Stories From Storage - Cleveland Museum of Art - Spring 2021
CLEVELAND, OH.- When the pandemic upended international travel in March 2020, temporarily delaying projects that had been in development for years, the Cleveland Museum of Art reimagined its schedule of exhibitions by drawing on its own resources. Stories from Storage offers a thoughtful and focused examination of multiple important themes through seldom-seen works of art carefully selected by each of the museum’s nearly two dozen curators. It conveys not a single, linear narrative but multiple stories that complement one another.
Stories from Storage features an anthology of 20 short stories told by the museum’s director, chief curator, curators and assistant director of academic affairs, all of whom communicate surprising new insights about the objects they have chosen from the CMA’s vaults. Alternately philosophical, humorous, contemplative, playful and historical, each story reveals a unique element within the museum’s encyclopedic collection, representing human creativity across the globe, from the ancient world to today. Stories from Storage will be on view in the museum’s Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Exhibition Hall and Gallery from February 7 to May 16, 2021.
“This wonderful new exhibition offers a glimpse into our vault, making available works rarely, if ever, before seen by the public,” said William M. Griswold, director of the Cleveland Museum of Art. “In Stories from Storage, visitors will experience a range of curatorial approaches, expanding our visitors’ understanding of the museum’s collection by adding to, elucidating or even complicating the chronicle of art history we present in our permanent collection galleries.”
Stories from Storage demonstrates how museums shape historical narratives, each of which is told through a lens that prioritizes specific perspectives that are influenced by various factors, including time and place, the background of the curator, cultural and social trends and opportunities to tell new and different stories.
While the CMA has more than 61,000 objects in its permanent collection, only about 4,000 are on view in the galleries. Works remain in storage for various reasons: some are light sensitive, some have condition issues, some have contested attributions and others simply do not fit into the narratives or finite spaces of the galleries.
Stories from Storage
Trauma and Transformation
William Griswold, director, and Key Jo Lee, assistant director of academic affairs
This story demonstrates that a single work of art—Kara Walker’s monumental drawing The Republic of New Afrika at a Crossroads—may be interpreted and enjoyed through multiple lenses. The drawing is light sensitive and may be displayed only for a few months every several years.
Nature Transformed
William Robinson, senior curator of modern art
Providing an overview of four modes of modern landscape painting—ideal, natural, imaginary and abstract—the paintings offer evidence of the richness and depth of the museum’s collection of academic, naturalistic and avant-garde art.
Things That Don’t Fit (Here)
Susan Bergh, curator of Pre-Columbian and Native North American art
Many museums have artworks in storage that don’t fit into the histories their collections have been shaped to tell in the galleries. This is due in part to how histories are constructed—always from points of view and, in museums, with finite resources. So it is with the four diverse groups of objects in this section, all having their first public outings in years. They hail from the Pacific Islands, eastern South America and Mexico.
Playbook for Solitude
Sooa Im McCormick, curator of Korean art
By juxtaposing historical and contemporary Korean works of art made in different periods and mediums, this story creates a moment of solace and inspires a dialogue about resilience, empathy and social justice during the forced solitude caused by the global pandemic.
And More : https://www.clevelandart.org/magazine/cleveland-art-winter-2021/stories-storage
