Production of applause and ideastream.

Public media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

coming up, there's a new Japanese temple in Cleveland at the Museum of Art.

The work of an Ohio native daughter gets new life and a piano master relives childhood memories with the Cleveland Orchestra.

Welcome back, my friends, to the show.

That's called APPLAUSE.

I'm Ideastream Public Media's Kabeer Bhatia.

There's a lot to see in the Cleveland Museum of Art.

But these days, you can't miss the life size Japanese temple in the atrium.

It's the mind blowing brainchild of world famous Japanese artist Takashi Murakami.

And it's just the entrance to an exhibition of his work that's both colorful and dark.

So this is my protector.

This heart say I am positive in front of you.

My name is Takashi Murakami.

Takashi Murakami is one of the best known contemporary artists working today.

He makes art that is colorful, shiny, engaging.

It issues an invitation to anyone who encounters it.

But interestingly, once you enter his world, you encounter a very complex landscape.

He combines traditions and styles from the world of fine art and from commercial culture.

One of our strongest collecting areas is our collection of Asian art, and within that, Japanese art and architecture provide a perfect context for his art to be seen.

This is one of the most ambitious exhibitions that the CMA has ever put on.

So when I came first time here, I was looking for the Oh my God, this this museum has a lot of masterpiece.

So this atrium is a beautiful for, you know, sunlight.

It's a shadow is beautiful.

That's why I really want to make it for the sculpture.

Anyone who walks into the family atrium during this exhibition will be greeted by the Uma dono Temple.

And this is a special creation for Cleveland's presentation.

It's a site specific reimagining of the human donor temple or Dream Hall in Nara in Japan.

And it was created by Murakami, together with the creators and designers for the hit TV series Shogun.

I saw the Shogun movie was very touch with my heart in Japanese soul.

And, you know, I was contacted for the Disney Japan people.

And then I asked for this idea.

Crazy idea.

Can you introduce to the art department people And also, if we can, collaboration in this museum show?

It's incredible.

I've watched this structure go up over the past week and I can't believe the level of detail and care and precision that has gone into it.

And it looks so different on the outside than it does on the inside.

Visitors to the exhibition will get to enter the Uma dono, where they'll be greeted by four monumental paintings.

Inside is for Gods, Tiger, Dragon, Phenix and the Turtle.

My favorite is a turtle.

I love waiting for the design for the monster.

It's a kaiju is mythological, so it really serves as this incredible introduction to what visitors will see.

Downstairs in the main galleries of the exhibition.

Murakami wants his art to be completely accessible.

And I think the color is part of that.

It's irresistible.

My favorite color is shocking.

Pink and neon purple.

And then you know how good combination with this to color.

Next is agreeing green and yellow.

Murakami is art, draws on manga and anime, which is one of the ways that he engages such a broad audience.

When I was a child, I want to be my artist, but I have to give up because this tyrant is huge in Japan is a hierarchies artist and among this is manga artists at pop anime, fashion and game is same.

An artist is a bottom.

That's why my standing position is the bottom in the Japanese society.

The flowers greet our visitors here on the wallpaper.

They're probably the form that is most closely associated with Takashi Murakami in the Japanese painting history, the main theme is nature.

I am very lovely for that.

You know, ichiban stuff in a forever.

So like basic.

My life.

That's why, you know, very naturally to make you for the forever paintings.

You'll see them in paintings, in wallpaper, in sculptures, but you'll also see them on T-shirts, on baseball caps, on cookies.

And that's where Akemi is asking us to question how great the divide is between those two worlds.

The title of this exhibition comes from one of the most impressive paintings in the exhibition, which is called In the Land of the Dead, Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow.

This 82 foot long painting was inspired by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and the Fukushima nuclear disaster that followed from that.

So I have several pieces beginning from the earthquake, but these are biggest effect is one shot.

The earthquake and the tsunami.

A lot of people did.

It's kind of the almost, you know, like the same level or a kind of the in a war stuff, a constant and constantly evolving theme.

And Murakami's work is how people respond to disaster.

And he makes the point that it's not only through grief, it's also through an outpouring of creativity, through religious fervor, through escape fantasy is that are fulfilled in the digital realm.

And so this exhibition is in many ways about our capacity to give us new outlets and to heal.

One thing that I hope audiences take away is, you know, presenting contemporary art at an encyclopedic museum like the CMA is a unique opportunity.

And with Murakami's art, we have an opportunity to carry forward in time historical narratives.

I hope they see the ways that the past can cast new light on the present and the way that contemporary art can help us see with fresh eyes the past.

When I came here, many people recognized me already.

I mean, like all the funding for the promotion in this museum, the museum is very core part in this city.

People coming, if very good touch with, you know, the Cleveland people is great.

Takashi Murakami stepping on the tail of a rainbow is on view at the Cleveland Museum of Art through September 7th.

We go from a Japanese art icon to an iconic artist from Columbus.

Ameena Robinson explored the black experience by melding her family narrative with recycled materials.

She passed away in 2015, but now her artistic stories are taking flight in a national tour.

I never thought I was young because I've always thought I lived in the timelessness.

I knew what I wanted to do.

The Springfield Museum of Art has been so honored to be the first stop on the tour for Ameena Robbins and Journeys Home, a visual memoir.

So this opportunity came to us through the Columbus Museum of Art and through the Art Bridges Foundation.

As an artist, Ameena was unconventional.

She found art in every aspect of her life.

She could walk down the street and pick up a leaf and see the beauty.

Ameena Robinson holds a central place in our community here in Columbus, and especially at the Columbus Museum of Art.

When Ameena passed away in 2015, she entrusted her life's work to the museum.

And now we're fortunate to be stewards of her home studio, her archives, all of the work that remained as well as her writings and her library.

The title of this exhibition, Ameena Robinson Journeys Home, a visual memoir, is a perfect title for this exhibition.

Amina's work focused so much on exploring her history, her past, her communities, her family, her family's histories, and the way that she communicates to the world is through her works of art.

I would describe her as regal, yet humble, as deeply thoughtful, but also engaging as a genius who recognized the genius in others as someone who lived in the moment and was ahead of her time.

So the four different sections were childhood home and then ancestral home and then spiritual home and Journeys Home and Deirdre organized artworks that she felt belonged in each of those sections.

The really big, ragged on pieces, the panoramic pieces I really wanted on our most visible wall.

And so it was a lot of moving pieces around and trying to understand how to tell the story and keep things in some chronological order.

We had an opportunity through Art Bridges Foundation to create an exhibition based on works that were in our permanent collection.

And Ameena Robinson's works rose to the surface as the first idea.

So instead of 240 works, we have 60 works and 60 works come out of our permanent collection.

This we decided to create about home.

Her search for home in every aspect of her life because of the value of the work and the delicate ness of the work.

We are working closely with Columbus Museum of Art and their courier, making sure that the work is handled carefully and created exactly as it needs to be and recreated.

I mean, his work is a really important part because she made work for seven decades and her work is so deeply rooted in African storytelling and ideas around community, ideas around resourcefulness and scrappiness and resilience.

And I think their stories need to be told.

Robinson's art, rooted in history and storytelling, offers a powerful entry point for engaging younger audiences.

Where Ameena started, I think she she really does credit her.

Her early upbringing in Poindexter Village, which was a publicly funded housing complex, one of the first of its kind in Columbus, Ohio.

So some of her early influences as far as her artmaking came from her family and from the Poindexter village community in Columbus, Ohio.

She was an artist, but didn't see herself as an artist.

She said, I'm just walking through life.

I just want she enveloped her community and she became her community.

And when she expressed it in her art and in her writing, we knew she was ahead of her time.

She did seven decades of what We did not know how important what she was doing then what be to us now.

But she knew because she also created her future for us to be able to live in.

I recall hearing an interview where she talked about how she had spent a lot of time in the public library and even worked in the public library for a while, and she became absolutely mesmerized by maps.

I don't know, a sort of a bird's eye view looking over a street scabrous city or something like that.

So, you know, paying attention to all those signs and the people that she sees on the streets I think is really fascinating and definitely very Ameena.

When Ameena traveled, she was known to have an intention.

She would learn the language before she left in order to be able to communicate with the people she would encounter.

When she would go into the spaces, she would sit in the quarters outside, she would just become part of the community.

She had gone to Egypt.

She had gone to Africa.

But in this particular case, she was in the Middle East.

She was in Jerusalem, Herzliya, and she sat in the quarters and watched the people the diversity of the people.

I think there's such a strong sense of community, which I think is tends to be such an important part of African-American culture.

But she radiates that sensibility, and I think that's really evident.

Ameena was such an inspiring presence.

She really is a larger than life presence.

And you would feel that when she would come into the museum and you'd have the opportunity to meet her as part of this exhibition, a street called Home.

That piece I walk by every day in Columbus is here, and it's highlighted at the Springfield Museum of Art.

I think she would be so humbled and proud, but not proud in a in a haughty way at all.

She would have believed that a dream of hers had come true, something she set intention upon actually came to life, and her whole life was about nurturing others, nurturing community, giving voice to all of humanity.

Not just one group, not just one race, creed, color, none of that.

She was about bringing people together, uplifting people, giving voice to people.

And I think she believed and it's true that her art did that.

And the fact that she could continue that legacy through this project, I think she would be very, very happy.

Ameena Robinson Journeys Home.

A visual memoir is on view at the Springfield Museum of Art through July 13th.

Remember, back in the good old days, your neighborhood list man would go door to door every week and he'd hand out a list of fun things to do.

Okay, I made that up.

But for serious, now you can sign up for our free weekly newsletter with all things arts and cultural in Northeast Ohio.

It's called The to Do List.

And you can sign up at Arts dot ideastream dot org.

hospitals can heal the body.

Art can heal the soul.

Cleveland's MetroHealth has combined the two in its main campus hospital.

The Glitch Center lets to the artworks that greet patients and their families every day.

When all is said and done, there will be over 900 plus pieces of artwork.

About 600 plus of those are unique artworks.

70% of the artwork is by local artists.

And then we've commissioned 30 plus new works of art.

And of that, 80% of those are by local artists.

So we are in the new main dining space.

It's a wonderful space that embodies the arts and is filled with color and commissioned artwork.

Site specific for the new Glick Center.

The mural behind me was actually the first mural and the second commissioned piece.

It's by local artist Linea Holland Weiss.

It's called Embrace.

I often work with a lot of blues and reds and kind of not your typical skin tones.

And I feel like the color of a lot of emotion and can pull at all different types of feelings and kind of evoke a feeling of empathy with the figures.

Anybody can kind of become that person.

I feel just really honored to have a piece in in a public hospital where there's like so many people that are just experiencing all types of things, like really life changing events often.

And it just feels like so meaningful to have work that can like affect people in that experience.

That pediatric floor has special spaces designed for our youngest patients in our existing hospital there with a beloved treehouse space.

We really wanted to work closely to bring that treehouse theme to life, so that's given us a little inspiration for the art and in this space we've commissioned local artist Derek Brennan to give a nod to that Treehouse theme, and he's created a beautiful new mural called Through the Canopy.

Initial idea of just being surrounded and the feeling of being in a jungle and having a space that kind of extends.

That was also something that I really liked about how open the treehouse is.

You're really able to look out and see the treetops and the buildings out here.

And then I just wanted to continue that over into the mural, but transport you a little bit into the jungle landscape.

So when kids come in here, they open the door and you're kind of entering the space that is just supposed to be fun.

It's supposed to be a place where they can not think about being in a hospital.

They can just be kids.

It's just going to be such a fun atmosphere for them.

I'm excited for that.

It'll be really cool to see how they interact with it.

We've been very mindful and thoughtful about not every space is the same, especially here in a level one trauma center with acute medical surgical units and intensive care units.

And so we've worked in some cases very closely with the care teams in each of those units.

And following some of that evidence based design dealing with trauma patients.

And it's a very specific clientele.

And I don't know a lot about art.

I am not a connoisseur.

I am nothing.

But I knew that trauma patients, we needed pieces that were calming, that were vibrant, that were not dreary, that would just lift people's spirits, bring them hope when they're walking down the halls with physical therapy.

I had a vision that I wanted our past patients or our current trauma survivor volunteers to line the hall when you walked in.

And once you walk in the front door, no matter where you walk, you see past patients of ours.

So as someone who took care of these people, every day I come, I am reminded of my purpose.

I am motivated to do the best that I can do.

And when you're having a bad shift or it's hard, you look at this picture and there it's hope.

It it's wonderful for our visual art program.

This isn't something we can do alone.

We have incredible partners, our art consultants here in Cleveland at Land Studio, and we actually began this process of building our visual art program with them almost seven years ago.

Now, working with Metro Health has been really interesting to understand, you know, what is the personality of the hospitals specifically that makes it what it is, and so that we make sure that the art reflects the personality of the hospital.

We work with artists all over the city, and we really wanted to showcase a diversity of styles versus of backgrounds, all those things, because that's what makes MetroHealth so special that they care for the entire community.

And it's a really special hospital system that needed a special art collection that reflects that.

I've been doing freelance photography in Cleveland throughout northeast Ohio for almost 20 years now.

I got a call from Lance Studio about the project and I was like, okay, I would love to.

I really just wanted to highlight the unsung heroes of the community that you might not see.

Who work behind the scenes had people working like laying bricks out at a nearby church up on West 25th here, people in their gardens and the urban gardens here are beautiful.

You know, you probably just see that type of stuff just driving by in your cars.

I really want to just capture that and highlight and hopefully it can just be an inspiration to people who come into this new space.

We hope that when everyone walks through the doors of the Glick Center that they feel welcome.

They feel like they belong.

They can find their own stories or shared experiences, that they will feel a sense of hope, healing, community and of course, something we so dearly believe in here at Metro Health.

And that's humanity.

I hear Cleveland is going country.

Put on your dancin boots for the next round of applause As Cleveland's country honk swings into our studios with songs from its debut album, Bad Decision.

out and they want to, you know, put boots and hats on and they want to see themselves the travel down to to Nashville.

There's a new sheriff in town when it comes to country music in northeast Ohio.

We turn the spotlight on country, honk next time on applause.

God, Twisted fate let us go our separate ways.

I'm gonna love that mix onscreen.

There must have been a time or two when you saw me The clock on the wall says it's time to say goodbye to this round of applause.

I'm your PBS BFF, Kabir Bhatia.

I'll leave you with an amazing performance by pianist Garrick Ohlsson from the Cleveland Orchestra's Adella app.

When he was a boy, Ohlsson heard Mozart's Concerto number 27 at Carnegie Hall and was mesmerized.

Now, decades later, he's an internationally renowned musician, and he got to play the piece with Franz Belzer most and the Cleveland Orchestra.

Production of applause and ideastream.

Public media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.