the Director’s Desk

who invented the term “information superhighway” creates a humanoid sculpture (what he called a “robot”) out of two channel color televisions. Paik foresaw the dominance of the screen in contemporary life, creating works of televisions matrixed together as early as the 1970s (TMA’s sculpture dates to 1990).

These are but two examples that demonstrate artists are the early adopters of new ideas, new techniques, and new technologies across time, place, and culture. Sometimes, in order to understand where things are going, one has to look backwards. Among the special attributes of an art museum is its ability to give that historical perspective, so it should come as no surprise that this idea—that our future is reflected in our past—runs

Machine Auguries: Toledo—an immersive installation that uses artificial intelligence as its medium. The artist, in collaboration with the Macaulay Library at Cornell University and local volunteers from organizations including the Black Swamp Bird Observatory, have used a method of machine learning called a generative adversarial network (GAN) to “train” a computer to forecast how bird calls change as a result of modifications to their natural environment (some brought on by human habitation and economic development). Using local bird call data, Machine Auguries creates an immersive installation that will cause visitors to experience how bird calls are changing in our region and what they might sound like in the future. This profound work of art, which opens April 29 in conjunction with the Biggest Week in American Birding, will be unlike anything this community has ever seen.

Character of a Nation on March 18. The refreshed installation of our American art collection in the New Media Galleries continues our effort to tell broader, truer, and more inclusive stories by situating history in a global network rather than in geographic silos. By looking at the ways that North and South America—and the United States of America within those boundaries— has developed, this path-breaking installation will help us get a better sense of where we are headed.

Two other features in this issue— one on the history of special events at TMA and one on the relaunch of a community gallery, generously funded by Bob and Sue Savage— also give a sense of how the Museum’s approach to engaging the Toledo area continues and updates longstanding traditions and approaches.

through this issue of Art Matters.

Perhaps the most literal example of “learning from the past” at TMA this spring, and the example that demonstrates what the adoption of new technology looks like in 2023, is the United States debut of artist Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg’s

Machine Auguries is not the only gallery-sized installation at TMA this year. Leading contemporary artist Beth Lipman has spent weeks in Toledo through our Guest Artist Pavilion Project (GAPP) residency, generously endowed by Sara Jane DeHoff, to recreate Florence Scott Libbey’s library using glass made in TMA’s hot shop. This not-tobe-missed installation, opening in Gallery 18 in August, centers Florence Scott Libbey not just as a great benefactor but as a breathing force inspiring the art of today.

Erin Corrales-Diaz, TMA’s first dedicated curator of American Art in nearly five decades, opens Expanding Horizons: The Evolving

In the foregoing examples, you can see one of the hallmarks of our current approach: Rather than departing from historical norms, we seek to update them for the 21st century. TMA, like each of us, like our country, and like artwork itself, evolves over time. It is a great joy to continue that tradition of evolving, stewarding the history of human creativity and framing the ways we look backwards so we can look forward to an ever-brighter future.

Thank you for your support, which makes this possible.

Sincerely,

Adam Levine