14 December: Five USA exhibitions
1. Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina
The Met, Fifth Avenue, New York
9 September 2022 – 5 February 2023
Included with museum admission (from $17)
Focusing on the work of African American potters in the 19th-century American South - in dialogue with contemporary artistic responses - the exhibition presents approximately 50 ceramic objects from Old Edgefield District, South Carolina, a centre of stoneware production in the decades before the Civil War. Including monumental storage jars by enslaved and literate potter and poet David Drake, as well as many works by unrecorded potters, these 19th-century vessels testify to the lived experiences, artistic agency, and material knowledge of enslaved peoples.
2. The Space Between: The Modern in Korean Art
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles
11 September 2022 – 19 February 2023
Included with museum admission ($20)
The Space Between: The Modern in Korean Art covers the years 1897 to 1965 in Korean art history, spanning the arc of European-influenced art via Japan in the Korean Empire (1897–1910) and colonial period (1910–45), through to the American influences absorbed throughout the Korean War (1950–53).
3. Vermeer’s Secrets
National Gallery of Art, Washington
8 October 2022 – 8 January 2023
Free
Vermeer’s Secrets draws on 50 years of imaging technology and microscopic examination to illuminate - and sometimes revolutionise - our understanding of how Vermeer achieved the compelling effects of his paintings’ light-filled moments of quiet solitude. In this behind-the-scenes glimpse, the exhibition reveals the National Gallery of Art’s findings about these paintings and the artist who made them.
4. Saints, Sinners, Lovers, and Fools: 300 Years of Flemish Masterworks
Denver Museum of Art, Denver
16 October 2022 – 22 January 2023
From $5
This exhibition offers a look into the specific subjects and styles adopted by artists in the Southern Netherlands between the 15th and 17th centuries, providing important connections to the society and culture of the time. These works depict a rapidly-changing world through unique styles, subjects, and techniques, offering insight into the past and the chance to create parallels to our world today.
5. The Medieval Top Seller: The Book of Hours
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland
26 September 2022 – 30 July 2023
Free
Books of Hours were immensely popular devotional books in the later Middle Ages. Meant for laypeople or those not in the clergy, these books were at-home companions containing daily prayers as well as prayers for specific occasions, such as death, plague, warfare, travel, or bad weather. Mostly used by women, Books of Hours are estimated to have been owned by every fourth household at the height of their popularity. These precious volumes are windows into the medieval world and the lives of their original owners.