The Toledo Museum of Art is presenting Losing Ourselves Together: The Art of Bobby Anspach, an exhibition that brings the Toledo-born artist’s immersive sculptures to his hometown. The show remains on view at the museum through March 14, 2027, and marks both a homecoming for Anspach, who died in 2022, and the first presentation of his work at a major American museum.
The exhibition is anchored by three works from Anspach’s Place for Continuous Eye Contact series, alongside a newly adapted version designed for visitors with varying physical abilities. Built from materials including pom-poms, hand-blown glass, tapestries and chandelier-like domes, the enclosed sculptures invite visitors to spend approximately three minutes exploring altered perception.
Participants wear a patch over one eye and study the reflection of the other in a small mirror. In the version designed for two people, visitors sit opposite one another and hold each other’s gaze. Light, color and ambient compositions by Eluvium, Anspach’s longtime collaborator, are calibrated to create subtle changes in depth perception.
Curated by Paige Rozanski, the museum’s associate curator of modern and contemporary art, in collaboration with the Bobby Anspach Studios Foundation, the exhibition is arranged as a progression of spaces. A short documentary introduces the artist through archival footage and his own words, while the main gallery contains enclosures for one or two participants. The sculptures are also displayed together in a separate area so visitors can examine their construction and materials.
Because the installations require guides and follow protocols established by Anspach, the museum designed the presentation to make the experience approachable for first-time visitors. The exhibition’s details also reflect the artist’s presence: his handwriting appears in the typography, selected quotations are reproduced at large scale, and a final reflection room includes books that influenced him.
Meditation, Buddhism and Eastern philosophy inform much of the work on view. According to Rozanski, Anspach sought to create temporary retreats that could offer a sense of peace beyond physical limitations. His concern for the relationship between human connection and the environment also appears in paintings including Climate Change and The Beautiful Nothing, both dated 2014–2015.
Smaller works such as Pom Sculpture Study 1 from 2020 and Most Beautiful Thing in the World from 2014 offer a more intimate view of the artist’s ideas. The exhibition is installed in the museum’s Glass Pavilion, a single-story building with layered, curved transparent walls designed by SANAA, an architecture firm known for its Pritzker Prize-winning work.
Through the presentation, the Toledo Museum of Art aims to introduce Anspach’s work to a wider audience while highlighting his local roots and emphasis on human connection.
Sources: Design Milk.