Phyllis Weston: In Memoriam
Phyllis Weston’s recent death, after a very long and singularly fruitful career in the arts in Greater Cincinnati, certainly represents the end of an era, and I think that the era which she helped to define and in which she dominated, may have been a gentler one, certainly one in which the force of a personality […]
Best Books of 2015
2015 was an odd year for fiction, unsettled, lacking greatness in general, but heartening to see so many younger writers from around the world taking to fiction, to writing novels, in spite of all the technological changes and the failing assumption that the physical book, the object, will soon be a thing of the past. (I […]
December Issue of Aeqai Online
The December issue of Aeqai has just posted. As before, it’s usually a smaller issue, as we note that more exhibition spaces hold off putting up new shows until around the middle of January , as various holiday pop-up shows in studios across the region occur. Since this time of year tends to be frenzied, institutions and galleries hope […]
Review of Celant Lecture at Opening of FotoFocus
On Friday evening, October 23, FotoFocus invited about one hundred people to dinner and to a kick off lecture by Italian curator/critic/thinker/museum professional Germano Celant, widely regarded as one of the first and finest independent curators in the world. The event was the precursor for the one day Symposium organized by New York FotoFocus Curator […]
Geraldine Brook’s The Secret Chord
The phenomenally gifted Geraldine Brooks has returned with her newest novel, The Secret Chord, and, like The People of The Book before it, it’s both magnificent, historically accurate, and often very moving. Her prose is as close to poetry, or prose poetry, as we are likely to see this year. Fascinated by aspects of historical Judaism, in this novel, Brooks […]
AEQAI FALL BENEFIT
AEQAI FALL BENEFIT November 10, 2015 6-9pm Weston Gallery located in the Aronoff Center for the Arts Aeqai is sponsoring its annual fundraiser on November 10, 2015 from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at The Weston Gallery located in The Aronoff Center for the Arts. The purpose of the benefit is to provide funding for aeqai, a […]
Book Review: A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara
A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara, may be the finest novel you’ll read this year. Long, at 720 pages in hardback, it’s the most page-turning, fingernail-gripping book I’ve read since Donna Tartt’s very fine Goldfinch. One of the most fascinating facts about fiction in the past five years or so is the number of very long […]
June Issue of Aeqai Online
The June issue of aeqai has just been posted, again reflecting the wide variety of visual experiences available in this region, and across the nation. The Contemporary Arts Center downtown continues to offer exciting exhibitions for us, and aeqai critic Keith Banner reviews Titus Kaphar’s remarkable “The Vesper Project”, while Zack Hatfield analyzes former Cincinnati […]
Book Review: Early Warning by Jane Smiley
The admirable Jane Smiley has returned with the second of three novels of a trilogy, about a family from Iowa; the triology follows three generations of this family from the twenties to the present (I assume). Somehow she’s managed to get the second novel out in just over a year from the first, and these […]
April Issue of Aeqai Online
April has brought us better weather, and an ongoing plethora of first-rate exhibitions in the visual arts, as well as more new galleries, increasingly on the west side of town. The April aeqai (www.aeqai.com) is now posted, and here’s an overview of what’s in it. Mike Rutledge gives us an exciting profile of husband-and-wife ceramicist […]