Make Your Spirits Bright with Festive Free Programming at the Cleveland Museum of Art

CLEVELAND (November 17, 2023) — From exhibitions that can only be seen in Cleveland, world-class art, and holiday music, to family activities and holiday-themed nightlife, there’s something for everyone this holiday season at the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA). Create warm memories with your family, friends, and loved ones with our full calendar of events, sure to make spirits bright all season long. With free daily admission, it’s the ideal place for people of all ages and groups of all sizes.

Founded in 1916 “for the benefit of all the people forever,” the CMA will host performances by outstanding conservatory musicians from Cleveland Institute of Music, a play day full of art making for families, and awe-inspiring exhibitions about animals in Japanese art and the profound impact ancient Egypt has had on fashion designers––all free of charge.

Highlights include:

• A CMA! Play Day celebrating the lantern festival, with family-friendly crafting exercises focused on the mesmerizing beauty of light (Saturday, December 9)
• Two concerts by Cleveland’s own internationally acclaimed, Grammy-winning ensemble Apollo’s Fire, bringing to life the music of the past for contemporary audiences (Sundays, December 10 and 17- ticket required)
• A delightful exhibition looking at depictions of animals in Japanese art across 1,500 years (through Tuesday, December 12, 2023)
• A revelatory exhibition looking at how fashion designers have interpreted ancient Egyptian dress, funerary process, and religion (through Sunday, January 28, 2024)

Audiences eager to dig deeper into our programming can purchase tickets to two exhibitions that will only be on view in Cleveland: Degas and the Laundress: Women, Work, and Impressionism, the first exhibition anywhere to focus on Impressionist artist Edgar Degas’s representations of Parisian laundresses (through January 15, 2024); and China’s Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta, featuring dozens of treasures borrowed from China that are rarely seen in the US (through January 7, 2024). A discounted combination ticket for China’s Southern Paradise and Degas and the Laundress is available through January 7; save $5 total off regular prices for both exhibitions.

And for anyone looking to spread the joy, the CMA offers gift memberships. You can also visit our beloved Museum Store for a variety of gifts by local artists and global fair-trade companies, books and exhibitions catalogues, and Van Gogh-inspired merchandise—something for everyone on your list.

Holiday Performances

• Chamber Music in the Atrium 
  Wednesdays, November 29 and December 6, December 13, 12:00–1:00 p.m. 
  The Ames Family Atrium 
  FREE

  The museum’s collaboration with the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM) continues with our popular Chamber Music in the Atrium lunchtime concert series.

  Featuring outstanding young conservatory musicians from CIM, these concerts present mixed repertoire ranging from the standards to unknown gems. Enjoy hot holiday beverages from Provenance Café and join us at the tables in the atrium.

  • Wednesday, November 29
  • Wednesday, December 6
  • Wednesday, December 13 - Holiday Brass with Gabrieli's Horns

• Chamber Music in the Galleries: French Impressionism 
  Wednesday, December 6, 6:00 p.m. 
  Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley Gallery | Gallery 222 
  FREE

  We are thrilled to continue our popular Chamber Music in the Galleries concert series featuring young artists and faculty from Case Western Reserve University’s historical performance program, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and the Music Settlement. The repertoire performed at each concert is inspired by the art on view in the gallery in which the performance occurs. This evening’s program features faculty from the Music Settlement performing works of classical Impressionism in front of Claude Monet’s Water Lilies (Agapanthus).

• Accent 
  Friday, December 8, 7:30 p.m. 
  Gartner Auditorium 
  Ticket required

  In the increasingly popular world of a cappella singing groups, Accent has carved out its own niche. Since forming in 2011, the group has released five albums; performed at the London A Cappella Festival; played dates across Europe, North America, and Asia; and was featured in two sold-out Christmas shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Accent’s singular blend and arrangements have been acclaimed by a cappella devotees and fellow musicians alike, including Cedric Dent of TAKE 6 and Clark Burroughs of the Hi-Lo’s. The ensemble’s lush sound is embellished by its deep and innate musicality. As Alan Paul of the Manhattan Transfer said, “You guys carry on the vocal group legacy.”

  Accent is composed of six singers from five countries forming one vocal supergroup. This evening’s performance will feature selections from the Accent discography, including holiday favorites from the ensemble’s latest release, Christmas All the Way.

• Apollo’s Fire Presents: Wassail! 
  Sundays, December 10 and 17, 4:30 p.m. 
  Gartner Auditorium 
  Ticket required

  Cleveland’s own internationally acclaimed, Grammy-winning ensemble Apollo’s Fire brings to life the music of the past for audiences of today. Join us for this special occasion in which the group presents their program “Wassail! An Irish Appalachian Christmas,” created and directed by Jeannette Sorrell.

  • Sunday, December 10, 4:30 p.m.
  • Sunday, December 17, 4:30 p.m.

• Holidays at the CMA: The Settlement Singers 
  Sunday, December 10, 2:00–3:00 p.m. 
  The Ames Family Atrium 
  FREE

  Holiday at the CMA with a special free performance in the Ames Family Atrium featuring the Settlement Singers. Listen to holiday music, grab hot holiday beverages and baked goods from Provenance Café, and shop for fun holiday gifts in the museum store.

  The Settlement Singers were formed in the fall of 2018 to promote arts instruction to those age 55 and over with the goal of inspiring lifelong learning and providing a community of like-minded peers. More information about the group can be found on the Music Settlement’s website.

Night Out

• Tasting Notes: Date Night with Degas

  Immerse yourself in French food, cocktails, and music in a supper club environment on the second and fourth Fridays of the month from November through January. These events invite guests to indulge in Provenance Restaurant’s curated Taste the Art menu, a collaboration between Chef Doug Katz and Bon Appétit, while enjoying a live band performing a mix of French music and jazz from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.

  Reservations are strongly encouraged and can be made on Provenance’s website.

• Special Menu Items and Cocktails

  Enjoy dishes, cocktails, and baked goods inspired by our current special exhibition, Degas and the Laundress: Women, Work, and Impressionism, presented by Provenance Café and Restaurant.

• MIX: Beat Street
  All Galleries Open 
  Tickets Required; Free for Members

  Celebrate 50 years of hip-hop with us at this month’s Friday-night extravaganza: MIX: Beat Street, on December 1. Throughout the evening, experience a stacked lineup of DJs and breakdancers, enjoy street art–inspired food and drink, and view the CMA’s world-class art collection.

• Evening Hours

  Explore the museum in the evenings on Wednesday and Friday nights until 9:00 p.m.

Family Programming

• CMA! Play Day
  Sunday, December 9, 10:00–2:00 p.m.
  FREE

  The lantern festival joins CMA! Play Day on Saturday, December 9, 10:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m. in the Ames Family Atrium. This family-friendly event of art making, games, and more will take you on a captivating journey exploring the mesmerizing beauty of light, the warmth of lanterns, and the twinkle of imagination. It promises to be an illuminating experience that ignites creativity for all ages.

• Glow Party for All Ages | Fiesta Fluorescente para Todas Edades 
  Friday, December 15 | 5:00–7:00 p.m. | Viernes, 15 de diciembre 
  Community Arts Center | Centro de Artes Comunitarias | 2937 West 25th Street, Cleveland, OH 44113 
  FREE

  Get ready to glow at the Community Arts Center! Experience the gallery and studios in an entirely new light—bask in the glow of our costumes and lanterns lit up in the dark! Come in costume and add more to it when you get here! Work with artist Susie Underwood to create your own glow accessory or paint in the dark! Stop by our makeup station and add to our light box village! Witness our larger-than-life Lite Brite and join live DJ Himiko Gogo for an activity zone in the gallery! Let your creativity light the way!

  Free. All ages. All experience levels. Supplies included. Drop in; no registration required.

  An event for ages 21+ event to follow from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. More information and tickets coming soon.

  ¡Prepárate para brillar en el Centro de Artes Comunitarias! Experimente la galería y los estudios bajo una luz completamente nueva: disfrute del resplandor de nuestros disfraces y linternas iluminados en la oscuridad. ¡Ven disfrazado y añada más cuando llegues aquí! ¡Trabaja con la artista Susie Underwood para crear tu propio accesorio fluorescente o pintar en la oscuridad! ¡Usa nuestra estación de maquillaje y añada a nuestra aldea de cajas de luz! ¡Sé testigo de nuestro Lite Brite más grande que la vida y únete al DJ en vivo Himiko Gogo para una zona de actividades en la galería! ¡Deja que tu creatividad ilumine el camino!

  Gratis. Todas las edades. Todos los niveles de experiencia. Suministros incluidos. Sin cita previa; no es necesario registrarse.

  Evento para mayores de 21 años de 8:00 a.m.–10:00 p.m. Más información y entradas próximamente.

• Holiday Open Studio
  Wednesday, December 27 | Thursday, December 28 | Wednesday, January 3 | Thursday, January 4 |12:00-4 :00 p.m. 
  Community Arts Center | 2937 West 25th Street, Cleveland, OH 44113 
  FREE

  Families and individuals of all ages are welcome to drop-in and connect to the arts and expression through hands-on activities during Holiday Open Studio hours at the CAC.

Holiday Gifts

• CMA Membership

  Share your love of art by purchasing a CMA membership. Recipients can take advantage of exclusive discounts and free exhibition tickets. Shop online at cma.org/giftmemberships to choose the perfect level for your loved one.

• Museum Store

  Find a special holiday gift at the museum store. Choose from a variety of cards, posters, and gifts based on exhibitions and works from the museum’s collections as well as unique jewelry, clothing, accessories, and other items from local artists and global fair-trade companies. Members receive a 15 percent discount in the museum store.

The CMA is closed December 25 and January 1. On December 24 and December 31 the CMA closes at 4:00 p.m.

Enjoy All That CMA Has to Offer

Visitors can also explore free exhibitions and favorite galleries, enjoy lunch in the museum’s Provenance café or restaurant, relax in the Ames Family Atrium, Cleveland’s largest free interior public space, and snap a photo with family and friends in front of the holiday wreath, tree, menorah, and kinara.

Reserve Your Tickets to These Must-See Exhibitions

• China’s Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta
  Through Sunday, January 7, 2024 
  The Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Exhibition Hall 
  Ticket required

  China’s Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta is the first exhibition in the West that focuses on the artistic production and cultural impact of a region located in the coastal area south of the Yangzi River.

  Called Jiangnan, this region has throughout large parts of its history been one of the wealthiest, most populous, and most fertile lands. For millennia, it has been an area of rich agriculture, extensive trade, and influential artistic production. Art from Jiangnan—home to such great cities as Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Nanjing, as well as to hilly picturesque landscapes stretched along rivers and lakes—has defined the image of traditional China for the world.

  The exhibition features about 200 objects from Neolithic times to the 18th century, ranging from jade, silk, prints, and paintings to porcelain, lacquer, and bamboo carvings. Jiangnan’s lush, green scenery inspired artists to conceive it as heaven on earth. Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta explores how this region gained a leading role in China’s artistic production and how it succeeded in setting cultural standards. This international exhibition presents works of art from private and public collections and museums in the United States, Europe, China, and Japan.

  Exhibition tours for China’s Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta are offered at 2:30 p.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, through December 21; ticket required.

  Exhibition Tickets
  Adults $15; seniors, students, and children ages 6 through 17 $12; adult groups (10 or more) $10; member guests $8; children 5 and under and CMA members FREE 

  The CMA recommends reserving tickets through its online platform by visiting the exhibition’s page. Tickets can also be reserved by phone at 216-421-7350 or on-site at one of the ticket desks.

  Principal support is provided by June and Simon K. C. Li and the MCH Foundation. Major support is provided by the American Friends of the Shanghai Museum and the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation. Generous support is provided by an anonymous supporter and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support is provided by the Blakemore Foundation, William and Terry Carey, the Gramercy Park Foundation, Carl M. Jenks, the Metropolitan Center for Far Eastern Art Studies, Xiling Group, and Zheng He Management Group.

  The exhibition catalogue for China’s Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta was produced with the generous support of the MCH Foundation.

  Generous support of the exhibition symposium is provided by the Kingfisher Foundation.

• Degas and the Laundress: Women, Work, and Impressionism
  Through Sunday, January 14, 2024 
  The Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Gallery 
  Ticket required

  This groundbreaking exhibition is the first to explore Impressionist artist Edgar Degas’s representations of Parisian laundresses. These working-class women were a visible presence in the city, washing and ironing in shops open to the street or carrying heavy baskets of clothing. Their job was among the most difficult and poorly paid at the time, forcing some laundresses to supplement their income through sex work. The industry fascinated Degas throughout his long career, beginning in the 1850s and continuing until his final decade of work. He created about 30 depictions of laundresses, united for the first time in this exhibition. The artworks from this series—revolutionary in their emphasis on women’s work, the strenuousness of such labor, and social class—were featured in Degas’s earliest and most significant exhibitions, where they were praised by critics as epitomizing modernity.

  Degas and the Laundress contextualizes these works with paintings, drawings, and prints of the same subject by the artist’s contemporaries—including Gustave Caillebotte, Berthe Morisot, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec—as well as painters that he influenced and was influenced by, from Honoré Daumier to Pablo Picasso. It also presents ephemera, such as posters, photographs, and books, that reveal the widespread interest that Parisians of all social classes had in the topic of laundresses during the late 1800s.

  The exhibition is accompanied by an interdisciplinary, richly illustrated publication featuring thematic essays by scholars of art history, literature, and history.

  Exhibition tours for Degas and the Laundress: Women, Work, and Impressionism are offered at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays and at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesdays, through December 20; ticket required.

  Exhibition Tickets
  Adults $15; seniors, students, and children ages 6 through 17 $12; adult groups (10 or more) $10; member guests $8; children 5 and under and CMA members FREE

  Docent-Led Exhibition Tours
  Exhibition tours are offered at 3:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, as well as at 7:00 p.m. Wednesdays, through December 21; ticket required. Select “Tour 3:30pm” or “Tour 7:00pm” and your ticket quantity when reserving your exhibition ticket(s) and participate in the tour.

  Principal support is provided by Hahn Loeser & Parks LLP. Major support is provided by the John P. Murphy Foundation. Additional support is provided by Christie’s, the FRench American Museum Exchange (FRAME), Carl M. Jenks, Mr. and Mrs. Frank H. Porter Jr., and the Simon Family Foundation, a supporting foundation of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland.

  This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

FREE Exhibitions

• Ancient Andean Textiles
  Through Sunday, 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 menswear; 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 Sunday, December 3, 2023 
  Sarah P. and William R. Robertson Gallery | Gallery 231 
  FREE

  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 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 Tuesday, December 12, 2023 
  The Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Japanese Art Galleries | Galleries 235A–B 
  FREE

  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 Sunday, 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’s 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 archaeological 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 of Egyptomania: Fashion’s Conflicted Obsession is provided by Maison Yeya. Additional support is provided by the Textile Art Alliance.

• Raja Deen Dayal: The King of Indian Photographers
  Through Sunday, February 4, 2024 
  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, he 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 Photographers is made possible with support from Raj and Karen Aggarwal and Anne T. and Donald F. Palmer.

• Material and Immaterial in Korean Modern and Contemporary Art 
  Through Sunday, February 25, 2024 
  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, poetically explores the interrelationships among materiality, abstract concepts, and processes in Dialogue (2016).

• Nature Supernatural
  Through Sunday, March 3, 2024 
  Gallery 242B 
  FREE

  Trees and other plants endowed with supernatural qualities have a long history in the visual culture and literature of India. Throughout the South Asian subcontinent, many populations recognize the power of divinities who personify the life-giving forces of nature to confer gifts of abundance: food, wealth, and children. In art, an image of a woman or goddess of child-bearing age could visually signal the same ideal as depictions of trees or other types of vegetation bearing fruits and flowers. This ideal is auspiciousness, which refers to the success and good fortune brought by entities that give and support life. Filling spaces with vegetal imagery communicates plenitude and auspiciousness, which, in turn, are considered visually beautiful.

  In paintings, textiles, and jewelry, images of supernatural plants mark the presence of magic associated with the powers of nature. Individual flowers also connote specific concepts to the knowledgeable viewer. The lotus, a water flower, signals birth, creation, preservation, and transcendence. Narcissus, which blooms in early spring, references mystical renewal or rebirth. Roses are used in the context of love and fidelity.

  Talking trees, animal-bearing plants, and other supernatural aspects of nature feature in stories that circulated among travelers across land and sea routes connecting India with the greater Islamic world. The works in this gallery reveal how extraordinary vegetative imagery resonated internationally and across religious and social divides.

• Colors of Kyoto: The Seifū Yohei Ceramic Studio
  Through Sunday, March 10, 2024 
  Julia and Larry Pollock Focus Gallery | Gallery 010 
  FREE

  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.

• Liturgical Textiles from Late Medieval Germany
  Through Sunday, August 4, 2024 
  Gallery 115 
  FREE

  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 to preserve their colors and fabrics for later generations by keeping them in a dark, climate-controlled space.

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 44113

• Tabaimo: Blow
  Through Saturday, February 3, 2024
  FREE

  Fusing traditional Japanese art forms with contemporary digital animation, the Japanese artist Tabaimo’s 2009 artwork Blow is 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.

The CMA’s current hours of operation are Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and Wednesday and Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. The museum is closed Mondays. Updated hours will be announced as decided. Visit cma.org to stay up to date on this information.

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, 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, Lu Anne and the late Carl Morrison, Jeffrey Mostade and Eric Nilson and Varun Shetty, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, Michael and Cindy Resch, Betty T. and David M. Schneider, the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, Paula and Eugene Stevens, Margaret and Loyal Wilson, the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Claudia Woods and David Osage.

All education programs at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Education. Major annual support is provided by Brenda and Marshall Brown, Mr. and Mrs. Walter E. Fortney, Florence Kahane Goodman, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, and the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation. Generous annual support is provided by an anonymous supporter, the M. E. and F. J. Callahan Foundation, Char and Chuck Fowler, the Giant Eagle Foundation, the Lloyd D. Hunter Memorial Fund, Bill and Joyce Litzler, the Logsdon Family Fund for Education, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, Mandi Rickelman, Betty T. and David M. Schneider, the Sally and Larry Sears Fund for Education Endowment, Roy Smith, Paula and Eugene Stevens, the Trilling Family Foundation, and the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art.