Watch the Tampa Bay Arts Education Network “Art Perspectives” episode about the exhibition, “Time for Change: Art and Social Unrest in the Jorge M. Pérez Collection” featuring Tampa Museum of Art Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art, Joanna Robotham.
Category: News
Exhibition to be held at five partnering institutions: Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg; The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art; Sarasota Art Museum; Tampa Museum of Art; and USF Contemporary Art Museum
TAMPA, Fla., June 20, 2023 – Five regional art museums, the Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg, The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, the Tampa Museum of Art, the Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design, and the USF Contemporary Art Museum, are pleased to announce a call to artists for Skyway 2024: A Contemporary Collaboration, the third iteration of the exhibition celebrating the diversity and talent of artistic practices in the Tampa Bay area. This is an open call to artists and art collectives residing in Hillsborough, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas, and Sarasota counties to submit application materials for the exhibition, which will be presented across the five participating art institutions during the spring, summer, and fall of 2024. The five art institutions will co-publish a fully illustrated catalogue to accompany the exhibition featuring the work of each exhibiting artist.
The call to artists submission period begins on June 20, with a deadline of August 4, 2023. Artists working in diverse media and disciplines, including socially engaged art and participatory projects, are encouraged to submit original artworks and project proposals. Submissions can include, but are not limited to, work on paper, painting, sculpture, photography, video, performance, sound, research-based art, and site-specific installations. Submissions can include examples of works and past projects that provide an overview of the artist’s practice. Only original works of art completed after December 2020 will be considered for the exhibition in 2024.
Artworks and projects in the exhibition will be selected by an expanded curatorial team from the five participating art institutions, including Christopher Jones, Stanton B. and Nancy W. Kaplan Curator of Photography and Media Arts and Ola Wlusek, Keith D. and Linda L. Monda Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, from The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art; Katherine Pill, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg; Rangsook Yoon, Senior Curator, Sarasota Art Museum; Joanna Robotham, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Tampa Museum of Art; and Christian Viveros-Fauné, Curator-at-Large, USF Contemporary Art Museum. Curator, writer, and scholar, Evan Garza, is the guest juror for Skyway 2024. Currently a Curatorial Fellow at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, Garza was a recent Fulbright Scholar at The Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, Ireland, and served as co-curator and artistic director of the 2021 Texas Biennial. Garza co-founded Fire Island Artist Residency (FIAR), a New York nonprofit and the first residency program in the world exclusively for LGBTQ+ artists.
Additional information and submission guidelines can be found at skywaytampabay.com
TAMPA, Fla. – The Tampa Museum of Art has been awarded a $100,000 grant from Bank of America for the conservation of its recent acquisition of Haitian art. The collection consists of paintings, sculptures, and framed maps bequeathed to the Tampa Museum of Art by the Arthur R. Albrecht Revocable Trust last August. Albrecht was a devoted collector of Haitian art and was also active in philanthropy on behalf of the country.
“This grant by Bank of America is an example of how businesses can collaborate with the arts to preserve rich cultural heritage,” said Michael Tomor, Ph.D., the Penny and Jeff Vinik Executive Director at the Tampa Museum of Art. “We are always in pursuit of opportunities to work with private institutions to ensure these works can be enjoyed for generations to come.”
At the time of the acquisition, the Museum also received a $1 million endowment gift from the Albrecht Trust in support of the collection and programming. The new $100,000 grant from Bank of America will go toward preservation projects and allow for a larger portion of the Albrecht Trust to be used for educational programming related to the newly acquired artwork.
“The private sector has a role to play in keeping the arts thriving in our communities, which is why we partnered with the Tampa Museum of Art to help preserve the historical and cultural impact of this art,” says Bill Goede, president, Bank of America Tampa Bay. “We believe that investments in arts and culture help to build our Tampa Bay community and have a positive impact on the lives of our clients and employees. We are committed to preserving these pieces that celebrate Tampa’s strong Haitian population.”
This support is part of Bank of America’s Art Conservation Project (ACP), a unique program through which the bank provides grant funding to nonprofit museums and cultural institutions around the world to help conserve historically or culturally significant works of art that are in danger of deterioration. Since it began in 2010, Bank of America has funded the conservation of individual pieces of art through more than 237 projects in 40 countries across six continents, conserving paintings, sculptures, and archaeological and architectural pieces that are critically important to cultural heritage and the history of art.
The combined gifts and grants accompanying the collection complement ongoing fundraising efforts by the Museum’s Centennial Campaign for Renovation and Expansion. The Museum completed renovations of the Vinik Family Education Center last summer, growing the education space from 1,400 to 8,000 square feet, including four classrooms, a lobby, orientation spaces, and a secure entrance. With these improvements in place, the Museum anticipates quadrupling the number of students it serves per year, and the school tour program alone can grow from 6,000 students to 24,000 each year.
In 2021, the Museum announced it was embarking on its $100 million+ Centennial Renovation and Expansion to expand the Museum’s gross area from 69,000 to 125,000 sq. ft. On April 26, the Museum celebrated the completion of its renovations, with all exhibitions in new gallery spaces open to the public.
See some of the artwork that recently underwent conservation in the exhibition Reframing Haitian Art: Masterworks from the Arthur Albrecht Collection on view now through May 2024.
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Tampa, FL – The Tampa Museum of Art is thrilled to announce the official opening of seven new exhibition spaces. Last evening, during the Museum’s Renovation Celebration, Tampa Bay’s leaders, Museum benefactors and members gathered to mark the conclusion of the Museum’s Centennial Renovation project phase, which began construction in mid-2021. The new spaces include the transformation of underused storage rooms into the Vinik Family Education Center and seven new exhibition galleries. The spaces are designed by New York-based WEISS/MANFREDI Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism, the firm also responsible for the expansion of the existing museum building.
With the completion of the renovation phase of the Centennial Renovation and Expansion, the museum’s exhibition and collection space has grown from 14,800 square feet to more than 43,000 square feet, including a renovated sculpture gallery on the first floor, and a flexible multimedia gallery space on the second floor. The lobby of the existing building has been remodeled into a sculpture atrium, making art the focus of the visitor experience immediately upon entering the building.
The education spaces, now known as the new Vinik Family Education Center, have also grown from 1,400 square feet to more than 8,000 square feet. The Vinik Family Education Center began offering classes in May 2022 and includes four classrooms, a lobby, orientation space, and a ceramics kiln. To date, the Vinik Family Education Center has served over 12,000 adults, children and teens through camps, studio classes, tours, art therapy-informed programs and more.
“The Renovation Celebration marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter for the Tampa Museum of Art,” said Michael Tomor, the Tampa Museum of Art’s Penny and Jeff Vinik Executive Director. “With our expanded exhibition and education spaces, we are thrilled to be able to showcase the diverse work of so many talented artists and offer more programming to our visitors. We look forward to continuing to represent the vibrant community that we serve.”
As part of the realignment of space, WEISS/MANFREDI designed a new transparent façade surrounding the first floor of the Museum, allowing the community to experience the Museum’s mission 365 days a year. This new façade, along with the expanded museum store, atrium galleries and new west lobby, align with an important initiative of the Centennial Campaign to increase both visibility and accessibility to the Tampa Museum of Art.
The Renovation Celebration event marked the completion of the renovation phase of the Centennial Renovation and Expansion at the Tampa Museum of Art, and the Museum will continue its Centennial Campaign for the expansion phase.
The next phase will be the construction of a stunning 55,000-square-foot expansion, which will transform the museum into a vibrant hub of art and culture. Designed as a crystalline pier extending the museum to the edge of the river, the new expansion will create a series of interconnected multi-functional spaces that triple the event space from 7,200 square feet to 25,600 square feet. The new addition will include a 150-seat auditorium, an art lounge, a large event space, and a rooftop event venue, all of which will provide flexible settings for a wide range of art and cultural programming. The expansion will also feature new outdoor sculpture areas bringing art to the redeveloped public spaces along Curtis Hixon Park and the Tampa Riverwalk. With the new expansion, the Tampa Museum of Art aims to offer a seamless and integrated public experience around the museum and the park.
About WEISS/MANFREDI Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism
WEISS/MANFREDI Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism is a multidisciplinary design practice based in New York City. Founded by Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi, the firm is known for the dynamic integration of architecture, art, infrastructure, and landscape design. Their work is noted for the strategic engagement of architecture and site and recognizes the critical dialogue between enclosed and open spaces, between new and existing structures, and between building and city.
Notable projects include the Seattle Art Museum: Olympic Sculpture Park, the Baker Museum addition in Naples, Florida, the Women’s Memorial at Arlington Cemetery, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Visitor Center. They are currently designing the US Embassy in New Delhi, India, and the addition and renovation of the La Brea Tar Pits Page Museum in Los Angeles.
The firm has won numerous awards, including the AIA President’s Award, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture, the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award, the Academy Award for Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the International VR Green Prize for Urban Design. They have also been named one of North America’s “Emerging Voices” by the Architectural League of New York and received the New York City AIA Gold Medal of Honor. Michael Manfredi is a Senior Critic at Harvard University and Marion Weiss is the Graham Chair Professor of Practice at the University of Pennsylvania.
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TAMPA, Fla. (January 10, 2023) – The Tampa Museum of Art today announced a major contribution from PNC Bank consisting of $500,000 toward the Museum’s Centennial Campaign. This award will help to grow education and exhibition programming at the new PNC Family Classroom and Gallery, a new 1,680 sq. ft. space located in the Museum’s renovated and expanded Vinik Family Education Center.
“We’re proud to be longtime sponsors of this gem in the community,” said Chad Loar, PNC regional president for West and Central Florida. “With the PNC Family Classroom and Gallery, thousands of students and families will have the opportunity to learn about the vast world of art and culture through the many programs and exhibits that the Tampa Museum of Art offers.”
The Museum currently serves approximately 14,000 children, adults and teens through on and off-site education programs across Hillsborough County and the Tampa Bay Region. As a result of the completed renovations, including the Education Center and expanded gallery spaces, the number of students the Museum serves each year will more than quadruple.
“PNC Bank has long been generously invested in the success of the Tampa Museum of Art,” said Michael Tomor, Ph.D., the Penny and Jeff Vinik Executive Director of the Tampa Museum of Art. “We are excited to unveil the new PNC Family Classroom and Gallery as a place where museum visitors and their families can enjoy art-making activities on designated family days, as well as a flexible space for regional and student art exhibitions.”
PNC Bank is also a sponsor of Museums for All at the Tampa Museum of Art. Museums for All is a signature access program of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, administered by the Association of Children’s Museums. The program encourages people of all backgrounds to visit museums regularly and build lifelong museum-going habits by providing free admission to individuals and families receiving food assistance (SNAP) benefits. Museums for All is part of the Tampa Museum of Art’s broad commitment to seek, include, and welcome all audiences.
About PNC Bank
PNC Bank, National Association, is a member of The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE: PNC). PNC is one of the largest diversified financial services institutions in the United States, organized around its customers and communities for strong relationships and local delivery of retail and business banking including a full range of lending products; specialized services for corporations and government entities, including corporate banking, real estate finance and asset-based lending; wealth management and asset management. For information about PNC, visit www.pnc.com.
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Tampa, FL (November 17, 2022) – The Tampa Museum of Art announced today that philanthropist and art collector Jorge M. Pérez bestowed a monumental sculpture by Colombian artist Fernando Botero and a $1 million cash gift to the Museum.
“We’re beyond delighted to receive this remarkable opportunity to further the Tampa Museum of Art’s commitment to collecting and exhibiting artwork that represents the cultural tapestry of our Tampa Bay region,” said Michael Tomor, Ph.D., the Penny and Jeff Vinik Executive Director of the Tampa Museum of Art. “We share Mr. Pérez’s commitment to building better cities and a better Florida, and the gift of art and $1 million donation will help the Museum continue to build art education and exhibition programming that is accessible to all community members.”
The towering bronze sculpture titled Mujer Vestida (Dressed Woman) formed part of the corporate collection of Pérez’s real estate development company, Related Group, and was most recently on view at the Ritz-Carlton Residences on Bayshore Boulevard in Tampa. Botero’s Mujer Vestida is a significant gift to the Tampa Museum of Art’s permanent collection, not only because of its importance as a work by a modern master, but because it continues growing TMA’s sculpture collection which also includes notable works by Jaume Plensa and Patricia Cronin and Latin American artist collection, which includes works by Oswaldo Vigas, José Bedia Valdés, Rufino Tamayo, Diego Rivera and Milhaud Vik Muñiz.
“Art is at the heart of any great city,” said Jorge M. Perez. “I’ve been fortunate to see the impact public art installations have on communities first hand, which is why we incorporate museum-quality art into every single one of our projects while also supporting local cultural organizations. This commitment stands true in Tampa Bay, especially as the Related team continues to deepen its involvement in the region. We look forward to working with the museum team to further enrich Tampa’s arts and culture ecosystem.”
Joanna Robotham, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Tampa Museum of Art, said, “we’re so thrilled that the Botero sculpture will have a permanent home in Tampa. We couldn’t be more grateful for this very generous gift.”
Perez’s $1 million gift accompanying the Botero donation supports new and growing exhibition and studio art programming at the Museum that results from its Centennial Renovation and Expansion. Last week, the Museum premiered the first of several brand-new exhibition galleries with the exhibition Time for Change: Art and Social Unrest in the Jorge M. Pérez Collection.
This week, the Museum opened its brand-new west lobby, Harrod Family Museum Store, and the entrance to its new first-floor gallery. Earlier this year, the Museum opened the new Vinik Family Education Center. With these improvements in place, the Museum anticipates quadrupling the number of students it serves per year, and the school tour program alone can grow from 6,000 to 24,000 students each year.
Jorge M. Pérez
Jorge Pérez, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Related Group, remains committed to building a better Florida, spearheading the state’s complex urban evolution for over 40 years. Starting out in Miami’s public housing market, Pérez’s passion for creating vibrant, urban communities has made him a trendsetter, often the first developer to enter undiscovered neighborhoods.
In addition to real estate development, Pérez is devoted to supporting arts and culture initiatives across the nation, as well as nurturing the artists and curators of the future. Thus, in 2019, Pérez established El Espacio 23, a 28,000-square-foot contemporary art space offering the general public, artists and curators access to a variety of exhibitions and residencies drawn from the world-renowned Jorge M. Pérez Contemporary Art Collection.
Fernando Botero and Mujer Vestida
The towering Mujer Vestida is one of Fernando Botero’s widely exhibited bronze sculptures. The masterpiece, gifted to the Tampa Museum of Art from the Related Group’s corporate collection, has been shown in major cities worldwide. An earlier version of this same piece was donated by Botero to the city of Medellín, Colombia on permanent view in the Plaza Botero. Despite its monumental scale, often associated only with commemorative statues, Botero has the innate ability to humanize his subjects rather than aggrandize them. As is the case with most of his sculptures, the figures are anonymous. Mujer Vestida is elegantly dressed and created in his signature witty and opulent style, meant to represent a specific type of woman rather than an individual.
Fernando Botero is one of the leading figures of art from Latin America and his distinctive style is instantly recognizable. His paintings, sculptures and drawings are exhibited and represented in museum collections throughout the world. Botero became interested in painting at an early age and began as an illustrator for Medellín’s local newspaper. He left Colombia for Europe in the 1950s and settled in New York in the 1960s where he experimented with gestural painting but instead chose to solidify what later became known as his signature, namely, smooth and inflated shapes and figures. His exaggerated compositions go beyond an aesthetic choice and can be political, ironic, and even humorous.
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Tampa, FL – The inaugural exhibition that opened Miami’s contemporary art space, El Espacio 23, will now also premiere the first of many newly expanded gallery spaces at the Tampa Museum of Art.
Time for Change: Art and Social Unrest in the Jorge M. Pérez Collection, on view November 10 through March 12, 2023, looks at how artists explore conflicts and contradictions of contemporary society, as well as analyzes historical events and reframes them within the present. An interest in the marginalized, the marginal and the margins (of society, of history) unites the works in the exhibition.
“We’re thrilled to partner with philanthropist and collector Jorge M. Pérez and El Espacio 23 to bring this thought-provoking collection of significant contemporary works to Tampa Bay,” said Michael Tomor, the Penny and Jeff Vinik Executive Director of the Tampa Museum of Art. Tomor added, “Time for Change is a fitting start to a new era of expanded exhibition programming at the Museum. We’re eager to welcome the community into our new galleries and begin offering more year-round opportunities to experience and learn from works that reflect our region’s vibrant community.”
In 2021, the Tampa Museum of Art announced it was embarking on its $100 million Centennial Renovation and Expansion. The opening of Time for Change coincides with the completion of the ambitious renovation portion of the project to increase exhibition space and education facilities within the footprint of the existing building, which first opened in 2010 and was designed by San Francisco architect Stanley Saitowitz.
The reimagining of the existing Museum spaces was led by New York-based WEISS/MANFREDI Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism. As a result of the renovation, the Museum opened the new Vinik Family Education Center in May of this year and increased its exhibition and collection space from 14,800 to more than 43,000 square feet. Time for Change is the first of several back-to-back exhibition openings in the brand-new galleries between now and February 2023.
Envisioned by Colombian curator José Roca, Founder and Director of FLORA ars+natura, Bogotá in collaboration with Pérez Collection stewards Patricia M. Hanna and Anelys Álvarez, Time for Change features 60 artworks by 57 artists from around the world. The exhibition highlights art—from painting and sculpture to video and works on paper—that addresses unrest through allegory, metaphor or veiled allusion.
Time for Change is structured around themes, or “nuclei,” which organically establish dialogue and correlations amongst the pieces, yet are not necessarily contained by an argument. The themes of the exhibition are grouped into six categories that examine a variety of voices.
- Entangled Histories features works by Yinka Shonibare CBE, Doris Salcedo, Fernando Bryce, Walker Evans, Ai Weiwei, and Sandra Gamarra proposing essential questions: How do we remember as a society? Who is forgotten by history, and for what reasons? How is a traumatic event inscribed in the (social) body?
- Extraction and flows examines displacement of peoples, as well as the exploitative justifications behind forced expatriation and includes a monumental installations by Barthelemy Toguo along alongside works by David Goldblatt, Alfredo Jaar, Marisol, and Eduoard Duval Carrie, among others.
- Artivism: art in the social sphere includes works by Robert Longo, Camilo Restrepo, Rafael Lozano Hemmer, Esterio Segura, Glenda Leon and many others, focuses on political unrest and public protest on the streets, an essential expression of democracy which has been diminished in our reduced public sphere.
- State Terror includes two large scale pieces by Carlos Garaicoa and Alejandro Campins in addition to works by Ed Ruscha, Reynier Levya Novo, Umar Rashid, Gonzalo Fuenmayor alongside other artists, and signals how, in a world of real-time generalized surveillance, protest is countered with repression and violence.
- Spatial Politics reflects on social control through spatial segregation, examining modern architecture and its role in creating segregated communities—structures to house the “undesirable,” namely immigrants, people of other races, classes and nationalities and includes works by artists such as Teresa Burga, Rene Francisco Rodriguez, Mikhael Subotzky, Julian Opie, and Samuel Levi Jones.
- Emancipatory Calls summons viewers to reclaim the beauty of our differences, understanding that a more just society can only be built on respect for one’s right to be different. Highlights from this section include Rashid Johnson, Christopher Myers, Kara Walker, Firelei Baez and Ana Maria Devis.
TAMPA, Fla. (October 18, 2022) – The Tampa Museum of Art announced today that it has closed on a gift of 88 pieces of Haitian art and a $1 million gift in support of the collection.
The paintings, sculptures, and framed maps, along with the cash gift, were bequeathed to the Tampa Museum of Art by the Arthur R. Albrecht Revocable Trust. Albrecht was a devoted collector of Haitian art and was also active in philanthropy on behalf of the country.
“Florida is home to one of the largest Haitian diaspora communities in the world, and we are thrilled to make this distinctive collection available to our visitors,” said Michael Tomor, Ph.D., the Penny and Jeff Vinik Executive Director at the Tampa Museum of Art. “Mr. Albrecht built a superb collection surveying the rich cultural themes, landscapes, and communities on the island, and this exhibit will add to the increasingly global and dynamic exhibitions we have available for viewing.”
The Albrecht Collection includes artworks from Haiti’s most prominent painters, including Rigaud Benoit, Wilson Bigaud, Prefete Duffaut, and Philome Obin. The paintings, rarely seen by the public until now, present an overview of the major developments in Haitian painting from the 1960s-80s. The holdings of the Albrecht Collection further augment the Tampa Museum of Art’s collection of Haitian art which includes one of the largest American museum collections of drapo vodou or Haitian vodou flags.
The $1 million gift accompanying the collection complements ongoing fundraising efforts by the Museum’s Centennial Campaign for Renovation and Expansion. The Museum recently completed renovations of the Vinik Family Education Center, growing the education space from 1,400 to 8,000 square feet, including four classrooms, a lobby, orientation spaces, and a secure entrance. With these improvements in place, the Museum anticipates quadrupling the number of students it serves per year, and the school tour program alone can grow from 6,000 to 24,000 students each year.
In 2021, the Museum announced it was embarking on its $100 million+ Centennial Renovation and Expansion to expand the Museum’s gross area from 69,000 to 125,000 sq. ft. New galleries are scheduled to open beginning in November 2022, and the groundbreaking for the expansion portion of the project is expected to take place next year.
Future programming at the Tampa Museum of Art for the Albrecht Collection includes a dedicated exhibition in spring 2024. The exhibition will provide a springboard for educational and scholarly opportunities, including collaborations with universities on Florida’s west coast and Miami, as well lectures and symposia with renowned artists and scholars of Haitian art and the Diaspora. A publication with today’s foremost Haitian artists and writers will accompany the exhibition and related programming.
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Tampa, FL (September 29, 2022) – Tampa and the Tampa Museum of Art were fortunate to be spared some of the worst effects of Hurricane Ian’s landfall in Florida. Unfortunately, other communities across the state were not so lucky. Our hearts go out to the individuals and communities who were impacted by the worst of the storm.
The Tampa Museum of Art will reopen and resume regular hours beginning Friday, September 30 at 10 am. We invite anyone who lost power in Tampa Bay to find some tranquility in our exhibition galleries and use our free Wi-Fi or recharge cell phones in the Museum’s Vinik Family Education Center.
Please continue following official communications from the City of Tampa or your local government regarding hurricane recovery efforts and the restoration of services and infrastructure.
- https://www.tampa.gov/emergency-management/hurricane-information
- https://www.pinellascounty.org/emergency/afterthestorm.htm
- https://www.hillsboroughcounty.org/en/residents/public-safety/emergency-management/hurricane-and-tropical-storm-preparedness
- https://www.stpete.org/residents/public_safety/hurricane_center.php
General Hours and Information
For tickets and information, visit TampaMuseum.org or call (813) 274-8130. Located at 120 W. Gasparilla Plaza. Tampa, FL 33602, the Tampa Museum of Art is open seven days a week, Monday – Sunday, 10 am – 5 pm, and Thursdays from 10 am – 8 pm.
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Tampa Museum of Art is presenting 40 years of groundbreaking photography in their new exhibit by Dawoud Bay and Carrie Mae Weems.
It brings together 140 words that give a unique glimpse into Bey and Weems’ distinct artistic approaches and trajectories, as well as their shared focus on representing communities and histories that have largely been unseen.
This collection of images amplifies the artists’ conversation with history and African American culture, with each exploring similar themes of race, class, representation, and systems of power throughout their careers.
It’s on display at the Tampa Museum of Art until October 23, then it goes on a nationwide tour.