Due to construction, exhibition dates are subject to change.
Jennifer Steinkamp: Madame Curie
On view Summer 2024 through 2025
Jennifer Steinkamp: Madame Curie, a multi-channel video installation, nods to the achievements and life of scientist and Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie. Eve Curie, Marie and Pierre Curie’s daughter, wrote the definitive biography on the scientist and noted her mother’s passion for gardening. Steinkamp, a pioneer in video art and animation, depicts in Madame Curie over 40 flowers and plants described in Curie’s biography. In this room-sized installation, entangled and intertwined flora appear to swirl and sway as the branches and flowers slowly move across the projection. Animations of apple blossoms, daisies, eucalyptus, passion flowers, periwinkle, and wisteria are amongst the flowers featured in Madame Curie. Originally commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego in 2011, Madame Curie will be presented as a site-specific installation at the new Bronson Thayer Gallery at the Tampa Museum of Art.
Skyway 2024: A Contemporary Collaboration
On view August 28, 2024 through February 9, 2025
Skyway 2024: A Contemporary Collaboration is a celebration of artistic practices in the Tampa Bay region, as it is a collaboration between five institutions: the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg; The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota; the Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design; the Tampa Museum of Art; and the University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa. Working together, curators from each institution offer context for the diversity of art being made in Hillsborough, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas, and Sarasota counties.
Painted limestone relief, Egypt, early Christian, n.d. From the Collection of Dr. Robert Steven Bianchi
The Art of Coptic Egypt
From the Collection of Dr. Robert Steven Bianchi
On view September 20, 2024 through May 2025
The word “Copt” refers to the native population of Egypt, many of whom converted to Christianity in the early centuries of the Roman period. Tradition maintains that the Holy Family sojourned in Egypt and that Saint Mark, the Evangelist, established the first Christian church in Egypt in Alexandria in the first century. The Copts shared a common material culture with their polytheistic neighbors. Imperial edicts established Christianity as the religion of the empire in the late 4th century, which allowed the Coptic community to flourish.
The Art of Coptic Egypt showcases over fifty artifacts from a local private collection dating from early centuries of the Roman Imperial to the Middle Ages, although special attention is given to objects specifically associated with the Coptic church. Today, there is still a thriving, vibrant Coptic community in Egypt and beyond, including in Tampa.
Unknown photographer, 1875. Albumen print. 8 x 10 1/4 inches. Tampa Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. William Knight Zewadski, 1999.093
Ancient Athens: Birthplace of Democracy
On view October 11, 2024 through April 13, 2025
The U.S. democratic constitution was in large part inspired by the popular government of Classical Athens, as well as the Roman Republic and the French Enlightenment. During the 2024 Presidential Elections, the Tampa Museum of Art will highlight the ancient Greek city-state Athens, as the birthplace of democracy. There, between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, male citizens gained power in a form of government based on the rule of law.
The exhibition is based on the Museum’s extensive collection of 19th century photography, paired with a dozen antiquities from the permanent collection as well as some significant loans. Ancient Athens: Birthplace of Democracy illustrates archaeological site such as the Acropolis, the arts and culture of Classical Athens such as sculpture and ceramic vases, theater and athletics, as well as the gods and goddesses worshipped in the city. The exhibition allows the visitor to contemplate the ideals of the society that gave birth to democracy.