Letter From The Editor

We are pleased to let our readers know that the June aeqai is now posted online. This issue rounds out the art season, which we think of as similar to the academic year – approximately from September to June. We will resume our coverage in the summer, with our one July/August issue, and then go back to our regular monthly schedule in September. One of the clearest indications of change in the visual arts has been the astonishing number of photography shows, mostly but not entirely sparked by FotoFocus, and we are very pleased to see photography so frequently exhibited, as we remember when photography was still not considered a fine art form (when Millard Rogers became director of the Cincinnati art museum in 1973, his first public announcement was to declare photography a legitimate art form). We needn’t review all the shows around the region, but are pleased at the growing interest, attendance, and sales of photography here.

The June aeqai has some major reviews of major exhibitions: Emil Robinson writes a very intelligent and sensitive review of the Courttney Cooper/Cole Carothers exhibition at the art museum, curated by Matt Distel, who was take the reins as Adjunct Curator of Contemporary Art here: this show is a splendid beginning for Distel’s curatorial eye and direction, as he has worked diligently to integrate what until recently have been called “outsider” artists into the artistic mainstream. Jonathon Kamholtz writes a lengthy and astute analysis of the Daguerreotypes exhibiton at The Taft Museum of Art; we have come to associate fresh and penetrating new analyses of art and artistic practice from Kamholtz. Jane Durrell also writes astutely of the Potthast painting show at the museum, and we are pleased that she includes some discussion and description of the fine catalogue associated with this exhibition.

Since 2013 is the tenth anniversary of the opening of the much admired and highly praised/popular Cincinnati Wing at the museum, Laura Hobson has written profiles of both Curator of American Art Julie Aronson and of collector of American art Dr. Kenneth Kreines, who was on the museum board when the idea of the Wing was being debated: his ideas were amongst those which ended up with this very exciting part of the museum. Kreines’ own collection is stunning, quite individualistic and full of surprises.

Another major review comes to us from Keith Banner, who went to the Indianapolis Museum of Art to see the Ai Weiwei exhibiton, the art of this noble and courageous Chinese dissident. Banner’s interpretive skills are at their finest in his review of Ai Weiwei’s work, and the review brings us back to the work itself, rather than specifically to the artist’s political status.

Other reviews in the June aeqai include new aeqai writer Kevin Muente’s look at “Faces and Figures”, a thirteen-artist group show at AEC in Covington of which I serve as guest curator, an exhibition heavily focused on drawings and painting sketches, as well as some completed works; all the artists live in this region, and two, Cynthia Kukla and David DeVaul, return for this show. Emil Robinson also reviews work by Kathryn Kuntz at The Weston Gallery in The Aronoff Center. Robinson is becoming one of those Renaissance people whose writing is as good as his paintings and drawings. In separate columns Karen Chambers sensitively reviews the work of art books/sculpture at the downtown Public Library, a show we look forward to every year. And Shawn Daniell gives an excellent overview of the No Nudes is Good Nudes exhibition at Art Beyond Boundaries in Over-the-Rhine, curated by Jymi Bolden. Marla Sweitzer, another very new aeqai writer, reviews the small scale work at Manifest Gallery, a nonprofit space which, like the Weston downtown, never mounts less than first-rate exhibitions.

We also bring you three more sets of the conceptual photographs by Lexington writer/photographer Louis Bickett, as well as a splendid book review by Bickett of a newly released book of photographs by the immensely talented Raymond Adams.

We offer you three different letters from aeqai writers or aeqai friends who have been travelling, as that travel season is upon us for the lucky. Eva Hayward has just come to Cincinnati, and, luckily, she found aeqai quickly, and has written us about what she recently viewed in both Durham, N.C. and in San Francisco. Hayward will be adjuncting at both UC-DAAP and at The Art Academy this fall, and we hope that you enjoy her brilliance and her humor as much as we do; we welcome Eva Hayward to aeqai and look forward to her reviewing shows for us and writing essays, too.

Cincinnati arts veteran Jan Brown Checco was in Munich recently and she writes us her Letter from Munich, a city full of art delights and exhibitions; Jan will be writing us letters from other cities around the world in the upcoming year: a lot of the art in the parks here, as well as the sister city programs, exist because of Jan’s creativity and marketing/business savvy. Our third letter is a brief report from Louisville by Daniel Pfalzgraf, who runs The Green Building gallery and has been heavily involved in the development and growth of The Market District in Louisville: expect to read more in aeqai in the fall about exhibitions in that area and in other parts of Louisville and Lexington.

Carl Solway Gallery is creating/offering a new performance space adjacent to the gallery in Findlay West, and Kevin Ott tell us what it’s going to be, and give us some sense of Solway’s historical importance in creating art districts in this region.

Saad Ghosn offers us another “Art for a Better World,” featuring the art of Rob Jefferson and the poetry of Armando Romero. Ghosn’s exhibition at AEC also opens in a few weeks.

I offer two book reviews of new novels by Meg Wolitzer and Andre Aciman, and Maxwell Redder gives us three of his new poems.

The July/August issue will feature a number of essays as well as reviews; we are interested in starting a dialogue/conversation about the nature of contemporary art itself. Tim Kennedy of Indiana University will have an excellent analysis of the work and career of Marcel Duchamp, and Rick Bennett of Hanover College is preparing a two-part series on contemporary landscape painting. Other such essays by Sheldon Tapley, Eva Hayward, myself and others yet to be announced wait in the wings.

We also want to thank everyone who came to the benefit party for aeqai and to The Carnegie for hosting it; nearly 200 people attended, and our art auction was highly successful. Aeqai has been offered a $5000 challenge grant, so we need to raise the other $5000–if anyone is interested in making a donation, it’s tax deductible and we will be very grateful as we move into our fourth year under my editorship.

As always, send your comments our way.

Daniel Brown
Editor, AEQAI