Alberto Giacometti - Toward the Ultimate Figure - Cleveland Museum of Art

 The latest exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art is called Alberto Giacometti - Toward the Ultimate Figure. #TowardTheUltimateFigure

The exhibition Alberto Giacometti: Toward the Ultimate Figure gathers an ensemble of masterpieces focusing on the artist's major achievements of the postwar years (1945-66). Combining all media-sculpture, painting, and drawing-the show of 60 works draws upon the deep resources of the artist's personal collection and examines a central, animating aspect of his oeuvre: his extraordinary, singular concern for the human figure. Co-organized by the Fondation Giacometti in Paris and the Cleveland Museum of Art, the exhibition will also be presented at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Seattle Art Museum; and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. So we are very fortunate to have it here in Cleveland and first.

If you are expecting typical sculptures of people that look just like them, you will be surprised. Giacometti is best known for the bronze sculptures of tall, thin human figures that often look emaciated. Giacometti once said that he was sculpting not the human figure but "the shadow that is cast".

Here is a short video tour of the exhibit

See more photos and video of Alberto Giacometti - Toward the Ultimate Figure

Revealing Krishna: Journey to Cambodia's Sacred Mountain

 The Cleveland Museum of Art's highly anticipated exhibition, Revealing Krishna: Journey to Cambodia's Sacred Mountain opened November 14, 2021. The groundbreaking exhibition incorporates mixed reality and reveals the CMA's newly restored Cambodian masterwork, Krishna Lifting Mount Govardhan, through an integration of art and experiential digital design.

The exhibition transports visitors to the dramatic floodplains of southern Cambodia and illustrates the history of the sculpture, spanning 1,500 years and three continents. The exhibition unveils Krishna alongside nine other related large-scale sculptures generously lent from the NMC, the Angkor Borei Museum and the Musée national des arts asiatiques-Guimet in Paris, through an integration of art, technology and experiential design.

According to Sanskrit texts, Krishna, an avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu, once hoisted a mountain overhead to shelter people and cattle from a mighty storm brought upon them by Indra, the god of rain and lightning, whom Krishna had angered. At the time, the dark-skinned god was just eight years old, and after this feat, his fellow villagers came to recognize him as a divinity. Around the year 600, a sculpture was created for the temple site of Phnom Da in southern Cambodia to honor this feat.

Watch Dan Hanson's video preview of the exhibit which includes comments from Sonya Rhie Mace, CMA's George P. Bickford Curator of Indian and Southeast Asian Art who speaks about the participation of actress Angelina Jolie among other items. It also takes a look at the incredible HoloLens 2 virtual reality tour which includes a life-size holographic representation of the original cave temple on Phnom Da.

See more pictures and information on Revealing Krishna

Rainey Institute Youth Orchestra at Cleveland Art Museum

The El Sistema@Rainey program provides daily orchestra classes at Rainey Institute to Cleveland children in grades 2-8. Students may study violin, viola, cello or string bass. Click the white arrow to watch the short selections on this video.

See more from the  International Cleveland Community Day at the Cleveland Museum of Art

Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirrors exhibit at Cleveland Museum of Art

The Cleveland Museum of Art has done it again. Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors is an amazing world-class exhibit that is nothing like you have ever seen, or experienced, before.

Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors celebrates the legendary Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s 65-year career. The exhibition spans the range of Kusama’s work, from her groundbreaking paintings and performances of the 1960s, when she staged polka-dot “Happenings” in the streets of New York, to her widely admired immersive installations and the U.S. debut of her recent series of paintings, My Eternal Soul.
#infinitekusama

Visitors have the unprecedented opportunity to experience seven of Kusama’s captivating Infinity Mirror Rooms, including Where the Lights in My Heart Go (2016), exclusive to Cleveland. Additionally, a stunning array of large and vibrant paintings, sculptures, installations, works on paper and rare archival materials can also be seen.

Yo really need to experience it yourself if you are local but if not, check out photos and videos from my visit to Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirrors

Infinity Mirror Room - Phalli's Field

The Infinity Mirror Rooms in the Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art are amazing. You, and maybe 1 to 3 other people, enter a small room and stand in a small area in the center of the room. Mirrors and lights and sculptures and effects take place as you gaze at infinite copies. It's like a fun house mirror room on steroids. In 20 or 30 seconds the door will open and the next group will be invited in.


One of my favorites was the Infinity Mirror Room - Phalli's Field. In 1965, Kusama integrated mirrors into her art for the first time, using the reflective material to line the interior of Infinity Mirrored Room-Phalli's Field. Through the kaleidoscopic relationship between the mirrors and the materials inside the chamber, complex patterns emerged, appearing to extend infinitely in all directions.  #infinitekusama


Photos and videos of the Phalli's Field Infinity Room 

The Obliteration Room by Yayoi Kusama at Cleveland Museum of Art

One  of my favorites at the Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art was was The Obliteration Room.


It's a large room, all in white, with white furniture, toys, appliances and so on. Visitors are given some colorful round stickers and are encouraged to place them on anything in the room. So the pure white room will be "obliterated" with the colorful stickers that visitors place.

As an early visitor, there was still, plenty of white space. As the days and weeks progress, the room will be more and more covered in colorful stickers.

See photos and videos from the Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors exhibit.

#infinitekusama

Bharata Natyam Classical Indian dance from Nritya Gitanjali School

Students from the Nritya Gitanjali School of Dance and Music in Cleveland Ohio performed the ancient classical Indian dance form Bharata Natyam at International Cleveland Community Day at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

More Bharata Natyam dance

Cleveland Contemporary Chinese Culture Association

Youngsters from the Cleveland Contemporary Chinese Culture Association (CCCCA) performed at the Cleveland Museum of Art's 2017 International Cleveland Community Day in the Atrium of the museum.

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Ling Yun Rising Star Acrobatics

Performers from the Ling Yun Rising Star Acrobatics entertained at the Cleveland Museum of Art's 2017 International Cleveland Community Day in the Atrium of the museum.

See more from the Ling Yun Rising Star Acrobatics

International Cleveland Community Day at Cleveland Museum of Art

Since the opening of the Atrium at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the CMA has hosted International Cleveland Community Day. It's a free festival featuring more than 50 groups and organizations that present their rich diversity through music, dance, and cultural displays.

Photos and videos of International Cleveland Community Day  at Cleveland Museum of Art

The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s Cleveland Museum of Art exhibit

The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s is the first major museum exhibition to focus on American taste in art and design during the 1920s and early 1930s. Through a rich array of over 300 extraordinary works in jewelry, fashion, automobiles, paintings and decorative arts, featuring the events and people that punctuated the era, the exhibition explores the impact of European influences, American lifestyle, artistic movements and innovation during this exciting period.

The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s is co-organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, and is on view in the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Hall from September 30, 2017 through January 14, 2018.

There are all kinds of different items on display from classic cars to paintings, furniture, jewelry, clocks and more.

Josephine Baker

See more from the Jazz Age exhibit

#cmajazzage

Classic Cars - 1925 Rolls Royce and 1937 Cord 812 Phaeton Roadster at Cleveland Museum of Art

Two classic cars are on display at the Cleveland Museum of Art exhibit titled “The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s”


Here's a short video tour.

First is the Cord 812 Phaeton Roadster, 1937 from the Auburn Automobile Company of Auburn Indiana. The model 812 front-wheel-drive Cord (along with the 810) made its debut at the 1935 New York Auto Show and was an immediate success.

 The other is the Piccadilly Roadster, 1925. Rolls-Royce. Manufactured with American parts in Springfield, MA, 1924–25. The American market for luxury automobiles grew so rapidly that by 1920 Rolls-Royce had purchased a manufactory in Springfield, Massachusetts, to assemble cars for its wealthy American clientele. The original owner of this roadster was a woman in Rye, New York, who paid over $15,000 for it in 1926.

More from The Jazz Age exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art

#cmajazzage

Brand New & Terrific - Alex Katz in the 1950's

Brand-New & Terrific: Alex Katz in the 1950's is the largest museum exhibition to showcase Alex Katz's (b. 1927) innovative portraits, landscapes and still life form this pioneering period.

Organized by the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine, in close collaboration with Katz, this presentation explores the first decade of the artist's career, a period characterized by fierce experimentation from which his signature brightly colored figurative paintings emerged.

Brand-New & Terrific: Alex Katz in the 1950's is on view in the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Hall at the Cleveland Museum of Art April 30 through August 6, 2017.

Read my review of the Alex Katz exhibit and see more photos and video like this video interview with Diana K. Tuite,  the Katz Curator at the Colby Museum of Art in Maine.  

Art and Stories from Mughal India exhibit at Cleveland Museum of Art

Art and Stories from Mughal India presents the story of the Mughals — and stories for the Mughals — in 100 exquisite paintings from the 1500s to 1800s.

The Mughal Empire existed for more than 300 years, from 1526 until the advent of British colonial rule in 1858. It encompassed territory that included vast portions of the Indian subcontinent and Afghanistan. The Mughal rulers were Central Asian Muslims who assimilated many religious faiths under their administration.

Famed for its distinctive architecture, including the Taj Mahal, the Mughal Empire is also renowned for its colorful and engaging paintings, many taking the form of scenes from narrative tales.

Many of the paintings and items are small. So you will want to use the free iPhone app in which the exhibition's curator, Sonya Rhie Quintanilla, relates stories and describes paintings. The app includes hyperlinks to an audio glossary of names and terms, and 100 tweetable facts illustrated with a related detail image from the 100 paintings on view. CMA Mughal is available now for download from the iTunes Store for Apple devices running iOS9 and above.

Art and Stories from Mughal India is on view in the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Hall from July 31, 2016 through October 23, 2016, and is free to the public in celebration of the museum’s centennial year.

#cmamughal

Cleveland Museum of Art Dir William Griswold – Centennial Part 2

Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) Director William Griswold spoke at the kick off of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s summer of centennial programs event.  This is Part 2 of 2. Slider from the Cleveland Indians joined Bill at the podium.



More photos and video of CMA Centennial event

Cleveland Museum of Art Dir William Griswold – Centennial Part 1

Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) Director William Griswold spoke at the kick off of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s summer of centennial programs event.  This is Part 1 of 2 and gives some history of the CMA and a look at the summer events.


More photos and video of CMA Centennial event

Steve Kestner and Mayor Frank Jackson – Cleveland Museum of Art

Steve Kestner, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA), welcomed the crowd and introduced Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson.  

Mayor Jackson gave a proclamation to CMA Director Bill Griswold.

Photos and video from CMA event

Cleveland Museum of Art Dir William Griswold and time machine

Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) Director William Griswold spoke at the kick off of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s summer of centennial programs event.

I asked him to imagine he had a time machine.  What might the CMA founders have thought if they could see the Museum today? What might his successor say in 100 years at the Bicentennial celebration?

Cleveland Hungarian Development Panel’s 2016 Paprika

The Cleveland Hungarian Development Panel hosted their annual Paprika! Event on March 12, 2016.  This year’s event recognized the centennial of the Cleveland Museum of Art.  Andrew Grover served as Master of Ceremonies and this is his welcome.


Hungarians in Cleveland

What is a Pharaoh? Pharaoh Exhibit at Cleveland Museum of Art

The Cleveland Museum of Art is presenting Pharaoh: King of Ancient Egypt bringing 3,000 years of ancient Egyptian history to life through some of the finest objects from the British Museum’s vast holdings and several of Cleveland’s own masterworks. The exhibit includes more than 150 objects.

This clip defines what a Pharaoh is and shows a seated statue of Pharaoh Seti II from about 1200 BC. Also the head of Pharaoh Mentuhotep II who reigned from 2050-1999 BC.


More of the Ancient Egyptian artifacts