Tampa Museum of Art

TAMPA, FL — We are thrilled to share that Tampa Museum of Art Board Member, Ron Christaldi, has been selected as the Chair of the Leadership Florida Board of Directors for the 2024-2025 term. A distinguished business lawyer and community leader, Ron’s new role with Leadership Florida is a testament to his deep commitment to fostering leadership and progress across the state.

As Vice-Chair of the Tampa Museum of Art’s Governing Board of Trustees, Ron’s dedication to leadership extends into the arts, enriching our community’s cultural and developmental initiatives. His extensive experience and strategic insight will greatly benefit Leadership Florida’s mission to cultivate leadership throughout the state, which aligns with our goals at the museum of driving community engagement and growth.

We are excited about the possibilities this appointment holds for strengthening leadership within Florida. The museum family looks forward to supporting Ron in his new role and continuing our collaborative efforts to make a positive impact.

For more details, visit Shumaker.com to read the full press release.

Tampa, FL – The Tampa Museum of Art is thrilled to announce the opening of Suchitra Mattai: Bodies and Souls, the first solo museum exhibition in Florida and the Southeast for the acclaimed artist Suchitra Mattai. This groundbreaking exhibition will be on view from June 22, 2024, through March 16, 2025.

Suchitra Mattai: Bodies and Souls delves into themes of migration, matriarchy, and materiality, spotlighting Mattai’s innovative use of found materials, such as vintage saris. Through wrapping, braiding, stitching, and weaving these fabrics, Mattai creates works that serve as powerful allegories for historical and personal narratives. The exhibition features new installations alongside recent works, reflecting the artist’s ongoing exploration of the past and present.

In 2021, the Tampa Museum of Art received Mattai’s mixed-media painting Alter Ego (2020) as a gift. This captivating work, which features colorful saris and patterned fabric fragments, inspired the Bodies and Souls exhibition, reflecting its depiction of dual female silhouettes, symbolizing the dual identity of migrants as both newcomers and outsiders.

Born in Guyana, Mattai is of Indo-Caribbean descent and holds a BA in Statistics from Rutgers University, an MA in South Asian Art, and an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Pennsylvania. In 2023, she was honored with an Anonymous Was a Woman Award and a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship. Her work is part of numerous prestigious collections, including the Nasher Museum of Art, Joslyn Art Museum, Denver Art Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and the Portland Museum of Art.

Beyond the Tampa Museum of Art, Mattai’s work will be featured in solo exhibitions at ICA San Francisco, Socrates Sculpture Park, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in 2024. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

A new exhibit, which opened on April 18, features 85 artworks from the Tampa Museum of Art’s permanent antiquities collection, adding to the over 500 objects already on view. Thanks to additional gallery spaces added during the Museum’s Centennial Renovation 2023, this is the largest proportion of the Museum’s permanent collection of ancient Greek and Roman antiquities ever on display at one time.

Joseph Veach Noble: Through the Eye of a Collector displays artworks the Tampa Museum of Art acquired from the eminent collection of Joseph Veach Noble for the first time since 1986. Mr. Noble was an administrator at the Metropolitan Museum and later director of the Museum of the City of New York, who amassed perhaps the largest private collection of ancient Greek and Italian ceramic vases.

“The breadth of themes, styles, forms, and techniques within the Noble collection of Greek and Italian vases is of international renown. Upon completing our Centennial Renovation project last year, we knew we had to seize the first opportunity to spotlight this collection more fully,” said Michael Tomor, Ph.D., the Penny and Jeff Vinik Executive Director of the Tampa Museum of Art. “For the first time, our expanded galleries allow us to collectively illuminate important aspects of the Noble collection, including ancient Athenian myth and religion, warfare and athletics, wine culture and cosmetics, daily life and entertainment.”

The Tampa Museum of Art’s 1986 acquisition from Noble’s collection became the cornerstone of its burgeoning permanent collection of antiquities that has since grown to about  875 objects (and counting). The Centennial Renovation provided for enhanced gallery spaces, allowing the museum to feature exhibitions such as the Noble collection. The renovation project also expanded the gallery space for multimedia projections and more kinetic exhibitions. In addition, the renovations added state-of-the-art storage for enhanced maintenance operations. The Centennial Renovation project also included the following transformations:

• The education department expanded from 1,400 square feet to the 8,000-square-foot Vinik Family Education Center, with its own entrances and exits so programs can take place outside regular exhibition gallery hours. The Vinik Family Education Center also features new, expanded student exhibition spaces.
• Areas previously occupied by administrative and curatorial storage functions were renovated to include lecture rooms, classrooms, and artist workspaces.
• A new Docent Lounge allows volunteers and staff to meet in a designated area to plan programs and receive instruction about exhibitions and the permanent collection from staff. 

Fundraising continues for the next phase of the Centennial Campaign, a 51,000 sq. ft. expansion of the museum’s footprint, creating an interconnected series of multi-functional spaces that will more than triple the current 7,200 sq. ft. of event space. A new 150-seat, raked-floor auditorium, an art lounge, a large event space with digital exhibition opportunities, and a rooftop sculpture terrace will provide flexible settings for a wide range of art and cultural programming. An additional 72,000 sq. ft. surrounding site redevelopment that includes outdoor dining and sculpture areas will bring life and art to the redeveloped public spaces along Curtis Hixon Park and the Tampa Riverwalk. This phase of the comprehensive and expansive master plan will create a more vibrant space for art and our community. Support of this project will connect the community, inspire individuals, and contribute to the economic health of the Tampa Bay region.

###

The highly anticipated Skyway 2024: A Contemporary Collaboration exhibition is set to be showcased at five leading art institutions across the Tampa Bay area this year. The museums participating in this triennial exhibition—the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg; The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art; Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design; the Tampa Museum of Art; and the University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum—are proud to announce their joint effort in presenting this groundbreaking showcase.

Skyway 2024 embodies the theme of boundless exploration and unity, reflecting the limitless potential of artistic expression in the region. This collaborative effort will feature a diverse array of contemporary art, including paintings, sculptures, installations, and multimedia presentations by 63 artists and art collectives living and working in the Tampa Bay area.

Exhibition Dates and Artists

Each museum will host a distinct grouping of Tampa Bay area artists and art collectives in Skyway 2024, providing visitors with a unique opportunity to embark on a comprehensive journey through the vibrant contemporary art landscape of the Tampa Bay region.

On view at The Ringling from May 25 through January 26, 2025: Caitlin Albritton, Ainaz Alipour, Mohsen Azar, Saumitra Chandratreya, Elisabeth Condon, Robyn “Avalon” Crosa, Rachel de Cuba, Jake Fernandez, Akiko Kotani, Carol Mickett and Robert Stackhouse, Libbi Ponce, Michael Vasquez, and Joo Woo.

On view at the MFA St. Petersburg from July 13 through November 3, 2024: Will Douglas, Kendra Frorup, Emily Martinez, Cynthia Mason, Carola Miles, Anat Pollack, and Emiliano Settecasi.

On view at the USF Contemporary Art Museum from July 19 through November 23, 2024: Elisabeth Condon, Keith Crowley, John Gurbacs, Karen Tucker Kuykendall, Caui Lofgren, Bruce Marsh, Eric Ondina, Sebastian Ore Blas, Andres Ramirez, Bradford Robotham, Erin Titus, and Susanna Wallin.

On view at Sarasota Art Museum from July 28 through October 27, 2024: Kim Anderson, Ryan Day, Sue Havens, Dominique Labauvie, Tatiana Mesa Paján, Samantha Modder, Roger Clay Palmer, Herion Park, Gabriel Ramos, Eszter Sziksz, Jill Taffet, Rob Tarbell, Kirk Ke Wang, Willow Wells, and Corinne Zepeda.

On view at the Tampa Museum of Art from August 28 through January 5, 2025: Marc Brechwald, Samo Davis, Aesopbookofrot (Danielle Dragani), Joe Fig, Adrian Gomez, JD Hardy, Sami Harthoorn, Cort Hartle, Latonya Hicks, Dallas Jackson, Aimee Jones, Candace Knapp, David Mack, David McCauley, Marina Shalthout, David Sibbitt, Yajaira Urzua-Reyes, and Corinne Zepeda.

Collaborative Curation and Community Engagement

The selection of artworks for Skyway 2024 was a collaborative endeavor, with curatorial teams from each museum working together to showcase the region’s dynamic and varied artistic talents. Museum curators reviewed over 300 submissions in response to an open call to artists from Hillsborough, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas, and Sarasota counties. This initiative highlights local artists’ creativity and strengthens the community’s connection to contemporary art. The curators working together for this third iteration of Skyway include the following:

• Evan Garza, Guest Juror for Skyway 2024 and Independent Curator
• Christopher Jones, the Stanton B. and Nancy W. Kaplan Curator of Photography and Media Art, The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art
• Katherine Pill, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg
• Joanna Robotham, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Tampa Museum of Art
• Christian Viveros-Fauné, Curator-at-Large, USF Contemporary Art Museum
• Ola Wlusek, the Keith D. Monda Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art
• Rangsook Yoon, Ph.D., Senior Curator, Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design

Anticipated Impact and Legacy

Skyway 2024: A Contemporary Collaboration is more than an exhibition; it is a celebration of artistic innovation and a testament to the collaborative spirit of the Tampa Bay art community. This project promises to leave a lasting impact on the region by shining a spotlight on the artistic voices of the central gulf-coast Florida region, inspiring future generations of artists and art enthusiasts alike.

A full-color catalog will accompany the exhibition. It will include curatorial essays and information about each artist and their work.

This exhibition is supported by the Gobioff Foundation and the Stanton Storer Embrace the Arts Foundation.

For more information, visit the official Skyway 2024 website at skywaytampabay.com

###