Tacoma Art Museum’s exhibition What Is a Trade? Donald Fels and Signboard Painters of South India presents sixteen large-scale paintings that explore trade and globalization in India. Fels’ conceptual starting point for this exhibition was Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama’s 1498 voyage to Malabar, India, in search of a direct sea route for the spice trade.

Tacoma Art Museum’s exhibition Illuminating the Word: The Saint John’s Bible features the ornamented pages from the first handwritten Bible commissioned since the advent of the printing press more than 500 years ago. The Saint John’s Bible will be on view Saturday, July 12, through Sunday, September 7, 2008.

Tacoma Art Museum invites Seattle’s Tudor Choir to perform works by Renaissance composer Thomas Tallis on Saturday, July 12, at 6:30 pm. Tallis composed Spem in Alium Nunquam Habui, which is featured in the sound installation The Forty Part Motet, by Janet Cardiff, on view June 28 through September 7, 2008.

Tacoma Art Museum is partnering with Centro Latino for the third year to present a celebration of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) from October 20 through November 4, 2007. This multi-day celebration will feature a traditional tapete (sand painting) in the lobby, community-built altars or ofrendas, and a student artwork competition.

Tacoma Art Museum’s new exhibition Veiled Northwest: Photographs by Mary Randlett presents forty-one of her black and white images of Northwest landscapes. Admired for her portrait work of Northwest artists and writers, Randlett’s landscape photography has been less well known.