Black and Blue BS Theory, 2020, Xia Zhang (Chinese American, b. 1989), ceramic, metal, gym rope, thread, and concrete, Museum Purchase: Phyllis H. Thayer Purchase Fund, 2024.94, © Xia Zhang 2020
Modern and Contemporary Craft
February 28, 2026–Summer 2027
Galleries 222-223
Today’s global contemporary art scene is dynamic and multifaceted, valuing the use of any and all media to investigate an endless array of processes, concepts, and experiences. In the examples on view in this special feature, artists have explored interactions between physical materials, audience engagement, and less tangible qualities like light, space, time, memory, dreams, and emotion; implemented experimental techniques or contemporary applications of historical traditions; and used their works to challenge established societal norms, incorporate cross-cultural influences, and revitalize inanimate materials.
Presenting several recent acquisitions alongside selections from the collection gifted by Cincinnatians Nancy and David Wolf, this gallery highlights the contemporary creative and conceptual possibilities of materials like glass, clay, metal, and wood.
To learn more, click here.
PERMANENT COLLECTIONS
Ramasura, the Deity of Thunder, ca. 1900, bronze. Gift of Dr. Robert Kemper. 2015.246
South Asian Art Art Collection
The Cincinnati Art Museum’s department of South Asian Art, Islamic Art, and Antiquities is honored to steward distinguished collections that include over five thousand works of art. Tracing a trajectory that begins with neolithic period objects from the ancient Middle East, the collection promotes the arts and cultures of a vast geographic region over centuries. Recently, the collection has expanded to include contemporary works from artists based in greater South Asia and the Middle East, as well as diasporic artists in the US and Europe.
The arts of historic South Asia (often defined as modern India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka) are represented through architectural fragments, decorative arts, and paintings. The arts of the Islamic World (defined as countries where Islam was/is widespread, and here concentrates on the Middle East and Central Asia) includes strengths in ceramics, metalwork, and the calligraphic arts.
At the center of the ancient collections are the architectural fragments from Khirbet et-Tannur. As the most significant collection of Nabataean material outside of Jordan, CAM is committed to the research, conservation, and display of these works for visitors and scholars alike. The ancient Mediterranean collection features notable examples of sculpture and ceramic vessels from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome.
The department generates new scholarship through collection-based research, presented to our audiences through exhibitions, publications, and digital projects.
To learn more, click here.
East Asian Art Collection
Wenshu, Bodhisattva of Wisdom at a Writing Table, 1354, glue tempera on mud and straw wall, 164 1/8 × 117 1/16 in. (416.9 × 297.3 cm). Gift of C.T. Loo. 1950.154
The East Asian Department of Cincinnati Art Museum covers the arts of China, Japan, and Korea. The Museum acquired its first East Asian art works in 1881, making it one of the oldest museum collections of East Asian art in the United States.
The Chinese art collection spans nearly five thousand years, from the Neolithic to the present. Major strengths of the current holdings are ancient ritual bronzes of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, Buddhist sculptures from the sixth to the nineteenth centuries, ceramics from the Neolithic period to the Qing dynasties, and paintings from the thirteenth to the twentieth century.
The Japanese art collection of nearly 5,000 works is the largest of the East Asian collection, which includes: ceramics, paintings, prints, metalwork, sculptures, objects in lacquer and ivory, and other forms. The collection is especially rich in the arts of the Edo period. The Korean art collection includes ceramics, metal and lacquer works, paintings, prints, and textiles.
To learn more, click here.
