The Columbus Museum of Art is pleased to announce, New encounters: reframing the contemporary collection of the Columbus Museum of Art, the first comprehensive reinstallation of its contemporary galleries since the opening of the museum’s Margaret M. Walter Wing in 2015. This reinstallation—which spans the Upper-Level Walter Wing galleries—builds on the momentum generated by its recent acquisition of The Pizzuti, along with gifts and promised gifts received from the Scantland Collection, reconfirming the museum’s commitment to postwar and contemporary art as a cornerstone of its program.

Visitors can now enjoy over 100 works by 68 artists from the 1940s to the present, including highlights such as Charles White’s Two heads (1946), Gordon Parks’ Emerging man (1952), Agnes Martin’s Wind (1961), Louise Nevelson’s Sky cathedral: night wall (1963-76), Dan Flavin’s Untitled (to Janie Lee) one (1971), Kerry James Marshall’s The land that time forgot (1992), Antony Gormley’s Freefall II (2007), and Lauren Halsey’s The national council of negro women, inc. (2020). Placing these and other works by major postwar artists in dialogue with recent acquisitions and strategic loans from private and institutional lenders, including the Wexner Center for the Arts and Art Bridges Foundation, New encounters presents the museum’s collection in an entirely new light, offering a fresh look at the art of our time.

Organized thematically, New encounters refocuses attention on the shared experiences and common conditions—including factors both political and personal—that have shaped artistic practice since World War II. Jointly conceived and curated by newly appointed CMA Executive Director and CEO Brooke A. Minto and Daniel Marcus, PhD, Curator of Collections and Exhibitions, the installation presents a diverse and intergenerational array of artistic practices, elevating lesser-known works from the collection. New themes explored include the role of identity and difference in postwar abstraction, the rise of televisual and digital images, the reevaluation of sacred art, and artists’ responses to surveillance and social justice movements.