Pay a visit to current exhibitions before they’re gone
Cincinnati’s art museums feature some great artwork. Bring the family or a friend — take some time to visit the latest exhibitions.
Cincinnati Art Museum
In addition to its permanent collection, the Cincinnati Art Museum has three in-person exhibitions.
Truth and Inspiration, An ArtsWave Showcase features art by black and brown artists, recipients of ArtsWave’s Black and Brown Artist program grants. The exhibition showcases powerful narratives of the artists. It runs until Aug. 14.
Henry Mosler Behind the Scenes: In Celebration of the Jewish Cincinnati Bicentennial shows Henry Mosler’s journey through his narrative paintings. Mosler was a Jewish artist, and this exhibition celebrates the 200th anniversary of Cincinnati’s Jewish community. It runs until Sept. 4.
Kaitlyn Sharo, the museum’s marketing and communications manager, recommends a third in-person exhibition: Unlocking an Art Deco Bedroom By Joseph Urban. Urban was a Viennese-born architect and designer. The exhibit features a modern, fanciful bedroom that Urban designed in 1930 for Elaine Wormser, a teenage girl who lived with her parents in the Drake Tower in Chicago.
“Unfortunately, it’s not traveling to another museum,” Sharo says. “So this is your only opportunity to really immerse yourself in that time period. It’s just a really great exhibition, and it has something truly for everyone.”
Unlocking an Art Deco Bedroom By Joseph Urban runs until Oct. 2.
Contemporary Arts Center
The Contemporary Arts Center has four exhibitions.
Breaking Water is a group exhibition featuring video, photography, painting, installation, sculpture and performance pieces. All relate to the themes of water, liquidity and feminism. This exhibition, which runs through Aug. 14, is sponsored by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Artist-Run Spaces explores self-reflection and reopening amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It brings together art from independent arts organizations, nonprofits and collectives throughout Ohio and Northern Kentucky.
Center of Unfinished Business by Contemporary And (C&) is a discussion-based program organized by the multimedia company Contemporary And (C&) and has traveled around the world. The Contemporary Arts Center has a curated selection with themes of water, literally and metaphorically, to explore African American and African diasporic experiences and cultures.
Artist-Run Spaces and Center of Unfinished Business by Contemporary And (C&) run through Sept. 11.
Kahlil Robert Irving: Ground Water from screen Falls [(Collaged media) + Midwest] Street is a lobby carpet installation that integrates imagery of asphalt with pop-culture references, news headlines and digital ephemera. This exhibition, which runs through Dec. 30, 2025, documents the realities of urban life.
Taft Museum of Art
The Taft Museum of Art has three exhibitions.
Love This House: Preserving a National Historic Landmark lets people learn how the Baum-Longworth-Sinton-Taft house, downtown Cincinnati’s oldest wooden residence, has been preserved and how the art collection within is protected.
The other two exhibitions are Jane Austen-themed.
Jane Austen in London: A Wall-Sized Map features a 7-by-13-foot map that showcases locations from the English countryside and London that are in her stories and in her life. The map also represents a monumental achievement in cartography. Jane Austen: Fashion & Sensibility features costumes and accessories worn in film and television adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels. The exhibition will transport visitors to the Regency era, and visitors will be able to get a close-up view of costumes worn by celebrities such as Kate Winslet and Colin Firth.
The Taft exhibitions all run until Sept. 4.
