The Toledo Museum of Art has announced the following calendar of events. Visitors may call (419) 255-8000 or visit www.toledomuseum.org for more information.

Exhibitions:

State of the Art: Revealing Works from the Conservation Vault, Toledo Museum of Art Canaday Gallery, through February 5, 2023. A work of art – like a person – changes as it ages. Varnishes and adhesives can become yellow and brittle, cracks may appear, surfaces may fade or tarnish and materials can begin to fall apart. Conservators work to identify any problems and perform treatments to improve the condition of the art. This exhibition opens the conservation vault to give visitors a rare glimpse of works of art that largely have been out of sight in storage – some for decades. All are in need of conservation. State of the Art: Revealing Works from the Conservation Vault is an evolution of TMA’s “Adopt an Artwork” program, which allows visitors to participate in the restoration process by financially supporting the conservation of a specific artwork identified by TMA’s collections team. During the run of the exhibition, a new round of 17 works will be up for adoption through this program. New to the program this year is a crowdfunding campaign that will allow more community members to support the conservation of one object in particular, the Libbey dress – the only complete full-spun glass fiber dress by Libbey Glass remaining in the world.

Chameleon Effects: Glass (Un)Defined, ongoing in the Wolfe Gallery Mezzanine. Chameleon Effects: Glass (Un)Defined, through March 31, 2023, brings together historical and contemporary works from the Toledo Museum of Art’s collection to explore the spectrum of technical and formal possibilities of glass. One of the oldest human-made substances, glass is neither a true solid nor a liquid and belies conventional understandings of how materials work. For more than 4,000 years, artists have exploited the inherent mutability of glass, transforming the molten material into an impressive range of forms, colors and textures, often blurring the lines between one medium and another. More recently, artists have turned to newer materials and techniques, such as plastic and photography, to engage with historical glass and draw connections with the past. Looking at the relationship between glass, precious stones, metalwork, ceramics, photography and performance, Chameleon Effects demonstrates the longstanding history of glass’s interaction with other materials while challenging traditional art historical categories of separate media and defined materials.

Matt Wedel: Phenomenal Debris, Toledo Museum of Art Levis Gallery and Gallery 29A, through April 2, 2023. Colorful and expressive, Matt Wedel’s ceramics are a full celebration of what’s possible with clay. Matt Wedel: Phenomenal Debris brings together a large selection of the artist’s ceramics and drawings, spanning over a decade of his career. Wedel is renowned in his field for pushing the boundaries of clay, resulting in objects that recall familiar plant forms while also springing from his own imagination. Phenomenal Debris is the first large-scale, solo exhibition for the artist in a major art museum. Wedel’s practice is grounded in the exploration of human psychology. With experimentation playing a pivotal role, he challenges himself to embrace chance, possibility and failure. The resulting works are a story of creation and destruction. In Wedel’s own words, his work is “the phenomenal debris that is shed from being human.”

Black Orpheus: Jacob Lawrence and the Mbari Club, Toledo Museum of Art Levis Gallery, June 2 through September 3, 2023. Explore the connection between African American artist Jacob Lawrence and his contemporaries based in the Global South through the Nigerian publication Black Orpheus. The exhibition features over 125 objects, including Lawrence’s little-known 1964-65 Nigeria series, works by the artists featured in Black Orpheus, archival images, videos and letters.