June 25th, 2014 | by Keith Banner | published in *, June 2014, On View
by Keith Banner Posh, intelligent and no-nonsense, “Cries in the Night: German Expressionist Prints around World War 1” (June 21, 2014 to August 17, 2014 at the Cincinnati Art Museum) is both a scholarly tour de force and a pleasure just to look at. Curated simply with blocks of necessary wall texts contextualizing and expanding […]
June 25th, 2014 | by Kevin Ott | published in *, June 2014, On View
by Kevin Ott The sulfur smell of the marsh, the waves of the Atlantic rolling up onto the surrounding beach communities, afternoon rain showers, the funky smell of the historic downtown streets on a hot, humid day…oh, and the restaurants, and of course, Spoleto. There is much to recommend in a visit to the Low […]
June 1st, 2014 | by Keith Banner | published in *, May 2014, On View
by Keith Banner A few months back I went to see the Mike Kelley retrospective at the New York City Museum of Modern Art PS 1 space, and I was floored. More than floored actually – more like cosmically overwhelmed. The show was exhaustive and high-style and punk and stupid and hyper-intelligent and mean-spirited and […]
June 1st, 2014 | by Keith Banner | published in *, May 2014, On View
by Keith Banner The exhibit currently haunting Semantics Gallery in Brighton is called “The Moon Show,” and it has the stylish quiet and unnerving grace of a palace right after a coup, or a vast suburban mall that’s just about kaput. The whole thing is about a lot of stuff (fiction vs. nonfiction, art vs. […]
May 24th, 2014 | by Matthew Metzger | published in *, May 2014, On View
by Matthew Metzger Kay Hurley’s art has been, quite simply but very profoundly, an exploration of the beautiful. Luminous, tonal, unpeopled landscape has unabashedly been her exclusive “genre”. Her commitment to her art has been steadfast, second only to actually living life. Or more aptly put, perhaps, would be to say she has appropriately combined […]
May 24th, 2014 | by Christine Huskisson | published in *, May 2014, On View
by Christine Huskisson Nearly fifteen panels of translucent silk hung at the entrance of the Tuska Gallery for Contemporary Art on the campus of the University of Kentucky. They overlapped in such a way as to block any clear access to the interior of the gallery space that housed the B.F.A. exhibition of Roya Ramezankhani […]
May 24th, 2014 | by Emil Robinson | published in *, May 2014, On View
by Emil Robinson Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? Painting Parody and Disguise at the Contemporary Arts Center presents a range of painterly practice from sculptural to traditional, conceptual to formal. As such it is a coup for the Contemporary Arts Center, whose recent presentations can seem to under-represent the current […]
May 24th, 2014 | by Marlene Steele | published in *, May 2014, On View
by Marlene Steele There is a little something for everyone in the Figurative Invitational at Miller Gallery. Their selection of artists, both local and international, accommodates several of the trendy approaches considered current today. Moscow native, Larissa Morais’s oil painting entitled “Solace” captures a beautiful single figure kneeling anonymously behind a black bladed samurai sword. […]
May 24th, 2014 | by Fran Watson | published in *, May 2014, On View
by Fran Watson Once in a great while, people appear who truly care about art and artists. At 506 Ash this rare miracle has morphed into a highly successful, bottom line-less, mutually advantageous, limited opportunity to allow collectors access to the finest of area art in a most unlikely space. The show-place is, in fact, […]
May 24th, 2014 | by Mike Rutledge | published in *, May 2014, On View
By Mike Rutledge COVINGTON – Viewing Marc Leone’s hanging artworks, one can almost see a planet being formed. Tectonic plates collide. Mountains rise. Lava oozes from gigantic cracks on the planet’s crust. And the craters show striations from millions of years of erosion. Leone, a 44-year-old associate professor at Northern Kentucky University who teaches drawing […]
May 24th, 2014 | by Daniel Brown | published in *, May 2014, On View
by Daniel Brown A virtual plethora of new African writers is taking the literary world by surprise and by storm. Last year’s Amerikah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ended up on The New York Times’ five best novels of the year, most deservedly (I had not, at that time, read it). The writer’s narrator is a […]
May 24th, 2014 | by Daniel Brown | published in *, May 2014, On View
by Daniel Brown Francine Prose’s newest novel, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932, is both her finest to date as well as the best novel of 2014 to date. The book is written from several different points of view, and by several different narrators/protagonists. Prose takes us to Paris in the late 20’s, and […]
April 26th, 2014 | by Matthew Metzger | published in *, April 2014, On View
by Matthew Metzger Fresh Air: Art from the Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest at the Ascent Private Capital Management building was curated by Elizabeth Leach of Elizabeth Leach Gallery in Portland Oregon, with direction from Martha Slaughter, Bernheim’s Visual Arts Coordinator. It presents works by current and past artists in residence at the Bernheim Arboretum, […]
April 26th, 2014 | by Keith Banner | published in *, April 2014, On View
by Keith Banner The basement space at the Weston Art Gallery has always felt claustrophobic and a little spooky to me, like a staged scene in a really serious movie about abduction, no matter what art goes on the walls. It’s the ceiling that does it, kind of looming over the whole area like a […]
April 26th, 2014 | by Matthew Metzger | published in *, April 2014, On View
by Matthew Metzger Alice Aycock’s Super Twister at the University of Cincinnati Medical Science Building Alice Aycock was a seminal presence in the New York avant-garde art scene in the 1970s, and has since continued to create work that simultaneously dissects and combines aspects of monumental sculpture, architecture, science and modern machinery. In stride with […]
April 26th, 2014 | by Shawn Daniell | published in *, April 2014, On View
by Shawn Daniell After last month’s lackluster experience at The Carnegie’s Art of Food, I was looking for something a little less mainstream. I was looking for something off the beaten path. I desired something fun and quirky. I’m always searching for new galleries or spaces that don’t see a lot of coverage. During one […]
April 26th, 2014 | by Fran Watson | published in *, April 2014, On View
by Fran Watson The Carnegie, April 4 – May 17, 2014 The magnet piece in Recognized: Contemporary Portraiture at the Carnegie Arts Center was definitely “Biker Mice”. With the same fury seen in Jean-Michel Basquiat’s art, Marci Rosin splashed her signature subject based on the cartoon, “Biker Mice from Mars” with graffiti and speed. I […]
April 26th, 2014 | by Daniel Brown | published in *, April 2014, On View
by Daniel Brown Two recently published books, one fiction, and one non-fiction, have recently come out, and both of them are utterly outstanding in trying to explain what is happening to our soldiers when they come back from either Iraq or Afghanistan. Phil Klay’s Redeployment is a work of unmitigated brilliance, and presents a powerful […]
March 25th, 2014 | by Marlene Steele | published in *, March 2014, On View
by Marlene Steele Gaela Erwin, Manifest Gallery Cincinnati Ohio Chi.a.ro.scu.ro: An effect of contrasted light and shadow. Origin Latin: chiaro ‘clear,bright’ + oscuro ‘dark, obscure’ Pas.tel pastel: noun: a crayon made of powdered pigments bound with gum or resin. adjective: of a soft and delicate shade or color. The interlude where I met Gaela Erwin […]
March 25th, 2014 | by Keith Banner | published in *, March 2014, On View
by Keith Banner In 1964, Susan Sontag wrote an essay called “Notes on ‘Camp’” that still wraps and winds its tentacles throughout culture today. Basically a survey of “Camp’s” meanings, practices and perversions, the essay reads like a Bible for drag, piss-elegance and artful political incorrectness used to both disembowel and deconstruct the mainstream. When […]
March 25th, 2014 | by Robert Wallace | published in *, March 2014, On View
by Robert K. Wallace Wild Card: The Art of Michael Combs, A Fifteen-Year Survey. One of the attractions Newport-on-the-Levee has brought to Greater Cincinnati is the tourist version of the World War II “duck boat” on which you can cruise the Ohio River. Those of us who remember the “duck boat” that got run over […]
March 25th, 2014 | by Trish Richter | published in *, March 2014, On View
by Trish Richter February 14 – March 14 Trailing behind the phenomenon of globalization is the individual’s growing awareness of its identity within a politically, socially, and environmentally global community. Old news, yes, but this concept is exponentially significant as the world continues to shift at the expense of both humans and the natural world. […]
March 25th, 2014 | by Julie Gross | published in *, March 2014, On View
by Julie Gross A recent graduate art student was contemplating the ideas set forth in the Bible. As he pondered the depth of the mysterious mind of God he reached for his plenty pack of chewing gum, unwrapped a thin stick of refreshment and carefully folded it into his mouth. As his thoughts were preoccupied […]
March 25th, 2014 | by Shawn Daniell | published in *, March 2014, On View
by Shawn Daniell The Carnegie’s eighth installment of The Art of Food has become an extravagant opening night affair. But in the days that follow, the viewing experience becomes anticlimactic and sadly underwhelming. I’ve perused photos of the opening night online. I’ve seen the Alice and Wonderland costumed characters. I’ve seen the exquisite food creations […]
March 25th, 2014 | by Dustin Pike | published in *, March 2014, On View
by Dustin Pike In the city we call Cincinnati, there lies nestled a hidden gem of a library founded by three brothers, John Uri, Nelson Ashley, and Curtis Gates Lloyd. They ventured here first and foremost, to further their knowledge and practice of pharmaceuticals, and as it turned out they were quite successful. Their combined […]
February 23rd, 2014 | by Kevin Muente | published in *, February 2014, On View
by Kevin Muente Recent Paintings by Jason John at Manifest Gallery Manifest Gallery is entering its tenth season in Cincinnati and its reputation continues to grow both nationally and internationally. Their website states that Jason John’s solo show of eleven works was one of six proposals selected from a pool of 165. John delivers. When […]
February 23rd, 2014 | by Matthew Metzger | published in *, February 2014, On View
by Matthew Metzger Editor’s Note: Aeqai receives an increasingly large number of press releases for exhibitions in other cities. So we thought we would experiment, and try to review one from afar, without the direct experience of seeing it live. The first review, by Matt Metzger, is of a show by Ryan Coburn at the […]
February 23rd, 2014 | by Keith Banner | published in *, February 2014, On View
by Keith Banner Hollis Hammonds has close encounters of the terrestrial kind in her new show at DAAP Galleries called “Worthless Matter.” A stockpile and survey of her recent work, the show displays Hammonds’ skills at drawing and lets us in on a consciousness that is both vividly sedate to the point of entrancement, and […]
February 23rd, 2014 | by Shawn Daniell | published in *, February 2014, On View
by Shawn Daniell CUT: Windows to Eternity, the newest exhibition at the Marta Hewett Gallery, features the artwork of Eric Standley. When I first saw Standley’s artwork, I immediately thought of the matryoshka doll, commonly referred to as Russian nesting dolls. Russian nesting dolls are made of wood while Standley’s creations are made of laser […]
February 23rd, 2014 | by Marlene Steele | published in *, February 2014, On View
by Marlene Steele Life is a box of chocolates— You never know what you are going to get. Love letters, love birds, bottled passion and romance — this lighthearted look at the thread of romance in all phases of life and experience is as varied in message and medium as the artists selected to exhibit. […]
February 23rd, 2014 | by Daniel Brown | published in *, February 2014, On View
by Daniel Brown Gary Shteyngart is a veritable force of nature, a whirlwind of words, anxiety, mania. Having spent the first seven years of his life in the old Soviet Union, in Leningrad, he and his parents emigrated to America during Carter’s presidency. Carter traded grain to the Soviet Union in trade for letting millions […]
February 23rd, 2014 | by Daniel Brown | published in *, February 2014, On View
by Daniel Brown In the past two years or so, America has generated some fantastic new young writers, among them Amber Dermott, Jim Gavin, Jamie Quatro, Eleanor Henderson, Chad Harwick all come to mind. Now, there is the remarkable Jenny Offill, she of the unfortunate name, with her second novel, Dept. of Speculation. When a […]
January 25th, 2014 | by Matthew Metzger | published in *, January 2014, On View
by Matthew Metzger Ron Thomas’ Take if from Me and Kim Krause’s The Eleusinian Mysteries ran concurrently at The Carnegie and Marta Hewett Gallery, offering a nice opportunity for a symposium (at least in writing) of two very different types of abstraction. I provide a bit more coverage for Thomas’ work simply because, to my […]
January 25th, 2014 | by Shawn Daniell | published in *, January 2014, On View
by Shawn Daniell When I was in art school at The College of Brockport in Brockport, New York, ten years gone by now, I often wondered what kind of artwork my art professors were creating in their own studios, or if they were even creating at all. Students put a lot of money and trust […]
January 25th, 2014 | by Keith Banner | published in *, January 2014, On View
by Keith Banner Diane Landry’s “by every wind that blows” at the Contemporary Arts Center downtown (up through March 2, 2014) is revelatory and mundane at the same time, a beautiful mix of thought and action that shimmers in your mind a long time after witnessing it. Landry uses banal objects like empty water-bottles, plastic […]
January 25th, 2014 | by Kevin Ott | published in *, January 2014, On View
by Kevin Ott Although this is not a proper “show” of Selden’s work, there are 5 paintings displayed at the Eisele Gallery, more than one can usually find in one location by this respected Cincinnati artist and favorite student of Frank Duvenek. First the gallery: Eisele Gallery specializes in 19th and 20th Century paintings (and […]
January 25th, 2014 | by Fran Watson | published in *, January 2014, On View
by Fran Watson “The Tree of Life”, Cincinnati Art Museum, November 29, 2013 – January 1, 2014 In a straight line from the main entrance of the Cincinnati Art Museum, past the sequestered “Icons” spotlighted in black caves, through the spacious hallway, footsteps echoing loudly, stood the very dead “Tree of Life”; its roots unlaced […]
September 15th, 2012 | by Stephen Slaughter | published in On View, September 2012
Last Saturday I was fortunate enough to have plans, and luckier still those plans included attending a multi media event at Third Party Gallery in Cincinnati’s West End. The performance was the zenith of the annual art exhibition Autumedia, a show held, in part, at Semantics Gallery, featuring local sound and video artists whose current […]
September 15th, 2012 | by Shawn Daniell | published in On View, September 2012
Take a stroll down the main drag of Historical Rabbit Hash, Kentucky and you never know what you may find, whether it is motorcyclists, hippies, artists, musicians or a local relaxing on the porch of the general store. Recently, on a late summer day my fiancée and I decided to take an afternoon adventure on […]
September 15th, 2012 | by Fran Watson | published in On View, September 2012
“Shape to Shape” Paintings and sculpture by Stuart Fink Brazee Street studios, 4426 Brazee Street in Oakley Reception: September 14, 6-9 p.m. Showing through September 21 I was a bit confused at first glimpse of Stuart Fink’s current show at Gallery One One at Brazee Street studios. His name is so well known in the […]
September 15th, 2012 | by Karen Chambers | published in On View
I first encountered Katie Swartz’s work in “All the Usual Suspects” at Thompson House Shooting Gallery (see aeqai.com, July 2012). She showed three crocheted animals: “Bartholomew,” 2010, an 11” tall, cuddly bear, and two friendly octopi: “Mario,” 11” tall, and “Myron,” 9” tall, both 2011. In that review, I placed her work in the context […]
June 17th, 2012 | by Keith Banner | published in *, June 2012, On View
By: Keith Banner In “Funny Mirrors,” a three-person show at AEC Gallery in Covington, Kentucky, Billy Simms drains a clown’s life of all color and joy, creating a wall-novel out of wood-block relief prints that is both astoundingly sad and gleefully sinister. The way his bit of the show is hung, along a hallway at […]
June 17th, 2012 | by Maria Seda-Reeder | published in *, June 2012, On View
By: Maria Seda-Reeder The Zaha Hadid designed Lois and Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, with its intermittently soaring and squatting ceilings and massive concrete pillars, has been notoriously challenging for artists and curators alike. Fortunately, the two current exhibitions on the second floor, Jannis Varelas’ “Sleep My Sheep Sleep” and Francis Upritchard’s “A Long […]
June 17th, 2012 | by Regan Brown | published in *, June 2012, On View
By: Regan Brown Photographs courtesy of Eric R Greiner “The Valley of Understanding: Here we all choose a different way and different rules to disobey.” ― from The Conference of the Birds (منطق الطیر) by Peter Sís (adapted from Farid ud-Din Attar) [ 1 ] My first of several consecutively less disfigurative “windows” onto […]
June 17th, 2012 | by Fran Watson | published in June 2012, On View
By: Fran Watson Photographs courtesy of Eric R Greiner This may be prejudice, but print shows are always elegant to me. It might be the stark, bravado of good line on fine paper, or the iteration of symbols, or even the sinuous curls and aggressive exclamations of straight lines reminiscent of the waning popularity of […]
June 17th, 2012 | by Laura P. Yoo | published in June 2012, On View
By: Laura A. Partridge In its history, Cincinnati has managed to accumulate a number of hidden gems. The Lloyd Library is one of them. The Lloyd is a private library that was incorporated in the late 1800s, and is located at Plum and Court streets. The collection has lived in a few different spaces as […]
June 17th, 2012 | by Amanda Dalla Villa Adams | published in June 2012, On View
By: Amanda Dalla Villa Adams Photographs courtesy of Eric R Greiner Faced with the end of modernism, art historian Hal Foster attempted to define the role of the critic within post-modern art in “Re: Post” (1982). Ultimately, he suggested that postmodernism allows art to go “beyond the limits of critique,” because there is no longer […]
June 17th, 2012 | by Marlene Steele | published in June 2012, On View
By: Marlene Steele Drawing, the tool of observation and investigation employed by artists even in this technological time of electronic gadgetry, is as diversified as the number of individuals wrestling with its control. It is a fascinating opportunity to observe how another navigates their drawing process. This is insightful particularly when the exhibited work, so tidy […]
May 17th, 2012 | by Cole Carothers | published in May 2012, On View
The Bible tells the story of Adam and Eve (mankind) expelled from the Garden of Eden for picking fruit from the tree of knowledge. Katie St. Clairʼs, The Hierarchy of Living Things gives us little comfort in whatever knowledge we have gleaned from that singular fruit. Here, naked as the day she was born, a […]
May 17th, 2012 | by Fran Watson | published in May 2012, On View
Layered Abstractions at AEC April 13 thru May 11 Abstract they are; some more than others. Yet sculpture by Robert Pulley, palette knife paintings by Trish Weeks, and painted comments on humanity by Paige Williams, were pulled together by the common, if tenuous, thread of nature. Robert Pulley has spent decades in sculpture. With a true […]
May 17th, 2012 | by Larry Watson | published in May 2012, On View
Dichotomy and paradox often create the tension in representational artwork, taking us beyond the visual depictions in the work and tapping into our visceral connections. And so it is with the exhibit “Diaspora/Miasma” on exhibit at Marta Hewett Gallery March 30 through May 19th. Both Kevin Veara and Eoin Breadon have brought us to awareness […]
April 14th, 2012 | by Brad McCombs | published in April 2012, On View
A vivid group of photographs by Brad Austin Smith are on display at the Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Art Gallery through June 3, 2012. At the heart of this exhibition is a raw look at the Queen City, its suburbs and American culture. Playful and striking photographs coalesce around a common viewpoint of […]
April 14th, 2012 | by Fran Watson | published in April 2012, On View
Ah, the creative mind! It changes our vision, our perceptions, our world, using the vastness of the unnoticed, mundane material of our daily lives. Like thread, a single one of which is so ordinary, so small, so inconsequential, that it is seldom acknowledged in any but a practical way: sewing a button on, mending a […]
April 14th, 2012 | by Amanda Dalla Villa Adams | published in April 2012, On View
Admittedly, authenticity is a word I know well. As a specialist at a local auction house, I am often asked to verify a work of art. Usually, I consult a variety of resources and other experts who help to conclusively argue for or against the veracity of an object. The most difficult items often get […]
April 14th, 2012 | by Laura P. Yoo | published in April 2012, On View
Spring is a time to enjoy the outdoors, and for this, one of the heartland’s leading cultural institutions, the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA), is a destination. Even if you never enter the museum itself, it’s worth the trip. In 2010, the IMA opened their 100 Acres: Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park. 100 […]
March 18th, 2012 | by Keith Banner | published in March 2012, On View
The mystery in Jennifer Purdum’s paintings and drawings is flagrantly upfront, like a joke with a disturbing punch-line that really has nothing to do with the joke outside of being connected to it. In many of the pictures in “Inside/Out: Drawings and Paintings by Jennifer Purdum” now on display at the Clifton Cultural Arts Center […]
March 18th, 2012 | by Shawn Daniell | published in March 2012, On View
George Bernard Shaw once wrote, “There is no love sincerer than the love of food.” Food keeps us alive. It nourishes the body and keeps us growing healthy and strong. But food also serves as fuel for the artistic soul. That idea was embraced by the Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center in Covington, Kentucky […]
February 18th, 2012 | by A.C. Frabetti | published in February 2012, On View
The Land of Tomorrow in Louisville collaborated with Country Club to curate a broad show of many different artists, many of whom are well-known in Cincinnati (such as Aaron Morse and Jimmy Baker). Only certain artists were given their own individual rooms (The Land of Tomorrow’s group), and are my focus here: Taylor Baldwin, Lisa […]
February 18th, 2012 | by Keith Banner | published in February 2012, On View
Romantic and cinematic, the prints and collages in the retrospective “Impressions and Improvisations: The Prints of Romare Bearden,” (on display at the Taft Museum of Art through April 29, 2012) have a home-brewed flair matched with an aesthete’s precision. In each piece, Bearden seems to devote all his time and attention to grasping at the […]
February 18th, 2012 | by Alan D Pocaro | published in February 2012, On View
Currently on view at AISLE in the West End, Fiends is a two-person show featuring works by veteran collagist Michael Scheurer and newcomer Lizzy Renschler. If you’ve been paying even a modicum of attention, it should be clear to you by now that Scheurer has become a hot property. In the past year the artist’s […]
February 18th, 2012 | by Shawn Daniell | published in February 2012, On View
The Ghost Empire Collective, an all male artist collective from Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, began their first gallery season with Die Cupid Die at The Famous Neons Unplugged. The core idea behind the Ghost Empire Collective, recently formed in late 2011, is to bring art to audiences in non-traditional art spaces such as restaurants and […]
February 18th, 2012 | by Daniel O'Connor | published in February 2012, On View
“A Retelling,” the curatorial work of Katie Rentzke, at Covington’s Artisan Enterprise Center, exhibits three related bodies of work by Brian Harmon, Billy Renkl and McCrystle Wood. Through photographic installation, collage and computer generated prints, each of the artists poised in his or her respective medium, ambiguously addresses the idea of “retelling,” individually and collectively. […]
January 23rd, 2012 | by A.C. Frabetti | published in January 2012, On View
The B. Deemer Gallery in Louisville presents a partial retrospective of the work of artist and educator Robert Knipschild (1927-2004). Paintings include works dating from the 1960s (a little over a decade after he was selected for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s renowned exhibition “American Painting Today”) through the 1990s. His style in this extensive […]
January 23rd, 2012 | by Fran Watson | published in January 2012, On View
The Marta Hewitt Gallery always looks fresh. There’s something about the bling effect of glass and the space implied and manipulated by that medium. But Hewitt is taking this a giant step forward, lately, pulling in less famous, but equally good artists in other mediums. Currently three multi-dimensional artists, dealing in work-intensive materials are well […]
January 23rd, 2012 | by Dustin Pike | published in January 2012, On View
The idea of “abstraction” in art has always held a definitive place in my heart ever since I began noticing my love for creative expression. Not only is the idea typically misunderstood by most audiences, it seems to be so because it denies certain concrete realities and meanings we hold dear. Ironically, abstraction seems to […]
December 16th, 2011 | by Fran Watson | published in December 2011, On View
Pablo Picasso would not be the only mercurial, misogynistic, egotistic, super- salesman who chose art (or art chose him) as a means of locomotion. The type abounds in this most rarified of all careers in this equally rarified era, most notably epitomized by Duchamp and Man Ray, masters of shock art, but he is the […]
December 15th, 2011 | by Chris Reeves | published in December 2011, On View
Phase One: Screen Test is the first exhibition/”phase” of an ambitious three part series entitled Is This Thing On? at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati. According to the press release, Phase One: Screen Test “traces the history of performance video, showcasing the changing role of technology and new media trends”. The exhibition consists of […]
December 15th, 2011 | by Emil Robinson | published in December 2011, Features, On View
As an artist ages, he or she becomes increasingly sensitive to the world and more uncertain of how to proceed. As the artist grows wiser, he or she must make the decision to continue groping for the elusive threads of memory and the constant uncertainty of personal experience. It is important for the work that […]
December 15th, 2011 | by Dustin Pike | published in December 2011, On View
With all of the excess stuff floating around, most specifically in North America, it is hopeful to know that some artists are not letting everything go to waste. A New Reality at the Artisan’s Enterprise Center Gallery features 3 artists who are crafting superb works of art from what most people would end up throwing […]
December 15th, 2011 | by Laura P. Yoo | published in December 2011, On View
Most longtime residents of Cincinnati know that the city has a strong Jewish tradition. But did you know that it’s considered an historic center for Reform Judaism? It is, and has been for more than a century. In 1875 Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise founded the Hebrew Union College which, after merging with the Jewish Institute […]
November 15th, 2011 | by Keith Banner | published in November 2011, On View
The wall text for Julião Sarmento’s exhibit (closing January 22, 2012) at the Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art promises an exhibit built on “the concept of the book as an aesthetic and visceral object.” It goes on to report that many of Sarmento’s drawings exemplify the “sensuous gesture of holding a book.” […]
November 15th, 2011 | by Dustin Pike | published in November 2011, On View
To quote Alan Watts, a much wiser man than I, “A myth is an image in terms of which we try to make sense of the world.” Walking through the hall of the new Canco Gallery space in Northside, I got the feeling I was entering someone’s intrapersonal mindscape, filled with its fair share […]
November 15th, 2011 | by Fran Watson | published in November 2011, On View
George Inness, as currently featured at the Taft Museum of Art through January 8, 2012, was not yet the master of a united nature concept when these early paintings were completed. Often noted as the most influential artist in the development of American Impressionism, that title would have been angrily denied by him, had he […]
November 15th, 2011 | by Larry Watson | published in November 2011, On View
Though hardly indicative of the full breadth of contemporary craft art, the diversity of work presented in the “The Artist’s Craft” exhibit at The Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center is a window into the ability of artists to use traditional materials to create surprising compositions that challenge, and resonate with, the viewers sensibilities. Arturo […]
October 15th, 2011 | by Keith Banner | published in *, October 2011, On View
Like doodles scribbled on the edges of homework, Peter Saul’s exquisitely moronic pictures (on display mostly in lithographic form at Carl Solway Gallery through December 22, 2011) have a rote yet somehow ominous quality, a blurry merger of the popular and profane. While seeming to be birthed from boredom and cynicism like punk rock, they […]
October 15th, 2011 | by Laura P. Yoo | published in *, October 2011, On View
Currently on display at the Miller Gallery on Hyde Park Square, is an exhibition featuring 25 artists whose work offers outstanding examples of contemporary realist painting. A movement towards figurative painting among artists has accelerated in the past five to eight years. Whether artists are painting portraits, interiors or still lifes, the work is incredibly […]
October 15th, 2011 | by Fran Watson | published in October 2011, On View
Once I thought of Bessie Wessel with some pity, a victim of her times, when women were permitted to study, but not to enjoy a full, satisfying career. Men, like Bessie’s husband, Herman, would pursue success in the world, while the ladies, God bless ‘em, tended the comforts that would enable the men to fight […]
September 15th, 2011 | by Maria Seda-Reeder | published in *, On View, September 2011
“We’re the reflections of our ancestors / we’d like to thank you for the building blocks you left us / ‘cause your spirit possessed us” – Talib Kweli, “Africa Dream” Emily Hanako Momohara’s current exhibition at PAC Gallery, “Islands,” consists of fifteen archival pigment prints on rich Somerset Velvet paper. The exhibition is a […]
September 15th, 2011 | by A.C. Frabetti | published in *, On View, September 2011
Third Party Gallery opened its first exhibition with a group show (the curator isn’t listed, but I assume it was Wyatt Niehaus, one of the co-founders) called Reductio ad Absurdum. According to the press release, the curator claims that its artists have “composed a dialogue between their work and a preexisting ideology, convention or concept […]
September 15th, 2011 | by Fran Watson | published in *, On View, September 2011
Manifest Gallery’s “3rd Annual NUDE” international competition showing through September 9, offers more than the vast undulating landscape of skin to be considered. The subjects have been folded, stretched, posed and exposed in every manner from hypnotic fragility, as in Bain Butcher’s “Untitled” graphite rendering of a young woman, to the Diebenkorn-ish palette knife interiors […]
July 25th, 2011 | by Keith Banner | published in *, On View, Summer 2011
“Not Just Pretty Pictures: The Carl M. Jacobs III Collection” at the Cincinnati Art Museum “I am at war with the obvious,” Photographer William Eggleston once said when asked about his work. I have a feeling Carl M. Jacobs III, the collector the exhibit […]
July 25th, 2011 | by Maria Seda-Reeder | published in *, On View, Summer 2011
“Hard Knocks: Art without Art School” is a loosely curated collection of more than one hundred works of art by thirty-one artists from around the globe. By making use of their three curators (visual artists Antonio Adams, Ran Barnaclo, & Spencer van der Zee,) Thunder-Sky’s Face Book page, and exhibition blog to cast a wide […]
July 25th, 2011 | by Fran Watson | published in On View, Summer 2011
Books. From the tiniest , “Musical Boxes” by Mark Palkovic measuring a mere 1” X 1 1/2”, to the largest, also qualifying as the most outrageous,”Zulu: A Book Doll” by Pamela Howard, Bookwords 12 at the Main Library through August 29, 2011, is a plethora of invention and imagination. Pop-up book artists are now known […]
July 25th, 2011 | by Alan D Pocaro | published in On View, Summer 2011
Harry Reisiger at The Phyllis Weston Gallery Clement Greenberg once said that “the superior artist is one who knows how to be influenced” and the current survey of paintings by the late Harry Reisiger reveals just such an artist. Born in 1922, Reisiger studied at both the Art Academy and the University of Cincinnati, eventually […]
July 25th, 2011 | by Keith Banner | published in On View, Summer 2011
“Body of Art,” the exhibit currently at Prairie Gallery (on display through August 20, 2011), is a group show in which the weirdness and greatness of the individual works often outshine the reason they were pulled together in the first place. The show is a grab-bag of video, photography, sculpture, painting and drawing, and while […]
July 25th, 2011 | by Fran Watson | published in On View, Summer 2011
Initial Impression: Darkened rooms, interestingly arranged for multi-screened film projections. Walls and partitions simultaneously displaying black and white events. A slim man scatters a white powder over a grassy area. He is printing the universal signal for help, SOS, in large letters by drizzling a white powder on the grass. Written material nearby indicates that […]
July 25th, 2011 | by Chris Reeves | published in On View, Summer 2011
Andre Alves’ Mute Motives at Semantics In the late1950s and into the 1960s, the philosophies of composer John Cage permeated the arts. Allan Kaprow took Cage’s notion of incorporating all of life into (and as) music and invented the “happening,” where the human body took […]
July 25th, 2011 | by Karen Chambers | published in On View
It might seem flip to start a review of “Treeline,” Kent Krugh’s (American, 1955- ) rather magnificent exhibition of 22 black-and-white photographs* of the Angel Tree, the largest tree east of the Mississippi, with the old chestnut that “you can’t the see the forest for the trees.” But in this case, the Quercus virginiana, an […]
July 25th, 2011 | by Fran Watson | published in On View, Summer 2011
In Cincinnati painting circles two names, from a recent past, keep their magic. The late Paul Chidlaw and the late Jack Meanwell, both of whom painted with a flashing style raised from the canvas in waves of impasto excitement. Both artists’ works are available at […]
June 15th, 2011 | by Maria Seda-Reeder | published in *, June 2011, On View
A Star is Born: the Douglas S. Cramer Collection at the CAM. If you go to the Cincinnati Art Museum this summer you will see artwork from the contemporary art collection of Hollywood producer Douglas S. Cramer in two separate exhibition areas: one just upon passing the entrance foyer, where the Museum often houses small-scale […]
