Tampa Museum of Art

On view January 24, 2016 through May 15, 2016

One of the world’s foremost living sculptors, Spanish artist Jaume Plensa (b. 1955) has created large-scale artworks related to the human figure for public places around the globe. This exhibition, the artist’s largest to date in the United States, features numerous indoor as well as outdoor installations, engaging viewers even before they enter the Museum. Interested not only in the visual arts but also in literature, psychology, biology, language, and history, Jaume Plensa creates sculptures and installations that unify individuals through connections of spirituality, the body, and collective memory. He uses a wide range of materials—including steel, cast iron, resin, light, sound, and more—to lend physical weight and volume to multiple components of the human condition and soul. 

This exhibition was organized by Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art. 

Presented by PNC Bank 

Additional support from the Arts Council of Hillsborough County 

On view October 3, 2015 through January 24, 2016

ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS – Art is long, life short. 

Or, more broadly interpreted, “Art is eternal, its makers mortal” 

Hippokrates of Kos, Aphorism 1 (ca. 400 BC). 

From the rediscovery of ancient sites and artworks in the Renaissance until the present day, the world of classical antiquity lives on, continually fascinating and inspiring artists. Countless students of painting and sculpture have honed their crafts by studying and emulating ancient masterworks, while others have created wholly original artworks with clear reference—whether positive or negative—to the antique. 

In this exhibition, drawn primarily from the permanent collection of the Tampa Museum of Art, visitors first encountered fascinating trompe l’oeils by Peter Saari, twentieth-century paintings made to look like ancient Roman wall and floor fragments. Maura Sheehan’s intentionally fragmented sculptures similarly challenged the viewer to consider the relationship between ancient and contemporary art. Other highlights included a range of responses to the familiar silhouettes and contours of Greek black-figure and red-figure pottery, from faithful nineteenth-century engravings to decidedly contemporary versions created by artists like James Rosenquist, Phillip Pearlstein, and Duncan McClellan. Similarly, stunning but relatively straightforward neoclassical works by C. Paul Jennewein and others stood in contrast to reimagined histories and mythologies created by Jim Dine, Nancy Graves, Stanley William Hayter, Pablo Picasso, and others. 

On view October 11, 2014 through January 11, 2015

Few places continue to enthrall us like Paris and the rich legacy of the artists who made the “City of Light” their home. Together, these artists, including the well-known leaders of French impressionism—Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley—came to define 19th-century Parisian modernity, bringing to life the cafés, city streets, and brightly lit seaside resorts of the French capital and its environs. Renoir to Chagall: Paris and the Allure of Color showcased 55 masterpieces from the renowned collection of the Dixon Gallery and Gardens. 

Organized by the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis.