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Tags for: New Narratives: Contemporary Works on Paper
  • Special Exhibition

New Narratives: Contemporary Works on Paper

Sunday, November 19, 2023–Sunday, April 14, 2024
Location:  101A–B Prints and Drawings
James and Hannah Bartlett Gallery

About The Exhibition

New Narratives: Contemporary Works on Paper explores the myriad ways in which contemporary artists use storytelling to engage the imagination, scrutinize the past, and envision the future. Comprised entirely of prints and drawings, the exhibition features many recent acquisitions to the CMA’s collection. Pervading the works on view is an interest in narrative, whether fiction or nonfiction, personal, cultural, or mythic. Artists in the exhibition utilize history, people, or events; biographies of known or often unknown people; and various media juxtapositions to layer the past and the present day.

The two galleries that make up the exhibition are anchored by large-scale, multipart works. Jacob Lawrence’s The Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture (1986), a series of 15 screenprints, recounts aspects of the Haitian revolution, the successful insurrection by enslaved and free people of color against French colonial rule in 1791–1804. Lawrence’s expressive style and tightly composed scenes narrate the revolution through the biography of one of its leaders, General Toussaint L’Ouverture (1743–1803). Also featured is Kara Walker’s The Means to an End: A Shadow Drama in Five Acts (1995). This monumental five-part etching employs the style of historic silhouettes popular in the antebellum South to suggest a provocative narrative about race, gender, and power. Also featured are new drawings by Kerry James Marshall and Shahzia Sikander and prints by Camille Billops, Enrique Chagoya, David Wojnarowicz, Michael Menchaca, Renee Stout, and others. 

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Sponsors

All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Principal annual support is provided by Michael Frank and the late Pat Snyder, the John and Jeanette Walton Exhibition Fund, and the late Roy L. Williams. Generous annual support is provided by two anonymous supporters, Gini and Randy Barbato, the late Dick Blum and Harriet Warm, Gary and Katy Brahler, Cynthia and Dale Brogan, Dr. Ben and Julia Brouhard, Brenda and Marshall Brown, Richard and Dian Disantis, the Jeffery Wallace Ellis Trust in memory of Lloyd H. Ellis Jr., Leigh and Andy Fabens, the Frankino-Dodero Family Fund for Exhibitions Endowment, Florence Kahane Goodman, Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Marta Jack and the late Donald M. Jack Jr., Carl T. Jagatich, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Bill and Joyce Litzler, the Roy Minoff Family Fund, Lu Anne and the late Carl Morrison, Jeffrey Mostade and Eric Nilson and Varun Shetty, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, Michael and Cindy Resch, Betty T. and David M. Schneider, the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, Paula and Eugene Stevens, Margaret and Loyal Wilson, the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Claudia Woods and David Osage.

    The Cleveland Museum of Art is funded in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

    This exhibition was supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts.

    logotypes for Cuyahoga arts and culture and the Ohio Arts Council