February issue of Aeqai (go to www.aeqai.com) has just posted. It reflects the very wide range of exhibitions currently on display throughout the region; we’ve got nearly 25 reviews and profiles this month, and it looks like next month’s going to be a big one, as well. Highlights of this issue include Jonathan Kamholtz’s review of the just-opened, fifteen-years-in-the-making “Daubigny, Monet, Van Gogh” exhibition at The Taft Museum of Art, and a splendid show it is. Curator Lynne Ambrosini discovered in her own researches that Charles Daubigny’s evolving painting style in the mid- to late 1800s definitively shows evidence of the style which was to become known as Impressionism; this show is both scholarly and a visual treat. Zack Hatfield looks at the Johen Lempert photographs in “Field Guide” at the Cincinnati Art Museum, curated by Brian Sholis; the show brings some fundamental issues about the nature of photography to his mind, and his analysis of these photographs is profound. And Aeqai welcomes new writer Zach Rawe, who reviews the Contemporary Arts Center’s current exhibition, “Do Ho Suh: Passages”. Another review of CAC efforts is Katie Dreyer’s very moving analysis of a recent performance there , “The Yellow Towel” by performance artist Dana Michel. (Our review of the recently opened etchings exhibition at the art museum, which parallels the Taft’s Daubigny show, will appear in Aeqai next month).
Other reviews this month include Hannah Leow’s thoughts on new work by Kim Rae Taylor at Clifton Cultural Arts Center; Leow puts Taylor’s work in sync with much contemporary art theory to great effect. Karen Chambers reviews a ceramics show at The Women’s Y downtown, while Marlene Steele offers two reviews this month: NKU faculty member/painter Kevin Muente displays a number of works of art from his recent sabbatical year, where he traveled widely and painted one painting every Tuesday for a year; Steele emphasizes the importance of process in art-making in her fascinating review of Muente’s work. She also looks at Cincinnatian Jimi Jones’ extensive work at Springfield Arts Center, a large, beautiful exhibition space up the pike, if you will, from Cincinnati. Matthew Metzger brings his metaphysical/philosophical observations to the painting show at Carl Solway Gallery, work by Matthew Kolodzief. Aeqai fashion critic Jennifer Perusek looks back at Fashion Week, 1973, when American designers stole the show and the runway from their European counterparts, with their emphasis on casual sportswear and separates, and Perusek looks at this year’s Fashion Week through the lens of the ’73 show.
Out of town reviews include LA critic Anise Stevens’ look at “Farewell, Then”, work in the Descaw Gardens Sturt Haage Gallery. Joelle Jamison sends a fascinating review of a philosophical-linguistic-postmodernist exhibition in Houston , at DiverseWorks, “I Should Have Brought a Philosopher” , which is enlightening and very current.
Jane Durrell writes a profile on Cincinnati painter Frank Satogata, whose work is currently on display in Columbus (along with Cincinnatian Susan Mahan, whom Aeqai profiled in December ), and Susan Byrnes offers a combined interview/profile/review of Cincinnati artist Kate Kern, and her installation at the nearby Dayton Art Institute. Laura Hobson will be profiling area small museums and places of artistic interest, and begins her series with a thorough look at what’s in the Behringer-Crawford
Museum in Covington, and lets us know its origins and purposes/missions.
Kent Krugh, Aeqai’s photo editor, offers magnificent photographs by Montreal artist Catherine Aboumrad, and Aeqai is privileged to post a new video made by performance artist Ralph Rosenfield of Columbus, Ohio, which he made for his recent 70th birthday. Rosenfield, an art collector and businessman in Columbus, has been practicing Butoh dance for many years, which including intensive training in Japan, and we asked him if we could post it for our readers this month. And we offer a guest column by Eric Hatch , where he speculates on the differences between photography per se and “fine art” photography; we found his essay quite compelling and well delineated/defined.
Other reviews include Aeqai movie critic Steven Havira’s analysis of Adam Driver’s documentary on how art therapy is being integrated into helping to treat PTSD in our returning servicepersons; it’s a fascinating documentary and Havira’s analysis very astute. I offer book reviews of Mr. Splitfoot, by Amber Hunt, and A Man Without a Shadow, the new novel by the always brilliant Joyce Carol Oates. We’ve three new poems for you by Maxwell Redder, as well.
We hope that you find the Feb. issue of Aeqai stimulating, and we welcome your comments and remarks, as always. We’ll be back in about a month with another wide-ranging issue of Aeqai, and we’ll also be introducing two new Aeqai critics, as well.