November 2018

Keltie Ferris: *O*P*E*N* at the Speed Art Museum: Casualist Painting / Not-cAsual SetTing

December 2nd, 2018  |  by  |  published in *, November 2018

Keltie Ferris: *O*P*E*N* at the Speed Art Museum: Casualist Painting / Not-cAsual SetTing

When I was an undergrad I fumbled into Sharon Butler’s essay “The New Casualists” published in “The Brooklyn Rail”. I found it at a crucial moment in my development as a painter. It was 2011 and I was searching for a reason to keep painting. I had recently discovered the depth and breadth to which […]

Folded, Scratched, Discarded: Photographic Memory in the Work of Akram Zaatari

December 2nd, 2018  |  by  |  published in November 2018

Folded, Scratched, Discarded: Photographic Memory in the Work of Akram Zaatari

In our contemporary image-saturated, screen-based culture, the materiality of photographic prints and negatives seems part of a quaint memory of the artwork before the age of digital reproduction and instant dissemination. While many artists certainly still work with film, in vernacular photography the digital reigns supreme and the analog has become a relic. The materiality […]

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

December 2nd, 2018  |  by  |  published in November 2018

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, […]

“The Fabric of India,” Cincinnati Art Museum, through January 6, 2019

December 2nd, 2018  |  by  |  published in November 2018

“The Fabric of India,” Cincinnati Art Museum, through January 6, 2019

“The Fabric of India” exhibition at the Cincinnati Art Museum illustrates the country’s diversity through 170 handmade objects dating from the 15th century to today. The show, co-curated by Rosemary Crill, the senior curator in the South and South-East Asia Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), and Divia Patel, is arranged around six […]

“It was a joy to pay attention”: “Measure” by Anna Von Mertens at the Radcliffe Institute

December 2nd, 2018  |  by  |  published in November 2018

“It was a joy to pay attention”: “Measure” by Anna Von Mertens at the Radcliffe Institute

I married into a quilting family. One corner of our wedding quilt lists all the names of the women and men who helped piece it together before one aunt fed it to a nearly-room-sized robot, programmed to finish it off with polish and a custom, uninterrupted design. The family matriarch got a look at the […]

Judi Parks “Search & Destroy” – San Francisco Punk rock 1976-79

December 2nd, 2018  |  by  |  published in November 2018

Judi Parks "Search & Destroy" - San Francisco Punk rock 1976-79

Judi Parks’s show “Search & Destroy” consists of twenty four beautiful black and white images taken at the San Francisco club Mabuhay Gardens in the late 1970s. This was on display at Bunk House Gallery on the night of October 26th only. Parks was the bassist for the band The Blowdryers and documented what she […]

Truth or Dare: A Reality Show

December 2nd, 2018  |  by  |  published in November 2018

Truth or Dare: A Reality Show

On display now at 21c Museum is Truth or Dare: A Reality Show.  Featuring work from around the world, the exhibition is host to over fifty artists bringing with them messages and milestones from their homelands. From photographs and installations to sculptures and video, the exhibition is saturated with political, social, and cultural commentaries.  Serving […]

Margie Livingston at Greg Kucera Gallery

December 2nd, 2018  |  by  |  published in November 2018

Margie Livingston at Greg Kucera Gallery

Margie Livingston doesn’t just push paint around. She layers it, folds it, quilts it, weaves it, mends it, and drags it behind her on a harness. She has also explored the substrate by playing with stretchers, or weaving loosely knotted grids of string and applying paint so that the whole stiffens into structure. Her current […]

Two FotoFocus shows at The Lloyd Library

December 2nd, 2018  |  by  |  published in November 2018

Two FotoFocus shows at The Lloyd Library

Anyone drawn to museums knows that the stacks, the storage space for everything not on exhibition, have an irresistible fascination. Lloyd Library & Museum, 917 Plum Street in downtown Cincinnati, capitalizes on that attraction for the exhibition “Out of the Stacks: Lloyd Inspired Artist Books” (September 28 – November 30), one of their two FotoFocus […]

PLEIN AIR: Art Made Outdoors

December 2nd, 2018  |  by  |  published in November 2018

PLEIN AIR:  Art Made Outdoors

“En plein air”: ORIGIN from French, meaning ‘in the open air’ This term in the painter’s glossary denotes art made outdoors, and/or images traditionally about what one sees outdoors. Launching the artistic process outside of the sheltering studio is a liberating adventure. The act of creation is accompanied by a test of your stamina and […]

Fotofolio: Suz Fleming

December 2nd, 2018  |  by  |  published in November 2018

Fotofolio: Suz Fleming

“Impermanence” Suz’s statement: I started Impermanence several years ago and continue to work with this series.  Without specifically addressing my Japanese heritage, these images are informed by Japanese art and ideas:  haiku, Buddhism, and Ikebana. I have long been inspired by poetry, in general, and haiku, in particular. These short poems are often about nature, […]

Pulling Off All the Old Masks Just to See the Flowers Bloom Again Tres Taylor at Caza Sikes Gallery

December 2nd, 2018  |  by  |  published in November 2018

Pulling Off All the Old Masks Just to See the Flowers Bloom Again Tres Taylor at Caza Sikes Gallery

This show at the Caza Sikes gallery in Oakley consists of eight large works meant to be viewed in a specific order, as the central subject in each, a monk, makes a journey of self-discovery.  Tres Taylor, a biochemist and now a self-taught artist living in Alabama, prepared a statement for his show about the […]

The Clay Alliance

December 2nd, 2018  |  by  |  published in November 2018

The Clay Alliance

Several small arts organizations in the Greater Cincinnati area fly under the radar.  Clay Alliance is one of them. Studio San Giuseppe at Mount St. Joseph University presents the Clay Alliance 20th Anniversary Exhibition from November 5 – December 7.   This is a juried exhibition showcasing quality work of 35 members and a timeline of […]

Q&A: Sophie Lindsey and the art of minute-but-meaningful social intervention

December 2nd, 2018  |  by  |  published in November 2018

Q&A: Sophie Lindsey and the art of minute-but-meaningful social intervention

In many ways, Sophie Lindsey’s artistic practice can be compared to finding a penny face-up on the sidewalk. It happens in the context of your daily routine and makes you feel something — maybe happy or lucky. It breaks the routine just enough to let you step back and appreciate a moment in an otherwise […]

Film Review: "The Price of Everything" Paints a Valuable Group Portrait of Art Market Players

December 2nd, 2018  |  by  |  published in November 2018

“The Price of Everything,” a 98-minute documentary directed by Nathaniel Kahn, tenders a panoptic window on the contemporary art market’s upper echelon via a carefully orchestrated sequence of interview segments with a wide array of prominent art world influentials. Seeming particularly timely in light of the $90.3 m Hockney auction record set just three days […]

“Four Soldiers” by Hubert Mingaerelli

December 2nd, 2018  |  by  |  published in November 2018

I was wandering around in Joseph Beth Booksellers a few weeks ago, and a caption by English novelist Hillary Mantel, whose books on King Henry VIII and Cromwell have fascinated me, to date, and saw this quote on a book cover :  “A small miracle of a book, perfectly imagined and perfectly achieved”.  That novel […]

“Washington Black” by Esi Edugyan

December 2nd, 2018  |  by  |  published in November 2018

“Washington Black”, a new and much praised novel by the African-Canadian author Esi Edugyan, is a real romp of an epic.  It centers around a slave boy named Washington Black, who lives as a young boy on a sugar cane plantation in Barbados, owned by an English white family, transitioning from a father newly dead to […]

“Early Work” by Andrew Martin

December 2nd, 2018  |  by  |  published in November 2018

Andrew Martin’s debut novel, “Early Work”, show us a very young writer of amazing talent.  The novel’s about a group of young/would-be writers, all of whom seem to have been made precious by various writing/MFA in creative writing programs, which are growing enormously around America these days, seeming to subsidize English departments everywhere.  A group […]

“A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl” by Jean Thompson

December 2nd, 2018  |  by  |  published in November 2018

The often underrated or undernoticed Jean Thompson’s back with another of her superb family sagas, this one called “A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl”, and it’s splendid. Thompson, who lives in Illinois, has been writing family sagas about people who live in the Upper Midwest, in cities of, oh, 100,000 people or so; […]