SOS Art 2009 at the Art Academy of Cincinnati

Now in its seventh year, SOS ART 2009 presents for 10 days an art show and event of sociopolitical expressions for peace and justice.

More than 200 Cincinnati visual artists, literary artists, musicians, performers and school children will participate in this year’s SOS ART event at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, from May 29th to June 7th, 2009.

Organizer and founder, Saad Ghosn of the University of Cincinnati, has
coordinated the art event of paintings, sculptures, photographs, videos, installations, poetry readings, movies, music, performances and discussions on current issues of peace and justice.

The event is a kaleidoscopic community view on the sociopolitical world. Works by local artists make powerful and diverse statements in support of peace and justice locally, nationally and worldwide.

The opening night, which includes an artists’ talk and reception, is Friday, May 29 from 6pm to midnight. Saturday programming for both weekends includes events from 7pm to 10pm. Sunday events are from 3pm to 6pm with a closing reception on the final Sunday, June 7th.

The visual art may also be seen Monday to Thursday from 9am to 6pm, Friday and Saturday from 9am to midnight and Sunday from noon to 6 pm, May 30 to June 7. The entire program is free and open to the public.

See the pdf for more information.

OAC Building Cultural Diversity Workshop Next Month

The Ohio Arts Council (OAC) will hold a Building Cultural Diversity (BCD) workshop Wednesday, June 17, 2009 from 10:30 a.m. – 4 p.m. at the Holiday Inn –Worthington, 7007 N. High Street, Columbus, Ohio 43085.

The workshop will be the OAC’s second annual Professional Development Day for leaders of culturally diverse arts organizations. The workshop will provide participants with an opportunity to learn more about fundraising in these challenging times, discuss OAC grant programs with staff and network with colleagues. Facilitator Kerri Laubenthal Mollard of Mollard Consulting will lead participants in a series of exercises designed to increase organizational and fundraising effectiveness.

The OAC’s Building Cultural Diversity program supports the development and viability of culturally diverse arts organizations whose mission, programs, and staff are representative of the Black/African American, Appalachian, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latino, American Indian, or other culturally specific perspectives. For more information on this program visit the Ohio Arts Council’s website.

Register here for the workshop.

Looking at the Frame

In the next few weeks I will be spending time focusing outside of Cincinnati. While I will be in NYC later this month and will no doubt blog about an exhibition there, my interest is in exploring art communities and the dynamics that lie just outside of our city.

I am looking forward to taking a closer look at Covington, and Newport, KY, and Yellow Springs, OH as well as finally making a trip to the Indianapolis Museum of Art. If there is a gallery, museum, or artist you think I should check out, let me know.

The CMA to Celebrate Dr. Sherman E. Lee

The Cleveland Museum of Art will celebrate its former Director, the late Dr. Sherman E. Lee in an exhibition, Streams and Mountains Without End: Asian Art and the Legacy of Sherman Lee at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The exhibition will include 50 masterworks acquired by the CMA during Lee's tenure.

The exhibition will run from June 27 to August 23, 2009.

Bad News for the new PAC Gallery?

There has been understandably some excitement about the recent local collaboration presenting contemporary Indian art. In partnership with ArtWorks, Cincinnati's new private gallery, the PAC Gallery recently opened Metamorphosis – Change and Continuity in Indian Contemporary Art.

However, according to myartspace.com, ArtTactic, a London based research company that examines the art market, is reporting that the art market confidence in contemporary Indian art has dropped 90 percent since last October.

Click here for more information.

Manifest Gallery International Call For Artist

"Master Pieces" is an annual offering, this third installment of the Master Pieces project will continue to reveal the intensity and professionalism of students working towards their terminal academic degree in the field of art or design. The exhibit successfully draws participation by artists working in a variety of approaches and media, and joins them together from afar in one momentous presentation which introduces them and highlights their work to the world. (The 1st annual Master Pieces was reviewed in the international publication Sculpture Magazine!)

Deadline is June 5, 2009.

Click here for more information.

NEA Announces FY 2009 Grant Awards

The NEA announced a number of FY 2009 grants awarded in Ohio.

Access to Artistic Excellence I/Challenge America Fast-Track Grants/Creativity & Aging/Literature Fellowships (Poetry)

Access to Artistic Excellence II/American Masterpieces
Arts on Radio and Television/Learning in the Arts for Children & Youth/Partnerships

And the Ohio Arts Council received an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Grant of $353,400.

Congratulations to all of our Ohio artists and art organizations.

To see all NEA FY 2009 awards by state start here.

The CAC responds

Following is the email I received responding to my questions about the the inclusion of Supply and Demand on the next season at the Contemporary Art Center:

Thank you for your note. It’s clear you have passion for contemporary art and the artists who produce it. And as you pointed out, you are not alone in your opinion. These types of debates are very important to the health of the art world. They should, and I'm sure will, continue. The CAC believes it is important to express and present the different viewpoints and opinions not only in art, but of the art as well. It's wonderful to know we have community members involved and engaged in this type of dialogue. There is no shortage of worthy issues to debate considering all the factors involved in all the forms contemporary art takes, and we hope you and others continue to express your concern, enjoyment and passion--it's a great contribution.

Best,
Molly

Molly O'Toole
Director of Communications and Community Engagement
Contemporary Arts Center
Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art


We'll see how the CAC plans to present "different viewpoints." For now, the only viewpoint on the season schedule is that of Shepard Fairey.

Is the CAC on the wrong side of art?

When I heard the rumor last week that Shepard Fairey’s Supply and Demand will be in Cincinnati next year, I contacted the CAC with my concerns regarding Fairey’s practice “appropriating” works by artists who he simply neglects to attribute. To date, the CAC has not responded to my inquiry.

I hope the CAC intends to address these issues. That Supply and Demand is scheduled to travel to the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh before arriving in Cincinnati will not wipe clean the problems Fairey brings. Warhol celebrated the copy. Fairey is no Warhol In fact, up to this point Fairey has cloaked himself in a willingness by the public be ignorant of his “lifting” of art. Is Raphaela Platow, Director of the CAC counting on the same kind of protection? Also, if the CAC plans to present him as a “street artists,” they should know there are a number of street artists who have issued challenges to Fairey and his work….challenges he has up to this point ignored. I presented this discussion in an earlier post.

Despite the loud cries of disdain for Fairey from much of the art world, Ms. Platow insists, “He has made a successful move into museums.” Successful? Really? As the Director of the CAC, Raphaela Platow should be the city’s leading advocate for contemporary art and artists. A blind eye to Fairey’s "lifting" of art and a deaf ear to the protest by artists puts her advocacy into question.

Coming Soon: Artist Interviews

In my interests to maintain and strengthen the regional artistic discussion, I am introducing a new element to my blog: ArtWord. ArtWord will be a regular (weekly or monthly) feature inviting artists to discuss their work. Rather than the interviews being about the artists as seen too much here in Cincinnati, my hope is to provide a space for artists to discuss the direction and goals of their work.

Ideally, artists will find this blog as a space not for mere promotion of their art, but will welcome and gain artistic critiques.

Cleveland Museum of Art to return Italian ancient art

AP reports that the director of The Cleveland Museum of Art says museum officials are prepared to hand over 14 art works to Italian authorities.

Timothy Rub says the transfer of the art, which includes ancient pieces looted or smuggled out of Italy, will take place Wednesday.

Rub and the Italian arts minister agreed to the handover in November. It was unclear which Italian agency would carry the objects back home.

As part of the agreement, Italy has promised to lend 13 objects comparable in quality to the returned antiquities and to cooperate on future exhibitions.

Rub says those works will go on view in Cleveland in 2010, when the museum reopens galleries devoted to ancient art after the completion of a $350 million expansion and renovation.

Gray's Auctioneers Fine Art, Antiques, and Decorations Auction, May 2nd

Gray’s Auctioneers announced its 20th Fine Art, Antiques and Decorations auction to be held Saturday May 2nd at 1pm. Gray’s Auctioneers Llc has quickly established itself as the region’s premier auction house and appraisal facility, capitalizing on both its extensive industry experience as well as its strategic positioning in the upper Midwest region. The Cleveland area in particular provides an abundantly rich and varied source of fine art, antique and decorative pieces - due in part to the prosperous and thriving philanthropic community present here at the turn of the 20th century. While the age of the Rockefellers has past, the passion for extraordinary art works has not. The chance to obtain any number of unique art and decorative pieces at exceptional prices draws individuals not just from the upper Midwest, but all over the globe through our online, absentee and telephone bidding options.

Click here for more information.

Art Critic or P.R. Person

Years ago when I wrote an art column for a northern Ohio newspaper, I saw my role as one that not only announces local exhibitions, but also teaches and introduces an art historical context for many of the shows. It didn’t take me too long to discover the editorial line I was not allowed to cross. While my editor loved my writing, I had to remember that the goal of the newspaper was to bring people to the museums and galleries and there were certain shows that would be the lead story regardless of its strength. As an art historian and not a journalist, this was a real eye-opener for me. How could loyalty to certain artists, museums, and even private galleries supersede an allegiance to the discourse of art? Not only can this poisonous bias permeate throughout mainstream art criticism if not kept in check by writers, but it is the backbone of Cincinnati’s art community.

Last week while visiting a few shows at the Weston Art Gallery, I was asked by a few gallery employees if I knew personally the local artist whose photographs were being exhibited in one of the galleries. I didn’t and in fact had never heard of him. I know personally almost no local artists. What interested me were their claims to how long they’ve known him and very little comment about his work. Here we go. Another example of a Cincinnati gallery exhibiting the artist, not the art. When I saw the work, I understood why. The black and white photographs are not bad, they simply didn’t illicit any kind of response from me so I reviewed the other two exhibitions in the gallery. Perhaps in a few days after the images brewed for awhile, I would have something to say and post it on my blog. Unfortunately, the images simply faded. Until a couple of days ago when I noticed not one but two local publications, City Beat and Cincinnati Magazine included write-ups about this artist and the exhibition this month. Does this reflect an allegiance to the artist or to the gallery? I don’t know.

Two stories about this one show that ignore the other two shows in the same gallery seems a bit saturating until I remind myself this is Cincinnati. This city not only enjoys celebrating its community support of one of its own, but proudly exhibits the incestral core of the arts community. This is far more pervasive than the old adage, “it’s who you know, not what you know.” Many Cincinnati local art critics are themselves artists who have shown in a number of Cincinnati galleries or have worked or do work for any number of our city’s art organizations. Is there a conflict of interest here? I think most art critics would agree there is a blatant conflict. But here in Cincinnati’s art world, a community that literally resides in the shadow of P&G Headquarters, the symbols of successful p.r. marketing, this is business as usual. Marketing is in the interest of the arts. No matter the cost to the creative and intellectual art discussion.

Blogging about art instead of writing for a local publication helps keep the blood of a p.r. man off my hands. I maintain absolutely no allegiance to any artist or art organization here in Cincinnati or elsewhere. My loyalty is to art. Though I have to thank Cincinnati's local arts community for a wonderful irony. Its marketing strategies has made branding myself as Cincinnati’s Art Snob effortless.

Revealing the Grid

The Weston Art Gallery seems to welcome a preoccupation with the challenge of its street-level gallery space that is nearly dominated by windows looking out onto Cincinnati’s downtown streets of 7th and Walnut. Thomas Macaulay’s House Divided: SiteSpecific Environmental Installation currently on view is another such invitation. With its maze of cardboard boxes, nearly all of them white, The Weston almost begs comparison with the CAC’s Tara Donovan, but I’ll let someone else write that review.

Perhaps my most powerful revelation as an art history student occurred when I was introduced to the grid not just as a design principle in architecture and painting, but most impressive as a concept of our living space. As a professor of art history I always enjoyed most revealing this to my students. Forcing them to recognize the tiles on the walls, ceilings and floors of the classrooms as well as the inherent design of campus buildings as nearly uniform three-dimensional grids in which they spent their days, their lives. Watching their eyes get big, I knew from that moment many of them would never see the world the same way again. House Divided wonderfully forces a similar revelation not only of the gridded space that is The Weston Art Gallery, but of how we move and live within the grid. Despite the analytical clarity of a grid we tend to be blinded to it. And like all mazes, Macaulay’s cardboard box maze forces us to move blindly through this space and in doing so reveals our blindness to the forms around us.

Similarly, the photographs of Fredrik Marsh that make up Transitions: The Dresden Project also reveal the architectural grid that constructs our living spaces. Marsh took the photographs during a residency in Dresden, Germany in 2002 and over four subsequent summers. During this time he found himself drawn to buildings that seemed to be locked in the process of reconstruction but now abandoned. The title of the show either refers to the reconstruction of these buildings or more likely to the transition to a post-Communist world. Marsh notes this transition as one that combines a grandness with decay.

While the black and white and color photographs of decaying interiors seem to present a commentary on the collapse of Socialism, these images reveal too a layering of the grid that makes up our domestic spaces. Photographs like Abandoned Apartment near Bahnhof Neustadt, 2005 presents layers of wallpaper and geometrics that make up a space now abandoned, but clearly once celebrated as expressed in the number of applications of design. Many of the photographs include and sometimes focus on doors and windows further emphasizing the gridded domestic space. Like Macaulay’s maze, these photographs invite movement into these spaces. Again, it is this layering of the grid that forces us to recognize our willingness to abandon or overlook these spaces, thus revealing our blindness.

Both shows at The Weston Art Gallery work so well together to encourage the viewer to engage both the formal and social implications of the grid.

Ohio Arts Jobs Preservation Grants Applications

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) recognizes that the non-profit arts industry is an important sector of the economy. The National Endowment for the Arts is uniquely positioned to fund arts projects and activities that preserve jobs in the nonprofit arts sector threatened by declines in philanthropic and other support during the current economic downturn. As part of this important investment, the Arts Endowment is planning to expedite distribution of critical funds at the national, regional, state, and local levels for projects that focus on the preservation of jobs in the arts.

On the web page you will find the information and resources you need to apply for an Ohio Arts Jobs Preservation Grant award, including the OAC list of eligible applicants to the program, program guidelines, scoring criteria, FAQ, reporting requirements, and cash request instructions. Information will be added to the page as it becomes available, but guidelines, scoring criteria and the list of eligible applicants will be posted no later than April 17, 2009.

Except For Parking

Manifest Gallery 12-Hour Life Drawing Marathon This Weekend

Open Figure is an uninstructed life-drawing studio format whereby professionals, students, and the creative public can work side-by-side in common pursuit of excellence in the discipline of drawing (or various other media) while working from the nude model. This no-performance-pressure environment inevitably leads to new learning, support, and productivity that complements formal study (at the high school, college, or professional level), or other non-figure-related artistic work. Each session is moderated by Manifest Associates who are trained and well-qualified artists and/or instructors at the college level.

For more information and to register for the Weekend Drawing Marathon click here.

Ohio Artist goes “back and forth in history”

Columbus, Ohio, artist Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson (b. 1940) has been creating sumptuous mixed media paintings and sculptures for more than half a century. These document the stories she has gleaned from her elders, her travels throughout the world and her study of African and African American history. Her recent series of rag paintings entitled Along Water Street is based on the stores her Uncle Alvin told her as she was growing up and on old maps of Ohio she studied at the library. The artist describes the series as “going back and forth in history” with references to early Native American and African inhabitants who may have populated the Americas hundreds of years ago.

Along Water Street is on view at the Akron Art Museum through April 5, 2009

Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center Artist Call

Call to Artists for The Carnegie's 2010 Exhibition Season Deadline May 1, 2009!

The Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center is dedicated to showcasing the works of emerging and established artists in all artistic disciplines. The Carnegie is located in Covington, Kentucky, ten blocks from the Ohio River and downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. The organization was established in 1971. Each year, 30-40 group and solo shows are awarded for the five galleries consisting of over 6,000 square feet of exhibition space.


Click here for eligibility and forms.

The Sculpture Center Artist Call Deadline

Ann Albano, Executive Director of The Sculpture Center in Cleveland, Ohio is reminding artists of their artist call. The April 6 deadline for entries for After the Pedestal, the 5th Annual of Small Sculpture from the Region is fast approaching. Don’t miss this opportunity to have your artwork selected by the juror Paola Morsiani, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art and former Senior Curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Texas. This summer exhibition will run from June 5 – July 25, 2009.

Consideration will be given to work in all media of sculpture, including installation, conceptual work, and performance video, if object based. The work may be conceived for exhibition on a pedestal, on the wall, on the floor, or hanging from the ceiling – it just should not be too large, made within the last three years, and not previously exhibited in northeastern Ohio. Up to three works of art can be entered for consideration.

For full information and online entry, please click here.