November 2015

Deliberate Bridges: 21st Century Art on Display at Carl Solway Gallery

November 24th, 2015  |  by  |  published in *, November 2015

Deliberate Bridges: 21st Century Art on Display at Carl Solway Gallery

Though the idea of automatons had been present in mythology for centuries, the term “robot” wasn’t introduced to the public until R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), written by Karel Čapek, debuted at Prague’s National Theater in 1921.  His play popularized the term, but Karel credits his brother Josef, a noted Czech painter, with its invention.  The […]

Capital Campaigns to Fund Two Theaters in Metroplex

November 24th, 2015  |  by  |  published in *, November 2015

Capital Campaigns to Fund Two Theaters in Metroplex

Capital Campaigns to fund two theaters in metroplex Shakespeare new performance space named Otto M. Budig Theatre In the September 2015 issue of Aeqai, I discussed Cincinnati’s cultural building boom, as evidenced by the renovations and expansions at Christ Church, Cincinnati Union Terminal, and Music Hall.  Now we are seeing additional major building projects for […]

Review of Celant Lecture at Opening of FotoFocus

November 24th, 2015  |  by  |  published in *, November 2015

Review of Celant Lecture at Opening of FotoFocus

  On Friday evening, October 23, FotoFocus invited about one hundred people to dinner and to a kick off lecture by Italian curator/critic/thinker/museum professional Germano Celant, widely regarded as one of the first and finest independent curators in the world.  The event was the precursor for the one day Symposium organized by New York FotoFocus Curator […]

NSFW: Notes on Mapplethorpe in the 21st Century

November 24th, 2015  |  by  |  published in November 2015

NSFW: Notes on Mapplethorpe in the 21st Century

A photograph of a black man’s flaccid, uncircumcised penis exposed through a three-piece suit may best represent the themes of sexuality, race, class and style that pervades his work. The photograph, titled “Man in Polyester Suit,” possesses a startling clarity and crispness that makes it seem somehow commercial, a glossy advertisement for the turbulent restraint […]

Perfect Mess: “After the Moment: Reflections on Robert Mapplethorpe” at the Contemporary Arts Center

November 24th, 2015  |  by  |  published in November 2015

Robert Mapplethorpe was an aesthete’s aesthete, trying with each photograph he took to capture a kind of formal blissfulness that shreds philosophy, politics, conjecture, and any other form of bull-shit standing in the way of that “perfect moment” when what you see is exactly and horrifyingly and gleefully what you get, devoid of values, faith, […]

High Style

November 24th, 2015  |  by  |  published in November 2015

High Style

While in the past AEQAI’s fashion focus has been on the international runways of fashion’s luxury giants, this month we are staying decidedly close to home at the Cincinnati Art Museum, up the hill on Eden Park Drive. The Cincinnati Art Museum’s many departments strive to invigorate Cincinnati with works and exhibitions that are both […]

Havana at Malton Gallery

November 24th, 2015  |  by  |  published in November 2015

Havana at Malton Gallery

Susan Schuler’s paintings in the exhibition Havana at Malton Gallery in Hyde Park/Oakley speak for themselves, which is fortunate as the background information I asked for consisted of a statement by the artist relating to an earlier show, and when I requested a press release on this exhibition I was told they no longer do […]

The Collection of Dr. Jack and Shirley Chewning

November 24th, 2015  |  by  |  published in November 2015

The Collection of Dr. Jack and Shirley Chewning

10/30 thru 11/2 2015,  Mary Ran Gallery, 3668 Erie Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45208 Collectors are a rare and wonderful breed.  Through them art gains a purpose, functioning as a separate world wherein personal affairs of the heart are gathered together, for no other reason than that the gatherers cannot resist them. Often we hear of […]

“Surface” Phyllis Weston Gallery, O’Bryonville

November 24th, 2015  |  by  |  published in November 2015

"Surface"   Phyllis Weston Gallery, O'Bryonville

On the basis of some of the works, “Surface” may be described as a portrait show with an agenda beyond the business of likeness. Colleen Kelsey exhibits 2 works showcased in the front room. “Artist”,a graphite/charcoal drawing on a pinky cream sheet, depicts the rendering of likeness of one Heather Lea Reid. Utilizing scribble shading […]

Michael Wilson

November 24th, 2015  |  by  |  published in November 2015

Michael Wilson

Editor’s Note:  Area photographer Kent Krugh, who has become Aeqai’s photography editor, and will be selecting photographers’ work from the region, nationally, and internationally and offering our readers photo essays of the work he selects for us. Michael Wilson is a freelance photographer born and raised in Cincinnati.  While known for his portraits of musicians, Wilson also produces […]

Aris Moore

November 24th, 2015  |  by  |  published in November 2015

Aris Moore

Editor’s Note: This profile of Aris Moore is part of an ongoing series of interviews with figurative artists across the United States who have appeared on Figure50.com, a web project operated by local artists James Oberschlake and Kim Rae Taylor.  Aeqai will be posting select interviews by Oberschlake and Taylor as part of a regular, […]

Take a Trip To Joel McDonald’s Obby Obby

November 24th, 2015  |  by  |  published in November 2015

Take a Trip To Joel McDonald’s Obby Obby

I want death. These are the words I uttered aloud to artist Joel McDonald during the opening of his first solo exhibition Obby Obby at Zephyr Gallery in Louisville, KY. The death I was addressing was not of the physical, but the material piece titled Die: Tunnel, which consists of a make shift bed atop […]

Profile of Kevin Kelly

November 24th, 2015  |  by  |  published in November 2015

Profile of Kevin Kelly

Kevin T. Kelly’s studio is deep in the Essex Studios building in Walnut Hills; he met me at the Essex Street door to lead me through multiple corridors to his space where the north wall is all window and the clutter all has meaning. Any studio is cluttered if real work goes on there, and […]

Educator and curator Kate Bonansinga’s homecoming enhances the creative strengths of the region.

November 24th, 2015  |  by  |  published in November 2015

Educator and curator Kate Bonansinga’s homecoming enhances the creative strengths of the region.

Kate Bonansinga is Director of the School of Art at the College of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning at the University of Cincinnati. After growing up in Cincinnati, she left to attend college at the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois at Champagne-Urbana. She developed a career as an educator, curator and gallery […]

Lisa Molyneux

November 24th, 2015  |  by  |  published in November 2015

Lisa Molyneux

Born in Albany, New York, Lisa Molyneux attended The State University of New York at Geneseo and received a B.A. in theater and art.  Her interest in art originated from two uncles who were artists: one, who was a watercolorist, and the other, a graphic artist. She gravitated toward art, including drawing and painting, in […]

Slouching Toward Halloween: “This Side of Paradise: New Photography from Texas Artists”

November 24th, 2015  |  by  |  published in November 2015

Slouching Toward Halloween: “This Side of Paradise: New Photography from Texas Artists”

I mean, sure. I’ll go to a photography exhibit with my friend, who happens to also have been my wedding photographer. In a time when everyone’s a smartphone-photographer and Instagram is everyone’s personal gallery, it’ll be refreshing to see a fresh take. Tableaux devoid of people I know. Carefully considered execution of previously unrecognized stories. […]

Charles Garabedian Evokes the Power of Myth in “Sacrifice of the Fleet” at L.A. Louver

November 24th, 2015  |  by  |  published in November 2015

Charles Garabedian Evokes the Power of Myth in “Sacrifice of the Fleet” at L.A. Louver

Charles Garabedian has long embodied a non-conformist approach to his practice. The “Bad” Painting movement of the late 1970’s is perhaps the only definitive genre with which he’s been aptly associated. While his elusive style has made it difficult to tabulate his work into any particular category, the one consistency that recurs throughout much of […]

Complex Simplicity: “Observing Observing (a white cup)” at Prographica Gallery

November 24th, 2015  |  by  |  published in November 2015

Complex Simplicity: “Observing Observing (a white cup)” at Prographica Gallery

What could be blander than the ubiquitous white cup? A trusty denizen of kitchen cupboards, bedside tables, and office desks, this basic container is everywhere to be seen, yet barely observed in the bustle of everyday life. Seattle’s Prographica Gallery adopted a very different stance in its fascinating recent exhibition, “Observing Observing (a white cup)” […]

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

November 24th, 2015  |  by  |  published in November 2015

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 […]

Poems By Louis Zoellar Bickett

November 24th, 2015  |  by  |  published in November 2015

YOUR EYES BETRAY YOUR SECRETS for Ari You are on your side of the bed facing the window your back to me. Your Mac at your hips is unattended, Reno 911 getting no laughs. The sheets are warmed by the electric blanket. The room is usually cold and it is tonight. Are you quietly crying […]

Geraldine Brook’s The Secret Chord

November 24th, 2015  |  by  |  published in November 2015

The phenomenally gifted Geraldine Brooks has returned with her newest novel, The Secret Chord, and, like The People of The Book before it, it’s both magnificent, historically accurate, and often very moving. Her prose is as close to poetry, or prose poetry, as we are likely to see this year.  Fascinated by aspects of historical Judaism, in this novel, Brooks […]

Jonathan Franzen’s Purity

November 24th, 2015  |  by  |  published in November 2015

Jonathan Franzen’s one of those hugely praised younger writers; sometimes I think his writing and ideas are superb, sometimes not; I often wonder about the wild adulation given to him (and also to Michael Chabon). But Franzen’s newest novel, Purity, although receiving a huge range of reviews, from positive to mixed to negative, is really a first […]

Maxwell’s Poetry Corner

November 24th, 2015  |  by  |  published in November 2015

Brink   He introduced me to his son. He was enamored.  In awe.   When he introduced me to Jennings, procurer of me and D’s first dance – front stage – our wedding night, his eyes reflected enlightenment.   When he introduced me to Black Rebel, I believed him that it was real rock-n-roll, baby. […]