The Cleveland Museum of Art’s upcoming programming is packed with fascinating exhibitions and interactive events, including the return of City Stages to Hingetown this week and next.
This Wednesday, the free City Stages block party in Ohio City features Angel Melendez and the 911 Mambo Orchestra.
Visitors can also enjoy the "New Histories, New Futures" exhibit at the Transformer Station, CMA's sister museum down the street.
The exhibition showcases work by three contemporary Black artists—Johnny Coleman, Antwoine Washington and Kambui Olujimi—who engage both historical events and current discourse through their art. Transformer Station’s regular hours are open Wednesday to Sunday, 11 am to 5 p.m. but will stay open until 9pm during City Stages.
On Wednesday, August 25th, Cheik Hamala Diabate, the Malian singer-guitarist and n’goni player, will perform in the tradition of the 800-year-old West African griot, a class of traveling poets, musicians, and storytellers developed in West Africa. The n’goni is a traditional stringed lute considered one of the ancestors of the banjo, which he also plays like an n’goni. Diabate was born in Mali but is based in Maryland, and is the son of two prominent griot families. He was trained in griot from his grandfather in the musical tradition of story-telling and studied at the National Institute of Arts in Bamako, the capital of Mali. Diabate was featured on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert Series with a smaller version of his group. Both of these concerts will offer a rare opportunity to see these unique of artists.
CMA also has a dynamic and packed lineup of programming scheduled through the end of next year at its main campus in University Circle.
Some highlights below:
“Private Lives: Home and Family in the Art of the Nabis, Paris, 1889–1900” is on display through September 19, 2021 in The Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Exhibition Hall. This exhibition features artworks by four Post-Impressionists active in Paris in the 1890s: Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard, Maurice Denis and Félix Vallotton.
On display through August 22, 2021 in the Julia and Larry Pollock Focus Gallery.
“Rinpa (琳派),” open through October 3, 2021 in the 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.
“Interpretation of Materiality: Gold” is on display through October 25, 2021 in the Korea Foundation Gallery. The exhibition illuminates how Korean artists from ancient times to the present day creatively used and interpreted gold and its distinctive materiality.
“A New York Minute: Street Photography, 1920–1950” is on display through November 7, 2021. In the Mark Schwartz and Bettina Katz Photography Gallery, the exhibition features spontaneous images of everyday life captured in public places—blossomed in New York City during the first half of the 20th century.
“From Caves to Tombs: Chinese Pictorial Rubbings from Stone Reliefs” (從石窟到墓祠—石刻拓片) is open through November 14, 2021 in Gallery 240A. The exhibition explores the tradition of making and mounting ink rubbings from stone reliefs, practiced in China at least since the 500s.
“Ashcan School Prints and the American City, 1900–1940” is on display through December 26, 2021 in the James and Hanna Bartlett Prints and Drawings Gallery and features prints of city life made by urban realists during a time of rapid demographic, social and economic transformation.
“Fashioning Identity: Mola Textiles of Panamá” is showing through January 9, 2022 in the Arlene M. and Arthur S. Holden Textile Gallery. This 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.
“Medieval Treasures from Münster Cathedral” is on view through August 14, 2022 in Gallery 115 and features 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.
“Art of the Islamic World” is on display in Gallery 116 and features Artwork created during the 8th through 19th centuries. 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.
Lastly this week CMA will host a Virtual Event. “Painted Pets: Dogs and Cats in the Works of Pierre Bonnard” Wednesday, August 18, 6 p.m. (EDT). The work of painter Pierre Bonnard often showcases domesticated animals as part of the family unit. Join historian Kathleen Kete of Trinity College (CT) and curator Mary Weaver Chapin of the Portland Art Museum who will discuss how animals arose as an important subject for Bonnard and other artists of his time and the popularity of pets in late 19th-century France.
