This exhibition will explore the theme of diversity by comparing mythical creatures from different cultures. While these fantastical animals may look different, they serve a similar purpose – to help humans make sense of the world.

On view in Gallery 339 will be classic Chinese legendary mythical creatures—the dragon, phoenix and qilin—juxtaposed with collection highlights from Japan, Korea, South and Southeast Asia, as well as Persia and Western Europe, to show the diversity of mythical creatures throughout the world, as well as their similarities and differences. Elaborately embroidered costumes and silver headdresses created by Miao, Yi and other minority peoples decorated with dragons, phoenixes, and creatures relating to origin myths will be on display in Gallery 326. In a third space (Gallery 321) Chinese contemporary works of mythical creatures by artists Xu Bing and Ai Weiwei show how the past continues to inform art today.

Explore radical innovations in painting that testify to a pursuit of freedom and expression in the midst of a period marked by social and political unrest in the United States and abroad. From Alma Thomas’s mosaic-like painting of flowers to Sam Gilliam’s suspended, draped canvas, these works speak to an upending of barriers—be they artistic, ideological, racial, or rooted in gender stereotypes. By rethinking and systematically probing conventions associated with the painted canvas, these works ultimately speak to the desire for a deeper, more fundamental connection to nature, the body, movement, and light.

Free with museum admission

This exhibition brings together three photographic series made in the 1970s: Barbara Crane’s People of the North Portal (1970–71), Melissa Shook’s Daily Self Portraits (1972–73), and Carol Taback’s Photo-Booth Strips (1978–80). The three photographers worked in different cities—Crane in Chicago, Shook in New York, and Taback in Philadelphia—and may not have ever crossed paths. They also used different cameras and equipment and made radically different choices about who to photograph.

Nevertheless, there is a surprising alignment in their approaches to their work. Each photographer elected to operate under similar self-imposed constraints, creating strict guidelines that dictated where they would photograph. Crane confined her working environment to a single doorway, Shook to her small New York tenement apartment, and Taback to a cramped photo booth. Despite, or perhaps because of, these rigid parameters, each photographer was able to forge an innovative approach to portrait-making, producing pictures that deftly call attention to the complexity of lived experience.

This exhibition considers a variety of perspectives employed by eight modern American women artists: some self-reflective, others romantic, others spiritual. They each manifest what is known as the female gaze, a type of looking—achievable by anyone—that focuses on perceiving peoples’ interior selves, as opposed to objectifying their bodies. Through this lens, we examine the emotional intimacy created when an empathetic gaze shapes how an artist represents the body of a woman or an individual assigned-female-at-birth (AFAB). Given the recent legislative changes in the United States regarding the bodies of women/AFAB individuals, there remains more reason than ever to humanize and grant agency to the people to whom those bodies belong.

Curator
Lily F. Scott, 2021-2023 Barra Fellow in American Art

This exhibition brings together twentieth-century works from the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz collection that deal with shared themes of US history, the American landscape, religion, and mortality. The artists in this exhibition, who come from varied backgrounds and work in a range of styles and media, are often collectively labelled as “outsider” because they did not train in typical art schools, nor come up in the mainstream art world.

Discover how these artists—far from being outsiders—engaged quintessential aspects of the American experience in their work: spirituality, nationhood, the cultural and physical landscape, and America’s fraught history with race and racism. Some express an ambivalence about the American project, encapsulating both a celebration of America’s history and the desire that it were different. In other works, depictions of flags, wide vistas, animals, and rural life evoke the ideals of a mythic American West. Still others focus on symbols of Christianity, spirituality, and mortality. Together, these works demonstrate an investment in American life and culture and an optimism about the future—in this life or the next.

Over four decades, Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz have assembled one of the finest private holdings of work by outsider or self-taught artists. Their impressive collection, some of which has been given or promised to the museum, features celebrated figures such as Martín Ramírez, Elijah Pierce, and Bill Traylor as well as lesser-known figures such as Jon Serl, Bruno del Favero, Sister Gertrude Morgan, and Simon Sparrow. This transformative gift of works by a diverse roster of artists is an important contribution to our distinguished holdings of modern and contemporary art.

The 13 quilts on view were acquired in 2017 through the Souls Grown Deep Foundation and were selected to tell the history of quilt-making in Gee's Bend (Alabama) from the mid-1920s to 2005.

The significance of these quilts to their makers is expressed in the quilters' own words gathered from contemporary interviews.

The 1970s witnessed an unprecedented explosion of interest and activity around photography, and was a hub for wildly varying conceptions of what photography could look like, how it could be used, and what it could stand for. On one hand, the 1970s were an apex of traditional black and white darkroom photography, as artists who had worked in relative obscurity were suddenly thrust into the spotlight. But it was also the end of an era, as younger photographers began experimenting with mediums, formats, and conceptual approaches that defied established modes of photographic art.

Some artists made deeply personal works that included crafts like embroidery and collage, historical processes like cyanotype, or new technologies such as the Teleprinter, an early version of the fax machine. Other photographers, including William Eggleston and Joel Meyerowitz, created images that recalled the spontaneity, humor, and saturated color of vernacular snapshots. Mikki Ferrill and Susan Meiselas spent years producing series of intimate portraits that forged connections between photography and the growing Black Arts and Feminist movements. And conceptual artists such as Martha Rosler interrogated photography’s association with advertising and systems of visual representation, even branching out to explore the new medium of video. This exhibition offers an exciting overview of this diverse and energetic era.

The artworks on view in this installation were once part of books created for Muslim patrons in India and Pakistan. They are pages that have been unbound from the stories they once told. Many date to the period of the mid-1500s to the 1700s, when the Mughal Empire spanned much of South Asia, and share certain features, such as vertical formats, elaborate borders, and often muted colors.

At the same time, the variety of approaches to Islamic book production and illustration is much in evidence. The size of the pages range from monumental to miniature, and their stories encompass epics, legends, romances, and histories. Alongside the many pages taken from narrative manuscripts are a few examples from the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam, and a colossal work by contemporary artist Shahzia Sikander that offers an innovative reinterpretation of Islamic book traditions.

Diana Scultori (1547–1612), also known as Diana Mantuana, was the first documented woman in Europe to have a professional career as a printmaker. Born in the Italian city of Mantua, Diana came from a family of artists with professional connections to the local court. Like many printmakers in this period, she specialized in engraving renditions of paintings, drawings, and sculptures by other artists, which required the creativity and technical acumen needed to translate an image from one medium to another.

Diana was eventually drawn to Rome, where ambitious printmakers went to make their fortunes. Rome attracted travelers from across Europe eager to see ancient artifacts, holy sites, and work by the leading artists of the time. As an enterprising printmaker, Diana carefully selected religious, antiquarian, and mythological subjects that resonated with these audiences. Placing her work in dialogue with other printmakers in her orbit, this exhibition highlights Diana’s contributions to the dynamic world of printmaking in late-1500s Rome.

Free with museum admission

Working across painting, textiles, sculpture, installation, and advocacy, Philadelphia-based artist Jesse Krimes draws upon his own experiences of incarceration and reentry into society to interrogate and critique the American criminal justice system. Produced in response to ongoing abuses at Rikers Island, New York City’s largest and most notorious jail, Rikers Quilt serves as a poignant metaphor for the underrecognized and continued mistreatment of people imprisoned in the United States.'

About the Artist
Jesse Krimes is a Philadelphia based artist whose work explores how contemporary media shapes and reinforces societal mechanisms of power and control, with a particular focus on criminal and racial justice. Shortly after graduating from Millersville University, he was indicted by the U.S. government on drug charges. While serving a six-year prison sentence he produced and smuggled out numerous bodies of work, established prison art programs, and created artist collectives. After his release, he founded and currently serves as Executive Director of the Center for Art & Advocacy, the first and only national organization dedicated to supporting formerly incarcerated artists.

His work has been exhibited at venues including MoMA PS1, Palais de Tokyo, Philadelphia Museum of Art, International Red Cross Museum, Zimmerli Museum, Newport Art Museum, and Aperture Gallery. His curatorial practice is focused on elevating other system impacted artists, and he also successfully led a class-action lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase for charging formerly incarcerated people predatory fees after their release from federal prison.

Krimes won an Emmy Award for his documentary “Art and Krimes by Krimes.” He was also awarded fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Creative Capitol, Art for Justice Fund, Independence Foundation, and Vermont Studio Center. His work is in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Newport Art Museum, OZ Art NWA, Kadist Art Foundation, The Bunker Artspace, and the Agnes Gund Collection. He is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery in New York.
A photograph of Jesse Krimes
y Anthony Tahlier. Courtesy of the artist.

Curators
Katie Lee, Penn Medicine Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art, and Elisabeth Agro, The Nancy M. McNeil Curator of Modern and Contemporary Crafts and Decorative Arts

Explore innovative modern chairs from the Museum’s permanent collection of design. Each of these chairs is a testament to the ingenuity of their designers, who use new materials, new technologies, and new sources of inspiration to push the boundaries of seating design. Recent works by designers such as Jomo Tariku, Cheick Diallo, Mac Collins, and Stefan Sagmeister are featured along with those of design pioneers like Gaetano Pesce, Ron Arad, and Gijs Bakker.

Curators
Katie Lee, Penn Medicine Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art, and Elisabeth Agro, The Nancy M. McNeil Curator of Modern and Contemporary Crafts and Decorative Arts

For this opening exhibition in the Learning and Engagement Center, we invited museum artists to create artworks inspired by the concepts of transformation and growth, both seasonal and personal.

Each of the artists use various media and take different approaches to the subject. Many celebrate the changing spring landscape, colors, and temperatures that bring communities together outdoors. The qualities and attributes of Philadelphia are also highlighted, including trees, parks, buildings, and food unique to our city. Other artworks focus on personal and spiritual awakenings often associated with the changing of the seasons.

We celebrate these Philadelphia artists for their creativity and the impact they have in fostering growth and learning for people of all ages and abilities in our museum programs. As teaching artists, they facilitate art-making experiences for middle and high school students, families, US veterans, and individuals living with Parkinson’s disease.

Curators
Karleen Gardner, Kathleen C. Sherrerd Deputy Director for Learning and Engagement and Adrienne Justice, Manager of Delphi Programs

Sponsors
The artists whose work is on view in this installation collaborated with the Philadelphia Museum of Art through a range of educational programs presented by our Learning and Engagement division.

Art Kids is sponsored by PNC Arts Alive

With additional support from the Jirair S. and Elizabeth Hovnanian Family Foundation, The Women’s Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Harriet and Larry Weiss, Julius and Ray Charlestein Foundation, an anonymous donor, and Ellen and Ronald Caplan.

Accessible programs are supported by The Windmill Foundation.

Programs for patients with Parkinson’s Disease are supported by The Parkinson Council through a gift from the Peggy and Ellis Wachs Family Foundation.

Veterans Empowered Through Art is sponsored by CSX

Community programs are supported by Andrea Baldeck M.D., and Marlene and Brian Dooner.

After School Art Club, Art Partners, Teen Media, and Teen Sketch Club are funded by Reliance Matrix Foundation and Reliance Standard Life Insurance Company.

The Learning and Engagement division is generously supported by annual gifts made by Learning and Engagement Committee members.