The Contemporary Museum / There is a long tradition of collecting art–one that requires a combination of substantial means and potent passion. And then there is the art of collecting, where judicious acquisition becomes a creative enterprise, resulting in something that moves beyond the simple sum of its parts.

Those two processes converge in The Contemporary Museum’s latest exhibition, which serves as a culminating celebration of its 20th anniversary. At 21 includes works given or promised to the museum in the last two years.

The exhibition offers a wonderfully eclectic array of work, showcasing how art-making today provides something for everyone, which has meant, in part, that collectors can balance cultural relevance with personal taste.

The Contemporary Museum, which enjoys a higher profile outside the Islands than we might imagine, has been the recipient of works by artists both emerging and established. Among them are the products of what might be called “niche collecting”–like minimalist works on paper and vessels of wood–that contribute to the distinctive profile of the institution.

For all its diversity, the exhibition is coherent–a result of the fact that artists still tend to ponder essential questions about self and place, bodies and sex, life and death–as well as the fact that the works on view have been so astutely organized by its curators.

Consider Ryo Toyonaga’s very large ink drawing, “Untitled–BW 11,” that greets visitors at the entrance. Fittingly enough, it depicts an island heavily laden with organo-technological elements that are both playful and sinister. Across the gallery, “Two Poets on an Island,” a precisionist oil painting on wood panel by Douglas Bourgeois, celebrates a decidedly odd couple–rapper Rakim and poet Emily Dickinson–marooned in a sea of fire. The visceral pleasures of David Bates’ paintings and James Surls’ sculptures and the meticulous formality of paintings by Robert Rasely and Paul Wonner are a reminder that such works are, one way or another, meant to provoke a sense of embedded narrative, as we look at reality sideways and think about how it came to be. In an adjacent space, works by Roy DeForest and William Wegman, John Wilde and Esther Shimazu extend that narrative impulse as they examine the convergence between human and animal, human and other.

The interrogation of reality takes another turn in the next gallery, devoted to large-scale photographic works. From the cool architectural interiors of Candida Höfer and Hiroshi Sugimoto, in which human presence is only implied, to works by Vito Acconci, Douglas Gordon and others in which it is explicit, these works signal the substantial changes within the medium itself as photography has responded to the digital revolution. Joan Fontcuberta embraces the potential for manipulation in “Googlegram: Sylvie.” Sandy Skoglund considers that reality can be constructed, not simply found, in “Fresh Hybrid (Spring).”

One of the most enigmatic sections of the exhibition is a small gallery devoted to works on paper that focus on varieties of abstraction, as in William Anastasi’s subway drawings, or reveling in a kind of obsessive minimalism, like Adam Fowler’s “Untitled (4 layers),” in which skeins of graphite lines on four sheets of paper have been cut out and then laid atop one another. Other works serve as reminders of the simple magic of the square and other geometric forms.

From the understated mark to the luxury of materials–another gathering of work concentrates on the eloquence of wood, clay, glass, fiber and metal as they have allowed artists to move from literal function to contemplating such essential ideas as containment, adornment and protection. TCM is developing a strong collection of vessel forms–bowls, boxes, vases–that are sculptural in nature. The space is dominated by Joel Otterson’s “Hot Rod Refrigerator” (think: candy-apple red, copper exhausts, pinstripe detailing) but also includes works by Peter Voulkos and Gijs Bakker that are beautiful in their austerity.

TCM’s largest gallery is devoted to works that return us to a consideration of human presence, human existence and meditations on what it means to be embodied with inflections of gender, race and sexuality.

Though different in visual sensibility, Donald Sultan (“Air Strike April 22 1987”) and Dorothy Faison (“Instinct Crossing”) provide reminders of the tenuous nature of life. Other works focus on the singular or iconic body: Robert Arneson’s in-your-face portrait of Willie Horton, along with works by Geoffrey Chadsey, Kerry James Marshall and Vincent Valdez, underscore the persistent social tension surrounding the black body. Horton’s stare is answered by Cindy Wright’s powerful self-portrait, a reminder that women can look as well as be looked at. Nearby, Duane Hanson’s “Secretary” (a time-traveler from the ’70s) discretely takes notes, while Manuel Neri’s standing nude “Rosa Negra No. 2” stands elegantly impervious to our gaze.

The permanent collection of a museum is its heart. At 21 reminds us it is also its visible face and personality.