ArtWorks Forces My Hand on Outsider Art

When I visited Cincinnati Art Museum’s Isn’t Great To Be An Artist? Insider/Outsider Art from the Robert A. Lewis Collection a few weeks ago, I was met yet again by my inherent discomfort with Outsider Art. I do love folk art, but this show exposes an underlying “primitivist” aesthetic that exploits along racial, cultural, and economic lines. Because I struggle to get beyond this (I left the museum in tears), I decided not to write about the show.

Last night however, I left ArtWorks Green Spaces: Everyday is Earth Day simply furious. The show featured work by artists from Visionaries & Voices, a non-profit art studio in Cincinnati for artists with disabilities. My anger over the show last night is a direct response to a clear lack of respect for these artists. The first thing I notice when entering the gallery was a failure to label any of the works of art. Instead, ArtWorks supplied a printed list of the artists’ names, the names of the works, and poor quality b&w reproductions of the art. I found myself and others walking around the gallery trying to match up the art with the information on the list. I’ve never seen such a poor art installation.

According their website, Visionaries & Voices has a “vision that artists with disabilities are valued members of the cultural community, and that they have opportunities for artistic success and creative growth in an atmosphere of mutual respect, inspiration, and joy.” ArtWorks’ disrespect for these artists is immediately clear in the poor presentation. Further, the marginalization of the artist of Visionaries & Voices became more painfully clear when I walked towards the back of the gallery and saw works by two artists not part of the show whose work were clearly labeled.

While the Cincinnati Art Museum asks the question with Isn't It Great To Be An Artist?, Artworks answers with, perhaps not always.

Manifest Gallery Presents Iconic Mythography

Thematic exhibitions often present various styles of art worked towards a broad idea. A good show also offers the viewer a opportunity to see clearly articulated artistic perspectives on a theme. Rare is a show made up of iconic pieces. Mythography, currently on view at Manifest Gallery is such a show.

Mythography is an annual show inviting national and international artists to tell a story. The result is an exhibition that includes painting, sculpture, drawing, video, and photography presenting stories with details we may not know, with images strikingly familiar. David Hannon’s Strange Gifts for example depicts a scene in which a young man has just opened a package containing a sculptural bust. He is presumably on his front patio, which is surrounded by examples of a polluted disregard for the urban landscape. Factories drape the landscape along with sewage draining nearby and a car exhausting fumes passes by.

The films of Bill Domonokos are similarly engaging. Domonokos’s work includes found photographic images and archival film he represents as film collage. While we may not be familiar with the narrative, the aesthetic of these black and white images are easily recognizable. His film “Nocturne” is accompanied and inspired by the absolutely beautiful music of Tchaikovsky adding another level of iconic familiarity.

While Mythography allows for a broad definition of the narrative, the art of storytelling pulls the show together with dramatically engaging results. Through the iconic forms of Jessica Grace Bechtel’s Ripening and Chris White’s endearing Grandma & Grandpa that pull us into the gallery to the welcoming familiarity of Laura Fisher’s Part One: Dreams, an old book of prints Mythography makes room for the storyteller.

Another Dose of Friedlander

I just learned northern Ohio has another Friedlander exhibition currently open. The Akron Art Museum is now showing Lee Friedlander’s Factory Valleys through May 31st. This series that includes about 60 photographs was commissioned by the museum 30 years ago.

A Weekend with Family and Friedlander

While visiting my family in Lorain, Ohio over the weekend, my 87 year old Aunt Mary made a rare and much anticipated visit with her photo albums in tow. Aunt Mary has happily assumed the role of the family historian though has never written anything down. The pictures are her record. We often hear about families suffering with Alzheimer’s disease, so while my family has not yet been touched by this memory crippling disease, I was still amazed as Aunt Mary seemed to be able to recall a story or two from each of the pages of the albums.

Who was married to whom and who was in the wedding, where everyone lived and worked between Italy, Pennsylvania, and finally Ohio, who owned what car, and family pets animated this oral history. Aunt Mary remembered everything. I suspected there were even a few details she left out, like her time working at a nightclub. Aunt Mary insists she was not a dancer in the club though a picture of her in a leotard seems to suggest otherwise. But this was her history more than mine last weekend. I asked her how she is able to remember all of these details. She said, “When I feel a bit depressed, I look through my pictures and remember how wonderful my family is and much fun my life has been.”

My visit to see family included the requisite stop to the Cleveland Museum of Art. This time I stopped to see the Friedlander show. Lee Friedlander has always been one of my favorite photographers. No doubt it’s the wonderfully entertaining puns found throughout much of his oeuvre that entertain me. Many of his photographs I hold especially dear because his work was perhaps most easily recognizable during slide identification exams in both History of Photography classes I took. Each time one of his pictures projected onto the screen during an exam, I let out an audible sigh of relief. Many of these images are included in this exhibition.

Friedlander’s photographs and books are displayed in chronological order within various categories making it easy to see simultaneously a breadth and depth of his career of five decades. Not only did I recognize many of these photographs, but some of the subjects too. I’ve visited or lived in many of the cities in which he shot, including Boston, Los Angeles, and Albuquerque, NM. I also met at least a couple of his subjects, like Maya Lin and John Szarkowski. With such familiarity of the work combined with walking through the show with my sister, I couldn’t help but recognize the Friedlander show as a wonderful complement to my Aunt Mary’s photographs. As a photographer of “the American social landscape,” Friedlander captures the wonder and wit American life.

Stewart Goldman, Rebel?

The Cincinnati Art Museum would have you think so in its new show. However an artist who rebelled against Abstract Expressionism is rather cliché. In doing so, Stewart Goldman: Presence through Absence seems to play down some of the rather obvious references to AbEx’s geometric and organic visual language that find their way throughout Goldman’s work. By trying to illustrate a different road towards abstraction, the show seems to battle art history. For example, Goldman’s abstract Feldafing Scape of 1997 is said to have been created after the artist’s trip to Germany. Yet there is no mention of a possible influence of German Expressionism even if to dismiss it. Similarly, Goldman’s Untitled series of couches bathed in various light neglects referring to Monet’s Haystack series, which achieved the same.

I enjoyed the presentation of the development of Goldman’s work over the last few decades from a geometric realism to abstraction. Perhaps because it mirrors a history of Modern art that I still enjoy watching unfold each time I walk through museums. The show's focus on absence is intriguing, but I think the narrative is forced. Perhaps I will have to wait until May 6th for Professor Matthew Dayler’s gallery talk to better see what is not there.

No Street Cred for Shepard Fairey

The debate over Shepard Fairey’s use of Mannie Garcia’s photograph of Barack Obama to create the iconic “Hope” poster continued on Fresh Air with Terri Gross last Thursday.

But one of my new found favorite blogs, My Art Space has been following the Shephard Fairey controversy with interviews of Los Angeles street artists. One of these artists, The Phantom Street Artist has issued a direct challenge to Fairey.

Word on the street.

Art Teachers Out of the Classroom

Yes, I happily wear my art snobbery on my sleeve (actually on my vanity plate), but there are times when I really have to put it in check. This morning I visited Parallel Visions VII at the Studio San Giuseppe Art Gallery at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati. This is an exhibition of works by art educators at various area schools. Determined to make a quick stop before lunch, I found myself taken by not only the number of artists in the show, but by the various techniques and rage of subjects that make up this show.

My interest was really to see the work of one of the artists, Cathy Herring. She is the art teacher at Mercy Montessori. I’ve worked with Cathy on a few different projects and know her as an art teacher. But I’ve not seen her own work and like many parents, I was really interested in knowing not just her work with her students, but this side of her creativity. Her work in this show includes framed textile collages of kimonos. The ordered combination of geometric shapes and organic fabric designs both highlight the Japanese kimono form and texture. Ms. Herring’s work seems to capture what I saw throughout the show; a combination of styles, media, and techniques that really celebrate the wonderful breadth of creativity infused into our schools.

It is usually pretty easy to prepare myself for a number of shows I visit throughout the year. Too many times I approach an exhibition seemingly so well prepared that if you look closely you can see a rather large chip on my shoulder. This biennial and many other exhibitions focusing on our schools art teachers always catch me off guard. Here I am forced to put away for a moment my own theoretical approach to art criticism and simply recognize the range of creativity filling the lives of Cincinnati’s school children. And I hope others recognize it too.

Local Artist/ Writer Wins Award

Mark Harris, Director of the University of Cincinnati School of Art is one of a 27 awarded by the Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Art Writers Grant Program. The program is designed to encourage and reward writing about contemporary art that is rigorous, passionate, eloquent and precise, as well as to create a broader audience for arts writing.

The subject of Mark Harris’s essay is Cincinnati's artist-run space Publico that closed last year. In his article, he will focus on Publico’s 5-year history by comparing it to similar organizations in and outside of the U.S. Not only is it exciting to find a Cincinnati writer recognized for arts writing, but the recognition of a local organization makes this award extra special for our city.

Congratulations and thank you Mark Harris.

Taking Back Art’s Mission

It saddens me that much of the art discussion these days is about money. Between the controversial closing of the Rose Museum at Brandeis to the struggle to keep arts funding in the stimulus package, the art world finds itself on the defensive. Of course we in the arts are always fighting for more money. This is particularly true now and in Cincinnati as the city has eliminated more of its funding for the arts. For these last years, we’ve allowed our city’s strong corporate instincts to determine and promote the value of the arts. However we find again that viewing art as a means to financial success is not a sustainable approach. Artists need to speak on their own terms. It is time to take back the art’s mission.

The Fine Arts Fund recently recognized an interest in promoting the arts not as a promise for financial growth in the city, but as a vital component of the cultural health of our communities. This change of focus is probably my greatest source of optimism. Though I think this change involves more of a cultural shift in priorities that are unfortunately ingrained in the city. This is not only about changing the language of our missions. Defending the cultural value of art is rather easy. In fact, I know no one who disagrees with the importance of access to the arts in our schools and other public spaces. If the Fine Arts Fund wishes to succeed in shifting their focus, they may want to require local arts organizations to employ not only business but art professionals.

This is not to say that many administrators of our local arts organizations are not interested in art. In fact, I trust many of them have a sincere passion towards the arts in Cincinnati. Their skills in business administration are valuable to the art community. However, the caretakers of the core mission of the arts should be artists, historians, or educators.

CAM 3rd Floor Makes Changes

Since I suggested Carl Solway Galleries and not the Cincinnati Art Museum is our local venue for seeing modern and more contemporary works of art by well-known artists, the CAM has made some changes.

The Solway maintains a strong and dynamic exhibition calendar. Up until now, the Cincinnati Art Museum’s galleries of modern and contemporary works have remained static. This was especially true for the 3rd Floor gallery. With the enticing Nam June Paik installation at the top of the stairs to the 3rd floor, the gallery seemed to invite us to see what is new in the history of art. But once we passed the wall of video screens, we’ve been quickly disappointed to find most of the works on the floor almost 2 decades old.

This week City Beat’s Matt Morris reports that Jessica Flores, CAM's Associate Curator of Contemporary Art has made some welcome changes. Perhaps now the CAM can learn from Solway how to invite the public to celebrate modern art. These much overdue changes are not noted on the museum website. Will there be a gallery opening inviting the public to see these changes? In the meantime, we’ll have to continue to find our own way up to the 3rd floor.

Branding Local Art

After thinking more about a previous post regarding art in retail spaces, I began to focus more on how and why this practice has infiltrated Cincinnati’s local art scene. While I enjoy seeing the work of local artists displayed in coffee shops and the like, I cannot help but to suspect that decorating with local art has developed into more of a branding strategy than maintaining a loyalty to local art and artists.

I do not doubt the interest in a thriving local art scene by the owners of these businesses, but I do suspect the motivation is merely monetary. Almost no one argues against the notion that art and culture is good for the community. Though I expect that nearly every successful grant from the Fine Arts Fund in the past five years convincingly pointed to specific commercial rather than cultural benefits towards a developing neighborhood. Recently, this infectious practice has become much more pronounced in Over-the-Rhine.

In this week’s City Beat, leaders in the art community discussed the wealth of art in OTR as well as the challenge of maintaining sincere patronage from the area’s commercial developers. When asked about their relationship with the developers in Over-the-Rhine, both Jason Bruffy, Know Theatre's Artistic Director and D. Lynn Meyers, Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati's Producing Artistic Director said the commercial developers have never visited either venue. Yet it is the mere presence of these art organizations that seem to make the area marketable. Like the paintings of local artists on the walls of a coffee shop the art organizations of OTR lend to these businesses and this neighborhood a label of authenticity, a culture, a flavor, a brand.

Why do Cincinnati art organizations insist on adopting a corporate business model to run their non-profit? This business model of Cincinnati, home to Proctor and Gamble is to brand, label, and commodify anything and everything to satisfy the bottom line. This is not to accuse P & G of being Mr. Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life. P & G is a business. Instead, mine is a call to artists and art organizations to step up and demand recognition in their communities. Whining about the economy is the song of the corporate world not the non-profit sector. Everyone knows non-profits can and do thrive on a shoestring budget. I certainly understand the dilemma in which Bruffy, Kenny, and Meyers find themselves, but as the “soul” of OTR, they sound rather defeated. People do in fact honestly support the arts, but artists and art organizations cannot allow themselves to be branded.

The Winds of Change in the Local Arts Scene?

Is it possible the Fine Arts Fund has figured out that the arts serves not only the pockets of the private sector but also benefits the cultural health of the community?

Mary McCullough-Hudson and Margy Waller, President and Vice-President of the year-old Arts and Culture Partnership of the Fine Arts Fund lay out this vision in a column in today’s Enquirer. They seek to “live in a region with vibrant arts and cultural offerings that provide value to the entire community.” Speaking about the importance of the arts in the community, they make a solid argument for supporting the arts in Cincinnati to benefit the community culture; an argument arts and community advocates have expressed for years.

Of course we’ve seen these changing trends in the arts before. After years of viewing art as a mere commodity, and now with a threatened economy the adoption of a new language of culture and community is immediate. Somehow we must keep the coffers healthy and this shift in focus from financial needs to “the role of arts and culture in serving the interest of the community” may be a strong step in this direction. However more steps must be taken. For over the last 5 years, too much of the city's art scene has been in control of development officers, pr professionals, and art educators who admit not being concerned about educating patrons as much as just getting them to walk through the front doors and enjoying their visit. I’ll allow that these individuals like art. Heck, they may even love art, but too many of them know too little about it to advocate the change in focus for which McCullough-Hudson and Waller seem to advocate in their column.

To have a productive “conversation about the role of arts and culture for a vital community,” the Arts and Culture Partnership of the Fine Arts Fund must seek out those who can speak to those who are community advocates and organizers who understand that the value of art is not on a price tag or the size of the patron’s wallet. This, and not just the language, is the fundamental change that needs to happen in Greater Cincinnati.

Art Sense

The NY Times is currently featuring a story about the economy forcing art galleries to close. This is resulting in fine art showing up in fashion boutiques or other retail shops. This is a practice that I’ve scorned as the norm here in Cincinnati.

Now before the Queen City tries to claim to be ahead of the game by pointing to a number of coffee shops, book stores, and the like, I think we should recognize this business model smells of economic desperation not art savviness. Art dealers can pardon themselves until their blue with “as long as (fill in the blank), why not?” the bottom admittedly line is money, not the promotion of art.

Also, the Cincinnati art scene needs to recognize cities like Chicago and NY celebrate institutions that honestly promote art so may be able to culturally afford moving art galleries into other retail spaces. While these cities seem to be adopting our art business sense, Cincinnati needs to adopt their cultural sense.

Shifting Moments.

Looking Through the Glass now on view at Manifest Gallery is another example of a show that explores the various and varying perspectives of an artist. Here, Tama Hochbaum explores this idea through composite digital photography. She makes her photographs of landscapes, trees, and magnolias by combining a series of shots taken of the subject in a gridded collage piecing together the scene. Hochbaum’s goal is not necessarily to recreate the scene exactly, but instead to call attention to the shifts in perspective.

The title of the show is a wonderfully fun play on the well known Lewis Carroll book during which Alice’s sense of reality is reversed. Hochbaum’s own reversal of the book title allows her to call on her viewer to look. The glass to which she refers is not a mirror but a window either implied or included in her pictures. It is this window I found most interesting in many of the works exhibited in this show.

While Hochbaum has included in her work windows typical to homes, the works in this show imply moving vehicles. Here, most of her pictures place the viewer in cars or planes. This seems to then emphasize the movement or shift of perspective. Furthermore, Hochbaum seems to double (or triple?) down on the mechanical nature of her work. Combined with the mechanics of digital photography and the grid composition, the vehicle adds to what seems to further emphasize the perspective shift; a celebration of moments caught.

Seeing and Being Seen in DC

Yes, this was my first visit to DC. Because of the occasion, there was no sure way to accurately plan my two days there. While there, I decided with a friend to visit one museum and let the events and the crowd determine the rest of the sights I would see.

As expected the National Gallery of Art opened shows particularly fitting for this inauguration. Robert Frank’s “The Americans” is always a great catch no matter the museum. I never tire of seeing this photo portrait of America so appreciated the NGA’s effort to make this show available during this weekend. Pompeii and the Roman Villa was also especially timely. After all, the discovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum in the 1700s not only sparked the Enlightenment, but also influenced Thomas Jefferson in establishing the Federalist architectural style that helped determine the design of many of the buildings and monuments in DC.

No doubt, walking through the Capitol last weekend was nothing Jefferson or perhaps even Frank could have ever imagined. The number of barricades, port-a-potties, and vendors selling Obama gear, and the millions of people visiting DC easily upstaged the architecture. Like many I was awestruck and consumed (many times literally!) by the masses. But most surprising was running into people I knew were there, but never believed I would see them. A good friend of mine and her family also visited from Cincinnati and were walking the mall at the precise time I was out there. Only a few moments later, the friend with whom I visited the museum also spotted someone she knew. I didn’t know which was more exciting, to witness the inauguration of Barack Obama or these chance meetings of friends. Was it the grandness of this historical event that captures the strength and pride of our country like the columns supporting the structures on The Mall, or these chance encounters with those we know as well as strangers like us that provide a more intimate profile of America? Idealism and Realism is a continuing dichotomy in the portrait of America. The NGA presents this well through the eyes of Jefferson and Frank

Carl Solway Gallery: Cincinnati’s Place for Modern Art

Very seldom do I go to gallery openings to look at art. They are generally too crowded making it nearly impossible for me to see anything. Against my norm, I went to the Carl Solway Gallery opening last night. As expected, there was a nice large crowd, but because the gallery is wonderfully spacious, viewing the art was not a challenge. Furthermore, the exhibitions of well-known artists Solway regularly presents add to the ease of viewing the works.

Currently, the gallery is showing lithographs by Joan Miró paintings by Joan Snyder and Fred Tomaselli, and works by Hans Hofman. Because Solway shows big names, even if not always signature works, a visit during an opening is comfortable stroll through the gallery for me. Arriving to the show with a familiarity of these artists presents me with an opportunity to simply enjoy the works without fighting the crowd or the gallery space at every step trying to see everything. Yet more often than not, the Solway presents to me wonderful surprises; opportunities to see works I’ve not seen, and to rethink artists I think I know. For example, Miró's whimsical lithographs are a pleasant welcome to the gallery. Also, this is the first time I’ve considered comparing Snyder’s use of actual herbs in her paintings and Tomaselli’s medicinal images of pills in a grid.

By providing a space and the works of well known modern artists, Cincinnati’s Solway Gallery seems to achieve what the Cincinnati Art Museum has not yet mastered. Solway is a place to re-engage modern art. As the museum works to promote contemporary art, museum curators need to recognize the works hidden on that floor simply burden the gallery, the museum-goer, the collection. If the 3rd floor is a Contemporary Art gallery, then many of those works up there may need to be reconsidered. Until that happens the Cincinnati Art Museum may need to deferred to the Carl Solway Gallery for modern art.

Obama Chooses Ohio University Photojournalist

Pete Souza, Assistant Professor of Visual Communication at Ohio University has been named the Obama administration’s White House photographer. Souza has been covering Obama since 2005 and says his main goal is “to visually document the president and his life in the White House for the sake of history.”

Souza’s website has a number of slide shows. Some include photos taken during the election and may be familiar to you. Others, including those of the new first family during Obama’s rise, are not so well-known. Souza’s photographs present a photojournalistic style that is both intimate yet monumental.

Congratulations Pete Souza and Ohio University.

An Aesthetic Fun House

After spending admittedly a short time viewing Ryan McGinness Aesthetic Comfort, I feel I spent part of my afternoon at an amusement park instead of an art museum. This may have something to do with having to navigate through the holiday crowds at the Cincinnati Art Museum or the fact that I brought my four year old son to see these paintings. But I’ve visited many crowded museums and have taken both of my children to art galleries from the time they were six months old so I think the vibrant if not psychotic energy in the gallery rests with McGinness’ paintings.

More than a fun house, the gallery filled with fluorescent designs spilling from various canvasses onto the walls and glowing under a black light recalls the psychedelic aesthetic of the 60s and 70s. Though most writers instead link McGinness to Warhol because of his use of commercial symbols and other motifs from everyday life. I suppose I recognized this, or would have if I was an Urban Outfitters consumer. (Is it me or am I showing my age with every sentence?)

But I did immediately notice the overlapping of imagery associated with the influence of the information age. This layering and linking of images that seemed random yet articulately patterned on various shaped canvasses reminded me of the Karla Hackenmiller’s Liminal Series I reviewed here a little over a week ago. McGuinness reveals in recognizable symbols the non-linear thought processes Hackenmiller explores in her Liminal Series.

I’m not sure how comfortable I am with what appears to be a shift in aesthetics, but I am enjoying watching artists explore it.

University of Kentucky: A new “local” art stop?

This morning I was surprised to see two stories about art exhibited at the University of Kentucky, since I’m not an alumna nor do I tend to set my sites much further south than NKU when reviewing happenings in the local art scene.

On January 11, 2009, The Art Museum of the University of Kentucky will open an exhibition of prints by Robert Motherwell and Jasper Johns. The second story is about the installation of a new sculpture, Coal Pot by El Anatsui, on the campus.

With the New Year approaching, I am making a list of things I would like to accomplish this year, including keeping my blog current. I may have to add the University of Kentucky on my list of places to watch in the coming year.

“Liminal” Art

In recent exhibitions, I’ve noticed many examples of works depicting oddly juxtaposed images and even eerie scenes hanging in the local galleries. Since I am not a huge fan of Dali, I tend to walk pass these dreamlike works. Perhaps they are simply too eerie so make me uncomfortable with which to spend time. One of the current shows at Manifest Gallery, Contemporary Printmaking, forced me to realize I cannot easily ignore what seems to be a Surrealist trend emerging in the local arts scene.

These artists do not refer to themselves as Surrealists, but the incredibly detailed etchings of Andrew Au and Craig Fisher’s Rights of Spring as well as many others in the show reveal odd combinations with sometimes nightmarish results. Even Angela Katona-Batchelor's Curiosity, the show's only sculptural piece, brings together etched butterfly wings, a milkweed pod, and and a vial. Perhaps these artists are making obvious connections in imagery or simply plays on words. I certainly hope the work of the artists in the Manifest Gallery show is not as simple as this. This is not to say the art making is simple. Printmaking is not. Furthermore, the process does not seem to allow for the automatic and free association characteristic of Surrealism that painting seems to better serve. So what is this eerie trend?

Karla Hackenmiller’s Liminal Deploy included in the show is most interesting to me. One of the smallest of the pieces in the show and certainly the most abstract, her etching depicts a network of tiny lines and shapes of incredible detail that seems to expand and bubble from a single point. With the artist’s Liminal Series, Hackenmiller explores the human thought process and the relationship between brain activity and abstract results. As Liminal Deploy illustrates, her interest is in non-linear thought processes. While this is a pure line etching, it reveals an organic set of forms. Hackenmiller remarks in her artist statement about our cultural interest in the World Wide Web, especially open-source applications that encourage if not rely on an investigation of cognitive creative brain functions.

The more I consider Hackenmiller’s Liminal Series, the more I think she has answered the questions I have had about the works in this and many other shows I’ve seen recently visited. Surrealism was a cultural movement of the 1920’s. In this new century of art Hackenmiller’s “Liminal” may be more fitting.

One Artist, An Array of Media

I’ve always enjoyed the work of Lynda Benglis though never had much of an opportunity with which to spend time as a student or teacher of art history. Lynda Benglis As Printmaker, which closes this weekend at the Carl Solway Gallery gave me that rare chance to see her work as more than just one example of Post-Minimalist work.

Her Bounce and Contraband from the late 1960s were always my favorites of the organic pieces common to Post-Minimalism that both rely on and impose themselves on the gallery space. These two pieces are not part of this retrospective, but walking into the Carl Solway Gallery this morning was met with a brilliance of color that similarly oozes from the white walls.

While at least one local reviewer tried to classify Benglis’ style, we quickly find that this show proves the task difficult. As with most Post Minimalist works, the media perhaps even more than the artist is the subject of a retrospective. Benglis’ ability to fully exploit the range of the media allows her to refuse being classified.

I've said it before, single artist shows prove more challenging for the viewer. And Benglis shows an artist retrospective can be more dynamic as well. I look forward to seeing such exhibitions at the Carl Solway Gallery in the future.

Simply Sol

For the past couple of days I’ve been hearing about the excited reception of Sol LeWitt’s near permanent installation at Mass MoCA, Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective. While I’ve always been pretty fascinated with conceptual art and particularly interested in LeWitt’s wall drawings (or to be more precise, his instructions for the wall drawings), I’ve never heard anyone share this interest. In fact, most people interested in understanding LeWitt’s work and who have asked me to explain it respond by shaking their heads. Okay, perhaps this says more about my explanation than it does about LeWitt. But the truth remains so many people are willing to celebrate artists like Rubens who employed a number of artists to complete his commissions, yet LeWitt’s practice of the same is often met with disdain.

So why is everyone so excited about Sol LeWitt now? Can it only be that he died so recently? Perhaps his recent death has spurned a host of LeWitt shows (there were two in Cincinnati earlier this year), but expressions of beauty linked to LeWitt’s work leaves me dumbfounded. Since when has his wall drawings been viewed as beautiful?

The review of the current retrospective by Holland Cotter in the NY Times seems to offer a hint as to why LeWitt’s work is now appealing to the masses. In this review Cotter says about LeWitt’s wall drawings on display at Mass MoCA,

“They aren’t populist in that way; they were meant for the great indoors. But neither do they depend on elite settings — museums or galleries — to make sense. They are abstract, not arcane. Their visual effects can be complex, but their language is plain: lines, colors, clean surfaces, the basics of grade-school art class. No wonder they feel welcoming; they take us back to the past before they take us somewhere else.”

So we enjoy LeWitt’s work because we don’t have to think about it? It is beautiful because it is “grade school” easy? Beauty and Conceptual Art are not mutually exclusive are they? Perhaps I need to work on my explanations so I can convince more that beauty does rest in the concept so fewer will shake their heads in disdain.

Re-viewing History

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted here. I suppose I could blame the holidays or my work on the Obama campaign, both of which have kept me from spending time in a gallery or thinking about the local art scene in any serious way. So to renew some inspiration to continue blogging, I visited my old stomping grounds at the Cleveland Museum of Art and found it wonderfully new.

I feel so fortunate to have been introduced to art by this museum, ranked in the top 5 of the world. While teaching in the Cleveland area, I gained a special appreciation for assigning my students to tour the galleries at least once or twice during their semester with me. This is truly one of the best resources with which to teach and learn about art.

While visiting most museums, I struggle to spend more than an hour per visit. Taking in so much information during a museum visit usually taxes my brain. But my recent visit to the Cleveland Museum of Art, my first since it reopened last spring, filled me with such a sense of awe that for the first time ever I didn’t want to leave.

This return to Cleveland for the holiday and to revisit my own history of art was so fitting a homecoming. The museum’s first phase re-opens the original 1916 building so entering the museum brought for me a recognizable comfort. For any art museum, a comfortable entrance is a major accomplishment. For the CMA to manage this while in the throes of construction is truly a feat recognized immediately. In fact I was so at ease that I headed up the familiar stairs near the entrance almost faster than someone could stop and redirect me to the appropriate path towards the galleries.

As most know, the CMA collection is one of the best in the world. It was difficult for me to imagine how viewing it could be made any better. Well, the galleries of the 1916 Building truly celebrate this collection in ways I’ve never seen in any museum or gallery before. (see the panoramic shots, here) As most everyone has recognized, the architect Rafael Viñoly has done an exceptional job of preserving the museum as an historical landmark in Cleveland. As we eagerly await the new jewel that is the expansion to the 1916 Building, we are comforted to know that CMA is in wonderful hands and the beauty that is the collection will be what shines ever brighter in Cleveland.

To reopen the Cleveland Museum of Art with this phase, one that celebrates the original museum (rather than the architect as is all too common to do) is a true gift to the city as well as to the collection. As we in Cincinnati look to a remodeling of the Cincinnati Art Museum, we can look to our north to such an undertaking that can be a tremendous success as long as the collection, the local community, and the museum’s history remain the focus.

A Web of Possibilities

Spiders, ghosts, ravens, webs, and skulls are all part of the language of either Halloween or Day of The Dead, making Carlos Amorales: Discarded Spider a seasonally timed show at the CAC. Though fortunately, this current exhibition will remain on view into March. Because most interesting, what look like large spider webs and references to ghosts have little to do with the supernatural at all.

In this exhibition, Amorales pulls together many of artistic media and genres. Furthermore, his vector drawings rely as much on the sciences and mathematics as it does on the world of art. These digital silhouettes or "ghosts" have their foundations in rotoscopy, an early animation technique. With this, Amorales investigates the fundamentals of drawing and their role in other media like video, computer graphics, performance, sculpture, and through his Psicofonias, musical compositions. It is this last musical component that impressed me most. I am always excited to follow artists on their explorations of various media, but Amorales' translation of vector points into the music rolls of a digital player piano exhibits an artistic depth seen only in single artist shows. Instead of a Halloween decoration, the spider web then is a metaphor for interconnectedness of disciplines and media as well as for the organic gallery space that defines and is defined by the art.

CAC Director, Raphaela Platow does a wonderful curatorial job of utilizing the web metaphor through programming. Intertwining this exhibition with the “Bite Me” Ball on Halloween and the Cincinnati Ballet performance of Dracula and a film series is certain to lure museum patrons into the gallery for this one-person show. Rather than frightening, the "ghosts" are enlightening.

Zaha Hadid Strikes Again

Since the opening of Cincinnati’s new Contemporary Art Center, I’ve heard only criticism of Hadid’s design. It seems as though everyone struggles not with the exhibitions at the CAC as much as with the building. Hadid’s structure upstages and so interferes with the exhibitions so people complain. Perhaps because I do not visit the CAC too often, I simply accept these critiques without question. Admittedly, I’m no architect, nor am I well versed in architectural style. Yet, I cannot help but to note a certain anti-art architecture criticism that I see reappearing with her latest structure, the Chanel Pavilion in New York’s Central Park.

Here, Hadid has designed a temporary exhibition space to house works influence by Chanel. I am in complete agreement with Nicolai Ourourssoff’s review in the NY Times. The economic timeliness of this exhibit could not be much worse. Yet what is more troubling is the fact that it took Christo and Jean-Claude over 25 years to gain permission to erect The Gates in Central Park. The resistance was based mostly on the risk of commercializing and physically harming this green space. Christo and Jean Claude are two artists who have devoted their work to the environment and can safely claim each of their pieces, including The Gates, is a celebration of the space in which they temporarily reside. I can't help but wonder if Chanel was audacious enough to mention The Gates in their proposal to erect Hadid's capsule in the park.

That a mere donation to the Central Park Conservatory permits Hadid and Chanel to sleep well at night is further testament to a displaced idealism. Another example of anti-art architecture.

Manifest Gallery Doubles Down

As an art historian, I am guilty of quickly categorizing each work of art I see into a neat historical framework. Though with each gallery visit, I hope the works exhibited force (not merely invite) me to venture beyond these boundaries. My visit to Manifest Gallery this week did just that. The art of both Petra Kralickova and Kathy A. Moore caught me off guard as they both challenged the classical dichotomies of geometric versus organic, private versus public spaces, and stability versus theatricality.

Immediately upon walking into the red-tinted gallery I was drawn to Inquietude. Kralickova’s three “cages” of black fabric, thread, and beautiful bead work gracefully hang from the ceiling. The black strands of thread of each of these cages meet a perfect circle of black sand on the floor below. While the work is tactile, Kralickova seems to display a resistance to the spontaneous for which Post-Minimalism is known. Instead her work seems more intentional; retaining geometric form and classic analytical lines. The combination of red fabric that drapes the windows of the gallery and the black “cages” along with the need for the viewer to carefully move around these pieces so as not to disturb the sand offers a sense of unease. Though the temptation of their elegance; the sparkle of the sand mirroring the glimmer of the bead work above was almost irresistible to touch. Only my desire to keep from harming these perfect forms allowed me to keep my hands to myself. It is this conflict of being confined outside of Kralickova’s cages that is most intriguing.

Kathy A. Moore’s Still Lifes From My Perspective also focuses on presenting spacial ambiguities in her drawings of her studio. Unlike Kralickova, Moore works with the more classical media of drawing and visual language of line, light, and perspective. Even the still life is a more traditional genre choice. Yet while her linear approach to space seems to contradict the organic forms in Inquietude, looking at Moore’s drawings offers no less stability. In each still life, the artist changes not always the objects, but forces a new and different angle or perspective that imposes movement that is almost dizzying. Her emphasis on light (though perhaps more obvious in her paintings) equals that of Kralickova. This focus on light allows both artists to define spaces; the studio or the gallery as equally dramatic.

A very quick look at the works of these two artists immediately reveals opposing artistic styles: classical drawings of still lifes against a Post-Minimalist installation. Yet by devoting the galleries to two artists and only two works Manifest allows the viewer to recognize and perhaps even wrestle with their similarities.

The Marriage of Form and Content

It has been weeks since my visit to NYC and my last post. Like many in Cincinnati, I’ve been recovering from the storm, but mostly, I’ve been reviewing many of the works I saw on my trip. Unlike most visits, this time I devoted a couple of days to the Chelsea galleries.

Up until last year, I’ve spent most of my time working as an historian so would more likely venture into museums, so my visit to Chelsea caught me off guard. The number of galleries truly surprised me and I was not sure where to start. Because I was not in the city on a Thursday, I was unable to take advantage of the gallery openings that are normally scheduled that evening. But the handful I did visit proved there are incredibly interesting discussions in the art world from social, political, to formal that challenge.

At Stefan Stux Gallery I was confronted by Aaron Johnson’s large paintings that make up the show Star-Crossed. Many were humorous and yet others were frightening as the artist combines a comedic style to very serious subjects that implicate the current American culture. His subjects include the linking of church and state, patriotism, and the current wars. But it is not these themes that are as interesting as Johnson’s reverse painted acrylic polymer peel method. He paints completely in reverse onto plastic film building multiple layers of acrylic polymer. Then he applies these directly onto American flags peeling away the plastic. These frightening images on the American flag indict our patriotism. Johnson's painting method captures best his political message.

I’m not sure Cincinnati’s average gallery hopper would be comfortable walking into a gallery filled with Johnson’s work, but I am certain Cincinnati’s artists would lap it up. Not just content, but the focus on form, style, and medium as integral to the work is what filled the galleries I visited in NYC. I think this recognition of the marriage of form and content is what is missing in many local exhibitions. Cincinnati's arts calendar is filled with thematic shows and exhibitions centered around medium, but I seldom see works that recognize both as integral to the whole. This is what I hope to see in the coming season.

Art memory

Teaching art history for a few years and studying for much longer, I feel pretty confident about my ability to notice certain visual details in art. And happy to have introduced so many to the same. Those who have taken art history classes know the challenge of sitting in a dark classroom being fed slide after slide of images with the hope that enough detail is retained for the essay exam or that awful art identification quiz.

My current visit to NYC museums and galleries including The Met and MoMA has taught me that no matter how well we can identify works of art or even analyze these works, seeing them in person refreshes our eye for detail. I've often shown students J.M.W. Turner's emphasis on light in his history landscape paintings as a technique pointing towards the Impressionists. But my visit this week to the Turner show reminded me that seeing Turner's later works in person is no match for the digital slides I showed in class. The later paintings by Turner that make up the end of the exhibition are almost indistinguishable from Monet's well-known landscapes. Every gallery I have visited in New York this week reminded me of the same point. No matter how well versed we are in the arts, we must remember to resist relying on digital reproductions of works of art and insist on seeing them in person as often as possible.

In the coming days I will write more about the importance of visiting museums and galleries as an exercise in engaging art honestly.

To things lost

I really did not expect to be moved by the 350 or so dresser drawers that make up Jana Napoli’s Floodwall: A Katrina Memorial currently on display at the Clifton Cultural Arts Center here in Cincinnati, OH. Though, I was immediately surprised by the grandness in scale of the wall. These drawers of various sizes and styles and clearly tattered are arranged in a grid over 8 feet high and 96 ft long that almost eerily evokes stability. It is this blending of strength in form and the fragility of loss that left me a bit unsettled.

The interactive nature of the show is what excites me most about Napoli’s tribute. The viewer can touch and even carefully open and close the drawers. We find in the drawers expected dirt and debris and in one instance, I found a lone sock. Viewers are also encouraged to leave a note in any of the drawers with a promise from the artist delivery to its former owner effectively personalizing the memorial.

Walking behind the wall, I saw the artist had addressed each drawer. These addresses and the show’s map marking the sites each drawer Napoli collected seem to recall home. But perhaps because I’ve never visited New Orleans, this information does not really touch my sense of place. Not until I watched the accompanying video clips of different parts of the city. These videos are displayed on four separate screens labeled according to the part of city and Katrina’s flood level at that location. They appear to be home movies depicting everyday life, life before the flood. That the videos are black and white and grainy, I think is meant to offer a sense of nostalgia. Though, that may be a bit heavy handed on the artist’s part since the flood did not occur that long ago.

Finally, it was Norma Jackson’s story that put me over the edge. I remember hearing many stories like hers. Stories of those who did not evacuate when warned so were stranded for far too long. While watching her tell her story videotaped for the exhibition, I along with a couple of other visitors shook my head. I was reminded of the embarrassing failure of response to those who needed help. A week after visiting the show, I am still haunted by Ms. Jackson saying, “after 3 days, we ran out of ice.” Three days?!

Forced to exit the show through the main gallery I tried unsuccessfully to avoid the sight of the massive wall of drawers Napoli constructed. I was saddened, embarrassed, and even angered by the unnecessarily great loss of life after Katrina. This large collection of drawers, which the artists suggests represents what we the viewers “hold to be precious and sacred,” pointed out to me instead a wall of things that were rescued. In Napoli’s attempt to humanize the loss through the displaying of everyday objects as treasured items, she dehumanizes us. And I think this is a well-deserved implication of the loss.