DMA Unveils Spring and Summer Exhibition Plans

The DMA’s schedule of exhibitions in spring and summer 2022 showcases global currents in art, culture, and design from centuries ago to the present day.

The season features a particular focus on artistic production in Texas and the surrounding region, with the first museum retrospective of work by Mexican American sculptor Octavio Medellín, who lived and worked in Texas most of his life; a new, DMA-commissioned mural by Houston-based artist Tiffany Chung; and the first major exhibition dedicated to the art of the Mississippian peoples and the ancient site of Spiro in present-day Oklahoma.

In the spring, the DMA will also present the U.S. premiere of a major international exhibition exploring the influences of Islamic art and design on the iconic Maison Cartier. The full schedule follows below: 

Octavio Medellín: Spirit and Form 
February 6, 2022–January 15, 2023 

The DMA presents the first-ever museum retrospective for Octavio Medellín (1907–1999), an influential Mexican American artist and teacher whose work helped shape the Texas art scene for six decades. A noted sculptor in both his native Mexico and the United States, Medellín also influenced generations of students in Dallas as an instructor at the school of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts (today the DMA) and as founder of the Creative Arts Center. The exhibition will include approximately 80 works, exploring the evolution of Medellín’s sculptural practice, his public art commissions, and his legacy as a beloved and respected teacher.  

Spirit Lodge: Mississippian Art from Spiro 
March 13–August 7, 2022 

Spirit Lodge: Mississippian Art from Spiro is the first major exhibition dedicated to the art and culture of Mississippian peoples. Although underrepresented in history, they created one of the most exceptional societies in North America, characterized by the construction of large earthen mounds that served as important cultural and ceremonial centers. Spiro, in Oklahoma, is the only known ancient site in North America where thousands of extraordinary ritual objects from across the Mississippian world were amassed in a hollow chamber dubbed the Spirit Lodge. Bearing images of people, deities, culture heroes, animals, and symbolic creatures, these objects demonstrate the complexity and expanse of Mississippian society. 

Organized by the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in close consultation with the Caddo Nation and Wichita and Affiliated Tribes, this exhibition of nearly 200 ancient and contemporary works explores Mississippian ceremonial centers, the discovery of the Spiro site, cultural continuity, and the active power of Mississippian art. 

Cartier and Islamic Art: In Search of Modernity 
May 14–September 18, 2022 

This major exhibition, making its U.S. premiere and sole North American presentation at the DMA, traces the inspiration of Islamic art and design on the objects created by Louis Cartier and the designers of the great French jewelry Maison from the early 20th century to today. The exhibition explores how Cartier’s designers adapted forms, techniques, and materials from Islamic art, architecture, and jewelry, synthesizing them into a modern stylistic language unique to the house of Cartier. Co-organized by the Dallas Museum of Art and the Museé des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, in collaboration with the Musée du Louvre and with the support of Cartier, Cartier and Islamic Art presents over 400 objects from major international collections, including the Department of Islamic Arts at the Louvre Museum and the Keir Collection of Islamic Art on loan to the Dallas Museum of Art. 

Tiffany Chung 
August 5, 2022–July 2, 2023 

The sixth iteration of the Museum’s Concourse mural series will feature an installation by Houston-based artist Tiffany Chung, who is internationally known for her diverse conceptual work and research-driven process dealing with sociopolitical issues. Contending with issues of conflict, migration, urban progress, and transformation in relation to history and cultural memory, Chung’s practice endeavors to document and discuss the micro, hidden histories—the memory and experiences of ordinary people—that counterbalance the grand narratives produced by the state. Her commissioned mural will center narratives of migration and movement, especially those found within Dallas, in recognition and celebration of these lived experiences.  

On View Into 2022 

The following exhibitions remain on view into or beyond early 2022:  

• Van Gogh and the Olive Groves (through February 6, 2022), the first exhibition dedicated to Vincent van Gogh’s important olive grove series;  
• Naudline Pierre: What Could Be Has Not Yet Appeared (through May 15, 2022), the first solo museum presentation of works by the Brooklyn-based painter, including five new paintings and a recent DMA acquisition;  
• Not Visible to the Naked Eye: Inside a Senufo Helmet Mask (through June 19, 2022), which, through CT scans of a Senufo helmet mask in the Museum’s collection, reveals unexpected materials and objects within the mask;  
• Bosco Sodi: La fuerza del destino (through July 10, 2022), an installation of approximately 30 sculptures by Sodi in the Museum’s Sculpture Garden;  
• Slip Zone: A New Look at Postwar Abstraction in the Americas and East Asia (through July 10, 2022), a presentation of works from the DMA’s collection charting the significant innovations in painting, sculpture, and performance that shaped artistic production in the Americas and East Asia during the mid-20th century; 
• Guadalupe Rosales: Drifting on a Memory (through July 10, 2022), an immersive mural created by Rosales in collaboration with lowrider artist Lokey Calderon that evokes the iridescent surfaces of the customized cars on a monumental scale; 
• Bamana Mud Cloth: From Mali to the World (through December 4, 2022), an installation of cloths drawn from the DMA’s collection that explores the production of silk and silk textiles in Ghana, Nigeria, and Madagascar; 
• Jean-Michel Basquiat: Sam F (through February 12, 2023), a spotlight on a recently acquired Basquiat painting with local ties, the first of the artist’s works to enter the Museum’s collection; 
• Rooted (through April 9, 2023), a new Center for Creative Connections (C3) installation of art from the DMA’s collection that looks at the complex relationship between people and the natural world. 
• Keir Collection of Islamic Art Gallery Beginning January 29, the Keir Gallery will be reinstalled with two new exhibitions this season. One will focus on royal depictions in Safavid Iranian, Mughal Indian, and Ottoman Turkish contexts, and another on male beauty and homosociality in Safavid Iran. 

The DMA continues to offer online programming at virtual.DMA.org, including interactive virtual tours of the Museum’s galleries and past and present exhibitions, alongside additional activities and resources.