Perhaps the first stanza of the 113th chorus in Jack Kerouac’s Mexico City Blues (1959)—his both critically praised and abhorred epic poem of scat-sung, jazz-imbued stanzas—might serve well as a preface to Bernard Plossu’s photographs of Mexico:        Yet everything is perfect, Because it is empty, Because it is perfect         with emptiness, Because it’s […]

Paul Muller, AIA, the Executive Director of the Cincinnati Preservation Association (CPA), was trained as an architect.  His profession, along with his experience with, and passion for, historic preservation, make him ideally suited to lead the CPA.  That training is especially relevant now that concern for preservation of modernist and postmodernist architecture is growing locally […]

Hometown boy Kevin T. Kelly’s earlier work has been called as “Neo Pop” or “Post-Pop,” and described as “Roy Lichtenstein meets Dennis Hopper on Steroids.” Using what he calls a “hyperchromatic” palette, he juxtaposed disparate and hard-edged images to express social commentary. It’s pure Tom Wesselmann, another hometown boy, for whom Kelly served as studio […]

From LGA, cab to the Bowery via the Williamsburg bridge (that much I’ve learned), the 6 train to 51st, walk to D. Wigmore Gallery in the Crown Building on 5th Avenue at 57th to see the 1960’s Op Art of Tadasky, eye wobbling crazy candy in a serene and classic mid-town gallery, then a short […]

Frank Benson, an artist probably best known today for an oeuvre of duck hunting etchings that are, oddly, both academic and commercial, self-identified enthusiastically as an Impressionist: “I follow the light, where it comes from and where it goes.” The Dayton Art Institute is hosting an exhibit of more than a hundred paintings from the […]

Aisle Gallery on the third floor at 424 Findlay has a reputation for presenting high quality exhibits of local artists’ work. Spaces such as Aisle and Semantics in adjacent Brighton represent the kind of quirky but serious spaces that fuel vibrant art communities. Aisle has been absent on the scene for a few years. That’s […]

Artist Peter Waite approaches architectural panel painting as an experienced tourist explores a new city. He takes in the recommended key sights and then discovers the fascinating hidden places that most tourists and residents miss. His impressions of Cincinnati are embodied in a solo exhibition, The Cincinnati Series, at the Carl Solway Gallery in the […]

In the 1980s the support staff at the Cincinnati Art Museum, like others before them and after them,was engaged with the collection, with the Museum, and with the idea of visual art itself, all of which enlivened their days. Last month some of those 1980s staffers gathered (from Chicago, from Cleveland, from Washington, D.C. as […]

“I love what I do,” said Velma J. Morris, an artist who paints with acrylics, and who continues to paint and exhibit her work at age 77.  “It affords me the opportunity to meet interesting people.” At four and a half, she drew on every sheet of paper she could find.  She even drew in […]

After working with traditional mediums for nearly twenty-eight years, Los Angeles based artist Echo Lew grew curious about the effects of light in motion and began experimenting with photography. Not only did this investigation lead him “to spontaneously tap into decades of drawing experience while the camera’s shutter was open,” as conveyed by Lew himself, but it […]

It makes sense that Sonja Schenk’s latest body of work provides a perspective that only a few would even consider. Absent of a horizon line, the improvised landscapes that comprise Schenk’s solo exhibition, Hovenweep,provide an elevated point of view that few rarely if ever have the opportunity to glimpse. The Los Angeles based artist’s newest […]

While many large American arts institutions, such as Cincinnati Music Hall and the Cincinnati Art Museum, were founded in the 19th century, it wasn’t until just before and after World War II when such cultural institutions were planted in many smaller cities, like Springfield, Ohio. For so young an institution, the Springfield Museum of Art […]