Lowe Art Museum

Nov. 18 – Sept. 10, 2023:

A Fine Line: Highlights from the Berkowitz Contemporary Foundation

The works featured in this exhibition demonstrate how the processes of mark-making and linear demarcation—be they sculptural, gestural, lyrical, conceptual, or geometrical—form a thematic thread running through the Berkowitz Contemporary Foundation’s collection of Modern and Contemporary Art. They also prompt viewers to consider the ways in which artists, working across several major stylistic movements over the course of the past sixty years, have used line to express a vast array of meanings through an equally wide range of shapes, patterns, and textures.

This exhibition was curated by the Lowe’s Curator of Collections and Exhibitions, Caitlin Swindell and organized by the Lowe Art Museum.

March 23, 2023 – September 24, 2023:

Transcendent Clay / Kondo: A Century of Japanese Ceramic Art

This exhibition features works by three generations of the Kyoto-based Kondo ceramic dynasty. Ranging from traditional porcelain vessels to meditative sculptures cast from the artist’s body and accented with a “silver mist” glaze, this compelling exhibition serves as a bridge between the past and the present as well as meditation on the future of Japanese ceramics.

This exhibition was curated by Joe Earle and organized by the Lowe Art Museum. Joe Earle was the Director of Japan Society Gallery in New York until 2012 and has held leadership positions in Asian art departments at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

April 25, 2023 – March 3, 2024:

ARTLAB | Spirits of Time: Netsuke from the Joseph and Elena Kurstin Collection

ArtLab@the Lowe is an upper-level seminar, which—hosted by the University of Miami’s Lowe Art Museum each year—is designed to give students hands-on curatorial experience. The lead faculty changes with each ArtLab, as does the theme, but the program’s approach remains the same for each iteration. Specifically, ArtLab participants mine the museum’s permanent collection (or, in exceptional cases, private collections) to thematically research and document checklist items while creating a unique temporary exhibition and small companion publication.

This year’s ArtLab will highlight miniature masterpieces carved from a variety of media and spanning several centuries. This student-curated exhibition will complement works on view in the Lowe’s Taplin Gallery for Asian Art as well as Transcendent Clay: Kondo/A Century of Japanese Ceramic Art, opening March 23, 2023. ArtLab students will also spend a week in mid-March in Kyoto, Japan, where they will engage in transnational, transcultural exchange with University of Kyoto students as well as visiting local artists and artisans, museums, and historic sites in person. Through this program, the Lowe truly touches lives and transforms the University of Miami student experience!

May 25, 2023 – September 17, 2023:

Expressions of Self: Arnold Newman’s Artist Portraits in Context

This permanent collection exhibition pairs twenty Arnold Newman portraits alongside artworks created by the artists represented therein. Spanning several decades, the selected photographs demonstrate Newman’s pioneering approach to creating “environmental portraits,” a term later attributed to his signature style that he began in 1941 in New York City. In some instances, Newman’s photographs incorporate small details of actual artworks created by the subjects. Many of these elements are echoed in the pieces on view that range from gestural abstraction to Pop art to Surrealism. When the pairs are exhibited together, they build upon Newman’s environmental portraits and allow viewers to gain a deeper understanding of his innovative approach.

This exhibition was curated by the Lowe’s Curator of Collections and Exhibitions, Caitlin Swindell and organized by the Lowe Art Museum.

June 15 – October 8, 2023:

Sandra Ramos: Entropydoscopes

Sandra Ramos works in a range of media, including painting, printmaking, collage, video, and installation-based work. As both an artist and an independent curator, she is interested in wide-ranging concepts, from cultural identity and migration to social media. For Entropydoscopes, Ramos created light boxes featuring kaleidoscopic videos composed of images that are personally meaningful to her. Some elements have recognizable details, others are completely distorted. As a result, viewers catch glimpses of the artist’s memories through entropy (a state of disorder), transforming her kaleidoscopic cylinders into channels to an uncertain realm.

Sandra Ramos: Entropydoscopes was curated by Lance Fung and Lowe Curator, Caitlin Swindell.