Exhibitions

Reclamation is the act of making something old or discarded new again. In one sense, others’ scraps are others’ choice materials, making something from nothing. The artists in this exhibition advance this idea by using what has been left behind and bring it back to life. The materials themselves are at the heart of this exhibition, representing individual ideologies of the artists. Shapiro, Venom, and Zupa each inhabit a gallery to explore and demonstrate this exhibition’s core concepts.

'Shift' marks a departure from Clayman’s previous modes of production, in that this installation is a group of 8-10 diverse forms and presentation methods that, together, form a cohesive experience for the viewer. Clayman has said he often explores a form or material through multiple iterations over 2-3 years, resulting in a series, or family, of similar sculpture. With 'Shift', we encounter utterly distinct concepts made manifest in sculpture through Clayman’s signature minimalist style.

This exhibition is a celebration and exploration of the birth and development of the Fort Wayne Art School in its century as a downtown Fort Wayne cultural entity. It brings together elements of the school’s history and a collection of works by many of the faculty members who left their mark on the school, its students and the city. Much of the art in this exhibition was loaned by students, friends, family and faculty who hold many fond memories of their time at the “Old Art School”.

Bob Cross is a painter, printmaker, and sculptor. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Art Degree at the Atlanta College of Art in 1981 and a Masters of Fine Art Degree at Ohio University in 1990. "During the past twenty years I fell into the habit of drawing small impressions of the world around me, along with my abstract thoughts. Over time these became the point of entree into many of my paintings, prints, and sculptures. This process is an ongoing stream of my consciousness, a continuous record of my visual thoughts, with a tangible connection to the time and area of the world I inhabit."

In 2012, the FWMoA and the American Cut Glass Association joined a collaborative partnership which named the FWMoA as the national repository and managers of the ACGA Permanent Collection. This exhibition is an ongoing display of the highlights of this true American art form.

Stone Truths: Lithographs from the Permanent Collection displays the wide range of styles possible within the realm of lithography. Contemporary artists are continually pushing the boundaries of the medium, adding their own flair and interpretation to its elements, and at times even combining it with other printing applications. Through each artist’s interpretation we’re given a glimpse into the versatility of lithography, and while each work of art has been crafted with the same basic technique, no work resembles another.

In 1905, the Illinois Central Railroad connected Indianapolis with northeastern Brown County, Indiana. Not long after, numerous artists—particularly landscape painters—began making the journey from Indianapolis and Chicago to the small town of Nashville, where they discovered camaraderie with fellow artists and an unspoiled, picturesque place for inspiration. Painter Adolph Shulz described the area as “the ideal sketching ground” with its rolling hills, creek beds, rustic cabins, and opalescent haze.

This community-centered altar exhibit includes traditional elements of the ancient Latin American holiday, Dia de los Muertos, such as sugar skulls, colorful tissue paper cutouts, and photos or personal items of deceased relatives to honor the souls of the departed. The holiday has evolved from a blend of Meso-American and Christian cultures, and those traditions come to life with this celebratory exhibition at FWMoA featuring memorials created by artists, families, and community groups from throughout the region.

In the fall of 2016, FWMoA became the recipients of a very generous gift of paintings and prints from the estate of David Shapiro intended to establish an archive of his work for future generations to know and enjoy. The gift is the largest in scope, size, and value in the history of the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, marking an era of unprecedented collections growth for this relatively young museum. This exhibition of Shapiro’s paintings is an introduction to his numerous themes, his technical approaches, and the intended meaning of his work.

The guitar has been a signature element of world culture for more than 500 years. As the guitar’s ancestors evolved over centuries from the earliest ouds and lutes, guitar makers experimented with shapes, materials, and accessories, seeking the perfect blend of beauty and sound. Spanning centuries of design and craftsmanship, the exhibition takes visitors through the history of an object that is one of the most recognizable items on the planet.

The Fort Wayne Museum of Art is pleased to celebrate Chuck Sperry’s first museum solo exhibition. Sperry has been preeminent in the rock poster genre since the late 1990s and has largely defined the genre in each decade since with his distinctive style and masterful printing technique.

Amish quilts are recognized for their impeccable quality and striking, intricate designs. The craft began as a way for frugal housewives to use leftover scraps of fabric material but quickly became much more. While quilts serve the purpose of providing warmth, the process of sewing them blossomed into an opportunity for women to connect and be entertained while providing an outlet for an abundance of creativity. Amish quilts represent not only the humility and sobriety of Amish lifestyle, but they also embody community.

The Psychedelic Era was, among many things, a cultural frontier for colors and imagery. Music, politics, and drugs ignited an unprecedented expansion of art revolving around these elements. College campuses around the country, now seen as the birthing grounds for much of the psychedelic era’s ideals, were hotbeds for bright young minds to organize politically and artistically. From Berkeley College to the Grande Ballroom in Detroit, young idealists organized and the art of the era came to fruition. This exhibition will be our bridge to that time, showcasing a variety of psychedelic era works on paper.

Dale Chihuly’s work has been a collecting benchmark for collectors and museums for decades. He’s considered a pioneer in blown glass, as he takes this delicate material and thrusts it into the realm of large-scale sculpture. Throughout his prestigious career, Chihuly has collaborated with glassmakers from around the world, creating blockbuster installations from Las Vegas to Venice.

This exhibition is one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of Winslow Homer wood engravings ever to tour American museums, including many never before exhibited or published rare period photographs that relate to Homer's engravings from the early 1860s to the late 1870s.

Organized by Habatat Galleries, this exhibition is the oldest and largest annual contemporary glass show in the country. Selected from an array of glass masters, this exhibition features the best studio glass artists in the world. In its 46th year, the invitational presents contemporary glass sculpture in the greater context of international influence with unconventional forms and processes. Courtesy of Habatat Galleries, Michigan.

This exhibition features work from the entirety of Kruse’s long and fruitful career as artist and educator. Kruse is inspired by pre-industrial traditional societies in which(?) everything was made by hand and with exceptional care, when every member of society created art by way of fulfilling their trade. According to Kruse, "To make a book or a wagon, to spin and weave, these were humanizing experiences…often a religious or spiritual discipline. In those times, an artist was not a special kind of person, every person was a special kind of artist.”

Featuring a selection of large-scale artworks accompanied by videos documenting the artist’s creative process, this exhibition is the first to introduce Kirsty Mitchell's fantastical photographs to American museum audiences. Trained as a fashion designer, Mitchell created elaborate costumes and props and collaborated with hair and make-up artist Elbie Van Eeden to compose and then photograph astonishingly beautiful, fantastical scenes in the lush local landscape.

The National is an invitational and juried exhibition, anchored by invited artists Alan Bur Johnson, Jessica Todd Harper, Michelle Andonian, Clint Baclawski, and Natalie Christensen. The exhibit will be augmented by the work of dozens more photography standouts from across the country selected for the show by jury. This exhibition will showcase the finest photography created or exhibited in the nation.

The Outlaw Printmakers is a tight-knit group of international printers that formed in New York City in 2000 and largely names Richard Mock as its primary influence. The exhibition, organized by artist Dennis McNett, will tell the history of this group through ephemera, new work by the Outlaws, and lino blocks and work by Mock. Prints from Bill Fick, Tom Huck, Dennis McNett, Sean Starwars, Katherine Polk and more will be exhibited.

Andrew Schoultz has been working and refining his style for over a decade and uses his distinct imagery to show our world and the history within. His work employs medieval to modern icons and explores the idea that disorder and war are constantly in flux and repeating themselves. Through his work, Schoultz’s hopes to bring the public closer to understanding life in tumultuous times.

A Year of Making Meaning exhibits new art acquisitions of the last year. As FWMoA continues to expand its permanent collection through the acquisition of contemporary glass, photography, painting, and printmaking, we’re pleased to share with you the highlights from another exciting year of collecting. Artwork featured in this year’s exhibition include profound and energetic paintings by and Cinta Vidal and Meggs, a striking painting by Peter Forakis, and prints by James McNeill Whistler.

The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards features the Gold and Silver Key winning art and writing by students in grades 7-12 from Northern Indiana and Northwest Ohio. It has grown into what is now a model program for the rest of the country, exhibiting the best student artwork and writing of the region.

Mantras have often been described as meaningful linguistic instruments of the mind. For over forty years, David Shapiro crafted meaningful linguistic instruments for the eye on canvas and paper that were visually melodic with an almost mathematically precise balance in their construction. The influence his prints and paintings have on the viewer is calming, mesmerizing, and Zen-like in nature.

Since his debut in the early 1970s Steven Sorman has built a reputation with opulently decorative mixed-medium works. Sorman's ornamental predilections have often provoked comparisons with the sensibilities of Matisse and Motherwell, though his work displays an equally strong kinship with Rauschenberg's cooler, "flat bed" organization of pictorial space.

For each of four weeks, this exhibit will feature a single and significant work of art by a major African American artist. Each artist, in their own voice, has used the human figure to illustrate and symbolize heritage, culture, and the African diaspora.

In 1985, photographer Jeffrey Wolin and writer Scott Russell Sanders pooled their talents and published Stone Country, a project documenting the limestone landscape, industry, and people of southern Indiana. Now, 30 years later, the two have updated their book to reflect the changes in the limestone industry and the men and women who carry the tradition forward. This exhibition features Wolin's images and Sanders' text from their landmark collaboration.

From the collection of the Kennedy Museum of Art, Ohio University, this exhibition of portraits of jazz legends by photographer Herman Leonard is a multisensory observation of the music, culture and mores of jazz society. Included in the exhibition are portraits of Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker and Frank Sinatra.

From a master of the kiln-casting technique in glass sculpture comes two distinct bodies of work in Peter Bremers' abstract style that express his exploration of human existence, from the perspective of the individual's perception of the world as well as an observation of the potential of a human being existing as a creative entity in this lifetime and beyond. With this exhibition, the installations '7 Bodies' and 'Perception' are shown in the United States for the first time and include works in stone and metal as well as glass.

In celebration of Día de los Muertos, days of celebration of the lives of deceased loved ones widely observed in Mexico, FWMoA presents a private collection of work inspired by the Days of the Dead. For centuries, artists have drawn from the rich imagery and symbolism rooted in indigenous Aztec traditions as well as the symbolism of Christianity and Catholicism of the Spanish conquistadors.

In the late fall of 2016, FWMoA became the recipients of a very generous gift of paintings and prints from the estate of David Shapiro intended to establish an archive of his work for future generations to come to know and enjoy. This exhibition of Shapiro’s paintings is an introduction to his numerous themes, his processes, and the intended meaning of his work.

Having long declared himself a painter of landscapes and still lifes, Pulley unveils a new series of abstract paintings that begins a new chapter for the Wabash, Indiana-based painter.

This exhibition is comprised of selections from the major acquisition by FWMoA of prints and printmaking ephemera spanning the career of Katja Oxman. For Oxman, her processes are long and no detail is overlooked. Her still life prints are influenced by major artists such as Rembrandt as well as the personal childhood possessions that traveled with her as she journeyed to the United States from Germany in 1952.

In union with On the Pursuit of Perfection: The Legacy Architecture of Louis I. Kahn in Our City, we are paying homage to one of the greatest 20th century architects by sharing the chronological and biographical history of Fort Wayne's Arts United Center. From the art campus's inception in 1959 until now, a pivotal time for the regeneration of cultural change, a much-needed light is shed on the many reasons to support and maintain Louis Kahn's oft-overlooked, albeit monumentally significant, contribution to our city. Becoming Present explores the integrality of supporting the arts for a stronger, more vibrant community and the exigency of helping the Arts United Center move with us into the future.

Current photography takes form by the visions of artists working with equipment, themes, and processes that are as old as the medium itself, and others have blazed trails with new methods that have transformed this technical yet poetic art form. In this exhibition, we contemplate the voices of contemporary photographers like Richard Renaldi, Kirsty Mitchell, and Nick Veasey, among others.

Organized by Habatat Galleries, this exhibition is the oldest and largest annual contemporary glass show in the country. Selected from an array of glass masters, this exhibition features the best studio glass artists in the world. In its 45th year, the invitational presents contemporary glass sculpture in the greater context of international influence with unconventional forms and processes. Courtesy of Habatat Galleries, Michigan.

The world’s most innovative glass sculptors represent cultural and geographic influences from all parts of the globe with this exhibit.

Brent Kee Young, glass artist and Cleveland Institute of Art professor emeritus, has been recognized by scores of museums, galleries, colleges and universities in the United States and Asia. His interests are in the ambiguous nature of glass and the sense of space and volume one can create with this art form. His current series, the Matrix series, are constructions of intricate and technically complex works he created by flame working borosilicate glass rods into layers of glass webs.

During the mid-century, globally renowned architect Louis I. Kahn (1901-1974) envisioned the design for a chimerical arts campus where the Arts United Center and Fort Wayne Museum of Art presently sit. The Arts United Center, Kahn's only theater and the only building that was ever realized from his designs of the campus, dramatically exemplifies his numerous pioneering methods. With this exhibition, we take an investigative look at his finalized, complete set of architectural blueprints; we discover the depth of Kahn's intensive process that lasted almost fifteen years and culminated in a sublime artwork, the Arts United Center.

This exhibition shows recent work by an artist widely upheld as the godfather of the low brow and pop surrealist art movements, direct antecedents of the New Contemporary Art Movement. As both patriarch and Outlaw, Williams' enduring influence on the movement is undeniable.

Juxtapozed, a collaboration with Los Angeles-based gallery Thinkspace, showcases the New Contemporary movement, widely considered the largest and longest running art movement in history. The exhibit celebrates the impact of one of its most enduring media platforms, Juxtapoz Magazine, and is presented in conjunction with a major retrospective of the work of its founder and most iconic trailblazer, Robert Williams.

Drawn entirely from the Fort Wayne Museum of Art's permanent collection, this exhibition brings together the work of artists who have forthrightly addressed, in varying ways, the effects of physical and mental disability on the creation of art. In the face of opposition, the artists in this exhibition created awe-inspiring artworks that ask us to thoughtfully muse on the inherent hardships and happinesses of being. This exhibit is presented along with "ECHOLILIA" and "Sharon", forming a triad of exhibitions exploring the impact of disability on the creation of art.

Exhibited together for the very first time, Sharon is a heart-wrenching collection of 30 black and white photographic prints that meticulously trace the profound struggles internationally-acclaimed contemporary photographer Leon Borensztein faced while raising his severely disabled daughter.

Blue Jacket, a Fort Wayne agency meeting unmet needs for anyone looking for a second chance, is collaborating with FWMoA to present this exhibit. This is the second year for this unique project and fundraiser that exhibits real stories, the trials, failures, and successes of Blue Jacket clients and their second chance for a healthy life and career. The stories are told by visual artists through a variety of mediums offering viewers a unique perspective to interact with the individuals lives.

ECHOLILIA is an eleven-image curation from a larger body of work, a collaboration between photographer Timothy Archibald and his eldest son, Eli. Taken at their home in El Sobrante, California, these primarily unstaged images intimately narrate a tense but respectful artistic and personal relationship between father and child, when the two are learning to understand the meaning of autism and importance of awareness. This exhibit is presented along with "Sharon" and "Expressions of Existence", forming a triad of exhibitions exploring the impact of disability on the creation of art.

The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards features the Gold and Silver Key winning students in grades 7-12 from Northern Indiana and Northwest Ohio. It has grown into what is now a model program for the rest of the country, exhibiting the best student artwork and writing of the region.

A star-studded cast of African American artists through the generations, selected for their impact on each other and the art world as a whole. This exhibition features works by Romare Bearden, James Bolivar Needham, John Wesley Hardrick, Faith Ringgold, Elizabeth Catlett, Alma Thomas, and Jacob Lawrence, to name a few.

A Year of Making Meaning highlights selected works FWMoA has acquired in its permanent collection over the last two years, including new additions in contemporary glass, photography, paintings, and the showstoppers of the year: Dale Chihuly's Lily Gold Chandelier in the FWMoA Atrium, and Darrel Petit's granite Continuum, on the FWMoA South Lawn.

Widely considered to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, John Baeder is best-known for his hyperrealist paintings that made the diner the subject of serious art books and historic preservation efforts. While Baeder was almost single-handedly responsible for the diner craze of the late 1970s through the 1990s, he has been and is much more than a "diner painter," as his new exhibition at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art reveals.

Oakland, California-based artist Brett Amory unveils a bold new body of work and an installation at FWMoA. The installation will be built during the month of November with public welcome to watch him work, with a new body of paintings based on the people and places in Fort Wayne unveiled November 5.

This exhibition features recent work by veteran American artist Robert Kipniss, a painter and printmaker for over 60 years whose subjects often include austere limbs of trees; spare, modest houses with simple shapes, and shadowy interior scenes. Although his scenes hint at the presence of human life, the absence of figures speaks to his interest in the poetry of our surroundings and the grace inherent to the unspoken atmosphere.

This community-centered altar exhibit features traditional Mexican altars with sugar skulls, colorful tissue paper cutouts, and photos or personal items of deceased relatives to honor the souls of the departed. The Day of the Dead, an ancient religious celebration that originally honored children and ancestors, has evolved from a blend of Meso-American and Christian cultures, and those traditions come to life with this celebratory exhibition at FWMoA featuring memorials created by artists, families, and community groups from throughout the region.

Focusing on the creative legacy of Georges Braque, Fernand Léger and Pablo Picasso, these artists are as familiar to the masses as their art is to the general populace. Each man had the will to persist, innovate and change the course of art forever. They suffered derision for their attempts, but with the passing of time, their importance was established in the evolution of art and remains so today.

Over five years, photographer Michael July approached a variety of individuals and asked them to participate as subject models for a volume he was creating to chronicle the evolution of the Afro in America. He was able to capture the best Afros as worn by people of virtually every shade, ethnicity, country and age group.

The Haan Mansion Museum in Lafayette, Indiana is home to hundreds of works of art by Indiana artists. This collection has been built over the years by Bob and Ellie Haan, who purchased the glorious mansion in 1984 and have been adding to its grandeur with fine art and furniture acquisitions ever since.

Wagner creates large-scale multi-textured paper sculptures cut and printed by hand whose complex organic forms in vibrant neon colors splash across walls and floors. Her prints include tantalizing designs of an imaginary, explosive natural world; vines, petals, and creatures emerge from her creations. For the first time, Wagner is debuting an entirely new body of work in this exhibition.

A diverse selection of abstract works from the Fort Wayne Museum of Art's permanent collection that were created during a very short period of this movement's lifespan–only fifteen years. It is a concise body of the artists' exploration of abstraction in the 1960s and early 1970s. It has been called abstract art, nonfigurative art, nonobjective art, nonrepresentational art, and many other names, but it will always be a groundbreaking visual language.

Painter Tom Martin's sharply executed realist work is created without the use of photographic source material, a choice he makes so that his paintings resemble life and reality, not photography. He paints so that the viewer will enter the painting. In this series of work, Martin focuses on money and the effect it has on the global population. For some, money is everything; to others, nothing.

The Summer of Glass is an annual showcase of the world's most brilliantly executed studio glass. This trio of exhibitions includes the 44th Annual International Glass Invitational Award Winners and solo exhibitions by glass sculptors Davide Salvadore and Albert Paley.

In 2014, FWMoA acquired the archives of international artist Steven Sorman, a singular figure of the post-modern era in art known for his complex, multi-layered abstract paintings and prints. Art critic and curator Mason Riddle noted the subtle evolution and reinvention of Sorman as he wrote, "Where some artists make a career out of bold stylistic shifts, Sorman excels in a consistency of artistic practice. With the eye of a connoisseur, he discriminately borrows formal elements from the aesthetic trove of his past to create a more visually compelling present..."

This summer, we are proud to showcase an exhibit of artist Alexander Lawrie, active in Indiana from 1881 until his death in 1917. Lawrie's legacy includes portraits of prominent figures in Indiana history. A key partnership of this project is with the Indiana Veteran's Home in West Lafayette, which has housed 167 Lawrie works since 1917.

German artist Susanne Roewer and American artist George Beasley collaborate for an exhibition that presents their creative intersections, grounded in the exploration of elemental materials such as iron, steel, and stone. Both artists combine these materials with others in small- and large-scale sculptures, each drawing inspiration from their material properties as well as their conceptual implications.

This fusion of art, architecture, and history presents the wonders of this beaux arts treasure and melds the worlds of fine art and architecture through original blueprints from its 1902 construction.

An artist's interpretation and expressions of the narratives of our time are shaped by worldview, family upbringing, cultural and societal norms, and personal imaginings of the stories we read and hear, among other inner and outer influences. Art Cislo, an artist living and working in Fort Wayne, uses his art to channel these interpretations of well-known narratives, particularly from Biblical scripture, that are familiar to many yet have been understood by artists in all mediums, styles, and modes of expression throughout recorded history. His chosen mediums, which include woodblock and monotype prints that emphasize his life-long interest in the human figure as a character in a story, convey his fascination with the heart of man in all its mysterious complexities and myriad expressions.

Out of Print features artists that are part of the New Contemporary movement who work primarily with printmaking. Each of the artists chosen for this exhibition push the boundaries of printmaking and challenge the traditional modes of this particular art form that has been practiced by artists for centuries. Exhibiting artists include: Bill Fick, Chuck Sperry, Crystal Wagner, Dennis McNett, Greg Gossel, Morning Breath, Ravi Zupa, and Troy Lovegates.

This exhibit by noted photographer Geoffrey Hiller captures the essence of the people of Burma that have been living under a military dictatorship that has isolated the country for the past 60 years. Now that the government is making the transition to democracy, the veil is slowly lifting on this fascinating land and its people.

Notably in the 1920s-1940s, numerous American artists, writers, and musicians traveled to Mexico, attracted by the inexpensive lifestyle, politics, welcoming artistic community, and progressive government sponsored art programs. This exhibition will explore the influence of the Mexican Renaissance on American artists, reflected in their style, subject matter, and approach.

Daniel Dienelt, Kay Gregg, Bob Storey, and Josef Zimmerman. We are an art collaborative in Fort Wayne, Indiana. We are designers, artists, and curators. The group has been operating independently and together on projects since 2012. The mediums and styles vary radically at times from oil to screen-printing to photography. We may vary in the execution of our art, but our goal is the same: to bring art to the community and help educate and inspire.

The Art of Seating, organized by The Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville and the Thomas H. and Diane DeMell Jacobsen Ph.D. Foundation, presents a survey of exceptional American chair design from the early 19th century to the present day. The chair is experienced not only as a functional item, but as sculptural in view–the chair as art.

William Preston Mayfield was the personal photographer for Orville and Wilbur Wright, brothers credited with inventing and building the world's first airplane. This exhibition includes reproductions of photographs taken by Mayfield from 1908 through as late as the 1950s, chronicling the experiments, successes, and failures of the Wrights as they developed modern flight in Dayton, Ohio.

This community-centered event and accompanying altar exhibit features traditional Mexican altars with sugar skulls, colorful tissue paper cutouts, and photos or personal items of deceased relatives to honor the souls of the departed. The Day of the Dead, an ancient religious celebration that originally honored children and ancestors, has evolved from a blend of Meso-American and Christian cultures, and those traditions come to life with this celebratory exhibition at FWMoA featuring memorials created by artists, families, and community groups from throughout the region. This year's community altar exhibit includes 8 prints recently acquired from photographer Tim Tadder's series "Las Muertas."

A Year of Making Meaning: New Additions to the Collection showcases the highlights of works FWMoA has acquired in its permanent collection over the last two years. The artwork selected gives an overview of our recent focus in collecting. While we are always on the hunt for great works of art, our recent collecting focus includes contemporary glass, photography, and painting; all of which is shown in this gallery.

The National exhibits the most compelling photography created in America today, anchored by invited artists Matthew Albanese, Gillian Laub, Kirsty Mitchell, Ian Ruhter, and Nick Veasey, complemented by fresh perspectives from more than 50 emerging photographers from around the country.

The works of art in Describiendo la Belleza (Spanish for "Describing Beauty") were selected for their unique representations of beauty. Each print captures both the joyous and heartbreaking ways of capturing beauty. Made up of many artists from the Serie Project, this collection represents how broad the institution's reach has become. Based in Austin, TX, the Serie Project strives to reach and represent Latino printmakers.

The prints in El Corazón are part of a special edition portfolio created by artists of the Serie Project in remembrance of Sam Coronado, founder of the Serie Project, and his love of art and his community. Sam passed away in 2013, his life and death having a profound impact on the artists he served over the years. All of the artists featured created their works in remembrance of their time with Sam and the impact he had on their lives.

Dayne Bonta is a photographer based in Indiana who seeks to capture the moment when subject matter, light, color, and atmosphere blend into the sublime. Turning 88 on September 9th, this exhibition presents Bonta's impressions of life at this point in his career.

Babette Bloch is a pioneer in the use of laser-cut and water-jet stainless steel to create evocative works of art. Her sculptures explore form and the interplay between object and light, reflect their environments, and expand the ways in which stainless steel is used in contemporary art.

Invisible College explores the aesthetics of a movement that has devised its own course; one that has been largely defined outside of institutional contexts. Moving away from the standard art education model that demands graduate school, an excess of critical rhetoric and an art world careerism, these artists, many of whom are self-taught, have sought their own inspiration and voice instead, drawing on everything from popular culture and social media platforms, to street art, murals and graffiti. By creating a distinct community in support of the diversity of its visions and styles, the movement has mortared and upheld its own invisible school. This group exhibition is co-curated by Andrew and Shawn Hosner of Los Angeles' Thinkspace Gallery, and Josef Zimmerman of the Fort Wayne Museum of Art. The exhibition will feature new and representative works by 46 artists belonging to the New Contemporary movement.

Dale Chihuly is world renowned for his fantastic and sometimes monumental, nature-inspired brilliant glass sculptures. He is also known to many glass sculptors as a living legend of the American studio glass movement, part of a pioneering group of artists that helped studio glass become part of the mainstream art world. This exhibit features sculptures and drawings by Chihuly, as well as work by those he influenced over the past few decades.

"In my work I am drawn to the processes of birth, death, and renewal. What lies below the surface fascinates me, and I try to capture the qualities of the "unseen" that express the sense of wonder that I feel in my daily existence. I am attracted to glass because it can do everything that other sculptural media can; in addition, it offers an inner space and transmits light." - Christina Bothwell

The 43rd International is a selection of the world's most brilliantly executed studio glass. Organized by Habatat Galleries, this exhibition is the oldest and largest annual contemporary glass show in the country. Selected from an array of glass masters, this exhibition features the best studio glass artists in the world. In its 43rd year, the invitational presents contemporary glass sculpture in the greater context of international influence with unconventional forms and processes. Courtesy of Habatat Galleries, Michigan.

When we look at the connections between artists, some are conceptual, some are stylistic or formal, a developmental process, or the common experience of working in a specific time and place. For Steve Linn and Robert Schefman, all of these threads run through their works, outweighing the differences between sculpture and painting, their subjects, or personal points of view. There are shared values at the core of their approaches to making art.

Creatures from McNett's Wolfbat woodblock series have been exhibited around the world and three-dimensional versions have even been featured in New Orleans parades and Barney's department store windows in New York City. McNett's highly imaginative works focus on creatures from Nordic mythology and are inspired in part by the 80s skateboarding and punk rock scene.

This exhibition, drawn entirely from the FWMoA permanent collection, chronicles the evolution of American art from 1765-1900, showcasing American style in fine and decorative art as a reflection of social and political movements of the time.

American painter and printmaker Steven Sorman is renowned for his complicated printmaking processes that result in lush and complex surfaces. Sorman's prints are extremely detailed and full of vivid color. This exhibition is the debut blockbuster exhibition of selected works from Sorman's gift of his archive to FWMoA, the largest gift in the Museum's collecting history and the largest gift made by the artist to any institution in the world.

Indiana plein air painter Gwen Gutwein set out to paint two historical barns in all 92 counties in Indiana seven years ago. The Fort Wayne Museum of Art exhibited the first part of her project in 2012 to great public acclaim. This exhibit includes Gwen's newest barn paintings of this ongoing project.

Seeing the spiritual, and even the most mundane aspects of our cultural landscape, Kahn presents paintings that are as much about our feelings for space as the space itself. For thirty years, Kahn has been steadfast in the pursuit of his distinct vision and persistent in his commitment to the redemptive possibilities of art. In paint, stone, and bronze, he has explored the correspondence between the intimate and monumental.

Photographer Alexander Solomon manipulates luscious landscape photographs, inserting subtle and unexpected subjects with an implication of crisis ahead. Solomon is the First Prize winner of the Fort Wayne Museum of Art's inaugural biennial exhibition of the best in contemporary American photography.

The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards program has become an essential part of the Fort Wayne Museum of Art's K-12 Education program. It has grown into what is now a model program for the rest of the country, exhibiting the best student artwork and writing of the region.

The 20th century was an age of experimentation with new ideas, new styles, and new materials. Within just a few years, traditional sculpture education would almost completely be replaced by a European-influenced concern for abstract design. The passion for abstraction brought on a quest for new materials that could be used for sculptural expression. Plastic, glass, stone, chromium, and welded steel were used, as well as boxes, broken automobile parts, and pieces of old furniture.

Featuring selected quilts from the Museum's American quilt collection, with quilts ranging from the late 19th through the mid-20th century.

Noted painter and preservationist Hunt Slonem focuses on the innocence and beauty of the natural world: the birds and the bees, the bunnies and butterflies, all populating the layered canvases that reference an abstract menagerie of the mind.

Highlighting Dance Theatre of Harlem's 40-plus year history, this magnificent exhibition celebrates the history and art of dance with 25 costumes and accessories, set pieces, documentary video excerpts, historical photographs and tour posters; and includes four dramatically-staged ballets that are iconic to the company: A Streetcar Named Desire, Creole Giselle, Dougla and Firebird. Dispelling the belief that ballet could not be performed by those of African descent, Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook founded the Dance Theatre of Harlem in 1969. It has since grown into a multi-cultural dance institution.

Bringing contemporary art from across the nation to the Crossroads State, 'Crossing Lines' is a new exhibition series that features some of the freshest contemporary art found in cities of all sizes across America. The debut city for this series is Austin, Texas.

Painter and printmaker Kay Gregg explores a bygone era of gears and mechanics, replaced by chips and wires. She says, "The era of the movable part is nearly done. Our actions are devoid of mechanical interaction. In the past, the lever, the switch, the button, or the potentiometer provided an extension of our human activities and feedback about where we existed in the process at hand. Our finger pressed a key, a lever slapped a carbon coated ribbon, letters appeared on paper, and an artifact was created."

"As good as The Modern Art of the Print exhibition was back in 1984, my feeling has always been that it would have been an even better show with a more cohesive body of work if it hadn't been put together by a fractious team of all too special people--a situation akin to too many celebrity chefs in the kitchen." - Charles Shepard, Chief Curator

Every two years, FWMoA organizes the Contemporary Realism Biennial, an exhibition of the most unique trends in realism by the most skilled and American and international realism artists. We are proud to contribute to the contemporary discourse of this traditional genre of art making.

The Arizona State University Art Museum and Ceramics Research Center in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts present Crafting a Continuum: Rethinking Contemporary Craft, the first comprehensive museum exhibition to highlight their extensive craft holdings, including new international acquisitions in wood, ceramic and fiber. This exhibition and its accompanying catalog provide an international perspective on modern and contemporary crafts and the current level of innovation and experimentation in material studies. This show's stop at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art is part of its 6-venue national tour over the course of two years.

Says Brandon Gorman, photographer of this exhibit: "As an artist, the photograph is my language. Capturing the multitude of moments, the camera leaves nothing but the truth for the eye and mind to hear. The camera sees and captures color, but it does not discriminate. The Collective Self breaks boundaries of color and race. While this series focuses on the similarities and differences found within the Chinese populations of the East and West, the art speaks so much more than if this were research."

After nearly 30 years in Fort Wayne's Freimann Square, a drunk driver crashed into the massive sculpture Helmholtz on June 16, 2013, severely twisting the iconic orange steel I-beams, rendering the once majestic "bull" lifeless and requiring major repairs by Mark di Suvero himself. After more than a year of repairs, the Fort Wayne public sculpture Helmholtz will return to its location in early Fall of 2014. This exhibition chronicles the sculpture's inception, creation, tragic fall, and victorious return to glory in Fort Wayne.

In more than ten years as Executive Director and Chief Curator, Charles Shepard has added more than 1,000 objects to the Fort Wayne Museum of Art Permanent Collection. This exhibition highlights some of his favorites--those pieces that excited and inspired him, and moved him to add them to the cultural archive of the city.

Robert Pulley is an American sculptor from the Midwest. Large ceramic sculptures on display in the Fort Wayne Museum of Art's sculpture court are inspired by his memories of frequent solitary walks in the woods and along the creeks and rivers of rural Indiana and all the varied forms, colors and textures around him. He says, "Evidence of the effects of time were everywhere in the rock strata, glacial till, and aboriginal artifacts. I found a sense of wonder that embraced mysteries of nature, of change and of chance."

"Join Hunter and I as we take on Cozumel and beyond. It was the ride of a lifetime." Featuring over 40 never-before-released images from that week on Cozumel, this "diary" recounts the misadventures of one particularly memorable assignment by famed photographer Al Satterwhite.

The prevailing concepts in Bremers' work are emphasized in this exhibition, and they are best described in his own words: "We see the natural world as something separate from ourselves; exploit its gifts without restraint for economic gain, and by doing so turn it from an age-old friend into a hostile force. We show little trace of gratitude and seem to forget that we are ourselves an intricate part of nature."

Organized by Habatat Galleries, this exhibition is the oldest and largest annual contemporary glass show in the country. Selected from an array of glass masters, this exhibition features 26 of the best studio glass artists in the world. In its 42nd year, the invitational presents contemporary glass sculpture in the greater context of international influence with unconventional forms and processes. Courtesy of Habatat Galleries, Michigan.

In the 1950s, artists like Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline elevated the gesture to the position of the protagonist in abstract expressionism. In the 21st century, Donald Martiny advances that idea considerably further by freeing the gesture of gestural abstraction from the substrate which, heretofore, provided the context that brought gesture to life.

This exhibition focuses on the classic bicycles of the Boomer Generation and contextualizes the evolution of this dramatic shift in bicycle design as our leading manufacturers scurried to meet the demands of this new market.

The debut of The National coincides with the launching of the Fort Wayne Museum of Art's new collecting initiative focusing on contemporary photography and its goal of developing a preeminent biennial exhibition of only the best contemporary photography.

The American Art Pottery movement began in the late 1800s in the studios and potteries of Ohio and produced some of the finest examples of ceramics in a variety of colors, shapes, and sizes. Roseville Pottery was among the best art pottery created and is still highly sought by collectors around the world. These glorious objects, presented in entrancing variety, are the fruition of more than four decades of Roseville's master artisans.

This is the second exhibition guest curated by the contemporary art curator Josef Zimmerman, the man who traveled the country in search of the most the eye-popping, chromatically adventurous contemporary art for the group show Brilliant Optics. This time, Zimmerman has discovered another intriguing trend in contemporary art: the tendency to reference biology–animals, natural processes, human systems, and other elements of the natural world–in the context of contemporary culture. Three artists leading this trend will be featured in this exhibition: Yis "Nosego" Goodwin, Justin Miller, and Scott Teplin, all who push the boundaries of graphic manipulation of organic subjects.

The Indiana Plein Air Painters Association (IPAPA) has partnered with Indiana Landmarks for Painting Indiana III: Heritage of Place. This exhibition features works created en plein aire, French for "out of doors" by members of IPAPA and is the third in a series of successful book projects. One hundred works by Indiana plein air painters will be on display at FWMoA, just one stop on its statewide tour.

This exhibition features hundreds of works of art and writing by talented young people in our region taught by educators committed to creative achievement in their classrooms. The high caliber of entries from this area has propelled Northeast Indiana and Northwest Ohio to one of the top regions for National awards given in the past few years.

In this graphically rich exhibition, painter/printmaker Paul Valadez "tells the truth" about the people, places, and things that populate the real and imagined social landscape that surrounds him.

A contrast to the defined parameters and sophisticated lines of geometry in Hard Edge, Cool Logic, this collection surveys a genre of modern painting that valued free form over hard edge, ethereal mood over logical thought. Many works come from the prized Vincent Melzac collection of modern art at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art.

A selection of contemporary work from the FWMoA permanent collection, each by African American makers.

This collection of work by Chicago-based artists focuses on surface patterns that combine to present a united statement of introspection. Featuring the work of Deanna Krueger, Maggie Meiners, and Charles Gniech, this show makes a statement on the chaos of modern life and the quest for peace demonstrated by the meditative surfaces of each work.

After World War II, many Americans responded in a variety of diverse ways to the changes in this country, and artists were no exception. In contrast to the explosively dramatic paint splatters of abstract expressionism, a large group of artists focused on the defined parameters and sophisticated lines that geometry afforded them.

Johnny Coleman creates multisensory installations often combining salvaged and handcrafted objects, fragrant materials, and sound elements. In Variation Upon a Theme: Song of the Underground Railroad, Coleman will completely alter a gallery and explore this story of journey.

Today, contemporary printmakers such as Luis Jiménez, Faith Ringgold, Enrique Chagoya, and Jaune Quick-to-See Smith continue the tradition of addressing socio/political life, albeit more subtly, as they explore the deeper and more personal nuances of living in the world today.

When Sam Coronado founded the Serie Project in 1993, he envisioned a workshop where underrepresented artists could benefit from collaboration and learn the serigraphy technique. In the last two decades the organization has fostered over 250 artists from different professional levels and ethnic backgrounds, who together have produced a rare and special collection of serigraphs.

This community-centered exhibit features traditional Mexican altars with sugar skulls, colorful tissue paper cutouts, and photos of deceased relatives to honor the souls of the departed. The Day of the Dead, an ancient religious celebration that originally honored children and ancestors, has evolved from a blend of Meso-American and Christian cultures, and those traditions come to life with this celebratory exhibition featuring memorials created by artists, families, and community groups from throughout the region.

Fort Wayne artist and Hedgehog Press owner Julie Wall Toles is the featured artist of this exhibitions, showing alongside selected artists that have produced work at the Hedgehog Press. The exhibition will highlight the steps of the print process leading up to a final work as well as explore the business aspects of running a print shop.

This exhibition is a survey of artists who have made a significant contribution to the development of image transfer/printmaking techniques on ceramics. Relevant works from the Fort Wayne Museum of Art's permanent collection will provide comparisons between the ceramic works and printmaking on paper.

Trained in the laborious, Renaissance-era technique of egg tempera painting, Robert Vickrey fused his technical ability to render precise detail with his passion for expressionism and film noir to create hyper-real scenes haunted by an atmosphere of mystery and tension.

David Hayes (1931-2013) is an American artist known for his large steel sculptures that seem to defy the real weight of steel. Heavy sheets of steel, bolted and welded, appear weightless by way of their curving forms that mimic sails, wings, and sometimes figures. This duality adds new dimension to the FWMoA experience, causing visitors to ask questions about form, space, material, and process.

The abstract paintings of contemporary artist Austin Cartwright, whose textured surfaces explore the various properties of paint, demonstrate the artist's choice to preserve moments of beauty that occur in conflict with elements of life and humanity. Cartwright employs a process of painting in which the materials are layered and scraped, and then layered and scraped. In the act of application and removal, the painting creates a history of itself through Cartwright's artistic decisions.

This exhibition, organized by Habatat Galleries, is the oldest and largest annual contemporary glass exhibition in the country. Selected from an array of glass masters, this exhibition features 26 of the best studio glass artists in the world.

Throughout his more than 40 year career, Dale Chihuly has pushed the boundaries of color and form exponentially raising the art world's appreciation of the medium of glass. His success paved the way for other studio glass artists to further push the boundaries of traditional glass work. This exhibit is produced in collaboration with Habatat Galleries.

One of Dale Chihuly's most daring innovations was to challenge the notion that glass was best displayed on a pedestal by creating pieces intended to interact with architecture and the natural environment. This exhibit, in collaboration with the Franklin Park Conservatory, exemplifies that concept by showcasing several of Chihuly's most beloved series such as Macchia, Fiori, and Niijima Floats.

"˜Brilliant Optics' is a contemporary exhibit that hinges on the dominant theme of color. A common thread in each of the works is the bold palette and an underlying static/movement to the art. Through an array of values of intense colors, the ocular cavity is stimulated by each of the works in the show, as well as the larger group of works that create the exhibition experience. Each of the exhibiting artists are unafraid of brightness, vibrant hues, and pumping up color saturation. The art in this exhibition share intense layers of color for an invigorating optical experience.

The idea of the "avant garde" was rooted in the linear trend that dominated the visual arts for many years in which a "new style" would emerge in reaction to the "old style" and, ultimately, replace it. Even before the term "avant garde" was used, the process of artists working in one style at a time seemed to be the logical way for the art world to operate--until it wasn't.

Over five years, photographer Michael July approached a variety of individuals and asked them to participate as subject models for a volume he was creating to chronicle the evolution of the Afro in America. He was able to capture the best Afros as worn by people of virtually every shade, ethnicity, country and age group.

Mexico celebrates a rich history of popular art that reaches more than 2,000 years into the past and continues today in villages, towns, and cities throughout the country. El Caballo: The Horse in Mexican Folk Art, celebrates this enduring legacy through twenty-two examples, including ceramics, metalwork, paintings, paper art, and sculpture.

Fort Wayne artist Jerrod Tobias continues his exploration of the figure, the natural world, and their complex relationship in Seeds of Symbiosis.

This exhibition presents nearly fifty silver gelatin prints by one of America's most renowned landscape photographers, Paul Caponigro. His contemplative works explore a range of intriguing scenes: the New England woods, Celtic megaliths in Ireland, Japanese temples, and zen gardens.

The exhibition includes hundreds of works of art and writing by talented young people in our region taught by educators committed to creative achievement in their classrooms. The high caliber of entries from this area has propelled Northeast Indiana and Northwest Ohio to one of the top regions for National awards given in the past few years.

This premier, international exhibition highlights the best of international contemporary hand woven tapestry. From 110 artists around the world who submitted 223 tapestries, juror Lee Talbot, Associate Curator, Eastern Hemisphere Collections, The Textile Museum, chose 41 tapestries woven by artists from 11 different countries.

Who would have dreamed that behind the doors of a small town public high school were hidden art treasures? The seeds of this 'diamond in the rough' art collection were planted by one man, Peru alum G. David Thompson, and one inspirational teacher, Mr. John Whittenberger.

Inspired by the historic 2008 presidential election, Brooklyn painter Charlotta Janssen was looking for a way to pay homage to the people who helped paved the way for the first African-American president of the United States.

Twenty portraits from the book Breach of Peace traveled to the High Museum in Atlanta and traveled to the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, the Field Museum in Chicago, the Skirball in Los Angeles, and the Bronx Museum in New York City.

Canadian-Pakistani-American Uzma Mirza has spent her working career as an Architect, but in her studio practice, she tends to a Spiritual Art, which is informed by her life as a human, a Western Muslim woman, and as an Architect striving to be in balance with nature, humanity and society.

As stated in Subjects and Objects, no artwork can lack an identity. That is, for any artwork there must be some thing, some entity of some kind, that the work is meant to be. The particular thing that a particular artwork is meant to be will have a particular identity, a haecceity,that every other object lacks.

Collage can be traced back centuries, but this technique made a dramatic reappearance as a leading form of 20th century Modernism. Growing up, contemporary artist Joel Fremion explored the fine arts, particularly painting, and he was struck by the visual power of the collage technique and worked to push the form into new territory.

Contemporary Regional Gallery Guest curated by Dan Swartz, Wunderkammer Company The Fort Wayne Museum of Art presents its second project with Wunderkammer Company, Systemic Abstraction: John Collins McCormick, Kamilah Campbell, and Carly Schmitt, an exhibition exploring the tangible connections between the artist and the abstract image.

The Fort Wayne Museum of Art's Contemporary Realism Biennial is a national invitational and juried exhibition which highlights the strength and innovation of America's current trends in realism. America has enjoyed a long, rich history of Realist art from Colonial times to the present. We are proud to expand the discourse on this enduring tradition in presenting the 2012 installment of this dynamic contemporary exhibition.

Dayne Bonta, age 84, is that type of photographer, seeking to capture the moment when subject matter, light, color, and atmosphere blend into the sublime. He does not adhere to the concept of "pure photography," or "straight photography" meaning to realistically recreate, without manipulation, the imagery photographed.

The intimacy of interior spaces has historically attracted the attention of artists ranging from the Dutch Masters to Vincent Van Gogh and revealed much to us about the lives of those who inhabit the spaces portrayed. Norwegian-American painter Ida Lorentzen continues the tradition of this artistic genre, but with a distinctly contemporary twist: her utterly calm, spare interiors are the stage upon which light acts.

Douglas David has made a name for himself as one of Indiana's favorite painters. With his signature palette of blues and violets, he uses loose, fluid brushwork to capture the natural beauty of the things he loves: peonies, lilacs, landscapes, cityscapes and seascapes and his popular cows. His ability to uncover the timeless, simple beauty of his subjects has inspired an ever-growing nationwide following of fans and collectors.

This exhibition features 63 multi-media works including paintings, works on paper, photographs and video by culturally diverse artists from across the United States. Infinite Mirror is realized through the collective efforts of Artrain, Inc. and a group of independent curators selecting works of art by established and emerging American artists.

West Lafayette artist Loren Olson in her own words on the origins of this body of work: "In 2010 I was preparing to begin a new series. Beautiful colors purchased, color charts, experiments with the pigments complete, I was ready to begin. Then the Gulf Oil Disaster began. Oil spewed out into the clear blue sea. The dolphins, birds, fish, the teeming life became a living hell and the planet seemed to be hemorrhaging.

Historical Barns: America's Agricultural Monuments Barns have been prominent landmarks within the American landscape since the 17th century. Today there are well over half a million barns built before 1960 that are still standing throughout the United States. Indiana alone has an historic barn for every two square miles, and every one of these barns contains stories that reflect America's agricultural past and the particular culture and heritage of its local surroundings.

Outside the Circle: Woodturning in Indiana celebrates the beauty and creativity of contemporary wood objects that were turned on a lathe. Beginning as practical pieces made by hobbyists, woodturning has matured through experimentation to works of art made with purely aesthetic aims; the art form has drastically evolved beyond candlesticks and bedposts!

Max Altekruse was born and raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana. An early interest in drawing stemmed from the illustrations in the popular magazines of the time. He was strongly attracted to the craft of draughtsmanship and delighted in copying (in pencil) the Saturday Evening Post covers by Norman Rockwell.

Prepare to be amazed: This exhibition features stunning close-up photography that invites us to look more closely at the world. In astonishing photographs, Rick Lieder captures the glint of a katydid's eye, the glow of a firefly, and many more living wonders just awaiting discovery. In this creative collaboration between Lieder and poet Helen Frost, nature and poetry combine for a truly eye-opening glimpse into a micro-world of the delicate intricacies of the natural world.

Fort Wayne Collects celebrates the spirit, style, and vitality of three local private art collections. Every collection, art or otherwise, has its own patterns and idiosyncrasies. What every compilation shares is the passion and drive of the person, or persons, assembling it.

The practice of painting "nose art" on airplanes was well established in the First World War. By WW II, a plane that had not been named and painted by her crew was the exception to the rule–usually as a result of a disagreement over what the name should be.

Over the past five years the Northeast Indiana Northwest Ohio Scholastic Art and Writing Awards Exhibition under the direction of the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, has grown into a region which consists of 26 counties in the art category and 52 for writing. The region now spans east toward Toledo, Ohio and south to Rush County in Indiana.

Wunderkammern, or "Cabinets of Curiosities," arose in mid 16th century Europe as repositories for all manner of wondrous and exotic objects. In many ways, these are seen as precursors to the modern museum. Cabinet of Curiosities will bring together disparate works from the FWMoA's Collections highlighting and juxtaposing their differences in time period, media, function and the object's relationship to the definition of art.

Trench Art is commonly and broadly defined as any decorative item made by soldiers, prisoners of war or civilians, where the manufacture is directly linked to armed conflict or its consequences. Common articles that this includes are decorated, and or modified, shell and bullet casings, mess kits, helmets, and similar items at hand to a solider at war. This type of art was a frequent souvenir of soldiers of the first half of the 20th century, and is still often found in the homes of veterans or their descendants.

Over five years, Brooklyn photographer Michael July approached a variety of individuals and asked them to model for a volume he was creating to chronicle the evolution of the Afro in America. He was able to capture the best Afros as worn by people of virtually every shade, ethnicity, country and age group.

This print exhibit brings a variety of socio-political topics to the fore, with many artists focusing on cultural issues of the Latino community throughout the country. Others employ a decidedly pop art style, many exploring the dark side of this genre.

In the 21st century, Donald Martiny advances abstract expressionism considerably further by freeing the gesture from the substrate which, heretofore, provided the context that brought gesture to life.

This exhibit by noted photographer Geoffrey Hiller captures the essence of the people of Burma that have been living under a military dictatorship that has isolated the country for the past 60 years. Now that the government is making the transition to democracy, the veil is slowly lifting on this fascinating land and its people.