CLEVELAND, Ohio — Northeast Ohio’s streets look and feel different, thanks to some intriguing new moving art galleries you’ll find on select RTA public transportation.
The Maltz Museum’s newest initiative, “Museum in Motion,” is turning the city into mobile exhibitions — wrapping buses head-to-toe in local stories, artifacts and images celebrating Cleveland’s creativity, history, resilience and identity.
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“We want to meet people where they are — on their way to work, school or the grocery store — and invite them to experience something powerful,” said Aaron Petersal, executive director of the Maltz Museum.
“These buses are more than moving billboards. They’re moving stories — glimpses of the art, ideas, and human experiences that define the museum. If you’ve never visited before, this is your moment to see what you’ve been missing.”
Each becomes an invitation to explore the stories inside the Maltz Museum, bringing history, culture and conversations about identity to the streets where people live and work.
Accompanied by scannable QR codes linking to more insight on the artifacts, these moving galleries are the museum’s way of feeding curiosity and building community connections.
“The Reaper and The Engineer,” Max Kalish’s modernist sculpture honoring Jewish-American labor, is a part of the original experience.
Early Superman sketches by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, the Cleveland Jewish teens whose imaginations helped build one of the most iconic superheroes, are part of it, too.
There’s the Bertha Stearn wedding dress — a glimpse of everyday life, love and high society in one of Cleveland’s Jewish retail families — and the Venetian canal by Alexander Warshawsky on the side of a bus, which catches light and color on a morning rush hour.
Or “Abraham under the Stars” by Lilién, glowing in the twilight, inviting you to pause.
“Museum in Motion” is a reminder that art and history don’t only live inside walls. They roll through your neighborhood. They accompany your commute. They’re in motion. All of which is perfect for a city like Cleveland and its robust public art legacy.
Always possible to encounter, this is also a way for the Maltz Museum to lower barriers and invite all communities to engage with the stories behind the art traveling by.
