Landscape after Guo Zhongshu, c. 1680–1705. Bada Shanren (Chinese, 1626–1705). 1955.36
The Dancing Brush: Ming Dynasty Calligraphers and Eccentrics
September 8, 2024 – March 2, 2025
Calligraphy, poetry, and painting are considered the high arts of China. By the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), calligraphers used the term qi (eccentric or strange) to describe novel approaches to their writings, expressing more artistic freedom, sentiment, and personality in their individual styles. This exhibition presents about a dozen works of calligraphy from the collections of the museum and a private collector, some on display for the first time.
Western Gateway (Gopuram) of the Minakshi Sundareshvara Temple, Madurai, 1858. Captain Linnaeus Tripe (British, 1822–1902). 2020.208
Temples and Worship in South Asia
September 14, 2024 – March 9, 2025
Six paintings and 13 photographs illuminate contrasting approaches of depicting sacred Hindu sites. Indian artists, who created paintings for Indian viewers, emphasized the devotee’s intimate interaction with the divinity. Conspicuous are the offerings intended to please the living deity believed to reside in an object of worship, either in human or nonhuman form.
Books and Scholars’ Accoutrements, late 1800s. Yi Taek-gyun (Korean, 1808–after 1883). 2011.37
Pattern and Decoration in Royal Art of the Joseon Dynasty
October 4, 2024 – March 30, 2025
This gallery rotation presents a selection of painted screens and porcelain ware that uses decorative motifs and designs as the main subjects. Dragons, peonies, books, and scholarly accoutrements are among the most popular subjects that developed into decorative patterns in response to social and cultural changes during the 1700s and 1800s. By highlighting patterns and colors, this thematic presentation explores how Korean art vividly originated and offered powerful codes of communication, for example, peonies that symbolized prosperity and the mythical dragon that had the power to make rain.
Contemporary Calligraphy and Clay
June 7, 2024 – June 15, 2025
Calligraphy and ceramics are two major art forms in Japanese culture. They have historically been appreciated together, often paired in spaces called tokonoma, or simply toko, a term that can be translated as “display alcove.” For centuries, people have hung calligraphy or paintings on the wall of a toko and placed ceramics, lacquers, or metalworks on the deck to create a particular mood for an occasion. Traditional reception rooms, living rooms, guest rooms, and teahouses, places where people hold small, significant gatherings, often feature toko. While toko are less common in newer architectural structures due to various factors, including limited space and a shift away from floor culture, today’s artists continue to create with them in mind but also increasingly envision new environments for their works. This installation considers the bond of calligraphy and clay through contemporary artworks set in the modern space of the museum gallery.
UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS
Shahzia Sikander: Collective Behavior
February 14 – June 8, 2025
Shahzia Sikander: Collective Behavior premiered at the Palazzo Soranzo van Axel in Venice where it is on view April 20–October 20, 2024. Co-organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Cincinnati Art Museum, Collective Behavior is a Collateral Event of the 60th International Art Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia and is the most comprehensive presentation of the artist’s work to date. In conjunction with the Venice exhibit, we presents Sikander’s art in relation to South Asian objects from the museum’s collection that have inspired her. This exhibition offers a narrative that the CMA is uniquely suited to share: it carries forward in time the rich histories that are encompassed in the museum’s renowned South Asian collection. Simultaneously, it situates contemporary artistic practice in relation to the global history that precedes it. The Cincinnati Art Museum concurrently offers a comprehensive presentation of the artist’s career to date.
Indian Painting of the 1500s: Continuities and Transformations
March 7 – September 7, 2025
When the 1500s began, the dominant style of Indian painting was flat and abstract with a limited, mainly primary color palette. By the 1520s, a new style emerged with greater narrative complexities and dramatic energy that was to be foundational for later developments. Concurrently, some artists began working in the pastel palette and with delicate motifs reinterpreted from Persian art. Then, around 1560, with the exuberant patronage of the third Mughal emperor Akbar (born 1542, reigned 1556–1605), artists from different parts of the empire and trained in a variety of Indian styles came together in a new imperial painting workshop. The workshop was led by Persian masters brought from the imperial court in Iran. The formation of Mughal painting shaped by Akbar’s taste for drama and realism had a lasting impact on the cultural life of India. With its naturalism and vibrant compositions, the revolutionary new style was distinct from its predecessors, both Indian and Persian. The paintings in this gallery trace the dramatic changes that occurred during the 1500s alongside compositions that artists chose to retain and reinvent. Central to this story is a manuscript of the Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot), an illustrated collection of fables made for Akbar around 1560–65 now in the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Landscapes by Arnold Chang (Zhang Hong): A Retrospective and Recent Acquisitions
March 8 – November 9, 2025
This installation reviews the artistic career of Arnold Chang (张洪) (Zhang Hong, American, born 1954) and celebrates the museum’s recent acquisition by Chang, Secluded Valley in the Cold Mountains, a pivotal work that marks his breakthrough as an international contemporary ink artist. Showcasing 18 works by the artist, plus the CMA’s Number 5, 1950 (1950) by Jackson Pollock, the exhibition explores Chang’s formative years, which eventually culminate in free and exploratory ways that include the use of photography and color.
To learn more about all these exhibitions and more, click here.
