Frank Stella (American, b. 1936) created the series Illustrations after El Lissitzky’s Had Gadya (1984) after seeing artist El Lissitzky’s artwork at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Between 1917 and 1919, Lissitzky (Russian, 1890-1941) completed imagery for a children’s book of “Had Gadya”, an allegorical song sung at the close of the Passover Seder. Lissitzky’s modernist interpretation of the traditional song highlighted the influence of the Russian avant-garde in his work, as he depicted characters and scenes in “Had Gadya” with abstract forms and interlocking geometric shapes. Inspired by Lissitzky’s “Had Gadya”, Stella produced a suite of prints corresponding to the artist’s imagery. Rather than re-interpret the song, Stella responded to Lissitzky’s abstractions with his own signature vibrant palette and curvilinear gestures. The exhibition features Stella’s complete portfolio of twelve prints, each unique in technique and color.
Dominique Labauvie (French, b. 1948)Maison Dépliée, 1994. Forged and waxed steel. Courtesy of the artist and Bleu Acier, Inc. Photographer: Philip LaDeau.
Artist Dominique Labauvie (French, b. 1948) unites language, both his native French and English, with image in his architectonic steel sculptures. Air Fer Mer, the title of the outdoor installation on the Sullivan Terrace, as well as the title of one the sculptures on view, reflects the artist’s play on language—“air fer mer” spoken aloud sounds like “éphémère,” the French word for “ephemeral.” Ephemerality embodies the essence of Labauvie’s art. Although his medium of industrial steel suggests a sense of permanence, Labauvie aims to capture fleeting moments in his sculpture—from the movement of light and shadows, to the passage of time and life unfolding around us. “Air Fer Mer” also translates to iron, air, sea—a fitting description of the objects’ relationship to the natural world. In this unique setting, four of Labauvie’s sculptures exist in harmony with the Hillsborough River and Tampa skyline.
Installation photo of Thomas Sayre (American, b. 1950), White Gold, 2020. Mixed media. Dimensions variable.
White Gold is an immersive installation by artist Thomas Sayre (American, b. 1950) that depicts a cotton-filled Southern landscape. The work intends to express the beauty, the complexity, and the tragedy of our embroiled agricultural traditions. Cotton is one of the nation’s most contentious and layered materials, and one with which almost every American has a personal relationship, either directly or indirectly. Inevitably, it is linked to the economic, racial, and social history of the region and its people. Sayre’s White Gold refers to cotton and a reverence for the land, the labor, and the people (forced or unforced) who made cotton their livelihood. The installation is a fierce expression of the Southern landscape: its magnificence and the haunting pain of history, memory, and ultimately, belonging.
White Gold: Thomas Sayre is organized by the Mississippi Museum of Art and the Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh
Jean-Michel Basquiat: One Master Artist / Two Masterpieces focuses on two unique Basquiat artworks: Yellow Door (1985) and Untitled (Word on Wood) (1985). The exhibition will examine the artist’s visual vocabulary in an intimate presentation of these two important paintings. Jean-Michel Basquiat: One Master Artist / Two Masterpieces explores the artist’s use of found materials, text, and portraiture as a means to explore socio-political themes and self-identity. Related materials will further address how Basquiat’s art signified new directions in abstract figuration and 20th-century painting. This show is part of the fall exhibition series Ordinary/Extraordinary: Assemblage in Three Acts.
The exhibition Jean-Michel Basquiat: One Master Artist / Two Masterpieces is part of the exhibition series Ordinary/Extraordinary: Assemblage in Three Acts. The series simultaneously presents three discrete shows focused on works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Purvis Young, and a selection of 20th- and 21st-century Haitian Vodou flags. The use of found objects, such as discarded wood and textiles, formally links the exhibitions together. More importantly, historical and socio-economic narratives informed by the Afro-Caribbean Diaspora, the Black experience in America, as well as European artistic influences, unite the artists featured in the series. Although each is a stand-alone show, viewed together, the series explores provocative portrayals of race, identity, spirituality, survival, and hope in a range of assemblage objects and compositions.
Additional support for the Ordinary/Extraordinary exhibition season is provided by:
Deborah Brittain | Muriel Brathwaite Dr. Willie Logan and Lyra Blizzard Logan | Bales Security
The exhibition Purvis Young: 91 presents for the first time the depth of the Purvis Young (American, 1943-2010) holdings in the Tampa Museum of Art’s permanent collection. In 2004, the Rubell Family Foundation gifted 91 works by Young to the Museum, one of the largest donations of the artist’s work in the Southeast. Young, a self-taught artist, created thousands of assemblages with imagery of protesters, pregnant women, and warriors on wood remnants, cabinets, and doors. The artworks reflect Young’s experiences and observations living in Overtown, Miami.
Purvis Young: 91 is part of the exhibition series Ordinary/Extraordinary: Assemblage in Three Acts. The series simultaneously presents three discrete shows focused on works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Purvis Young, and a selection of 20th- and 21st-century Haitian Vodou flags. The use of found objects, such as discarded wood and textiles, formally links the exhibitions together. More importantly, historical and socio-economic narratives informed by the Afro-Caribbean Diaspora, the Black experience in America, as well as European artistic influences, unite the artists featured in the series. Although each is a stand-alone show, viewed together, the series explores provocative portrayals of race, identity, spirituality, survival, and hope in a range of assemblage objects and compositions.
Additional support for the Ordinary/Extraordinary exhibition season is provided by:
Deborah Brittain | Muriel Brathwaite Dr. Willie Logan and Lyra Blizzard Logan | Bales Security
On view September 12, 2019 through February 23, 2020
Artist unknown, St. Jacques Majeur, c. 1950-1970’s. Sequins and beads on cloth. 33 x 31 inches. Collection of Ed and Ann Gessen. Photographer: Philip LaDeau
Sacred Diagrams: Haitian Vodou Flags from the Gessen Collection examines the tradition and artistry of Haitian Vodou flags. Often made of discarded burlap bags, repurposed fabric, beads, and sequins, Vodou flags represent Haiti’s spiritually rich yet often misunderstood Vodou religion. Guest curator and artist Edouard Duval-Carrié (Haitian, b. 1954) examines the role of Vodou flags and flagmakers within Haiti’s dynamic visual culture. Sacred Diagrams highlights vintage ceremonial flags from the 1950s and 1960s, as well as explores recent interpretations of Vodou flags by artists Clotaire Bazile, Myrlande Constant, Mireille Delice Delisme, Silva Joseph, Dubreus Lherisson, Edgar Jean Louis, Antoine Oleyant, Yves Telemaque, and George Valris.
This exhibition is part the exhibition series Ordinary/Extraordinary: Assemblage in Three Acts. The series simultaneously presents three discrete shows focused on works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Purvis Young, and a selection of 20th- and 21st-century Haitian Vodou flags. The use of found objects, such as discarded wood and textiles, formally links the exhibitions together. More importantly, historical and socio-economic narratives informed by the Afro-Caribbean Diaspora, the Black experience in America, as well as European artistic influences, unite the artists featured in the series. Although each is a stand-alone show, viewed together, the series explores provocative portrayals of race, identity, spirituality, survival, and hope in a range of assemblage objects and compositions.
Sacred Diagrams: Haitian Vodou Flags from the Gessen Collection is presented by:
Kay & Roderick Heller, The Harpeth, Franklin, TN
Additional support for the Ordinary/Extraordinary exhibition season is provided by:
Deborah Brittain | Muriel Brathwaite Dr. Willie Logan and Lyra Blizzard Logan | Bales Security
One of the 20th century’s most influential artists, Robert Rauschenberg (American, 1925-2008) defined his oeuvre by using ordinary, non-traditional materials to create distinct works of art. His “combines” hovered between painting and sculpture, and incorporated a range of media and techniques. Rauschenberg often used photography in his work and layered images to render provocative narratives or observations about the world around him. Suite 1 from (America Mix-16), 1983, a portfolio of 16 photogravures, features photographs of found vignettes or objects Rauschenberg encountered during his travels around the US. He found beauty in the mundane, such as a dilapidated rag hanging from the gas cap of an abandoned truck or the inadvertent still life of trashed objects resting on the curb. Rarely exhibited from the Tampa Museum of Art’s collection, the entirety of this portfolio will be on view.
Tableau and Transformation presents an overview of the Tampa Museum of Art’s holdings in 20th-century photography, a cornerstone of the Museum’s permanent collection. The exhibition looks at how artists have used distinct darkroom effects and studio practices to create new narratives in photography. Artists such as James Casebere, Robert Cumming, Stephen Frailey, Sandy Skoglund, and William Wegman create constructed environments, often blurring the boundaries of truth and fiction in their images. Photographers Blythe Bohnen, Duane Michals, Arnulf Rainer, Lucas Samaras, Cindy Sherman examine the transformation of one’s self as a means to explore identity, gender, and place.
This exhibition features approximately 50 photographs with objects ranging in date from the mid-1960s to through the early 2000s. Predominately drawn from the Museum’s permanent collection, Tableau and Transformation includes artists John Baldessari, Morton Bartlett, Zeke Berman, Blythe Bohnen, Victor Burgin, James Casebere, Eileen Cowin, Robert Cumming, Robert Fichter, Stephen Frailey, Les Krims, Duane Michals, Patrick Nagatani and Andreé Tracey, Arnulf Rainer, Richard Ross, Lucas Samaras, Andres Serrano, Cindy Sherman, Sandy Skoglund, Joel Sternfeld, and William Wegman. Tableau and Transformation also features key loans from Trenam Law’s photography collection and includes companion photographs by several of the above-mentioned artists, as well as Laurie Simmons and Doug and Mike Starn.
As the Tampa Museum of Art nears its 100th anniversary, exhibitions in 2019 and 2020 focus on the breadth of the institution’s permanent collection, as well as examine its collecting history. The Tampa Museum of Art’s holdings are unique, with collections of Greek and Roman antiquities, as well as modern and contemporary art.
Alma Thomas (American, 1891-1978), New Galaxy, 1970. Acrylic on canvas. 54 1/4 x 54 inches. Tampa Museum of Art, Gift of Douglas H. Teller in memory of Julian H. Singman, 1997.017.
As the Tampa Museum of Art nears its 100th anniversary, exhibitions in 2019 and 2020 will focus on the breadth of the institution’s permanent collection, as well as examine its collecting history. The Tampa Museum of Art’s holdings are unique, with distinct collections of Greek and Roman antiquities, as well as modern and contemporary art.
Echoing Forms: American Abstraction from the Permanent Collection presents paintings, works on paper, and photography by major artists associated with post-war American abstraction. Abstract Expressionism emerged as the dominant genre of painting in the mid-1940s. For the next 40 years, artists working across media would examine and redefine the boundaries of abstraction. From Robert Motherwell’s serial compositions of repeating ovoid and geometric forms, to the patterned brushwork of Alma Thomas, and Aaron Siskind’s photographic studies of found objects echoing gestural paint strokes, the Tampa Museum of Art’s collection includes work from influential artists associated with the rise of American abstraction.
Artists featured in Echoing Forms also include Joseph Albers, Helen Frankenthaler, Adolph Gottlieb, Ellsworth Kelly, Elaine de Kooning, Kenneth Noland, Frank Stella, and others. Echoing Forms: Abstraction from the Permanent Collection is a companion show to the special exhibition Abstract Expressionism: A Social Revolution.
Abstract Expressionism: A Social Revolution, Selections from the Haskell Collection, presents twenty-five works from the Haskell Collection indicative of Abstract Expressionism as a unifying direction in Post-World War II art. The exhibition highlights artists associated with the influential first and second generations of Abstract Expressionist painters including Willem de Kooning, Hans Hofmann, Helen Frankenthaler, Franz Kline, Morris Louis, Joan Mitchell, Robert Motherwell, Kenneth Noland, Mark Rothko, and Theodoros Stamos. Later works by Gerhard Richter, Jack Goldstein, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella respond or reflect on the lasting legacy of Abstract Expressionism in both the US and abroad. Viewed together, the works in Abstract Expressionism: A Social Revolution address how individual artistic expression and independence from institutional values altered the course of painting. In this exhibition, visual vocabulary will be discussed in relationship to the artists’ collective objectives and individual intentions.
In addition to those mentioned above, artists represented in Abstract Expressionism: A Social Revolution include Josef Albers, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Karel Appel, Sam Francis, Michael Goldberg, Paul Jenkins, Jean Miotte, Judy Pfaff, Jean-Paul Riopelle, James Rosenquist, and Jack Tworkov. Unless noted otherwise, all works from the Haskell Collection.
