Current and Upcoming Exhibitions at the Toledo Museum of Art Through July 2022

Eye On Art  |  03/24/2022 11:00 am

Current and Upcoming Exhibitions at the Toledo Museum of Art Through July 2022

Cloister Gallery Reinstallation: Toledo Museum of Art
Currently on view

The Toledo Museum of Art’s Cloister Gallery is home to one of the finest collections of medieval art in North America. The Cloister Gallery itself is unparalleled in its unique assemblage of three medieval arcades composed of capitals and columns dismantled from different monasteries in southern France. In 1926, the Museum's third director, Blake-More Godwin, envisioned a cloister-like gallery that combined various styles of medieval architecture — Romanesque with Gothic — into an instructive, unified space for displaying the institution's nascent medieval collection. The Museum secured its first set of historiated capitals (carved with imagery) from Saint Pons-de-Thomières in 1929, followed by a colonnade supposedly from the Cistercian abbey of Nôtre-Dame-de-Pontaut a year later. With the two arcades, they built the gallery, completing the two missing sides with arches of plaster and timbers sourced from a torn- down building in Toledo. The gallery was dedicated in 1933 as part of the Museum’s East and West Wing expansion. Shortly thereafter, in 1934, the Museum acquired and installed a third arcade, attributed to the 12th-century Cuxa workshop active in the environs of Perpignan, France. Over the ensuing decades, the Cloister Gallery — much loved in the greater Toledo community — has served as a popular venue for weddings, concerts and community-building events. Above all, however, the gallery serves as an evocative space for displaying the rich cultural heritage of the Middle Ages and, as Godwin put it, “an excellent bit of teaching equipment.”

Reinstallation Project

The reinstallation of the Cloister Gallery continues the Museum’s longstanding educational mission by expanding the scope of the art on view to better reflect a more interconnected and global Middle Ages (about 500–1500). The reinstallation will use the Museum’s collection to broaden the narrative of medieval art that is typically told in art museums across the United States and Europe. This will be accomplished in four key ways: chronologically, geographically, culturally and materially. While continuing to highlight our esteemed collection of medieval art from western Europe, the reinstalled Cloister Gallery will draw connections across time and media to showcase the artistic prowess and cultural wealth of the Middle Ages globally. The gallery will explore themes including devotion and religious plurality, the legacies of Rome, the role of women in the arts and cultural interaction and exchange, among others.

This project will also address the gallery’s enduring conservation issues. In doing so, we will embark on a comprehensive cleaning of the three medieval arcades and the Venetian Wellhead, inviting members of the community to participate. The reinstallation also provides the opportunity to conserve several works of art and put back on view objects not seen in decades. The more than 30-year-old cases will be replaced with new, conservation-grade casework, and the gallery will also receive an updated paint color, new light fixtures and security cameras. The completed space will feature approximately 100 works and will be accompanied by a new TMA publication on the Cloister Gallery.

The Cloister Gallery reinstallation is made possible by Dr. and Mrs. John J. Dooner, Jr., with additional support from Taylor Cadillac and Mr. Michael J. Horvitz.

Stan Douglas: Doppelgänger
Canaday Gallery: On view through May 15, 2022

Stan Douglas: Doppelgänger is a science fiction-inspired film by prominent artist Stan Douglas. The film's presentation at the Toledo Museum of Art is its first in North America. The artist’s film Doppelgänger (2019) centers around an astronaut named Alice who embarks on a solitary mission to outer space. When Alice’s ship unexpectedly turns around, she presumes she has returned to Earth, but instead she arrives at another realm, the exact reverse of her true home. In one version, Alice is welcomed and provided support upon her return, while in another narrative, Alice is received as a potential hostile threat. The work is comprised of two translucent screens, which can be viewed from either side and display parallel narratives that unfold simultaneously.

The installation of Doppelgänger at Toledo Museum of Art is supported by season sponsor ProMedica with local support from presenting sponsors Susan and Tom Palmer and the Ohio Arts Council. 

Living Legacies: Art of the African American South
New Media Gallery: On view through May 1, 2022

This landmark exhibition celebrates a significant addition of works by African American artists from the southern United States to the collection at the Toledo Museum of Art. This selection of works of art ranges from large-scale assemblages and mixed-media sculptures to paintings, textiles and works on paper. Artists represented include Thornton Dial, Thornton Dial, Jr., Richard Dial, Lonnie Holley, Leroy Almon and several generations of women quiltmakers from Gee’s Bend, Alabama, including Louisiana Bendolph, Mary Elizabeth Kennedy, Jessie T. Pettway, Lucy T. Pettway and Martha Pettway.

The Souls Grown Deep Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to documenting, preserving and promoting the artistic production and cultural traditions of African American artists from the rural South. In 2014, the foundation began a multi-year program to transfer works to the permanent collections of leading American and international art museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the High Museum in Atlanta, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and more.

Living Legacies supports TMA’s initiative to broaden the narrative of its collection and exhibition programs to include artists whose cultural perspectives and traditions have historically been underrepresented in museum institutions. These works contribute to a richer and more complex story of American art that includes the voices of Black artists who cultivated artistic practices outside the mainstream art academy. Many of these artists have cultural roots in creative expressions of the African diaspora, passed down through familial and communal traditions. Their work explores ever-present issues of violence, oppression and racial inequality while revealing an art-making tradition based upon the creative reinvention of everyday objects. The acquisition also highlights their contributions to the broader visual and material culture of the 20th century, situating them within the canon of American Modernism.

Living Legacies: Art of the African American South is supported by presenting sponsors Susan and Tom Palmer and season sponsor ProMedica, with additional support from the Ohio Arts Council and TMA Ambassadors.
 

Chameleon Effects: Glass (Un)Defined
Wolfe Gallery Mezzanine: On view through March 31, 2023

Chameleon Effects: Glass (Un)Defined brings together historical and contemporary works from the Toledo Museum of Art’s collection to explore the spectrum of technical and formal possibilities of glass. One of the oldest human-made substances, glass is neither a true solid nor a liquid and belies conventional understandings of how materials work. For more than 4,000 years, artists have exploited the inherent mutability of glass, transforming the molten material into an impressive range of forms, colors and textures, often blurring the lines between one medium and another. More recently, artists have turned to newer materials and techniques, such as plastic and photography, to engage with historic glass and draw connections with the past. Looking at the relationship between glass, precious stones, metalwork, ceramics, photography and performance, Chameleon Effects demonstrates the longstanding history of the interaction of glass with other substances, while challenging traditional art historical categories of separate media and defined materials.

Chameleon Effects: Glass (Un)Defined is sponsored by 2021 Exhibition Program sponsors Taylor Cadillac and ProMedica, with additional support from the Ohio Arts Council. Free admission.
 

Bestowing Beauty: Masterpieces from Persian Lands
New Media Gallery: April 23-July 17, 2022

Celebrating the rich artistic and cultural heritage of Persian civilization, Bestowing Beauty: Masterpieces from Persian Lands features more than 100 works from the sixth to the 19th century drawn from the preeminent Persian art collection of Hossein Afshar. Persia refers to the historic lands in southwestern Asia where the Persian culture and language flourished—a region now associated with the Islamic Republic of Iran, but previously extending beyond its modern-day borders. Through the collector’s eyes, we see a portrait of Iran that manifests a strong sense of identity reflected and affirmed by the visual arts, as well as an artistic sensibility that has permeated across time, space and medium.

The exhibition showcases textiles, manuscripts, ceramics, paintings, metalwork, scientific instruments, woodwork and jeweled objects. Highlights include exquisite miniature paintings from the Shahnama (Book of Kings), the Persian national epic; an array of historically significant ceramics; rare Qur’an leaves; and a monumental silk carpet from the height of Safavid carpet production. Bestowing Beauty represents a dedication to preserving Iranian artistic heritage for future generations and desire to make it accessible for study and enjoyment.

Woven throughout the tales of these extraordinary artworks are experiences, ideas and emotions shared by all peoples. By evoking universal themes of faith and piety, love and longing, kingship and authority, banquets and battles, and earth and nature, the exhibition brings alive the rich heritage and enduring beauty of Persian art. The artworks also explore the role and fascinating history of trade, migration and cultural exchange in the development of Persian art, demonstrating its important legacy in artistic and technological advancement within Islamic lands and beyond. This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Bestowing Beauty is sponsored locally by season sponsors ProMedica and presenting sponsors Susan and Tom Palmer, with additional support from Key Bank and the Ohio Arts Council.