Category: Past Exhibitions

A celebrated artist, Garry Winogrand transformed the genre of street photography in the 1960s. With his Leica camera in hand, he captured the movements, both hurried and introspective, and raw emotions of his subjects. Initially published as a monograph, the portfolio Women are Beautiful (1975) represents Winogrand’s most significant project. Comprised of 85 photographs, the series features women engaged a range of ordinary activities –walking across the street, enjoying a conversation, and dancing in a crowd. Some of the photos are direct, with the woman walking straight towards Winogrand’s lens, while others reveal the photographer observing quiet moments of solitude.

In the early 1980s, the Tampa Museum of Art established photography—with an emphasis on work created after 1970—as a primary collecting area. The collection now comprises more than 950 photographs and demonstrates how the medium evolved throughout the 20th-century. TMA’s photography collection includes works by John Baldessari, James Casebere, and Cindy Sherman, as well as the candid photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Andy Warhol, and Winogrand.

This exhibition is sponsored by David Hall and Judy Tampa

Pepe Mar: Myth and Magic represents the first survey of Pepe Mar’s art and highlights 15-years of the artist’s practice, from 2006 to 2023. Presented as a Gesamtkunstwerk, the exhibition itself has been conceptualized as an immersive artwork with the objects on view complemented by the artist’s vibrant fabric walls, plush poufs for sitting, and lush orange carpet. Each work is uniquely different yet incorporates Mar’s signature materials—such as paper cut-outs from magazines, catalogues, and books, decorative textile motifs, clay vessels and figurines, as well as found objects discovered by the artist in shops and thrift stores throughout the world.

Mar opens the exhibition with a sculpture garden and introduces the figure “Paprika,” the artist’s alter ego. Paprika anchors Mar’s work and represents the personal and the Other, as well as the fusion of medium and object. Loosely chronological, Pepe Mar: Myth and Magic is organized by concepts and processes present in Mar’s oeuvre: Assemblage, Revival and Mythologies, Face-Off, and Fabric Paintings. Assemblage examines personal and social identities as well as Queer aesthetics. Revival and Mythologies explores the artist as collector and ethnographer. In this section, the magnum opus The Cabinet of Dr. Mar highlights visual traditions and personal lore. The grid of collages entitled Face-Off illustrates Mar’s approach to portraiture, masking, and explorations of self. Fabric Paintings serve as an archive of the artist’s past works with sculptures, assemblages, and photographs transformed into colorful textiles.

Pepe Mar: Myth and Magic features 60 works of art from public and private collections across the United States, including Burning Up, a collage sculpture acquired by the Tampa Museum of Art in 2019 that served as the inspiration for this survey exhibition. The title of the exhibition pays homage to the 1979 exhibition of Mexican master painter Rufino Tamayo entitled Rufino Tamayo: Myth and Magic, organized by the Solomon R.Guggenheim Museum in New York City. While the works on view highlight Mar’s influences—art history, Mexican artifacts and architecture, fashion, science fiction, and pop culture—the exhibition also speaks to the artist’s biography. Living between the border of the US and Mexico, and later establishing roots in Miami, Florida, the art on view reveals the connections between self and site, and material as metaphor. As seen in Pepe Mar: Myth and Magic, the works from the past 15 years reflect the evolution of an artist, as well as a transformative return to his creative roots.

The accompanying catalogue Pepe Mar: Myth and Magic will be published in Fall 2023.

Born in 1977 in Reynosa, Mexico, close to the Mexico/United States border, Pepe Mar spent his childhood living between two cultures. His family moved to Brownsville, Texas during Mar’s teenage years and he started making art in his family’s garage. As a young artist, he purchased inexpensive materials such as feathers and beads from craft stores such as Michael’s. He received his BFA from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco and earned his MFA from Florida International University in Miami.

Mar has received several prominent grants, including an Ellies Award from Oolite Arts in 2020 and 2018. Solo exhibitions have been mounted at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO (2022); Frost Art Museum at FIU (2020), Miami, FL; Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, PA (2019); and Locust Projects, Miami, FL (2018). In Fall 2023, a solo exhibition of Mar’s work will be presented at the Everson Museum in Syracuse, NY. Mar is represented by David Castillo. The artist lives and works in Miami, Florida.

Supported in part by:

Haiti emerged as a sovereign state after a massive slave rebellion overturned the established order in a dramatic and violent revolution. Since 1804, the island nation has embarked in continual attempts at self-rule but many of these efforts proved unsuccessful, never fulfilling the dreams of a better life cherished by the former enslaved. France, the former colonial power ousted by the rebellion and bitter at the loss of her crown jewel, made sure itself and its allies never gave the first Black republic a fair chance to compete fairly in the concert of nations. The successive governments of Haiti could not garner enough economic clout to make the transfer of impoverished and destitute slaves into a citizenry that could muster and foster a stable, progressive society. All in all, the former slaves were left mostly to their own devices when it came to nation building. Forming an identity needed and required with their new freedoms remained unresolved for centuries. Today, they remain in that constant quest for social cohesion but Haitians noteworthy accomplishments in the field of visual art helped define its national character. 

Contrary to most of its neighbors in the Caribbean archipelago, one can say that Haiti’s visual culture emanates from its majority working class rather than from a well-tutored elite or directed from government led cultural initiatives.  Early travelers’ accounts to the island revealed cultural flourishes peculiar and distinct from Haiti’s neighbors. Their narratives perceived the Black republic as a place of wonder. One could sense it in the reports detailed in Eugène Aubin’s In Haiti: Planters of Yesteryears, Negroes of Today (1910) or William Seabrook’s book The Magic Island (1929). Published in the early 20^th-century, both books featured extensive photographic coverage of the island nation but revealed unsympathetic and unabashedly racist opinions of Haiti. However, the publications’ images included ornate wall paintings unique to the rural habitats and sacred sites of Vodou temples, which were profusely decorated inside and outside. These photographs provided a glimpse of what would become decades later, a “discovery” of Haiti’s creative legacy. 

In 1944, Haitian intellectuals collaborated with Dewitt Peters, an American conscientious objector, to found the Centre d’Art in Port-au-Prince. The institution provided access to art to all strata of Haitian society. Artists gravitated to the Centre d’Art and what they brought with them was, though very far from any academia, a varied, fresh, and startling artistic expression. Each artist depicted a world they envisioned or observed in their own way. At the time the devotional practice of Vaudo was prohibited yet the artists creatively revealed the outlawed spirits and lwas (Vodou deities) to the world. The artists also depicted a way of life—simple and ordered—as probably more a wish than everyday circumstances. The bucolic aspect of these works likely triggered the term “naïve” as an explanation of Haiti’s art yet it was anything but simple. The art served as a form of protest in that artists pointed out at what Haitian’s expected, wanted, and deserved, and not what they had.  Learn more from guest curator, Edouard Duval-Carrié:

This exhibition aims to reframe the context of modern Haitian art. The paintings in this gallery, all masterworks from the Arthur Albrecht Collection, attest to the unique and complex history of Haiti and its cultural legacy. Displayed at different heights yet in dialogue with each other, this installation metaphorically represents the artists’ ideas and ideals. Spiritual figures hover above mortals, as seen in works by André Pierre and Robert Saint Brice. Paintings by the Obin Family, Riguad Benoit, and Salnave Philippe-Auguste hang at a height that envelops the viewer rather than serve as a passive encounter with the artists’ world. The Albrecht Collection provides an overview of the production of art from an island nation, that despite adversity and strife, has and continues to strive in its creative practices.  

Reframing Haitian Art: Masterworks from the Arthur Albrecht Collection was curated by Edouard Duval Carrié, guest curator. 

Funds for the conservation of the Arthur Albrecht Collection were generously provided through a grant from the Bank of America Art Conservation Project.

Taking Pictures: Women of Independent Spirit celebrates the anonymous women who shaped the evolution of vernacular photography during the ‘analog era’ of the late 19th to the late 20th century. The result of a year long collaboration between gallerist Julie Saul and independent curator Carly Ries, this exhibition brings together photographs from the Collection of Peter J. Cohen, a photographic archive spanning the analog era from the 1890s through the 1990s.

This exhibition charts photography’s momentum across the 20th century as a medium for self expression alongside the expansion of women’s independence. As self-trained image makers and collaborative subjects, women played out new ways of being in the world both in front of, and behind, the camera. Arranged here in constellations, the photographs connect through shared gestures, shadow patterns and echoing poses of women belonging to an intersection of race, class, age, and era.

These photographs record vibrant times, magic hours, private performances, and experiments with identity. One captured moment contains countless narrative directions speckled with signifiers: a photographer’s shadow spills across a lawn, the silhouette revealing the cinched waist of a dress. Someone glances at the camera with a knowing look, or turns her face away in refusal. Another woman holds her camera at eye-level and gazes into a mirror, recording herself as the author of the image. The journey made by each image is evident on the surface of the photograph itself, with its frayed edges, creases, and scratches. Each hint offers a clue to who, when, why, with each image leading only to more questions.

On these walls, the wide range of formats and visual experimentation hint at divergent and coexisting waves of image-making across the twentieth century. The photograph records an impulse to hold still for a moment, offered to us now for a longer look. With time on our side, we can let our eyes linger on what she wanted us to see.

Taking Pictures: Women of Independent Spirit is curated by celebrated gallerist Julie Saul and Carly Ries, and brings together photographs from the Collection of Peter J. Cohen.

Today, we recognize various expressions of identity, such as personal, social and national identity. Certain frames of identity are well-defined or fixed, others are based on personal choice or may change over time. Think of economic class and social status, education and profession, culture and nationality. Also, language, lifestyle, musical preference, personal companionship, political allegiance or religion. These frames of identity may invoke a sense of belonging or form exclusive alliances. They may also provoke feelings of marginalization, even policies of segregation. Or, they may create demands for acceptance and equal treatment. This exhibition engages the public to reflect upon the differences and similarities between the ancient world and our contemporary society. Some themes the visitor may encounter include masculinity and femininity, intimacy and ethnicity.

In the ancient world such expressions of identity could not always be articulated explicitly because the terminology for voicing thoughts about personal, cultural and national frames of identity often did not exist. That is not to say that Egyptians or Persians, Greeks or Romans did not experience a sense of belonging to a certain group sharing a cultural, linguistic and historical heritage. They recognized biological differences between men and women, and they believed that certain social roles belonged to the different genders. Ancient societies were unambiguously patriarchal and hierarchical, with certain political rights held as privileges of well-defined classes. Others were excluded – such as enslaved persons, peasants, women and/or resident aliens (even when living in the same country for generations), who had little or no rights.

As part of its ongoing exhibition series exploring the intersection of art and fashion, the Tampa Museum of Art presents a series of paintings by globally renowned fashion designer Naeem Khan. Khan works independently, as well collaboratively with artist Stanley Casselman as the collective KACE, to create large-scale works inspired by his ongoing exploration of flora, light, and color. Five monumental works, comprised of paint and sequins represent Khan’s inaugural museum exhibition.

The Khan Family, steeped in the tradition of fashion and textiles for over 100 years, is renowned for their atelier in Mumbai and their luxurious couture worn by luminaries and India’s royalty. Khan arrived in New York at the age of 17, travelling to the United States with his father. A business appointment with Halston changed the course of his life as the famed designer decided on the spot that Khan would be his protégé. With Halston as his mentor, Khan became immersed in Manhattan’s art and social circles. From the atelier to Studio 54 and Andy Warhol’s Factory, Khan emerged as a designer at a pivotal moment in the 1970s where the lines between art, fashion, music, film, and celebrity were often blurred, further signifying New York City as the epicenter of creativity.

While working with Halston, Khan met Andy Warhol who frequently collaborated with Halston on his projects. Khan participated in their collaborations by drawing the flowers for their designs, specifically poppies. Warhol, like Halston, took Khan under his wing and once told the young designer, “You shouldn’t hold your pencil that way. Let me show you how to draw.” Flowers, inspired by his work and friendship with Warhol as well as the flora in his home country of India, anchor Khan’s visual language.

In 2020, painter Stanley Casselman introduced himself to Khan at one of his fashion shows and was immediately struck by the beauty and power of the designer’s work. Casselman observed that Khan’s designs could be translated into painting. Conversations lead to collaboration and today the two artists work both individually and together under the name KACE. Works, such as Jardin Chrome and Jardin d’Or, feature Khan’s elaborate sequined blooms in concert with Casselman’s gestural paint strokes. The compositions reveal the signature elements of each artists’ practice. Here, Khan’s ornate craftsmanship and Casselman’s abstract mark making unite in dazzling effect.

Khan’s solo works, Floating Flowers Pink and Silver and Floating Flowers Fuchsia and Gold, nod to his familial history with fabric, color, composition, and texture while pushing the boundaries of contemporary painting. Each flower is comprised of hundreds of sequins and beads. Delicately sewn onto silkscreen material, Khan suspends the panels one over the other, creating a sculptural quality to the paintings. Fabricated in a range of petal formations and size, Khan’s blossoms both capture and reflect light. As if suspended in space, the flowers come to life, symbolizing Khan’s creative past and his burgeoning artistic future. 

Fleurish: The Art of Naeem Khan is presented in conjunction with the Tampa Museum of Art’s annual fundraiser CITY: Fashion + Art + Culture.

This exhibition is organized by the Baltimore Museum of Art

Presenting Sponsor of No Ordinary Love: Life On Canvas