October 2017

A Tale of Two Art Festivals: the Duality of ArtPrize Nine

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in *, October 2017

A Tale of Two Art Festivals: the Duality of ArtPrize Nine

Art fairs, biennials, and public art festivals, on the rise since the 1990s, define much of the post-1989 international art world. From Venice to New Orleans to Gwangju and everywhere in between, urban centers transform into art world Meccas and back again all over the globe, creating a map of flickering lights and a web […]

Narcoculture's Intertwined Beauty and Horror: Eduardo Sarabia's "Drifting on a Dream" at The Mistake Room, Los Angeles

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

Narcoculture's Intertwined Beauty and Horror: Eduardo Sarabia's "Drifting on a Dream" at The Mistake Room, Los Angeles

Are there any media that Eduardo Sarabia doesn’t employ? The Guadalajara-based, Los Angeles-born artist’s current show features ceramics, sculptures, drawings, paintings, murals, photos, performance documentation, and a video, which together add up to an engrossing installation addressing the fantasies, violence, and symbolism of narco-culture. Sarabia’s first hometown solo show in almost 10 years and part […]

Voices from Oaxaca

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

Voices from Oaxaca

woke – (adjective) \wōk\  :  aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice). -Merriam Webster Dictionary (online) There is a lot of talk in the world lately of people finally awakening to the plight of their fellow human beings.  With technological ease of instantly conveyed information […]

Eddie Martinez and Contemporary South African Prints at Wellesley’s Davis Museum

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

Eddie Martinez and Contemporary South African Prints at Wellesley’s Davis Museum

This fall, two special exhibitions among the vast collections at Wellesley College’s Davis Museumare especially worth the 20-mile drive from Boston: Eddie Martinez’s “Ants at a Picknic” and “Life on Paper: Contemporary Prints from South Africa.” These shows are opposite in a few ways: one featured artist versus many, painting on a large scale versus […]

“Crossing the Border,” Clifton Cultural Arts Center, through November 3, 2017

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

“Crossing the Border,” Clifton Cultural Arts Center, through November 3, 2017

“There are three ports in the city of El Paso. They operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In 2011, more that 3.6 million passenger vehicles, 4.2 million pedestrians, and 300,000 commercial vehicles crossed into Ciudad Juárez through the three bridges. It was a slow day when I walked by.” Jens Rosenkrantz (Photo […]

Paul Mpagi Sepuya: Portraits / Positions In Conjunction with the Louisville Biennial

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

Paul Mpagi Sepuya: Portraits / Positions In Conjunction with the Louisville Biennial

Paul Mpagi Sepuya was born in San Bernardino, California in 1982. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Sepuya is known for his extensive photographs of domesticated scenes of friends, fellow artists, and lovers. His photographs vary anywhere from portraiture and figure studies to photographs of collaged elements from previous studies that have been […]

Eat the words – ‘By Heart’ a performance by Tiago Rodrigues

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

Eat the words - ‘By Heart’ a performance by Tiago Rodrigues

Tiago Rodrigues sits on a stool in the center of the stage. He has five chairs arranged on either side of him. Flipping through a book, he casually glances up as the audience shuffles in. They settle and he looks up at the staff to confirm it is time to start the show. He is […]

Fotofolio – Tami Bahat

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

Fotofolio - Tami Bahat

“Dramatis Personae” Tami’s statement: Dramatis Personae is an homage to the old masters: their brilliant use of light and the raw emotion of the characters portrayed. Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Vermeer… I grew up captivated by their stunning works, found hanging from museum walls but also in art books at home. I watched my father study each […]

All the Flowers Are For Cincinnati: Anila Quayyum Agha at Cincinnati Art Museum

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

All the Flowers Are For Cincinnati:  Anila Quayyum Agha at Cincinnati Art Museum

You may have heard of Anila Quayyum Agha from ArtPrize, the city-wide international art exhibition and competition held annually in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The exhibition, now approaching its 10th year, provides artists with an opportunity to win a cash prize of $200,000. Two prizes of this size are awarded – one by a jury of […]

Not As You Like It: Cincinnati Shakespeare Company’s New Otto M. Budig Theater

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

Not As You Like It: Cincinnati Shakespeare Company’s  New Otto M. Budig Theater

Situated at the southwest corner of Elm and 12th Streets on the recently renovated Washington Park, the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company’s new Otto M. Budig Theater is another important cultural/performing arts addition to the renaissance of Over-the-Rhine.  Across the street from the School for the Creative and Performing Arts (S.C.P.A.) and a few doors removed from […]

Harriet Beecher Stowe House: Visit the Past

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

Harriet Beecher Stowe House:  Visit the Past

The Harriet Beecher Stowe house is located at 2950 Gilbert Ave. in Walnut Hills.  The 5,000 square-foot house was completed in 1833.  It is an historic house museum and cultural site focused on Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  The house itself reveals a rich history of 185 years of social activism and African-American history.  […]

Takashi Murakami Takes His Octopus to the Bank

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

Takashi Murakami Takes His Octopus to the Bank

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 […]

Visualizing Natural History: “Wild About Wildflowers,” Lloyd Library and Museum, September 9-November 18, 2017

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

Visualizing Natural History: “Wild About Wildflowers,” Lloyd Library and Museum, September 9-November 18, 2017

Though the show is titled “Wild About Wildflowers,” the Lloyd’s current show is constrained in many ways. It is a truly small exhibit, taking up little more than a half dozen standing cases, though it is also an absorbing show: there was a guy who was there when I arrived still looking at things when […]

“Anima and Animus/Julia Oldham & Casey Riordan Millard,” Marta Hewett Gallery, through Nov. 11, 2017   

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

“Anima and Animus/Julia Oldham & Casey Riordan Millard,” Marta Hewett Gallery, through Nov. 11, 2017   

You enter a different world when you walk into the Marta Hewett Gallery. The exhibition is “Anima and Animus/Julia Oldham & Casey Riordan Millard.” To navigate it, I needed to understand what anima and animus meant, yet another example of my spotty education. Gallerist Marta Hewett helped me there. In an October 21, 2017, email, Hewett wrote: Carl Jung […]

Manifest Gallery Artists in Residence

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

Manifest Gallery Artists in Residence

In case you haven’t noticed, figurative painting is alive and well and the absorbing   interest of any number of young artists.  Two such artists are recipients of the 2017/18 Manifest Artist Residency award and are currently established in their respective studios at the Cincinnati gallery. We talked with each of them for this issue of […]

“Land, Light, Lustre” Mary Woodworth, Andrea Knarr, and Didem Mert at the YWCA Women’s Art Gallery

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

"Land, Light, Lustre"  Mary Woodworth, Andrea Knarr, and Didem Mert at the YWCA Women’s Art Gallery

The three artists in this elegantly mounted show at the YWCA Women’s Art Gallery produce powerful effects on a small scale.  The visual appeal of their work results from the details they apply to each piece with meticulous care.  However, the natural, at times rough-hewn, manner in which they approach color, shape, and texture gives […]

Mel Katz’ at The Museum of Northwest Art

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

Mel Katz' at The Museum of Northwest Art

The Museum of Northwest Art (MoNA) is showing a retrospective of Mel Katz’ work dating back to 1966. Concurrently at Russo Lee Gallery, more recent work by Katz is on display. The museum show includes a video and drawings that show traces of erasure, as well as more three-dimensional works, providing an avenue to understand […]

Artists of the Heartland: James R. Hopkins and Edna Boies Hopkins

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

Artists of the Heartland: James R. Hopkins and Edna Boies Hopkins

  The extensive works of James R. Hopkins and Edna Boies Hopkins are featured in their respective exhibitions in the Galleries of the Springfield Museum of Art. This is a  unique opportunity to acquaint yourself with a husband and wife whose individual expressive works reverently reveal life in the American heartland. “Faces of the Heartland” […]

“The Zinzinnati of the Spectacle”. THE BLINK FESTIVAL. OCTOBER 12-15, 2017

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

“The Zinzinnati of the Spectacle”.  THE BLINK FESTIVAL. OCTOBER 12-15, 2017

“It is a playful analogy to the artist community since it implies the inevitable incorporation of the avant garde into mainstream culture. We creatives are the Aequi.” ?from the Aeqai “about-us” page. “All that once was directly lived has become mere representation.” Guy Debord, ”The Society of the Spectacle” “your golden hair Margareta your ashen […]

David Gerena’s History Of Graffiti Pt 1

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

David Gerena's History Of Graffiti Pt 1

David Gerena’s show,  History Of Graffiti Pt 1, is displayed now at Cincinnati Art Underground in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood. It chronicles his early work in street art and graffiti through his current oil on canvas works in a style he terms figurative graffiti. Gerena, who grew up in the Bronx, is considered one of the pioneers […]

Sarah Martin: Expectations at The McGrath Gallery at Bellarmine University

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

Sarah Martin: Expectations at The McGrath Gallery at Bellarmine University

As a preface, I’m writing this piece whilst questioning my intent in writing it. This exhibition had some serious flaws. On one hand, Expectations was presented like a body of student work, t-pinned artist statements printed on printer paper and all; and the gallery wasn’t big enough for two collections of work, let alone two […]

Art in Bloom Shines at the Cincinnati Art Museum

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

Art in Bloom Shines at the Cincinnati Art Museum

The Cincinnati Art Museum offered Art in Bloom October 26 – 29.  Over 5,000 visitors made the trip to see the pairing of artwork with floral arrangements. The celebration is in its ninth year and offered biennially.  For four days, visitors could see significant works of art chosen by the curators from the museum’s permanent […]

Character Studies in Post-Cultural Revolution China: “Chinese Dreams” at MassArt

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

Character Studies in Post-Cultural Revolution China: “Chinese Dreams” at MassArt

The final moments of the recording of Zhang Huan’s performance piece, “To Raise the Level of a Fish Pond,” make the piece as delightful as it is effectively critical of the economic conditions for low-wage laborers. It features 40 Chinese workers known as liudongrenkou, or “floating population,” who raise the water level by one meter […]

Gallery OTR Joins New Galleries in Greater Cincinnati

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

Gallery OTR Joins New Galleries in Greater Cincinnati

A new gallery opened in Over-the-Rhine at 1121 Walnut St.  Gallery OTR, which opened on July 28, 2017, is owned and managed by Mark Byron, a professional photographer, and passionate advocate for the OTR neighborhood, where he both works and lives. Gallery OTR joins other galleries which have opened recently in Greater Cincinnati.  Byron will […]

Maxwell’s Poetry Corner

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

Good Dang   Lullabies in my head humming while by myself while you’re upstairs in your magic suit two sizes too big for you   I know you’ll grow into it. All the busyness addressing us like we’re important something I’m still getting used to   and you’re dang good at being cute, cause you’re […]

Jesmyn Ward’s “Sing, Unburied, Sing”

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

Jesmyn Ward, whose National Book Award winning novel “Savage the Bones”, took the literary world by storm, has returned with her equally powerful new novel “Sing, Unburied, Sing”.  Centering almost entirely around one African-American family living nearly self-sufficiently in a tiny town in Mississippi–the author herself lives in such a town–the novel rotates points of […]

Alice McDermott’s “The Ninth Hour”

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

A new novel by Alice McDermott is always a major literary event in America.  The territory that she covers in most of her novels, Catholic America, mainly on the East Coast, from the twenties and thirties to the present, is what she mainly writes about, and she does that as well as anyone alive in […]

Celeste Ng’s “Little Fires Everywhere”

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

Celeste Ng’s new novel, Little Fires Everywhere, is the worst, most offensive novel I’ve read in a very, very long time.  Much praised for her earlier novels, Ng, one would have hoped, continue to show her growing promise as a writer, but Little Fires Everywhere is little more than a revenge fantasy  novel on the […]

Jennifer Egan’s “Manhattan Beach”

October 29th, 2017  |  by  |  published in October 2017

Jennifer Egan’s back with her eminently readable, if flawed, new novel “Manhattan Beach”.  She’s one of America’s absolutely finest younger writers, along with Rachel Cusk, Rachel Kushner, Nathan Englander (some might include Celeste Ng in this group).  What all these writers have in common is an uncanny ability to imagine and to write; their prose […]