Suspended over the Abyss: Seeing Calvino at the Cincinnati Public Library
Stationed inside the Cincinnati Public Library’s downtown branch, in the International Fiction alcove, is an archipelago of funky institutional wooden tables topped with glass rectangular boxes. Inside the glass boxes are 55 illustrations by three artists depicting the cities Italo Calvino poetically maps in Invisible Cities, the shapely novel/epic-poem/dialogue that has an effortlessly epic quality […]
la Biennale di Venezia: Part One
Inaugurated in 1895 with the first international presentation in 1897, la Biennale di Venezia is the oldest and in my opinion, still the most prestigeous of the contemporary international exhibitions of visual art. Venice celebrates the 120th anniversary of the first Exhibition (1895).Venice is an erotic city, steeped in cultural, and military history and it […]
Both Sides Now: “Northern Baroque Splendor: The HOHENBUCHAU COLLECTION from LIECHTENSTEIN. The Princely Collections” at the Cincinnati Art Museum
Jan Tilens and Hendrick van Balen’s “Expansive Mountain Valley Landscape with a Rainbow and the Hunt of Diana” is a classic example of a “Weltlandschaft,” or world landscape, the sort of picture that first drew Otto Christian Fassbender and his wife Renate to assemble their outstanding collection of 17th century paintings now on view at […]
Profile of Melvin Grier
It took years, but eventually Jymi Bolden persuaded Melvin Grier it was possible to be both a photojournalist and a fine artist. Bolden was a student at the Art Academy of Cincinnati when he worked during the 1980s as a photo intern with the already seasoned Grier at The Cincinnati Post, and that’s when the […]
Architectural Design: One Focus of People’s Liberty Grantmaking
Architectural Design one Focus of People’s Liberty Grantmaking Civic-minded Individuals Gain Support for Creative Initiatives People’s Liberty staff leaders describe the operation as a philanthropic laboratory. This forward-looking, deep-pockets organization, which values disruptive ideas and innovative methods, is changing the character of local philanthropy and the face of urban neighborhoods. People’s Liberty is a collaboration […]
Vanishing Point: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Edward S. Curtis
According to the forward to his monumental book series The North American Indians, Edward S. Curtis is a man “whose pictures are pictures, not merely photographs.” One wonders now what is meant by that statement, written in 1907 by President Theodore Roosevelt. But if you spend enough time in the Taft Museum of Art’s new […]
Furious Moments: Titus Kaphar at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center
The current exhibit of Titus Kaphar’s works at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, titled “The Vesper Project,” surveys history, heredity, race, architecture, and just plain old visual art, intermingling parody, autobiography, destruction, and reinvention into a chiaroscuro carnival of unearthly but somehow palpably earthbound delights. All of Kaphar’s brilliant artistic/literary amalgamations and tricks manage to […]
Nancy and David Wolf Gallery, Cincinnati Art Museum
As you ascend the stairs to the just opened Nancy and David Wolf Gallery in the Cincinnati Art Museum’s second-floor ambulatory, you’re confronted with four stained glass windows made by the Tiffany Studio for Avondale’s Grace Protestant Episcopal Church and two tall glass vases, also by Tiffany. These functional and decorative objects make a suitable […]
Intimate Witness: Doris Salcedo Retrospective at MCA Chicago
Doris Salcedo is a Colombian artist of international renown who has made sculpture for the past three decades. Her work, meticulously crafted in her Bogota studio with a team of assistants, memorializes those lost to political violence both in her home country and abroad. She uses simple, utilitarian, human-scale objects and materials in unorthodox configurations […]
Staged Necromancy: The Perfect Kiss (QQ)* *questioning, queer
“Arrange whatever pieces come your way.” — Virginia Woolf You enter the room through a ruche curtain, a membrane partitioning a world from our own. Only two colors exist in the palette of the capacity—varying shades of red and white—and you are immersed in the sweet fragrance of rose petals. These are the first impressions […]