The Allen Art Museum at MOCA Cleveland

As many of you may know, the Allen Art Museum has been temporarily closed for a renovation project, opening back up in Spring 2011. A portion of the collection has been loaned to other esteemed museums throughout the country, including Cleveland's own Museum of Contemporary Art.

AAM's loan is very important to MOCA's newest exhibition, *From Then to Now* : Masterworks of Contemporary African-American Art. Roughly 15 major works from the AAM are included in this show.

The show is on view January 29th, 2010 through May 9th, 2010.

Come to the opening night celebration on Friday, January 29, 2010. This is FREE and open to the public.

The evening starts at 6pm with a talk entitled "blackfacers, hustlers, oracles, & saplings," an interview between artist iona rozeal brown and exhibition curator Megan Lykins Reich. What are Hoochie Puti? Where is HEZ? Why does Yoshi ride a Big Wheel? These and other questions will be answered. Additional questions provided by the students who worked with brown on her January 2010 residency will round out the discussion.

FAMILY ART STUDIO / 7-9pm

A special place for kids to make art of their own, while enjoying the opening night excitement. Treats provided by Whole Foods: Cedar Center.

MEMBER VIP LOUNGE / 7-9pm

MOCA Members enjoy VIP treatment, a signed exhibition poster, and a complimentary cocktail, with exclusive access behind the velvet rope.

From MOCA's website:
Unprecedented in our region, the exhibition brings together for the first time the rich holdings of contemporary African American art drawn from preeminent collections of contemporary art in the region - the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College, the Akron Art Museum, the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Progressive Corporation, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Presented will be works by some of the most important artists of our time in a range of media - works on paper, painting, sculpture, and installations. The exhibition features 25 artists, and begins with signature pieces by such pioneering figures of the 1970s and 1980s as Romare Bearden or Alma Thomas, and continues up to the present with prime examples of works by artists such as Lenardo Drew, Alison Saar, Willie Cole, David Hammons, Lorna Simpson, Carrie Mae Weems, René Green, Kara Walker and Kehinde Wiley, among others. Addressing a range of themes and issues, the exhibition presents an overview of the rich cultural heritage voiced by contemporary African-American artists in their examination of history, identity, and memory. Their universal search for meaning in facing the past and confronting the challenges of the present binds these works together in wha t ultimately represents a celebration of and triumph of the creative spirit.