Tampa Museum's Photography Exhibit Features Rarely Seen Works

TAMPA, FL -- Photography enthusiasts will have a chance to see the works of top photographers during the Tampa Museum of Art exhibit, "Tableau and Transformation: Photography from the Permanent Collection."

The exhibit is on view now through Oct. 6.

Tableau and Transformation presents an overview of the Tampa Museum of Art’s holdings in 20th-century photography, a cornerstone of the museum’s permanent collection. The exhibition looks at how artists have used distinct darkroom effects and studio practices to create new narratives in photography.

Artists such as James Casebere, Robert Cumming, Stephen Frailey, Sandy Skoglund and William Wegman create constructed environments, often blurring the boundaries of truth and fiction in their images.

Photographers Blythe Bohnen, Duane Michals, Arnulf Rainer, Lucas Samaras and Cindy Sherman examine the transformation of one’s self as a means to explore identity, gender and place.

This exhibition features approximately 50 photographs with objects ranging in date from the mid-1960s through the early 2000s.

Predominately drawn from the museum’s permanent collection, Tableau and Transformation includes artists John Baldessari, Morton Bartlett, Zeke Berman, Blythe Bohnen, Victor Burgin, James Casebere, Eileen Cowin, Robert Cumming, Robert Fichter, Stephen Frailey, Les Krims, Duane Michals, Patrick Nagatani and Andreé Tracey, Arnulf Rainer, Richard Ross, Lucas Samaras, Andres Serrano, Cindy Sherman, Sandy Skoglund, Joel Sternfeld and William Wegman.

Tableau and Transformation also features key loans from Trenam Law’s photography collection and includes companion photographs by several of the above-mentioned artists, as well as Laurie Simmons and Doug and Mike Starn.

“Many of the photographs featured in Tableau and Transformation have not been on view for 25 years," said Joanna Robotham, curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. "It is exciting for me to mine our collection and share with our audience the phenomenal photographs the museum has acquired over the course of time. Additionally, I am pleased to include a selection of works from Trenam Law’s holdings and to highlight the shared history of our two photography collections.”

This exhibition is sponsored in part by the Frank E. Duckwall Foundation and Trenam Law.

As the Tampa Museum of Art nears its 100th anniversary, exhibitions in 2019 and 2020 will focus on the breadth of the institution’s permanent collection, as well as examine its collecting history.

The Tampa Museum of Art’s holdings include collections of Greek and Roman antiquities, as well as modern and contemporary art.

The museum at 120 W. Gasparilla Plaza is open Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. On the fourth Friday of the month, the museum stays open until 8 p.m.