The Unbearable Lightness of Neon: Anthony Luensman’s “C A M P G R O U N D” at the Cincinnati Art Museum. A New Year’s Rumination
I. Man Versus Human Nature. “C A M P G R O U N D evokes a billboard one may still discover along a country highway. It advertises with the familiar vacation icons of tire swings and sparking campfires. The animated sign promises outdoor escape and primitive comfort against the massive holdings and complexities of […]
Modernist Directions and Misdirections: “Paris Night & Day: Masterworks of Photography from Atget to Man Ray” at the Taft Museum of Art, October 3, 2014-January 11, 2015
The art historical narratives of the history of photography and the advent of modernism are often intertwined, though in some of those narratives, photography helps facilitate modernism, and in others, modernism gives photography the nudge it needs to outgrow its 19th century roots. As the captions on one of the walls at the Taft note, […]
“Marcus Ratliff: Collages & The Art World: Forty Years of Graphic Design” and “Marcus Ratliff: Collages,” Carl Solway Gallery, through Dec. 20, 2014
Cincinnati should be proud that it has produced some of the most important artists of the latter half of the 20th century: Tom Wesselmann (1931-2004), Jim Dine (b. 1935), and Marcus Ratliff (b. 1935). It may seem like hyperbole to include Ratliff because he was a commercial artist, a term that seems quaint today. But […]
The Urban Landscape: Six Artists – Six Views Clifton Cultural Arts Center
How odd – not one of the artists whose works comprise The Urban Landscape: Six Artists – Six Views at the Clifton Cultural Arts Center through December 5 indicates that people occupy the spaces they portray. This seems to be a curatorial decision, as the show’s defining statement says “Six contemporary painters explore the urban […]
Profile of Stewart Goldman
Stewart Goldman’s career has shown many variations during more than 50 years of painting and drawing. Through it all, color has driven his art. Perhaps a bigger force behind his creations, although not always as obvious, have been absences, or memories of things that no longer are. It’s interesting that absence has such a large […]
“Beyond Pop: A Tom Wesselmann Retrospective” at the Cincinnati Art Museum
I was invited to attend the Founder’s Opening of “Beyond Pop: A Tom Wesselmann Retrospective” at the Cincinnati Art Museum, which for me, felt like both a homecoming and a reunion. It was heartwarming to see the hometown museum of one of the greatest masters of Twentieth Century Art celebrate the dedication and achievement of […]
Murals, Public Art and the Lure of the Creative Place
Covington is an ‘unapologetically authentic’ place. It’s an island unto itself. No label, declarative statement, or stereotype quite fits the business owners and residents who live here. What can be said is what unites them: their belief in community, their value placed on the arts and creativity, and their passion and pride for the city. […]
Systems of Watching: “Eyes on the Street” at the Cincinnati Art Museum, October 11, 2014-January 4, 2015
Street photography was a movement initially made possible by cameras that were small, film that was fast, and hands that were steady. It refreshed photography as an art form by opening up an almost unlimited source of unscripted narrative. It required some skills of the photographer not unlike those needed by an undercover cop: you […]
David Benjamin Sherry’s Western Romance
Western Romance aims to create a dialogue between David Benjamin Sherry’s photographs of vast landscapes saturated with synthetic color and the tradition of Western landscape photography. The subjects appear at first glance to be similar, but intentions are different. Sherry’s photographs are more about color and light than capturing the grandness of the western frontier. […]
Letter From Brooklyn
There is an old yiddish saying that goes something like “No-one knows whose shoe pinches except the person who is walking in them”. As a child I heard this phrase and conjured up images of my all-white KED sneakers that always gave me blisters, but I heard this phrase again while leaving Brooklyn and the […]