Events
Joshua Redman Group, Featuring Gabrielle Cavassa
Wednesday, January 10, 2024, 7:30–9:00 p.m.
Gartner Auditorium
From its inception, the Blue Note label has stood for “the finest in jazz.” The same can be said of Joshua Redman, whom many consider to be the greatest jazz saxophonist of his generation. Over the past three decades, the musician, composer, and bandleader has consistently demonstrated how to honor the music’s verities while expanding its reach in contemporary settings. On where are we, Redman’s first recording as a Blue Note artist, he delivers one of his most challenging and compelling albums to date, built around dynamic vocalist Gabrielle Cavassa, cowinner of the 2021 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition.
Redman calls where are we “a meditation on America and the power and importance of place.” The album references songs with geographical locations in their titles, including Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia,” Count Basie’s “Going to Chicago,” Rodgers and Hart’s “Manhattan,” and John Coltrane’s “Alabama.”
A Bay Area native born and raised in Berkeley, California, Redman is the son of renowned saxophonist Dewey Redman and dancer Renee Shedroff. After graduating summa cum laude from Harvard in 1991, he deferred his admission to Yale Law School for one year so that he could indulge his passion for making music. Five months after his arrival in New York City, he won the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition, which marked the beginning of what would become an illustrious career that has spanned nearly three decades.
Redman has released more than 20 albums, which have earned him ten Grammy nominations. A perennial favorite among critics’ and readers’ polls alike, he has worked with other prominent musicians, including jazz legends McCoy Tyner, Pat Metheny, and Herbie Hancock; popular music artists Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones, the Rolling Stones, the Roots, and Dave Matthews Band; and classical music luminary Yo-Yo Ma.
More information about the band can be found on Joshua Redman’s website.
Performers
Joshua Redman—sax
Gabrielle Cavassa—voice
Paul Cornish—piano
Philip Norris—bass
Nazir Ebo—drums
Tickets
$43–$59, CMA members $38–$53.
Tasting Notes: Date Night with Degas
Fridays, January 12 and 26, 2024, 7:00–9:00 p.m.
Inspired by the museum’s special exhibition Degas and the Laundress: Women, Work, and Impressionism, Tasting Notes: Date Night with Degas is an immersion in French food, cocktails, and music in a supper club environment. Occurring on the second and fourth Fridays of the month through January, these events invite guests to indulge in Provenance’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.
While these events are free and open to the public, reservations are strongly encouraged and can be made on Provenance’s website.
The entertainment is Thorne Musica with Anthony Taddeo.
Wednesday, January 24, 2024, 7:30–9:00 p.m.
Gartner Auditorium
Alla Boara is on a fast track to becoming one of Northeast Ohio’s greatest cultural exports. This ensemble seeks to bring recognition and new life to Italy’s diverse history of regional folk music. The group just released a new record, and we invite you to Gartner Auditorium to celebrate this momentous occasion.
Combining historical preservation with top-notch musicianship, Alla Boara’s modern arrangements of near-extinct folk songs are variously surprising, playful, mournful, tender, and bewitching. The group’s dynamic work aims to inspire audiences of all ethnic heritages to treasure their musical roots and consider historical songs’ contemporary cultural relevance.
According to The Jambar, this immersive show combining music, storytelling, and video takes listeners on a journey that makes them forget where they are.
The vision of drummer and composer Anthony Taddeo, Alla Boara features vocalist Amanda Powell (Apollo’s Fire), guitarist Dan Bruce, trumpeter Tommy Lehman, bassist Ian Kinnaman, and accordionist and keyboardist Clay Colley. Tonight’s performance also features special guests Patrick Graney on percussion and Caitlin Hedge on violin.
More info about Alla Boara can be found on Alla Boara’s website.
Tickets
$33–$45, CMA members $30–$40
Thursday, January 25, 2024, 6:00 p.m.
Member Party
6:00–9:00 p.m.
Ticket required
After-Party
9:00–11:30 p.m.
Ticket required
Join us for an evening of celebration this winter at a 70s wonderland party exclusively for CMA members. Come dressed inspired by the 70s (let paintings by Emma Amos and Alice Neel be your guides) and enjoy music by Becky Boyd & The Groove Train and DJ SqrBiz, selected specifically for this event by director of performing arts Gabe Pollack, themed food, and cocktails for purchase; self-guided tours of works on view made in the 1970s; photo opportunities; and other exciting experiences in Cleveland’s most beautiful building.
Tickets
CMA members $10
Nonmember guests $35 (must be purchased by a CMA member)
Leadership Circle members receive two complimentary tickets.
Corporate members should call the ticket center at 216-421-7350 to reserve tickets.
Entry includes the following: one small-plate voucher, one drink voucher, and free parking.
Must be 21+ to attend.
Members After-Party
The party continues with an after-party disco hosted by Column & Stripe, the CMA’s young professionals group. The after-party includes a dance set by DJ SqrBiz and complimentary late-night snacks, beer, and wine. Separate ticket required.
Tickets
CMA members $50
Nonmember guests $50 (must be purchased by a CMA member)
Leadership Circle members receive two complimentary tickets.
Entry includes the following: complimentary beer, wine, and snacks, and free parking.
Must be 21+ to attend.
CIM Opera Theater: Cipullo’s Glory Denied
Saturday, January 27, and Sunday, January 28, 2024, 3:00–4:30 p.m.
Gartner Auditorium
CIM’s Opera Theater program presents a performance of Tom Cipullo’s chamber opera Glory Denied. Glory Denied is based on the experiences of Colonel Floyd James “Jim” Thompson—America’s longest-held prisoner of war. After being held for nine excruciating years in Vietnam, Thompson returns home to find it and his life forever changed.
Tickets
$18, CMA members $15
Student tickets are available for $10 at the door on the evening of the performance (valid student ID required).
Final days and weeks!
China’s Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta
Through Sunday, January 7, 2024
The Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Exhibition Hall
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 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
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 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
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.
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.
On-Site Activities
Wednesday, January 3, 2024, 1:00–2:15 p.m.
Select galleries
Registration required
In partnership with the Alzheimer’s Association, the CMA provides specialized gallery tours for those with memory loss (and one caregiver) designed to lift the spirit, engage the mind, and provide a relaxing and enjoyable social experience. Specially trained docents are sensitive to the interests and abilities of all visitors and encourage conversation, shared memories, and art enjoyment.
To register, call the Alzheimer’s Association Cleveland Area Chapter at 216-273-4228.
Fridays, January 5, 12, 19, and 26, 2024, 10:00–11:00 a.m.
Classrooms B and C
Young children and their favorite grown-up are introduced to art, the museum, and verbal and visual literacy in this playful program. Each class features exploration in the classroom, a gallery visit, and art making. Wear your paint clothes! New topics each class.
Age group: Two to four years old, accompanied by a parent or guardian
Theme: Paper Play
Fees and registration cost per session (four Fridays per session) for adult/child pair $100, CMA members $85
THE FRAN AND WARREN RUPP CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS LECTURE
Shahzia Sikander: Multivalence
Sunday, January 14, 2024, 2:00 p.m.
Gartner Auditorium
Shahzia Sikander is widely celebrated for subverting Central and South Asian manuscript painting traditions and launching the art form known today as neo-miniature. Born in Lahore, Pakistan, Sikander earned a BFA in 1991 from the National College of Arts in Lahore. Her breakthrough work, The Scroll (1989–90), received national critical acclaim in Pakistan and brought international recognition to this medium within contemporary art practices in the 1990s. She received an MFA at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1995. Over the subsequent 20 plus years, Sikander’s practice, which has expanded to include paintings, media work, and, most recently, sculpture, has been pivotal in showcasing art of the South Asian diaspora as a contemporary American tradition.
Join Sikander as she discusses her artistic practice as well as recent and ongoing projects, including NOW, an eight-foot bronze female sculpture installed on the roof of the Manhattan Appellate Courthouse; Reckoning, an animation that unfolded across the screens of Times Square every midnight in September 2023; and a survey exhibition of her work organized by the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art, opening at the Palazzo Soranzo Van Axel in Venice in April 2024.
This lecture is made possible by the Fran and Warren Rupp Contemporary Artist Fund.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration
Monday, January 15, 2024, 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.
Ames Family Atrium, Gartner Auditorium and Galleries
FREE
Join us on Monday, January 15, when the Cleveland Museum of Art opens its doors for a free daylong celebration honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Entertainment
12:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Ames Family Atrium
FREE
DJ Kristyles, music director and on-air personality at WOVU 95.9 FM, will spin a curated playlist specifically for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
Humbly Submitted
1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Gartner Auditorium
FREE
Humbly Submitted, one of Cleveland’s most in demand Gospel groups, will perform a set of jazz and soul inspired Gospel.
Art Activity: Make Your Mark
Amplify your artwork with the expressiveness of collage. Explore a variety of materials to create a unique portrait of your own reflection. Instructors will then guide attendees through the screen-printing process, choosing from a selection of Dr. King’s iconic quotes, images, and symbols. Each participant will explore the impact of choice and leave with an imprint on a canvas referencing transformation.
Response Station: Poetry Wall
Immerse yourself and become inspired by the wisdom of Martin Luther King Jr. Drawing from his legendary speech, craft your own statement by weaving his words into the fabric of poetry.
Family Portrait Booth: Capturing Connection
Step into the booth and celebrate connection. Using polaroid film, participants can capture precious family moments against a community backdrop that transforms throughout the day. Experiment with combining these snapshots with your collaged masterpiece.
In the Galleries
Spotlight Talks 11:30 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.
Delve into the museum’s collection to explore artists inspired by themes from the Civil Rights Movement and beyond.
Art Stories (ages 3+) 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.
Discover the colorful connections between art and storytelling, featuring artworks from the museum’s collection.
MATERIAL MATTERS GALLERY TALK
Making Mahler’s Manuscript: A Melding of Technology, Utility, and Musical Genius
Wednesday, January 17, 2024, 6:00 p.m.
Ames Family Atrium
Speaker: Moyna Stanton, paper conservator, and Andria Hoy, archivist
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.
In this Material Matters talk, Moyna Stanton, paper conservator at the Cleveland Museum of Art, is joined by Andria Hoy, archivist for the Cleveland Orchestra and Severance Music Center. Hoy provides an overview of how the orchestra acquired Mahler’s manuscript, and together they discuss the actual making of it. Hoy brings her specialization as a musician and archivist, while Stanton brings her knowledge of papermaking, writing tools, and media.
Sensory-Friendly Saturdays at the CMA
Saturday, January 20, 2024, 9:00–10:00 a.m.
FREE
Sensory-Friendly Saturdays offer adaptations to meet diverse sensory-processing needs on the third Saturday of each month. Guests on the autism spectrum, people experiencing dementia, and people of all ages who have intellectual or developmental disabilities are invited to participate in a calming museum experience with less stimulation, before the museum opens to the public—reducing crowds, noise, and distractions. Guests can explore the galleries at their own pace, relax in the designated “quiet area,” and share this time and space with open-minded members of the community.
Here are some things to know before planning your visit:
- All guests must pass through metal detectors at the entrance of the museum.
- Guests are encouraged to bring adaptive equipment, including wheelchairs, walkers, noise-reducing headphones, and technology. The Cleveland Museum of Art also offers a limited number of wheelchairs.
- The Cleveland Museum of Art’s store will be open at 9:00 a.m.
- Sensory-Friendly Saturdays are free. Parking in the garage is $14 for nonmembers, $7 for members.
- Once guests enter on Saturdays, they are welcome to stay for the day. Museum doors open at 10:00 a.m. to the public.
ARTIST IN THE ATRIUM
Saturday, January 20, 2024, 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 provides 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.
Explore the process of etching with Zygote Press, a local fine-art printmaking studio. Join printmaker Michael Whitehead as he explains the tools and process behind making an etching. Then, with artist Amirah Cunningham, use an etching press to create your very own print inspired by one of the works in the exhibition New Narratives: Contemporary Works on Paper.
This event is organized in conjunction with the exhibition New Narratives: Contemporary Works on Paper.
Continuing Exhibitions
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 ten-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.
Through Sunday, February 11, 2024
Monte and Usha Ahuja Founders Rotunda | Gallery 200
FREE
In 2020, the Cleveland Orchestra received an extraordinary, unique gift: the full, handwritten score of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 from the orchestra’s International Trustee Dr. Herbert G. Kloiber. One of the leading composers of late Romantic symphonic music, Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) was born in Bohemia (modern Czech Republic) and active in Germany and Austria. His monumental Second Symphony is considered the grandest of all symphonies from the 1800s. Requiring more than 100 instrumentalists, two soloists, and a full chorus, and at nearly 80 minutes, it surpassed its choral predecessors by Ludwig van Beethoven, Hector Berlioz, and Franz Liszt in range and conception.
Mahler wrote the dramatic score between 1888 and 1894 in his characteristically bold musical script, mainly in intense black ink, with some parts in brown or violet. It is a working manuscript with inserted leaves, corrections, deletions, and revisions. Additions to the orchestration are written in blue crayon in the first three movements, and in violet ink in the final movement. The complete manuscript is 232 pages, comprising 24- and 28-stave (musical staff) papers in unbound bifolios. This is the composer’s only handwritten manuscript of the complete symphony and includes the work’s finale, its crowning glory.
The Cleveland Orchestra acknowledges Dr. Herbert G. Kloiber with deep gratitude for his generous gift of the autograph manuscript of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. The Cleveland Orchestra thanks the Cleveland Museum of Art for its partnership in the manuscript’s care and temporary display.
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: Southeast Asian Art
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, and 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.
Francis Alÿs: Paradox of Praxis 5
Through Sunday March 17, 2024
Video Project Room | Gallery 224B
FREE
In Paradox of Praxis 5, Francis Alÿs is shown kicking a flaming soccer ball at night through the streets of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, until it finally extinguishes. Filmed over hours, this durational task becomes a performance of futile labor and exertion, as well as one of impending peril. The title of the work heightens the irony of the exercise, conjuring allusions to the piece as a metaphor for artistic practice in general. Alÿs is a Belgium-born artist who moved to Mexico City in 1986 and has lived and worked there ever since. His distinctly poetic and imaginative artworks are often centered on observations of, and engagements with, everyday life, which the artist describes as being “composed of episodes, metaphors, or parables.”
Courtesy of the artist and David Zwirner
New Narratives: Contemporary Works on Paper
Through Sunday, April 14, 2024
James and Hanna Bartlett Prints and Drawings Gallery | Gallery 101
FREE
New Narratives: Contemporary Works on Paper explores the myriad ways in which contemporary artists use storytelling to engage the imagination, scrutinize the past, and envision the future. Consisting entirely of prints and drawings, the exhibition features many recent acquisitions to the CMA’s collection. Pervading the works on view is an interest in narrative, whether fiction or nonfiction, personal, cultural, or mythic. Artists in the exhibition utilize history, people, or events, biographies of known or often unknown people, and various media juxtapositions to layer the past and the present day.
The two galleries that make up the exhibition are anchored by large-scale, multipart works. Jacob Lawrence’s The Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture (1986), a series of 15 screenprints, recounts aspects of the Haitian revolution (1791–1804), the successful insurrection by enslaved and free people of color against French colonial rule. Lawrence’s expressive style and tightly composed scenes narrate the revolution through the biography of one of its leaders, General Toussaint L’Ouverture (1743–1803). Also featured is Kara Walker’s The Means to an End: A Shadow Drama in Five Acts (1995). This monumental five-part etching employs the style of historical silhouettes popular in the antebellum South to suggest a provocative narrative about race, gender, and power. Also featured are new drawings by Kerry James Marshall and Shahzia Sikander and prints by Camille Billops, Enrique Chagoya, David Wojnarowicz, Michael Menchaca, Renee Stout, and others.
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.
Six Dynasties of Chinese Painting
Through Monday, May 6, 2024
Clara T. Rankin Galleries of Chinese Art | Gallery 240A
FREE
Six Dynasties of Chinese Painting presents a selection of the museum’s most important paintings that cover six different dynasties, including the modern era. These paintings represent various subject matter, from figures, landscapes, animals, birds, and flowers to religious and historical themes; their dates of acquisition range from the museum’s founding years to the most recent additions, demonstrating a continuous commitment to Chinese painting, a field that has always been the strongest asset of the Chinese collection.
To the River’s South in Japanese Painting
Through Sunday, June 2, 2024
The Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Japanese Art Galleries | Gallery 235A
FREE
The Chinese words jiang, or “river,” and nan, or “south,” together form the region name Jiangnan, or “river’s south.” The river is the Yangzi River, or “Long River,” that flows from west to east across China, emptying into the sea near the city of Shanghai. The “south” is a constellation of cities, mountain ranges, lakes, and rivers reaching as far west as Mount Lu, about eight hours from Shanghai by car (684 kilometers, or 425 miles). Core episodes in Chinese history and literature were set in or inspired by these sites. Transmitted through text and image, records and representations of Jiangnan occupied a significant position in the lives of creators and consumers of culture across East and Southeast Asia in the centuries leading up to the present. Some of the paintings and painted ceramics in this gallery show how Japanese artists of the past portrayed two landmarks in Jiangnan, Mount Lu and West Lake, and Xiao-Xiang, a place located physically west of Jiangnan but an important touch point in artistic productions from that region.
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 in order to preserve their colors and fabrics for later generations by keeping them in a dark, climate-controlled space.
On-Site Collection 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.
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
Winter Open Studio | Estudio Abierto de Invierno
Wednesday, January 3, and Thursday, January 4, 2024 | 12:00–4:00 p.m. | Miércoles y jueves y 3 y 4 de enero, 2024
Enjoy the Community Arts Center during the holiday season! We invite you to visit during these special weekday open hours to explore and add to our Winter Wonderland installation! Make the most of your winter break by cozying up at the CAC and creating with our team. Projects include learning about animal habits during the winter and celebrating light and the New Year.
Free. All ages. All experience levels. Supplies included. Drop in; no registration required.
¡Disfruta del Centro De Artes Comunitarias durante la temporada de vacaciones! ¡Lo invitamos a visitar durante este horario especial de puertas abiertas de la semana para explorar y agregar a nuestra instalación Maravillas Invernales! Aproveche al máximo sus vacaciones de invierno acurrucándose en el CAC y creando con nuestro equipo. Los proyectos incluyen aprender sobre los hábitos de los animales durante el invierno y celebrando la luz y el Año Nuevo.
Gratis. Todas las edades. Todos los niveles de experiencia. Suministros incluidos. Sin cita previa; no es necesario registrarse.
First Saturday of the month: January 6, 2024 | 11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. | El primer sábado del mes: 6 de enero, 2024
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. Reserve your spot by emailing commartsinfo@clevelandart.org.
Aprende a jugar con palabras e imágenes de maneras inesperadas con artista Juan Fernandez (se habla español). Trabaja en compañía de otros para crear una página de cómics, dibujos o poesía para un zine publicado lanzado de forma gratuita en el próximo taller. ¡Reserva tu cupo ahorita!
Gratis. Todos edades. Todos los niveles de experiencia. Suministros incluidos. Reserva tu cupo y envíe un mensage a commartsinfo@clevelandart.org.
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, Marta Jack and the late Donald M. Jack Jr., 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.
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.
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, Marta Jack and the late Donald M. Jack Jr., Carl T. Jagatich, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Bill and Joyce Litzler, the Roy Minoff Family Fund, 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.
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About the Cleveland Museum of Art
The Cleveland Museum of Art is renowned for the quality and breadth of its collection, which includes more than 63,000 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 innovations. One of the top comprehensive art museums in the nation, recognized for its award-winning Open Access program, and free of charge to all, the Cleveland Museum of Art is located in the University Circle neighborhood.
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.