The Winter (Jan./Feb.) issue of Aeqai has just posted. We bring twenty-two columns in this issue, rich with critical anaylsis, profiles of artists, and book reviews.
The two museum shows this month are Jonathan Kamholtz’s exceptional review of modernist paintings from The Phillips Collection in Washington–and what a collection it is!–and Karen Chambers’ review of The Art Academy at 150 at The Cincinnati Art Museum. That august art school has now graced Cincinnati for 150 years and the Museum’s celebrating with this show of prints and drawings, in particular, from artists/faculty who’ve taught there and/or those who’ve been students there. Jane Durrell also offers a profile of Cincinnati artist Stewart Goldman, who had a long career as a professor there and whose own paintings, in particular, have consistently given viewers challenges and visual stimulation for decades.
We have three different reviews of exhibitions from The Weston Gallery in The Aronoff Center in downtown Cincinnati. Ekin Erkan was in town from New York during the holidays and gives rather sharply critical analyses of two shows which closed in January, “Synthetica” and “Rhizome”. Susan Byrnes reviews a current show at The Weston, work by Migiwa Orimo, whose immensely subtle work makes big statements. Hannah Leow reviews the exhibition “Art Show” at ThunderSky Gallery in Northside, and Marlene Steele the portraiture show at Manifest Gallery in East Walnut Hills. New to Aeqai this month, artist/educator Alice Pixley Young reviews the work of Deb Brod at The Carnegie. Annabel Osberg’s superb review this month looks at work by Emma Webster at Diane Rosenstein Gallery in Los Angeles.
Chris Carter’s review of photographs of addicted people, by area photographer Eric Hatch, on display at ChristChurch downtown (and traveling elsewhere, too), shows an amazingly astute and dignified look at drug addicted people, who are still our friends and neighbors, which his work highlights. Cynthia Kukla reviews a three-artist show at Solway Gallery in The West End, with particular emphasis on prints by MacArthur grant winner /printmaker Judy Pfaff and ceramicist Kirk Marcus.
Will Newman reviews two different performances sponsored by The Contemporary Arts Center, whose series of performances are amongst the best contemporary art in this region, curated by Drew Klein of CAC. Stewart Maxwell gives a thorough analysis of the Terrace Plaza hotel downtown, whose future is unknown now; we hope to see that landmark modernist hotel protected by a variety of historical preservation groups. Kent Krugh’s FotoFolio offers us magnificent photographs by Susan Patrice. Laura Hobson’s feature is on the use of paintings by Cincinnati landscape painter Lisa Molyneux in the recent filming of “Dry Run” in Cincinnati. Russell Hausfeld’s artist profile this month is about high school artist Reilly Stasienko already a phenomenon at seventeen. And Jennifer Perusek gives us a fascinating overview of the recently deceased fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, one of the greats of the contemporary era.
I offer three book reviews this month, one nonfiction book by new writer Robert Fieseler, called “Tinderbox”, which traces the origins of the Gay Liberation movement in New Orleans, and two fiction books, by Tessa Hadley and Guy Gunaratne.
We hope that you’ll find this issue of Aeqai stimulating and informative; we welcome your comments, as always, and we’ll be resuming our regular monthly issues starting in March. To go directly to the site, click onto www.Aeqai.com/main and you’ll go right to the new issue.
Daniel Brown, Editor, http://www.aeqai.com/main