Abstractionism—think Kandinsky—denied representation altogether, but assumed all the conventions of pictorial space, hence the nonrepresentational use of color, line, form, and so on. J.M. Bernstein, “Freedom From Nature” in Hegel and the Arts, ed. Stephen Houlgate (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2007), 220. Approaching it in one way I see no essential difference between a line […]

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 […]

I can’t think of the last art show I saw where I wanted to write, off the top, about its sound track. In the course of two visits to “Simply Brilliant,” the Cincinnati Art Museum’s stunning two-room exhibit of some 120 pieces of extremely fine jewelry from the master designers of the 1960s and 1970s—all […]

“Concord and Discord: Examining Ancient Stories” is a two person show of the work of area artists, Mary Anne Donovan and Cynthia Kukla. In many ways, though, it is a single show as well. Themes, palettes, strategies, motifs and formal approaches bounce back and forth between the work of both artists. Each artist invites the […]

In 1970, I started my first year in the MFA program at the University of Cincinnati. The MFA studios were at that time in old houses behind St George Church on Scioto and Classen Streets. While moving into my studio, I noticed a man in gray coveralls working on his 1950 Chevy pickup. I first […]