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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
“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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
“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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
“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 […]
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) […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
“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 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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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) […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
