We’re pleased to let our readers know that our March issue of Aeqai has just posted, and equally pleased that so many arts venues, nonprofits and commercial spaces both, have reopened and are offering a wide range of engaging exhibitions. 2021 would have been the national meeting place, in Cincinnati, of the National Council on Education for the Ceramics Arts; our critic Jon Kamholtz was given press access via Zoom to the national conference, lectures and the like, while Cincinnati spaces are filled with amazingly fine exhibitions of ceramics. Kamholtz himself writes a superlative review of work at The Weston Gallery downtown, several shows at Manifest Gallery, work at The Meyers Gallery at DAAP, and a superb installation at The Contemporary Arts Center. (We note that other shows took place at Caza Sikes, the NKU Galleries and at Eisele Gallery, too). Clay is a “medium” closest, in its way, to the human body, and so many talented artists have created work that reflects that basic idea of clayworks/ceramics.
Susan Byrnes reviews the ceramics show at The Cincinnati Art Museum, another absolutely terrific show by former DAAP faculty members Katy Parker and Guy Michael Davis (now known as “Future Revival:”): the complexities of their collaborations are brilliantly captured in Byrnes’ superb analysis of their work.
Karen Chambers reviews two exhibitions for Aeqai this month; the first is the shoe show (historic footwear from the Stewart Weitzman collection of these shoes, a fascinating look at how shoes, which are often a measure of social status, reflect social strata and changing roles of women in the past hundred years or so; Cincinnati was once a great venue for shoe-making (my own paternal grandfather moved here from Greater Boston to set up his own factory in l9l3; his former factory is now photographer Brad Smith’s downtown studio). Chambers also reviews “Cocoon”, a fiber art show at l628 Ltd. downtown, co-curated by Missy D’Angelo and Kacie Finnegan, and a fine show it is.
Chris Carter reviews a truly first-rate show at Kennedy Heights Arts Center; a variety of area Black artists were asked to reinterpret work from The Harlem Renaissance, to great effect in this brilliantly curated exhibition. Cynthia Kukla, an excellent painter herself, reviews the show “’80s Revisited” at Cincinnati Art Museum. This show was originally exhibited at NYU’s Grey Gallery, and was curated by critic Barbara Rose; focusing on painting, the artists were Rose’s pick of artists to watch in the ’80s; it was panned by many critics who believed that painting had no future (we’ve heard that one before and since). Cincinnati collectors Ronnie Levinson Shore and John Shore bought the entire show and stored in for decades; they’ve now gifted it to The Cincinnati Art Museum, and Kukla really brilliantly analyses work by Elizabeth Murray and Sam Gilliam, amongst others, in this new exhibition at CAM. Another superior area painter, Marlene Steele, reviews the “Provenance” painting show at Cincinnati Art Galleries; most of the work in this show came from the collection of Chuck and Patricia Weiner, who formerly owned Weiner Gallery. Beautiful paintings, and some prints, fill this show at this large downtown commercial gallery.
Deb Johnson went up to Miami to see the women’s art show curated by occasional Aeqai critic Dr. Annie Dell’Aria; the article mainly focuses on the process by which this show came together, in a model of collaboration between faculty, students and collectors such as Cincinnatian Sara Vance Waddell, who loaned some of her key works by feminist artists to this exhibition.
Annabel Osberg in Los Angeles offers a truly brilliant analyses of the recent sales of digital artwork (often broken into small groups of work, all available online actually free); she lets us know how these sales may be the big scam of the moment at auctions and how these sales are inextricably intertwined with money (an old auction trope in new clothes). Hers is a must read essay.
Our artist profile this month is of Lexington painter Christine Husskison, whom we knew better years ago as the founder and editor of “UnderMain”, a superb digital arts publication in Lexington; Lexington critic Kevin Nance has written the profile for us. Her paintings of nudes are full of passion and painterly pleasures. Laura Hobson’s feature this month is about all the recent changes in five area commercial galleries: there’ve been quite a few of them, and Hobson’s combined them all into one feature.
I offer two book reviews this month, “The Smash-Up”, by Ali Benjamin, and “Fake Accounts”, by Lauren Oyler.
We hope that you find this issue stimulating and helpful; to go directly to the new issue, click onto www.aeqai.com/main, and you’ll go directly to the site.
Daniel Brown
Editor, www.aeqai.com
