cynthia1

Icons of Nature and History, a legacy exhibition of David Driskell, Cincinnati Art Museum, Feb. 25–May 15, 2022.

David Driskell, an acclaimed African American artist and educator, was born in 1931 in Georgia during the beginning of the Depression – the worldwide economic downturn that began in 1929 and lasted ten years. It was the longest and most severe economic depression the world ever experienced. Imagine how this awful event influenced Driskell’s life […]

Read | Comments Off on Icons of Nature and History, a legacy exhibition of David Driskell, Cincinnati Art Museum, Feb. 25–May 15, 2022. | Tags: * · March 2022

More Than a Starry Night: ‘Through Vincent’s Eyes: Van Gogh and His Sources’ Columbus Museum of Art, November 2021

Seeing ‘Through Vincent’s Eyes: Van Gogh and His Sources’ that opened in November 2021 at Columbus Museum of Art is stunning for its insights into Van Gogh’s world, literally. At a time when this beloved artist has been Disneyfied by the blockbuster Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience which is a 20,000 square foot light and […]

Read | Comments Off on More Than a Starry Night: ‘Through Vincent’s Eyes: Van Gogh and His Sources’ Columbus Museum of Art, November 2021 | Tags: * · January 2022

Twenty-first Century Museum Interprets Ancient Middle Eastern Art.

Visitors to the Cincinnati Art Museum may have noticed that the first gallery on the right past the entrance – the Middle East Gallery – has been closed about a year. In a marvelous four-year research project, the museum made significant physical and curatorial changes to the museum’s existing 2,800-square-foot ancient Middle East that reopened […]

Read | Comments Off on Twenty-first Century Museum Interprets Ancient Middle Eastern Art. | Tags: * · December 2021

Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You A major solo exhibition devoted to the work of renowned artist Barbara Kruger. Art Institute of Chicago, September 19, 2021 through January 24, 2022

The apparent art works of Barbara Kruger are instantly recognizable. She is most known for her collage style that consists of black-and-white photographs, overlaid with declarative captions, stated in white-on-red Futura Bold Oblique or Helvetica Ultra Condensed text. The work is overlaid with phrases that often include pronouns such as “you”, “your”, “I”, “we”, and “they”, addressing cultural constructions […]

Read | Comments Off on Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You A major solo exhibition devoted to the work of renowned artist Barbara Kruger. Art Institute of Chicago, September 19, 2021 through January 24, 2022 | Tags: * · October 2021

Paintings, Politics and the Monuments Men: The Berlin Masterpieces in America Cincinnati Art Museum July 9–October 3, 2021

The backstory is important here. The movie The Monuments Men brought to light the very intriguing and powerful story of mostly middle-aged men and women – primarily art experts – who volunteered for the Army to rescue and hide art masterpieces, books and rare documents from the Nazis during WWII. These efforts were led by […]

Read | Comments Off on Paintings, Politics and the Monuments Men: The Berlin Masterpieces in America Cincinnati Art Museum July 9–October 3, 2021 | Tags: * · June/July 2021

Once Again, Painting’s Invincibility: American Painting: The Eighties Revisited Cincinnati Art Museum, March 12–July 11, 2021 Cynthia M. Kukla

Every past era offers us a view of the cultural riches deemed significant in its time.  Looking back on an era gives us a glimpse into the thinking of the era’s makers and those who evaluate the makers, and gives us a chance to brush off our knowledge and our recollections of the times. American […]

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An Exhibition of Two Textile Artists Carolyn Mazloomi :“A Piece if My Mind” and Heather Jones: “A Sense of Place” January 30 – February 27, 2021 Alice and Harris Weston Art Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio

“Every human being in the world has a “cradle to grave” relationship with textiles.” These words by Carolyn Mazloomi contextualize her choice of quilts as her chosen art medium and it contextualizes our response to the show.  We arrive to view this exhibit clothed; we are ready. Mazloomi came to quilting from a unique position.  […]

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Pop-Up Prints Just in Time – Clay Street Press, Sunday, September 13th, 2020

On Sunday, September 13th the Clay Street Press in OTR held a Pop-Up Exhibit from 12 – 5pm along with Volatile [redux], a Pop-Up Bookshop featuring artist monographs and art reference books and booklets at the Clay Street Press Gallery. It was a great idea to have this pop-up during a dreary there-is-no-art-to-see-time. Art in the […]

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It Is Otherworldly: Maya The Exhibition Cincinnati Museum Center Now through through January 3, 2021

Before the pyramid builders in Egypt began their staggering achievements, in our Americas, ancient people were erecting pyramids that rose splendidly and improbably above the formidable rainforests of Central America and Mexico. Like the Egyptians, the ancient Maya civilization had an elaborate pictographic language. Little known too, is the fact that it was the Maya […]

Read | Comments Off on It Is Otherworldly: Maya The Exhibition Cincinnati Museum Center Now through through January 3, 2021 | Tags: * · Summer 2020

Erase, Tear, Gouge, Replace: Mark Bradford Excavates the Present

What to write about Mark Bradford? His ascent into the art world seems to border on the magical.  His story makes for a perfect Hollywood movie if Hollywood was inclined to turn its lens to artists more often, which it does not. Mark Bradford is African-American, born and raised in South Los Angeles, in the same […]

Read | Comments Off on Erase, Tear, Gouge, Replace: Mark Bradford Excavates the Present | Tags: * · June 2020

Her Star Is Still with Us: Hildegarde of Bingen, Mystic, Artist, Composer, and Advisor to Kings

This first image shows Hildegarde receiving Divine Inspiration and sharing it with the monk Volmar. She was famous throughout central Europe in the late Middle Ages, advisor to kings; venerable abbess, composer and musician, artist and mystic. She is called the ‘Sibyl of the Rhine.’ Hildegard of Bingen was as Sir Roger Penrose is to […]

Read | 2 Comments | Tags: * · May 2020

A Salome Like No Other: Reflecting on Gustave Moreau’s Salome (Salome Dancing Before Herod)

Damn. I should take drugs when I paint.  Look at French painter Gustav Moreau. He must have taken something to make these mind-bending paintings in the 1800’s. I know contemporary painter Peter Doig takes drugs because he admitted so, figures; his paintings are breathtakingly hypnotic, mystical, irrationally emotional and compelling.  But Moreau?  He’s dead. We […]

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“Something Over Something Else”: Romare Bearden’s Profile Cincinnati Art Museum February 28–May 24, 2020

It is a major coup that the Cincinnati Art Museum is showcasing the work of the renowned African-American artist Romare Bearden who launched his career during the height of the early twentieth-century’s Harlem Renaissance in New York. The exhibition “Something Over Something Else”: Romare Bearden’s Profile Series gives Cincinnatians a visual treat this spring and […]

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Letter from Reykjavik: Erró: Mao‘s World Tour Reykjavik Art Museum Hafnarhus May 1, 2019-January 26, 2020

Located just below the Artic Circle, Iceland is the Land of Fire and Ice: a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic defined by its dramatic landscape with one-hundred thirty volcanic mountains, geysers, hot springs and lava fields. Iceland mostly stays quietly out of the news – but in 2010 – Iceland was major global […]

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"Women Breaking Boundaries" Cincinnati Art Museum from October 11–April 12, 2020

In this the one-hundredth anniversary of the Women’s Suffragette Movement, the Cincinnati Art Museum joins numerous museums across America to focus on and celebrate women’s equality. But the Cincinnati contribution is oh-so-different. The curator, Ainsley M. Cameron, Curator of South Asian Art, Islamic Art & Antiquities at the Cincinnati Art Museum explained that all eight […]

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From the Mythic Nile to the Mighty Ohio

“Egypt: The Time of the Pharaohs” Cincinnati Museum Center, 1301 Western Avenue   Cincinnati, OH Through August 18, 2019 Step into a time when civilization grew along the Nile, pyramids dotted the skyline and people believed gods walked among us…… From the mythic Nile to the mighty Ohio, “Egypt: The Time of Pharaohs” made its U.S. […]

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No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man at Cincinnati Art Museum

Part One opened April 26; Part Two opens June 7 and continues through September 2. Tuesday–Sunday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Thursdays, 11 a.m.–8 p.m. “No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man” took over the Cincinnati Art Museum starting April 26 and it will continue until September 2, 2019. According to Marian Goodell the ultimate goal of […]

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What Rich Mix Is This?

Judy Pfaff New Prints Isaac Abrams Paintings + Drawings Kirk Mangus Drawings + Ceramic Works This handsome show of a trio of artists opened in late January and continues through to April 6, 2019 at the Solway Gallery in the west end.  Judy Pfaff is the giant in the room with exciting new prints in the largest gallery rooms at […]

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Queen City Struts Her Stuff Panorama of Cincinnati Art – 33rd Anniversary Benefit for the Taft Museum December 1st through Friday January 18th, 2019

As a prominent river town, the Queen City has long been a storehouse for culture.  Picture Benjamin West’s massive painting Ophelia and Laertes – 109 x 152 1/2 inches – rolled up and secured to a barge coming down the Ohio River to its purchaser, none other than Cincinnati’s Nicholas Longworth. It was the first […]

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Lookin’ For Some Hot Stuff Muse: Mickalene Thomas Photographs and tête-à-tête Dayton Art Institute, Oct. 20–Jan. 13, 2019

Lookin’ for some hot stuff, baby this evenin’ I need some hot stuff, baby tonight I want some hot stuff, baby this evenin’ Gotta have some hot stuff Gotta have some love tonight Donna Summers sang it and Sandra Bush danced and romanced to it and Sandra’s daughter Michalene turned it into art. Mickalene Thomas, […]


Riffing on Picasso Caza Sikes Gallery, Cincinnati’s invitational exhibit Channeling Picasso

Picasso’s genius as an artist hovers over the cultural landscape like a giant zeppelin. Not just in the 20th century but into our 21st   century as well, as the exhibit Channeling Picasso at Caza Sikes Gallery reveals. Any quick search of the top artists in the world for all times has Picasso as one of […]


From Heart to Brush

Collecting Calligraphy: Arts of the Islamic World Cincinnati Art Museum  September 7, 2018–January 27, 2019   Long before the Middle East came into the political spotlight in recent decades, the Cincinnati Art Museum has been collecting Islamic calligraphy. It has done so since the 1940s.  While Islamic calligraphy was originally developed to nourish and enlighten […]

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The Pull of Exquisite Genius:  Michelangelo at the Met

“Five hundred years seem to melt away in looking at his art.”1 Over and over again, critics in the United States and elsewhere referred to this magnificent exhibition as a once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity and they were absolutely correct. The exhibition opened in November to great fanfare and concluded with continuous packed gallery attendance as the exhibit drew […]

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First Nations Art Preserved and Celebrated at the Audain Museum Whistler, B.C., Canada

The masks of the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast are powerful objects that assist us in defining our place in the cosmos. In a world of endless change and complexity, masks offer a continuum for Native people to acknowledge our connection to the universe.     -Chief Robert Joseph (Down from the Shimmering Sky, 1998) […]


Across Borders: Two Artists Respond to Nature Mystically Emily Carr at the Audain Museum, Whistler, B.C. and The Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, B.C. Charles Burchfield at The Burchfield Penney Art Center-SUNY at Buffalo State University, Buffalo, New York

Emily Carr is one of those heroic early 20th century artists who should escape attention no more. It was her singular vision to document the magic of the British Columbian wilderness and to be the very first artist who recognized and painted the magnificence of First Nations’ peoples’ totems that existed throughout British Columbia and […]


Frank Herrmann, Slayer of Dragons Solo Exhibition, "New Works", Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Art Gallery in the Aronoff Center for the Arts December 1, 2017 through January 28, 2018

Painter extraordinaire Frank Herrmann means what he says. In a 2016 interview, Herrmann stated: “Never wait for the great idea or wait for the perfect moment when the work has stalled. You have to work through those moments, that may be depressing but just keep working.”1 Herrmann takes his own advice; his vivid new exhibition […]

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How a Czechoslovakian Artist Promoted the Modern Woman Alphonse Mucha: Master of Art Nouveau, Dayton Art Institute September 16 through December 31, 2017

Like Impressionism, with its wild brushstrokes and look of abandon in representing the world shocked the smug Parisian Salon art community, so too, Art Noveau originally was intended to be moderne, to usher in the new century, the twentieth century.  But now, oh those erotic cascades of hair in Alphonse Mucha’s women smoking in Job […]

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A Cincinnati Artist Finds Meaning in a 2,000 Year Old Poem Dynamic New Paintings by Kim Krause Marta Hewett Gallery, October 6 through December 2, 2017

“Nothing seems that certain”1 is a great operating procedure for an artist to generate new work.  This is what Kim Krause believes and it is clearly manifested in his new solo exhibition at Marta Hewett Gallery titled The Nature of Things. Krause read the original long poem De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things)2 […]


Swoon, a survey, the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati September 22, 2017 through February 25, 2018

Swoon makes magic. Swoon stirs souls. The world needs more Swoon. I get cynical about politically inspired art much of the time.  Such art is often self-serving (great way for an artist to get a solo show in our hyper-correct gallery and museum environments.)  Or simply, it is handy for an artist to use the […]

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Takashi Murakami Takes His Octopus to the Bank

Incredibly, the Takashi Murakami exhibition officially broke the David Bowie attendance record of 193,000, making it the all-time highest attended exhibition in the Museum of Contemporary Art-Chicago’s 50-year history. Numerous prints Murakami had available for the MCA Museum Store were sold out, including an $11,000 print in an edition of 100. So the popular and commercial successes of TM […]


A Painter’s Family Tree, "Predecessors" at the Contemporary Arts Center

Everyone has a family tree. Painter Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s exhibition, Predecessors, outlines her family tree poignantly. She gives us the women in her family in portraits and with important personal photographs that are photo-transferred and are featured in still life tableaux. She further imbeds in her paintings photo-transfers of important Nigerian political and popular figures […]


Transcending Reality: The Woodcuts of Kōsaka Gajin through May 7, 2017 at the Cincinnati Art Museum

Cincinnati continues to harness the landscape lion: the Taft Museum exhibition of 2016, Daubigny, Monet, Van Gogh: Impressions of Landscape and two more stunners, the Cincinnati Art Museum’s Picturing the West: Masterworks of 19th-Century Landscape Photography and Van Gogh: Into the Undergrowth. Anyone fortunate enough to have seen all three exhibitions last year must certainly […]

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Unique Vision Celebrated in Two Exhibitions: Otherwise: Keith Benjamin, Ben Clark, Richard Emry Nickolson at Thunder Sky Gallery Uncanny at Visionaries and Voices Gallery

The story of the founding of the Raymond Thunder Sky Gallery and Visions and Voices Gallery, both in Northside, is as compelling as the art that is featured in these spaces. Keith Banner and Bill Ross are the founders of both galleries; both of whom are visionaries, humanitarians, social workers and tireless supporters of art […]

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KayWalkingStick at the Dayton Art Institute

I can’t decide if I should leap for joy or feel cheated by the art world when I discover yet another marvelous woman artist who has not received appropriate mainstream recognition. Here’s Kay WalkingStick, now in her eighties and thriving in her studio practice, who has had a vibrant career with early New York accolades. […]

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Color Beauty Vision – Carl Solway Gallery

  Color is the lush and unapologetic feature that binds the three artists whose solo presentations opened Friday, February 3rd, 2017 at the Carl Solway Gallery in Cincinnati and continue through April 29. Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson’s new woven silk weavings are the quiet scene-stealers of the Solway shows, though all three artists weigh in with […]

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Visionary Artists at the Carnegie Arts Center

E is for Edie, An Edith McKee Harper Retrospective Tony Dotson, An American Outsider Solo Exhibition Both exhibitions run from December 9, 2016 through February 11, 2017 Amanda Ackerman and Emily Frey are the curators for the brilliant retrospective of about three hundred works by Edith Harper, collaborator and wife to Cincinnati’s well-known and beloved […]

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When Photography Was New: Picturing the West: Masterworks of 19th-Century Landscape Photography Islands of the Blest Artist-Led Communities: Meatyard, Lyons, Siskind & Callahan

The Fotofocus Biennial 2016 features a marvelous array of photography exhibitions – eight exhibits curated by Kevin Moore for Fotofocus and about sixty additional ancillary exhibits of photography that various museums, galleries and libraries from Cincinnati to Columbus have prepared in support of the biennial endeavor. While the eight exhibitions specially selected by the curator […]

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Letter from Chicago: ‘Kerry James Marshall: Mastry’ opens April 23 and runs through September 25, 2016 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

Letter from Chicago: ‘Kerry James Marshall: Mastry’ opens April 23 and runs through September 25, 2016 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. By Cynthia Kukla If you haven’t met him yet, let me introduce you to Alabama-born, Chicago-based artist Kerry James Marshall. If you go to Los Angeles, you can see one of his […]

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Letter from Chicago: Making Their Mark: Illinois Women Artists, 1940-1960

Making Their Mark: Illinois Women Artists, 1940-1960 opened October 17 and is on view until January 17, 2016 at the International Features Gallery of the Peoria Riverfront Museum in Peoria, Illinois. With this exhibition, the museum is contributing to the necessary scholarship on women artists. This rich and diverse exhibition of over seventy art works […]

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Letter from Chicago: “Charles Ray: Sculpture, 1997–2014"

Midwest-born, Los Angeles–based sculptor Charles Ray’s mid-career retrospective, “Charles Ray: Sculpture, 1997–2014,” is a significant and revelatory exhibition which opened at the Art Institute of Chicago May 15, 2015 and concluded on October 4. The exhibition was co-organized by the Art Institute, its only North American venue, and the Kunstmuseum, Basel. Six of Ray’s sculptures—including […]


la Biennale di Venezia: Part Two: Americans in Venice

The Venice Biennale, which opened in May, is on view through Nov 22 with exhibitions in the Giardini and the Arsenale, featuring 136 artists, 89 participating countries, and 44 collateral events presented by non-profit organizations and exhibited in various locations across Venice. The city’s massive Arsenale (of Venice’s mighty past as controller of the Mediterranean) […]

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la Biennale di Venezia: Part One

Inaugurated in 1895 with the first international presentation in 1897, la Biennale di Venezia is the oldest and in my opinion, still the most prestigeous of the contemporary international exhibitions of visual art. Venice celebrates the 120th anniversary of the first Exhibition (1895).Venice is an erotic city, steeped in cultural, and military history and it […]

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Letter from Springfield Pro-Text: When Words Enter Visual Art

Not every Friday the 13th is as memorable as the opening reception and new exhibition at the Illinois State Museum-Springfield Gallery.  Curated by the museum’s Robert Sill, Pro-Text: When Words Enter Visual Art “explores the various ways artists choose to combine language in their visual art. It features art by self-taught artists and works by […]

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February 28, 2015: Reflections at the End of Black History Month. Where We At? Dealing (with) Black Feminism

By Venise Keys, Edited by Cynthia Kukla In the great tradition of Black Feminism, I have integrated a daily practice of self-love into my lifestyle as a full-time graduate student. This self-love is deeper than an assortment of wooden Afrocentric jewelry or a proclaiming Black Nationalist flag (although I proudly have both)…it is an active […]

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WHAT IS THIS ART THING? by Ruben Morrissey Edited by Cynthia Kukla

Read this like you saying, “Homie is a baller.” Swaying would be good too. http://www.learner.org/courses/globalart/work/207/index.html So I says, “Man, look at all those chairs.  2014 was “The Year of Chairs!”  I see this exhibit, orange chairs, lime green chairs sitting in front of really boring paintings not even made with paint (can you imagine?)  What’s […]

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Letter from the Midwest

Letter from the Midwest differs from my previous “Letters.” It is a quick romp through parts of the Midwest where there have been interesting exhibitions. While “there is good art everywhere” to quote myself, we can’t get everywhere, so I hope this snapshot gives you an impression of some of the exhibitions, or it inspires […]

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Seeking to Make “Everyday Objects Shriek Aloud”

Why a new exhibition on Magritte? “René Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938,” is the Art Institute of Chicago’s season blockbuster. This stunning exhibition is the first that zeroes in on Magritte’s most inventive and experimental years, showing us his seminal experiments of 1926-27 on through 1938.  I was bowled over. Among art lovers, […]

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Letter from Thessaloniki

In April and May of this year, during my second art research trip to Greece, I had many long discussions about art and politics with my good friend, fellow artist and professor Xenis Sachinis. When he told me of the special circumstances of his poignant print series, Traces and Memory, and that he donated one of them to Aristotle University for the commemoration of […]

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Letter from Wyoming – There Is Good Art Everywhere

By Cynthia Kukla There is good art everywhere, just look.  Look a little harder and you will find great art just about anywhere.  Such is the case with the exhibition of Robert Motherwell and Lee Hall in Jackson Hole, Wyoming’s big ski country.  Great art indeed. Tayloe Piggott, owner and namesake of her gallery, presented/paired […]

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Letter from Chicago: Focus on Five Artists and a Nod to Leyster

by Cynthia Kukla               Twenty years ago, in 1993, the Frans Hals Museum mounted an exhibition of the dozen authentic oil paintings of the ‘lost’ Judith Leyster (1609-1660).  Banners throughout the city of Amsterdam proclaimed and celebrated this centennial of Leyster’s rediscovery.  Why was this significant?  Judith Leyster was […]

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LETTER FROM CHAMPAIGN: “RETURN TO SENDER”

LETTER FROM CHAMPAIGN: “RETURN TO SENDER” By Cynthia  Kukla   “I study cancellations, the manner in which the stamp is placed, the way the address is done…. It’s a marvelous art form, the letter – full of wonder and surprise.” Ray Johnson (1965) Mail Art and Ray Johnson remain vivid and remembered, owing to the […]

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Letter from Chicago

Letter from Chicago  By Cynthia Kukla • Chicago, City of Big Shoulders, is home to numerous gems of specialized art museums beyond the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art. The Polish Museum of Art, Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, National Museum of Mexican Art, The Arts Club of Chicago, DePaul Art […]

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A Contemporary Art Checklist

A Contemporary Art Checklist By Cynthia M. Kukla “ALL ART HAS BEEN CONTEMPORARY” Neon installation piece above entrance to the Altes Museum, Berlin’s collection of classical antiquities. What is contemporary art? This increasingly important topic is complex and it is debated with no clear-cut conclusions, since current conditions fold back upon themselves and older conditions re-emerge […]

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Letter from Chicago: Part II.

Letter from Chicago: Part II. “Picasso and Chicago: the Fearless Pursuit of the Modern” Art Institute of Chicago, Feb 20 – May 12, 2013 http://www.artic.edu/exhibition/picasso-and-chicago By Cynthia Kukla I returned to Chicago for the April 19th symposium on Picasso1 organized for the “Picasso and Chicago” exhibition and seeing the exhibition again strengthens my already deep […]

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Letter from Chicago: Part I. “Picasso and Chicago: the Fearless Pursuit of the Modern”

Letter from Chicago: Part I. “Picasso and Chicago: the Fearless Pursuit of the Modern” Art Institute of Chicago, Feb 20 May 12, 2013 http://www.artic.edu/exhibition/picasso-and-chicago Questions flood the mind after seeing a stunning exhibition by an artist whose name is part of the cultural and popular vernacular. In this first of a two-part analysis, questions arise. […]


Letter from Chicago

Letter from Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago:  MCA DNA: William Kentridge by  Cynthia M. Kukla The Drawing Center in New York featured the art work of William Kentridge in 1998, a year after he premiered at Documenta X, Kassel, Germany. The MCA-Chicago first presented the work of South African Kentridge in 2001 in his first […]

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Letter from Chicago: Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective

Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective Art Institute of Chicago May 22 to September 3, 2012 “Whaam!  Bratatat!  Varoom!  The Art Institute of Chicago explodes this summer with the energy of Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) in the largest exhibition of the seminal Pop artist to date.  More than 160 of Lichtenstein’s works, from the familiar to the completely […]

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Letter From Los Angeles

Our Debt to the West Coast: Pacific Standard Time: 1945-1980 “An unprecedented collaboration of more than 60 cultural institutions across Southern California coming together to celebrate the birth of the L.A. art scene.”1 Visiting L.A. is like a review of your whole life. Driving around greater L.A. in traffic much less crazy than my hometown […]