The May/June issue of aeqai has just posted. As we get into the summer months, a lot of aeqai’s writers travel around the world, and we’re pleased to offer reviews from other cities besides the ones we normally cover. We think that our May/June issue is replete with exceptional reviews and features.
Michael Scheurer , one of this region’s most respected artists, has a quasi-retrospective at The Weston Gallery in the Aronoff Center, reviewed astutely by Jonathan Kamholtz. Scheurer’s is a must-see show. Other review from the region include Karen Chambers’ sharply critical review of “Wordly”, guest curated by Peter Huttinger, at The Carnegie. Hannah Leow’s delightful review of “The Power of Us”, guest curated by Cincinnati artist/performance artist Pam Kravetz, is on display at Brazee Studio’s C-Link Gallery. And Marlene Steele offers a superb analysis of work by Clint Woods at Kennedy Heights Arts Center. Jane Durrell offers a very thorough profile of area artist Sara Caswell Pearce, and Laura Hobson’s feature this month is on two regional presses, Clay Street and Tiger Lily, both of which have significantly enhanced the visual arts in Greater Cincinnati.
Jack Wood’s been traveling around New York City, and his three reviews this month are nothing less than brilliant. His studio visit with artist Angela Heisch is exceptional, and allows us to keep up with the most cutting-edge concepts in criticism, painting, and gender studies, as does his review of work by Mary DeVincentis. His review of Anselm Kiefer’s work at Gagosian in Chelsea is actually very funny, when viewed through the lens of the sensibility of a younger, millennial American who’s also a printmaker and occasional painter. Anise Stevens’ review from LA, “Resplendent Tendencies”, analyzes a lot of paintings by self-taught artist Makan Negahban, and raises significant issues about the art school versus self-taught artist debate; we hope for an essay on that topic by Stevens in the near future. Joelle Jameson returns with a review from Houston at the Blaffer Gallery at The University of Houston; it’s about The Propeller Group, and also addresses important issues in contemporary art. And LA writer/critic/essayist/cultural critic Annabel Osberg was able to go to a press event at SeaWorld, and offers astute observations about how we look at/treat animals in contemporary American culture; the final demise of the American circus was much to do with a fury raised by the treatment of elephants, tigers and lions. (The demise of the circus is a whole other story).
Megan Bickel, our Louisville correspondent, returns with two pieces, one a review of a current show at Kentucky Museum of Arts and Crafts, a group show of l5 of America’s best known textile artists; the show looks at the medium in terms of drawings. And Bickel’s own interview with New York artist Maxime Van Melkebeke and his officespace.xyz, reprinted from Bickel’s blog five dots, is fascinating and also shows new directions in contemporary art and thinking. And we welcome new aeqai writer Julia Davis, who was recently in London, and offers us an essay on a walking tour she took of the rapidly redeveloping area of Whitechapel, and of the graffiti artists whose work pervades that area of London. Aeqai’s fashion writer/critic, Jennifer Perusek, returns with a look at ResortWear for 2018, and also at a new google site that covers fashion as an art form internationally.
Maxwell Redder returns with three new poems; he’s about to become a father, and the poems address that exciting new development. Kent Krugh, our photography editor, brings us photographs by Ellen Cantor in his fotofolio this month, and I offer two book reviews, The Animators, by Kayla Rae Springer, the best debut novel of the year to date (she lives in Louisville), and My Cat Yugoslavia, a partially surreal novel by a young Finnish writer originally from Kosovo.
We hope that you like the mix of regional, national, and international articles/reviews that we bring you this month, as that’s the direction in which aeqai is moving. Please feel free to share your comments with us, and we always welcome donations to our nonprofit, aeqai. If you click onto www.aeqai.com/main it should take you directly to the site and to the new issue.
Daniel Brown
