Preeminent American sculptor Mark di Suvero (b. 1933) is best known for his dynamic and monumental works made of industrial steel and salvaged materials that populate museum grounds, landscapes, and urban environments around the world. In addition to countless exhibitions and awards, in March 2011 di Suvero was honored with the National Medal of the Arts by President Obama in a White House ceremony. This exhibition, organized by UMMA and on view exclusively in Ann Arbor, features approximately 15 of di Suvero's rarely exhibited smaller scale pieces, or tabletops, from the 1950s to the present. The tabletops are not maquettes of larger-scale works but an expressionistic and engaging genre all their own, an outlet for exploring ideas relating to the calligraphic nature of form, balance, proportion, and movement. Drawing from numerous private collections as well as the artist's studio, the exhibition offers the opportunity to experience this intimate work in the Museum's ground level, glass-walled Irving Stenn, Jr, Family Project Gallery, adjacent to the two di Suvero outdoor steel sculptures on the Museum's grounds–Orion (2006) and Shang (1984–85).

This exhibition is made possible in part by the Office of the President of the University of Michigan, the University of Michigan Health System, and Laura Lynch and Hugh McPherson.

The tiny dramas that comprise Robert Wilson's Video 50 contain aspects of his hallmark aesthetic: surreal or dream-like imagery, the absence of a linear narrative, the conflation of seemingly unrelated characters and micro-stories, and a mesmerizingly slow pace. Video 50 consists of a randomly arranged set of 30-second "episodes," a few of which feature notable French personalities of the 1970s-perfumier Hélène Rochas stares down a mugger, culture minister Michel Guy struggles to open a dresser drawer-and Wilson thought of these as miniature portraits or character studies. The creator and director of aggressively experimental theater, Wilson first came to prominence with works from the mid-1970s such as The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin (1973) and Einstein on the Beach (1976). These lavish, unusually long productions broke and then redefined every convention of theater. In Video 50 his shorter time-based portraits explore the intersection of narrative and still-life, seductively dissolving the distance between viewer and subject.