April/May 2018

Divinity Affirmations – Light, Luminescence, and Liminal Spaces with Tom Bacher

May 13th, 2018  |  by  |  published in *, April/May 2018

Divinity Affirmations – Light, Luminescence, and Liminal Spaces with Tom Bacher

  Tom Bacher’s Per-40ming Trans-4-ming Phos-4-s-cent Paintings, which is showing at the Weston Art Gallery until June 10, 2018, displays a continuation of Bacher’s hyperrealist quotidian aesthetic re: luminescent paintings that find subjects in object studies, portraiture, and documentation processes. As the two-channel corridor video “Painting with Light” (2018) by YellowHaus Productions elucidates, Bacher’s exhibition […]

Ragnar Kjartansson’s “The Visitors” (2012) at Cincinnati Art Museum

May 13th, 2018  |  by  |  published in *, April/May 2018

Ragnar Kjartansson’s "The Visitors" (2012) at Cincinnati Art Museum

Contemporary art has a number of interpretive frameworks, attempts to historicize the present moment that both distinguish it from what came before and draw genealogical lines from established art historical concepts. One branch of this diverse range of concepts is the return to romanticism in what some critics have referred to as New Sincerity, Post-postmodernism, […]

What Makes a Life – Virtual Circulation and Digital Storytelling

May 13th, 2018  |  by  |  published in April/May 2018

What Makes a Life – Virtual Circulation and Digital Storytelling

  Filmmaker and video/conceptual artist C. Jacqueline Wood’s show What Makes a Life at the Weston Art Gallery from May 4 – June 10, 2018 explores how virtual archeology and intermedia modes allot for new narratives of storytelling, proffering from a series of interconnected installations that concern themselves with information networks. The five multi-component installations, […]

Hats, Heels, and Hieroglyphs: “Saul Steinberg’s ‘Mural of Cincinnati’ and “Saul Steinberg’s Prints, 1948-1996” Cincinnati Art Museum, February 16 on, and Solway Gallery, April 20-July 15, 2018

May 13th, 2018  |  by  |  published in April/May 2018

Hats, Heels, and Hieroglyphs: “Saul Steinberg’s ‘Mural of Cincinnati’ and “Saul Steinberg’s Prints, 1948-1996” Cincinnati Art Museum, February 16 on, and Solway Gallery, April 20-July 15, 2018

Up, then down. Up, then down. And now, up again. Saul Steinberg’s “Mural of Cincinnati,” having adorned the walls of the Terrace Plaza Hotel’s Skyline Restaurant (better known as The Gourmet Room) from 1948 until it was sold, and then the walls of the Cincinnati Art Museum until it was walled in to mount the […]

“Terracotta Army: Legacy of the First Emperor of China,” Cincinnati Art Museum. Open through August 12, 2018

May 13th, 2018  |  by  |  published in April/May 2018

“Terracotta Army: Legacy of the First Emperor of China,” Cincinnati Art Museum. Open through August 12, 2018

  In the West, Asian art is given short shrift in intro to art history texts. H. W. Janson’s History of Artconsigned the arts of the East to a seven-page Postscript: “The Meeting of East and West,” omitting Indian Asian, Japanese, and Chinese art as well as pre-Columbian “because their indigenous artistic traditions are no […]

Fotofolio – Zhao Rong-Sheng

May 13th, 2018  |  by  |  published in April/May 2018

Fotofolio - Zhao Rong-Sheng

I met Zhao in Houston this past March at FotoFest.  Here are selected photos from his Swan Series and Works of the King. Zhao’s resume: China Photographers Association member, Luoyang Photographers Association vice president, successively in “China photography”, “Photographic World”, “Chinese photographer”, “National Geographic”, “People’s Photography”, “Nikon Exploration”, “Chinese Photographic Art yearbook”. Published several papers […]

Holding hands with strangers, a review of In Many Hands by Kate McIntosh

May 13th, 2018  |  by  |  published in April/May 2018

Holding hands with strangers, a review of In Many Hands by Kate McIntosh

  I am sitting at the center of a banquet table facing a black wall. The white cloth in front of me is clean and crisp and extends in either direction down the long skinny table. When I look in my peripherals I see the profiles of the people lined up next to me, their […]

“Women Artists in the Age of Impressionism” at the JB Speed Museum

May 13th, 2018  |  by  |  published in April/May 2018

"Women Artists in the Age of Impressionism" at the JB Speed Museum

The Speed Museum exhibition” Women Artists in the Age of Impressionism” brings together over 80 paintings by 37 different female artists. Their achievement becomes more remarkable as it was accomplished in the historical context of denial of academic access in a world dominated by men. European study and salon success was the prescribed path for […]

Found and Unfound Pre-Existing Conditions

May 13th, 2018  |  by  |  published in April/May 2018

Found and Unfound Pre-Existing Conditions

Social workers Keith Banner and Bill Ross created Visionaries + Voices for the artists Paul Rowland, Richard Brown, Antonio Adams, and Raymond Thunder-Sky. Bill and Keith arduously worked for county boards serving individuals with disabilities and had met these artists in the course of their work. Subsequently, the pair created more opportunities for artists to […]

Sexodus XXX Machina: “More Sweetly Play the Dance” by William Kentridge (A Seven Channel Panoramic Video/ Audio Installation). Cincinnati Art Museum April 26, 2017 – May 20, 2018

May 13th, 2018  |  by  |  published in April/May 2018

Sexodus XXX Machina: “More Sweetly Play the Dance” by William Kentridge (A Seven Channel Panoramic Video/ Audio Installation). Cincinnati Art Museum  April 26, 2017 – May 20, 2018

A Video Tableau Vivant. (On the I’mpossibility of I’mmortality)   “I’m interested in a political art, that is to say an art of ambiguity, contradiction, uncompleted gestures and uncertain ending – an art (and a politics) in which optimism is kept in check, and nihilism at bay.” ―William Kentridge The practicality of Art has always […]

Out of the Dark, Kurt Grannan at Wash Park Art Gallery

May 13th, 2018  |  by  |  published in April/May 2018

Out of the Dark, Kurt Grannan at Wash Park Art Gallery

  The impression that stays with you after viewing Kurt Grannan’s show at Wash Park Art is of figures with white faces, holding poses and commanding you to pay attention to the meaning of their performed identities.  This exhibit of thirteen mostly figurative oil paintings demonstrates versatility in subject matter and technique.  An Assistant Professor […]

Kevin Muente’s Forgotten Land

May 13th, 2018  |  by  |  published in April/May 2018

Kevin Muente's Forgotten Land

Kevin Muente’s show “Forgotten Land” is currently up at Marta Hewett Gallery, located in Cincinnati’s Pendleton neighborhood. He uses figures within these landscapes to create a narrative through single or multiple images. Often the images echo classical or referenced figures from orthodox art. Moving in a different direction from his traditional landscapes, Muente stages photos […]

Lidzie Alvisa and Donis Llago Imagine Transparency at A R E A

May 13th, 2018  |  by  |  published in April/May 2018

Lidzie Alvisa and Donis Llago Imagine Transparency at A R E A

Paired with an image of the White House on a brochure, “Transparent?” is a pointed question. And, in 2018, it can take as little as a cursory glance at Twitter to feel like we might be seeing too much of our commander-in-chief’s inner dialogue. But of course, true transparency in government institutions is a phantom. […]

Karen Margolis' "Garden of Mutei" at Garis & Hahn, Los Angeles

May 13th, 2018  |  by  |  published in April/May 2018

Karen Margolis' "Garden of Mutei" at Garis & Hahn, Los Angeles

Having pervaded Western societies for centuries, the archetype of huge and showy artworks seems to have reached a pinnacle in our era where large and loud look better online. Karen Margolis’ delicate, meditative collages, on view through May 12 at Garis & Hahn in Los Angeles, pull the proverbial rug out from under the preconceived […]

Steve Jensen at Abmeyer + Wood

May 13th, 2018  |  by  |  published in April/May 2018

Steve Jensen at Abmeyer + Wood

Steve Jensen is a prominent and prolific artist on the Seattle scene, with public sculptures from Washington to Florida and China. His work is in museums in Washington and California. When I first saw his work in 1999, he was carving naturally felled logs into shapes reminiscent of a blend of Polynesian and Pacific NW […]

Liz Zorn at 124 West Pike Street, Covington

May 13th, 2018  |  by  |  published in April/May 2018

Liz Zorn at 124 West Pike Street, Covington

Liz Zorn likes a square canvas.  Not always, of course, but more often than many artists, she confines her compositions to a canvas measuring the same on every side.  Her works as seen in “Liz Zorn Solo Show” at 124 West Pike Street Gallery in Covington now through May 26th are seldom enclosed in frames […]

KMAC Couture: Art Walks the Runway: An Interview with designers Liz Richter and Lilly Kass

May 13th, 2018  |  by  |  published in April/May 2018

KMAC Couture: Art Walks the Runway: An Interview with designers Liz Richter and Lilly Kass

I was fortunate enough to be asked by Mentor Coordinator, Melanie Miller (Hyland Glass, Hyland Gallery) to participate as an artist mentor for 2018 KMAC Couture: Art Walks the Runway, as well as given the opportunity by aeqai to visit the show—which is as close to high fashion as Kentucky is going to get. Couture […]

Second Glances

May 13th, 2018  |  by  |  published in April/May 2018

Second Glances

How many times do we look at something quickly and make a snap judgment about it? In what is often a one-second glance, we assess what we see and form an opinion about it given only the information and content we have in front of us. The ability to quickly make judgments is actually a […]

Cincinnati Art Club:  A Hidden Gem

May 13th, 2018  |  by  |  published in April/May 2018

Cincinnati Art Club:  A Hidden Gem

Drive through Mt. Adams and find Parkside Place, next to Eden Park.  At the bottom of the hill at 1021 Parkside Place is the Cincinnati Art Club in a nondescript, brick one-story building dating to the 1950’s. The outside of the club fools the average passerby.  Inside is a club which dates to the late […]

Meera Rastogi: Art Therapy and the Therapeutic Benefits of Making Art

May 13th, 2018  |  by  |  published in April/May 2018

Meera Rastogi: Art Therapy and the Therapeutic Benefits of Making Art

“Art should be something that liberates your soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further.” –Keith Haring Over the course of this past year, I’ve become uncommonly aware of how often people describe the act of making art as their “therapy.” As an artist myself, I absolutely get it. Being creative, and just […]

Jon McGregor’s “Reservoir 13”

May 13th, 2018  |  by  |  published in April/May 2018

Jon McGregor’s new novel “Reservoir 13″ contains some of the finest writing in recent contemporary fiction.  Its basic plot is relatively simple: in a small town/village in either the North of England or the Midlands, a family has come for a vacation and is renting a guest house on an area property, when their 13-year […]