INCLUSION AND OUTREACH

In support of The Ringling’s Strategic Vision for 2019 – 2023, the IDEA (inclusion, diversity, equity, access) Team was formally created this year and tasked with making The Ringling a place where all truly feel welcome.

354 FAMILIES VISITED VIA MUSEUMS FOR ALL

1,121 GUESTS RECEIVED FREE ADMISSION

600 FREE WEB FAMILY MEMBERSHIPS

13 COMMUNITY NON-PROFITS PARTNERED WITH WEB

27 ACCESSIBILITY PROGRAMS

650 PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES SERVED

The IDEA Team, which is made up of staff members from all departments, oversees efforts to remove barriers to participation at the museum. On March 6, we convened a group of community stakeholders to get valuable input about how we can better serve our audiences. Participants discussed outreach and marketing efforts, how to be more inclusive, and what programs and content are most relevant. Bringing these diverse community voices together was an important first step in what will be an ongoing commitment to making the museum readily accessible to everyone.

Recognizing that the price of admission can prevent low-income visitors from coming to the museum, The Ringling joined the national Museums for All initiative. Through Museums for All, families receiving food assistance (SNAP benefits) receive free museum admission to the Ringling as often as they would like just by presenting their EBT card. The Ringling took the additional step of expanding the program to also include families receiving WIC assistance, furthering our reach to the underserved families in our area.

Our commitment to accessibility was evident in our ongoing partnerships with Southeastern Guide Dogs, the Lighthouse Vision Loss Education Center, and Easter Seals. We offer these groups regular tours and programs that have been specially adapted to allow the clients to participate fully in the experience, regardless of their disability. In the fall, we launched a brand new access program called Ringling Reflections, which are free monthly gallery tours for people with memory loss and their families. To ensure we are meeting the needs of local participants, the program was planned in consultation with The Caregiving Place at The Friendship Centers. The title Reflections comes from the idea that participants are asked to reflect on the artworks directly in front them, eliminating the need for recalled memory that would put those with dementia at a cognitive disadvantage. Writes one Reflections participant, “…it was the best day ever. Days like that are certainly highlights to make up for some very stressful days and uncertainty of the disease.”

The Where Everyone Belongs (WEB) program, the museum’s initiative to engage low-income or underrepresented families in our community, has now distributed over 600 free family-level memberships. We connect with these families via partnerships with non-profit social service organizations. The WEB outreach coordinator builds relationships by visiting the families off-site and then inviting them to the museum for an orientation program that empowers parents to feel confident visiting the museum on their own. The WEB program is made possible by the Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation, with additional support from the Community Foundation of Sarasota County.

WEB families have found the program rewarding and meaningful.

“I love the Ringling museum. As a single mother and disabled adult on a poverty income having this opportunity to participate in family friendly activities with my five year old and have a complimentary membership has been an amazing experience.”

“It is the most wonderful place and being able to have a free membership for me and my son has been life changing and allowed me and my six year old to participate more fully in our community.”

The Ringling’s commitment to equity and barrier removal will continue to be an integral force shaping our way forward into the future.

The current list of WEB non-profit partners is a cross section of our regions nonprofit agencies and includes:

Easter Seals: Project Rainbow/ Kids Night Out

Eckerd Connects: Project Bridge

Forty Carrots: Partners in Play and Soar in 4

Harvest House: Home Again Horizons Academy

J5 Experience @ Emma

Jewish Family and Children’s Service (JFCS): Healthy Families/ Healthy Children and Camp Mariposa

Laurel Civic Association

Newtown Estates Boys and Girls Club

Riverview High School: Cyesis Teen Parenting Program

Sarasota Housing Authority: Pathways to a Better Life

UnidosNow: Future Leaders Academy

Visible Men Academy

Interpolations: Artworks from The Ringling and Monda Collections

MAR 17 – SEP 8, 2019

This exhibition brought together artworks from The Ringling’s permanent collection of modern and contemporary art and selections from Keith D. and Linda L. Monda’s collection. In spring 2018, the Museum added to its grounds Beverly Pepper’s Curvae in Curvae (2012), the lyrical sculpture in Cor-ten steel, which is a part of four promised gifts from the Monda family. The other three promised gifts are compelling works by artists Teo González, Yayoi Kusama, and Richard Serra. These gifts significantly enrich The Ringling’s holdings of works by important artists working today, some new to the collection. The artworks enable the Museum to present a broader, and more complex history of late twentieth- and early twentyfirst-century art. These new promised gifts were featured along with other selections from the Monda’s collection and key works from The Ringling’s own growing collection of modern and contemporary art. The exhibition is part of The Ringling’s ongoing Art of Our Time initiative, enacting our dedication to present diverse voices and perspectives to our visitors.

Natasha Mazurka: Order Systems

MAR 17 – SEP 29, 2019

Order Systems, the first US solo museum exhibition by Natasha Mazurka, debuts a new body of paintings, embossings, and site-specific installations using textured layers of colored vinyl. Mazurka’s work centers on the communicative potential of pattern by sampling and combining visual references from a spectrum of disciplines, including architecture and biology, data analytics, and instructional code. The resulting visual syntax seen in her work stems from intense research looking into different pattern languages and ways they are designed to lend order to our experiences. Through processes of manipulation and synthesis, her projects flatter and disturb concepts of certainty and stability residing within pattern systems existing all around us.

Fourth Quarter: Senior Athletes, Their Indomitable Spirit

Photographs by David Burnett

APR 13 – JUL 21, 2019

This exhibition featured new work by acclaimed photojournalist David Burnett, commissioned by his 2017 Greenfield Prize at the Hermitage Artist Retreat. For his latest project, Fourth Quarter, Burnett spent nearly two years photographing senior-aged athletes from around the country who dedicate themselves to serious physical competition and team sports. In this engaging series, he treats his subjects with reverence as he celebrates their tenacity and challenges us to rethink our notions of what aging means in the 21st century. This exhibition was supported, in part, by the Hermitage Artist Retreat and The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art Foundation.

Chivalry & Circus

FEB 9 – JUN 3, 2019

Imagery of knights in shining armor are woven throughout the history of American popular culture. From its beginning, the United States has idealized the traits of courage, piety, and civility that are embodied in images of knights of the Middle Ages. The stories of heroes like King Arthur, St. George the dragon slayer, and Joan of Arc are still well-known today. This exhibition featured the representations of knights and the Middle Ages in Circus posters and costumes from the Howard Tibbals Collection.

The term chivalry is derived from the French word cheval (horse). Given the central role of equestrian feats in the earliest circus performances, it is not surprising that show owners would happily incorporate the noble figure of the knight on horseback in their performances and advertising.

Knights

FEB 3 – APR 21, 2019

Drawn from the superb collections of the Museo Stibbert in Florence, Italy, this extraordinary exhibition revealed the figure of the European knight from the Renaissance through the Medieval Revival of the 19th century. With more than 100 rare objects, including full suits of armor, helmets, swords, and other weaponry, the exhibition focused on the function, history and craftsmanship of these exquisite pieces, while exploring relevant themes of love and war, jousts and tournaments. This exhibition was organized by Contemporanea Progetti in collaboration with the Museo Stibbert, Florence, Italy and accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue.

Support for this exhibition was generously provided, in part, by the Arthur F. and Ulla R. Searing Endowment, the William G. and Marie Selby Foundation Endowment, and the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art Foundation. Paid for, in part, by Sarasota County Tourist Development Tax Revenues.

Woodblock Prints from Postwar Japan

NOV 18 – MAY 5, 2019

This exhibition draws from the Ringling Museum of Art’s extensive holdings of postwar Japanese prints and local collections. Established in the 1960s, the Ringling’s collection has continued to grow through the generosity of successive generations of discerning and passionate individuals. On display were works by key artists including Onchi Kōshirō, Hiratsuka Un’ichi, Saitō Kiyoshi, Yoshida Chizuko, and Hoshi Jōshi, including a number of new acquisitions and never-before exhibited pieces.

Support for this exhibition has been generously provided in part by the Paul Grootkerk Memorial Fund, Gulf Coast Community Foundation, Ringling Museum and the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art Foundation.

Coco Fusco: Twilight

OCT 14, 2018 – FEB 17, 2019

The Ringling organized this solo exhibition presenting recent video projects by internationally-acclaimed writer and interdisciplinary artist Coco Fusco. The exhibition, Twilight, presented works exploring the current political and social climate in Cuba as the Revolution enters its twilight years. Works presented in the Monda Gallery for Contemporary Art included La botella al mar de María Elena (2015); La confesión (2015); The Empty Plaza/La Plaza Vacia (2012); and her latest film Vivir en junio con la lengua afuera/To Live in June with Your Tongue Hanging Out (2018). Made possible by her 2016 Greenfield commission at the Hermitage Artist Retreat, Vivir en junio is a short video-essay on contemporary Cuba that reflects on the anxieties emerging as the country faces an uncertain future. As part of Twilight, Fusco unveiled a new sculpture on The Ringling’s grounds. The sculpture, Tin Man of the Twenty-First Century (2018), offered the artist’s satirical commentary on contemporary US politics.

This exhibition was generously supported, in part, by the Amicus Endowment, the Bob and Diane Roskamp Endowment, the William G. and Marie Selby Foundation Ringling Museum Endowment, and the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art Foundation.

For Freedoms: Vote and Continue to Dream

SEP 17 – NOV 18, 2018

For Freedoms is a platform created for civic engagement, discourse and direct action for artists in the United States. This year, For Freedoms launched its 50 State Initiative, a new phase of programming to encourage broad participation and inspire conversation around November’s midterm elections. The Ringling participated by commissioning Vote and Continue to Dream, a 10- by 40-foot image by renowned photographer Carrie Mae Weems on a billboard in Sarasota.

Watercolors from the Permanent Collection

SEP 15, 2018 – FEB 3, 2019

This small focus exhibition featured a selection of watercolors from The Ringling’s permanent collection, illustrating the various ways artists have used the medium. The exhibition included works by Edward Hopper, Charles Burchfield, and Childe Hassam, among others.

Support for this exhibition was provided by the John and Mable Ringling Museum General Museum Endowment.

250 Years of the Circus in Print

SEP 11, 2018 – FEB 4, 2019

Throughout the 250 year history of the modern circus, the growth of the circus parallels the evolution of commercial printing, with each business benefiting from innovations in the other. As the print industry advanced from movable type into lithography and eventually offset printing, circuses adopted new visual strategies to announce to communities across the continent the wonders to come.

Even after shows folded and performers retired, circus posters and prints remained as unique windows on history. Once posted on buildings and fences to give a glimpse into the magical world of the circus that would soon arrive, today circus posters allow us to look at the changing American experience. Individually they tell of performers and shows, but collectively, in printed advertising we see cultural shifts in attitude from the growth of Western colonialist attitudes to the introduction of new technologies or the shifting role of women in society.

This exhibition in the Tibbals Learning Center highlighted posters and prints from the past 250 years in celebration of the anniversary year of the first modern circus. Support for this exhibition was provided in part by Sarasota County Tourist Development Tax revenues.

Storytelling: French Art from The Horvitz Collection

SEP 9 – DEC 2, 2018

Storytelling united two exhibitions drawn from one of the world’s finest private collections of French art: Imaging Text: French Drawings for Book Illustration from The Horvitz Collection, and Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century French Paintings from The Horvitz Collection. Together, the two exhibitions featured 60 drawings with 10 related prints, and a selection of 10 paintings. With subjects ranging from mythological and religious scenes to more playful genre imagery, these stunning works offered a rich overview of the narrative tradition in French art.

Storytelling was curated by Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Curator, The Horvitz Collection and The J.E. Horvitz Consultative Curator, Harvard Art Museums. Support for this exhibition was provided, in part, by the Bob and Diane Roskamp Endowment, the Arthur F. and Ulla R. Searing Endowment, the Peter and Mary Lou Vogt Endowment, and the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art Foundation.