What is the Light? Doug & Mike Starn: Gravity of Light by Chis Reeves The ambivalence towards light is something particularly relatable to this author. Having a macular condition known as Myodesopsia, aka “eye floaters,” I understand that while a bright sunny day can be a blessing, it can also be a burden. This idea […]

Anthony Luensman Explores Carnal Delights in “Taint” by Maria Seda-Reeder Anthony Luensman’s first major solo exhibition in five years, “Taint” at the Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Art Gallery was supported by a $20,000 National Endowment for the Arts grant—one of only seventeen such grants chosen out of 1,624 eligible applications by arts organizations […]

Glamorama: Herb Ritts at the Cincinnati Art Museum, and Edward Steichen at the Taft Museum of Art by Keith Banner Herb Ritts’ show “L. A. Style” at the Cincinnati Art Museum (up through December 30, 2012) has an etched-in-stone, funereal quality fused with a kinky soullessness. Ritts is one of those seminal photographers of an […]

Polaroids from “Stay the Same Never Change” by Emil Robinson The act of looking is brave. Especially if you look at things you can’t handle. I think that most people do not look. If you’re really paying attention you could have your heart broken twelve times a day. Most of the time we aren’t looking […]

“Controlled Chaos”  Tyler Shields at Miller Gallery: October 12 – October 26, 2012 by Regan Brown “To be a performance artist, you have to hate theatre. Theatre is fake: there is a black box, you pay for a ticket, and you sit in the dark and see somebody playing somebody else’s life. The knife is […]

The Death of Museum Gallery/Gallery Museum by Stephen Slaughter Excerpt from “Shut up and Play the Hits”, Chuck Klosterman’s on screen interview of James Murphy; Chuck Klosterman; “This is the end of LCD Soundsystem, and it’s ending in a strangely controlled manner. It’s like, there was a record, there was an announcement, there’s a last […]

The Boxer: Sol LeWitt by Maxwell Redder Walking into downtown Cincinnati’s famous Carl Solway Gallery (424 Findlay St.) between September 7, 2012 and December 22, 2012 is something I recommend to everyone. If not for the sheer simple beauty of works by the late Sol LeWitt, an extremely important contemporary artist, then for the inquisitive feeling […]

Stephen Berens: Thinking of Pinturicchio (While Looking Out Sol LeWitt’s Windows and Elizabeth Bryant: Sol LeWitt Studio Still Lifes, Carl Solway Gallery by Karen S. Chambers In the summer of 2010, L. A.-based artists Elizabeth Bryant and Stephen Berens, who happen to be married to each other, spent time in Sol LeWitt’s studio in Spoleto, […]

by Kathy Valin “Cincinnati Ballet at 50: Photographs by Peter Mueller” opened September 6 and runs through May 2014 (coinciding with the close of the company’s 50th Anniversary Season) at the Cincinnati Ballet Center, 1555 Central Parkway. Consisting of about twenty oversized photographs displayed on walls throughout the lobby of the Mickey Jarson Kaplan Performance […]

Barry Andersen is Elemental Review of Barry Andersen: Sky, Earth, and Sea Selections from 30 years of Landscape Photography at Notre Dame Academy By: Dustin Pike It was a cold afternoon and sunny. The air was crisp and I soon found myself at the Notre Dame Academy · Frances Kathryn Carlisle Performing Arts Center and […]

Reporting Back: A Survey of Documentary Photography by Shawn Daniell As part of Cincinnati FotoFocus, ( a month long photographic program in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, consisting of over 75 exhibitions and over 500 photographers) Northern Kentucky University currently has Reporting Back: A Survey of Documentary Photography on display at NKU’s Fine Arts Center’s Main […]

Tony De Varco at Marta Hewett Gallery,  Sept. 21 – Nov. 24 by Fran Watson Those attuned to area art events cannot help but notice the current photo-mania, which is probably one of the best combined publicity efforts for the arts in recent local history.  Most of the galleries and museums in the Cincinnati area […]

“Aperture”  at Phyllis Weston Gallery by Jane Durrell The dream-tinged images in Aperture, Phyllis Weston Gallery’s contribution to FotoFocus, come from distinctly individual bodies of work but share an other worldly quality. Jane Alden Stevens’ series, “Birth & Death,” is composed of large, labor-intensive mono-prints dating from the early to mid-1990s, “a time before digital […]

A portrait of Joe Fig’s momentous miniature of Brancusi’s studio, inspired by Fig’s lecture at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, and a visit to the Shore Collection, the largest collection of his work. by Christian Schmit The impasse Ronsin No. 11, Montparnasse, Paris, the studio of Constantin Brancusi. Sunlight enters the room cautiously, through a […]