CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Museum of Art has commissioned a new site-specific work by artist Teresita Fernández that will be the first artwork visitors encounter when they enter the museum, the museum announced in a release carried by ArtDaily. The work, titled Soil Horizon (Cleveland), consists of two large-scale glazed ceramic wall murals and will be installed in the Jane and Jon Outcalt Family Concourse beginning in February 2027.
The concourse connects the museum’s Horace Kelley Art Foundation North Lobby with the Ames Family Atrium, according to the museum’s announcement. The museum said the space was envisioned as a place where a new work of art would welcome visitors, provide a memorable artistic experience, and help transition them from the everyday world into the galleries of the museum’s encyclopedic collections.
“Soil Horizon (Cleveland) reflects Teresita Fernández’s remarkable ability to respond to site, place, and architecture through her artwork,” Nadiah Rivera Fellah, the museum’s curator of contemporary art, said in the museum’s announcement. Fellah said the work’s imagery is inspired by landscapes and vistas native to Ohio and by the museum’s collection, and that its luminous, ethereal quality offers a counterpoint to the weight and heaviness of the surrounding architecture.
The commission completes the transformation of the museum’s North Lobby and adjoining spaces, a project undertaken in 2024 to enhance the visitor experience while respecting the distinctive architecture of Marcel Breuer, the museum said. In its place at the museum’s entrance, Soil Horizon (Cleveland) will stand as the first artwork that visitors encounter.
Fernández’s work is characterized by an expansive rethinking of what constitutes landscape, according to the museum’s announcement and her gallery, Lehmann Maupin. She is a 2005 MacArthur Foundation Fellow and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other honors, and her works are held by institutions including The Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, according to Lehmann Maupin.
For Northeast Ohio visitors, the installation means a major new contemporary work rooted in Ohio landscapes will anchor the museum’s entrance when it opens in February 2027. The Cleveland Museum of Art, in University Circle, is free to visit, and the concourse murals will be on view to every visitor who walks through the North Lobby.
The museum said installation of the two murals will begin in February 2027. No additional opening events were detailed in the announcement, and visitors can watch the museum’s channels for programming tied to the debut of Soil Horizon (Cleveland) as the installation date approaches.
Photo: Erik Drost, CC BY