Tampa art galleries

Art Exhibition | 06/03/22 – 11/25/22
Through the Lens of Conflict: Vietnam Press Photograph | Dr. Robert L. Drapkin Collection
Tampa

Dr. Drapkin has assembled an extensive collection of press photographs spanning the Vietnam War. These images capture the conflict and pathos of this difficult part of American history. The exhibition will explore the photographs themselves how they were created and experiences through a local context. Understanding the American War in Vietnam a book written by Dr. Drapkin will accompany the exhibition. Text in the exhibition and book illuminate the war’s history from multiple perspectives.

Proceeds from the exhibition and book sales will benefit the Rory Peck Trust which makes conflict training in hostile environments available to photographers covering conflict at their own personal risk.

Curated by Jarrett Earnest and Lisa Yuskavage and first staged at David Zwirner gallery in New York in September of 2021, Jesse Murry: Rising serves as an important introduction to the art, poetry, and criticism of a unique and polymathic American talent. The exhibition brings together paintings from the last five years of the artist’s life as well as recordings of influential voices attesting to Murry’s enduring legacy.

Jesse Murry and Lisa Yuskavage met while attending Yale School of Art, where they received their MFAs in 1986. The bonds of their creative friendship are explored in USFCAM’s concurrent exhibition Necessary Angels: Jesse Murry & Lisa Yuskavage. Besides giving proof to the idea that artistic friendship can transcend simple influence and achieve higher dimensions of collaboration spurred on by mutual learning, respect, and love, Necessary Angels features rarely seen paintings on paper by Murry and celebrated paintings and watercolors by Yuskavage. Organized by USFCAM Curator-at-Large Christian Viveros-Fauné, the exhibition is only the second time that Murry’s and Yuskavage’s work has been presented under the same roof since their Yale 1986 MFA thesis show.

POOR PEOPLE’S ART: A (SHORT) VISUAL HISTORY OF POVERTY IN THE UNITED STATES

Poor People’s Art: A (Short) Visual History of Poverty in the United States presents a social history of the experience of underrepresented and underserved communities in the US since 1968. Individually and collectively, the artists included in Poor People’s Art tell a story of intersecting injustices of race, class, immigration status, healthcare systems, food insecurity, and gender issues. Poor People’s Art is curated by Christian Viveros-Fauné, CAM Curator-at-Large; organized by the USF Contemporary Art Museum.

View eight Dalí masterworks in the Museum’s permanent collection using augmented reality (AR) technology to gain a deeper understanding of the meaning behind their complex imagery. Coined by Dalí Museum founder A. Reynolds Morse, the term “masterworks” refers to paintings exceeding five feet in height or width, painted over a period of a year or longer – in other words, they are both monumental in scale and critical Dalí paintings. To see these works through the lens of AR, get the free Dalí Museum App from the App Store (Apple) or Google Play (Android). Then view these remarkable canvases in the James Family Wing (or reproductions of the works from anywhere on your personal device)

What to Expect
Viewing each Masterwork through The Dalí Museum app on a mobile device, visitors see the paintings come to life, highlighting and exploring their complexities. The details featured in the AR experience are based in part on common questions and challenges Museum-goers have about these works, providing a more meaningful understanding of Dalí’s canvases. Those who have seen these paintings are invited to look again and experience them in a whole new way.

To Get the App on Your Device
1. Connect to Wi-Fi
2. Search App Store (Apple) or Google Play (Android) for “The Dalí Museum”
3. Click “get” or “install”

This fourth iteration of Explore the Vaults features pieces from the museum’s permanent collection, specifically paintings known as “cabinet pictures” and small works on paper. The former are diminutive paintings which are exquisitely executed for viewing at close range or which reveal the artist’s creative process. They take their name from the little rooms or cabinets in which such works traditionally were displayed.

Explore the Vaults: Cabinet Pictures and Works on Paper celebrates the gifts of a few key collectors. Among these is Margaret Acheson Stuart (1896–1980), the museum’s founder. The small size of these light-sensitive drawings, watercolors, etchings, and engravings, make them the perfect subject for the close looking and contemplation offered by the more intimate gallery space and drawered cabinets.

Using cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI), Dalí Lives provides Museum visitors an opportunity to learn more about Salvador Dalí’s life from the person who knew him best: the artist himself.

The experience opened on what would have been Dalí’s 115th birthday, allowing visitors to interact with an engaging life-like Salvador Dalí on a series of screens throughout the Museum. about the revolutionary AI technology used to create Dalí Lives and the partnership with Goodby Silverstein & Partners that made it possible.

Dalí Lives continues to claim prestigious awards for creativity and innovation including two International Gold Andy Awards; a Webby Award for Advertising, Media and PR Experience; and six ‘The One Show’ Awards for interactive entertainment.

Art Exhibition | 05/28/22 – 10/09/22
FRESH UP | GIO SWABY
St Pete

Museum of Fine Arts St Petersburg
255 Beach Dr NE Saint Petersburg FL 33701
727-896-2667

The Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg is proud to present the first solo museum exhibition of multidisciplinary artist Gio Swaby (b. 1991 Nassau Bahamas) whose work explores the intersections of Blackness and womanhood. Employing the portrait genre and a range of textile-based techniques Swaby’s work is anchored in a desire to present and celebrate the complex personalities of the sitters. Interested in restorative forms of resistance she has stated “My work operates in the context of understanding love as liberation a healing and restorative force. These pieces celebrate personal style strength beauty individuality and imperfections.”

Swaby works in series form and the exhibition will feature bodies of work spanning 2017 through 2021. Growing up surrounded by the threads and fabrics of her mother a seamstress Swaby chooses to work in mediums traditionally associated with domesticity as a means to imbue her works with familiarity labor and care. Swaby upends tradition however and gives the sewing medium a sense of monumentality with the life-size series Pretty Pretty. The subjects are intricately rendered in freehand lines of thread and shown on the reverse side of the canvas so that the stitching process—its knots and loose threads so often hidden—is visible. There’s a vulnerability to “showing the back” but Swaby embraces and elevates the imperfections.

Swaby’s art is centered upon the personal connections forged between subject and artist and conversation is key to achieving these portraits of beauty and power that she deems love letters to Black women. The portraits begin with a photo shoot wherein the subjects are captured in a moment of empowerment and self-awareness. Swaby foregrounds their personal style —seen in the detailed renderings of jewelry hair and clothing—creating space for self-definition and unapologetic self-expression.

Swaby earned her BFA in Film Video and Integrated Media from Emily Carr University of Art Design Vancouver BC and is currently completing an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art Media and Design at OCAD University Toronto ON. She has exhibited internationally and her work is included in the permanent collections of major public institutions throughout the United States.

This exhibition is co-organized with the Art Institute of Chicago where it will open in 2023. A fully illustrated catalogue published by Rizzoli Electa accompanies the exhibition and features an interview between Swaby and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Nikole Hannah-Jones as well as series introductions by the artist and essays by Melinda Watt the Art Institute of Chicago’s Chair and Christa C. Mayer Thurman Curator of Textiles and Katherine Pill Curator of Contemporary Art Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg.

Made possible in part by generous support from:
The Margaret Acheson Stuart Society Gobioff Foundation Sonia Raymund Foundation Inc. and James G. Sweeny and Garth Family Foundation with contributing support from City of St. Petersburg and the State of Florida Department of State Division of Arts and Culture and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture.

Support for the exhibition catalogue provided by the MFA Collectors Circle.

Art Exhibition | 11/03/22 – 01/08/23
: LEGACY IN THE AMERICAN WEST | BLACK PIONEERS
St Pete

The Factory St. Pete
2622 Fairfield Ave S St. Petersburg FL 33712

This exhibition the first of its kind explores the path of Black history in the West with a timeline of original pictorial quilts. The timeline begins in 1528 with Esteban’s dramatic story which marks the arrival of Africans in the American West and continues through the Civil Rights Movement.

Dispelling the myth that Black people in the old West were mostly cowboys Black Pioneers: Legacy in the American West shows rich diversity in their occupations and achievements in society religion education and the arts.

Choosing quilts as the visual medium for this exhibition accentuates the intersections of African Americans in the Western Frontier while informing others about the art form and its important role in African American history.

This exhibition is organized by The James Museum of Western & Wildlife Art and Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi curator historian and artist. The quilts have been created by the Women of Color Quilters Network especially for this exhibition.

True Nature: Rodin and the Age of Impressionism presents works by one of the most celebrated sculptors of all time side-by-side with remarkable paintings by his renowned contemporaries. Rodin (1840-1917) created dramatic works that are instantly recognizable and pervade our collective cultural consciousness. This exhibition includes more than 60 of his masterpieces ranging from intimately-scaled marble statues to monumental bronzes. It offers a remarkably comprehensive look at the artist placing him within the context of the profound artistic cultural and social changes occurring at the end of the nineteenth century in France. True Nature also explores Rodin’s desire for academic recognition even as he remained at the forefront of the avant-garde alongside the Impressionists.

Featuring examples of the artist’s most eminent works such as Monument to Honoré Balzac (1897) Saint John the Baptist Preaching (1878) and Jean d’Aire (1886) this exhibition looks beyond Rodin’s popular persona as the tormented Romantic genius revealing his extraordinary powers of observation and ability to capture emotion and movement. True Nature also includes major paintings such as Claude Monet’s In the Woods at Giverny (1887) Paul Cézanne’s Still Life with Cherries and Peaches (1885-1887) Edgar Degas’ The Bellelli Sisters (1865-1866) and Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Two Girls Reading (1890-1891). Consummate photographs drawings and sculptures by other masters of the period also join the exhibition.

True Nature: Rodin and the Age of Impressionism is organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.