Category: Past Exhibitions

On view November 8, 2019 through March 15, 2020

On the eve of the Tampa Museum of Art’s 100^th anniversary in 2020, the exhibition The Making of a Museum: 100 Years, 100 Works from the Permanent Collection, features works representative of the institution’s collecting history and mission. The collection is unique—with significant holdings of ancient Greek and Roman art, as well as increased acquisitions of modern and contemporary art. With eight main categories, the collection features a breadth of objects: Classical Antiquities, Prints and Photographs Related to Classical Antiquity, the C. Paul Jennewein Archive, Painting, Decorative Arts and Sculpture, Photography, Works on Paper, and New Media, Video, and Installation Art.

The Making of a Museum: 100 Years, 100 Works will present unique insight into how the collection and identity of the Museum have evolved as it has grown from a small local arts organization to the City’s preeminent museum of art.

Sponsored in part by:  Celia and Jim Ferman

With additional support provided by: The Blanchard Family

On view through October 25, 2020

Since photography’s inception in the mid-nineteenth century, women have stood among its artistic and technological pioneers. Modern Women: Modern Vision features 100 works from the Bank of America Collection by leading artists of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The exhibition is organized in six thematic sections: Modernist Innovators, Documentary Photography and the New Deal, Photo League, Modern Masters, Exploring the Environment, and The Global Contemporary Lens. Each section examines the photographers’ role in forging new directions and methods in photography, as well as how the medium has evolved with the advent of new digital and studio practices.  Artists featured in this exhibition include Berenice Abbott, Diane Arbus, Tina Barney, Bernd Becher and Hilla Becher, Margaret Bourke-White, Esther Bubley, Imogen Cunningham, Rineke Dijkstra, Candida Höfer, Barbara Kruger, Dorothea Lange, Nikki S. Lee, Helen Levitt, Sonia Handelman Meyer, DoDo Jin Ming, Ruth Orkin, Cindy Sherman, Carrie Mae Weems, and others.

Presented by:

On view October 22, 2020 through May 9, 2021

Representations of the body vary from person to person, artist to artist. The works featured in Figure Forward: Selections from the Permanent Collection demonstrate different approaches to figuration from the 18^th-century to the present through the Tampa Museum of Art’s permanent collection. Portraiture and figuration anchor the modern and contemporary collection, with works in a range of media by artists such as Jose Clemente Orozco, Francisco Goya, Louise Nevelson, Fairfield Porter, Lorna Simpson, and Rafael Soyer. The exhibition also highlights recent acquisitions by Alex Katz, Yigal Ozeri, and Pepe Mar. Figure Forward expands on the figurative work included in the show The Making of a Museum: 100 Years, 100 Works.

Figure Forward: Selections from the Permanent Collection is part of the Tampa Museum of Art’s centennial exhibition series Celebrating 100 Years.

On view through September 27, 2020

In conjunction with Frank Stella: Illustrations after El Lissitzky’s Had Gadya, the Tampa Museum of Art has organized Frank Stella: What You See, a pendant exhibition featuring works by Frank Stella in regional collections, including the Tampa Museum of Art’s permanent collection. The exhibition is inspired by Stella’s quote “What you see is what you see,” the artist’s famed description of his art as noted in a 1964 interview. The intimate selection of works provides an overview of Stella’s oeuvre from his exploration of minimal forms in the 1960s and 1970s, to the creation of lyrical multi-media compositions in the late 1990s. Frank Stella: What You See presents a snapshot view of one of today’s most influential living artists.

Presented by:

On view through September 27, 2020

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.

Presented by:

June 5, 2020 – May 15, 2024

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.

On view September 12 through November 10, 2019

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.

On view September 12, 2019 through January 26, 2020

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.

On view September 12, 2019 through February 23, 2020

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.