Sandy and Sally Cutler Strategic Opportunities Fund.
Virtual Events
The following events are part of the museum’s free, dynamic digital initiative Home Is Where the Art Is, which showcases the CMA’s globally recognized digital resources and offers a variety of newly created fun and engaging programs for people of all ages. These sustainable digital experiences continue to complement the in-person museum experience now that the CMA has reopened. Visit cma.org/digital to access all of the available programming.
Education Series: Desktop Dialogues
Every first and third Wednesday at noon, listen as curators, educators, community leaders, artists and others offer new ways to look at and understand artworks, special exhibitions and museum-specific issues.
Desktop Dialogues: Generations of Queer Art
Wednesday, June 2, 2021, noon (EDT)
What does it mean for LGBTQ+ youths to see their community represented in the CMA’s permanent collection?
The CMA invited teens from the Queer Youth Initiative (QYou) at the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland to use the new “LGBTQ+ artists after 1900” popular search filter on Collection Online and select a few of their favorite artworks.
Join the QYou teens and Andrew Cappetta as they discuss how these works and the representation of queer artists in the collection resonate with young people in the LGBTQ+ community.
Past Desktop Dialogue programs are available at cma.org.
Degenfelder Distinguished Lecture in Chinese Art: Chinese Textiles from the Silk Road
Wednesday, June 2, 2021, 7 p.m. (EDT)
Register for the free virtual event
For centuries, the Silk Road has been an important network of trade routes that has allowed for the exchange of silk and other goods, as well as of ideas and technologies between cultures across Asia and Europe.
Zhao Feng, director of the China National Silk Museum in Hangzhou, presents recently excavated and conserved silk textiles from sites along the Silk Road. He shares new insight on fibers, dyes, weave structures, tailoring and pattern designs featured in these textiles and discusses international collaborative initiatives, such as the Interactive Silk Map of the World and the Silk Road Online Museum.
This lecture is part of the international Silk Road Week (June 18–24, 2021) initiated at the China National Silk Museum in Hangzhou and joined by museums worldwide.
The annual Pauline and Joseph Degenfelder Lecture is made possible through the Pauline and Joseph Degenfelder Family Endowment Fund.
Zhao Feng is director of the China National Silk Museum in Hangzhou, a board member of the Ethics Committee of the International Council of Museums (ETHCOM), a directing member of the Centre International d’Etude des Textiles Anciens (CIETA) and the president of the International Association for the Study of Silk Road Textiles (IASSRT). He specializes in the study of fabrics along the Silk Road based on interdisciplinary research that draws on the fields of science, anthropology, art history, archaeology, conservation and cultural heritage studies.
The Cleveland Museum of Art is open Tuesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The museum is closed Mondays.
The Cleveland Museum of Art is funded in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.
All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Major annual support is provided by the Estate of Dolores B. Comey and Bill and Joyce Litzler, with generous annual funding from Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., the Jeffery Wallace Ellis Trust in memory of Lloyd H. Ellis Jr., Ms. Arlene Monroe Holden, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Claudia Woods and David Osage.