Zachary Armstrong, Curtis Barnes, and Cauleen Smith Shows Inaugurate a New Home for The Contemporary Dayton
The Contemporary Dayton (aka The Co), formerly known as the Dayton Visual Arts Center, has moved. Its new home is a 6000+ sq ft. space featuring five galleries, including a video viewing room, that give it almost double the size it had at its previous location. The space itself is located in a years-in-the-making renovation […]
Mystic Materialism: Jay Bolotin at the Carl Solway Gallery
Jay Bolotin began exhibiting works of art at the Carl Solway Gallery in the 1970s. Nearly fifty years later, he maintains his relationship with the venue, which has staged a retrospective surveying his catalog of drawings, writings, sculpture, theatre, music, and film. That catalog pays homage to a variety of predecessors, demonstrating his deep feeling […]
Aleatory Aesthetics: Appraising the Aesthetics of “Chance” in Gerhard Richter’s Cage Paintings
Gerhard Richter’s Cage paintings (2006), on display at the Gagosian Gallery at 541 West 24th Street, are named after the composer John Cage, apparently drawing on the theme of coincidence. The paintings are massive, sprawling works, constructed from intersecting fields, lines, and swaths of uneven smears that reflect the broad squeegee tool which Richter dragged […]
“Silver Lining: An Outdoor Photography Show,” organized by The Clifton Cultural Arts Center and installed along the fence of the Rawson Woods Bird Preserve at the intersection of Middleton and McAlpin Avenues, Cincinnati
To state the obvious, the pandemic changed all of our lives, except, perhaps, the agoraphobic. The rest of us learned how to bake bread, cleaning out store shelves of packets of yeast, as well as tp. We made lists of things we could finally do–reorganize our closets–but didn’t. Sweat pants sales soared and khakis bottomed […]
Promise, Witness, Remembrance. Speed Museum. Louisville, Kentucky
Sam Gilliam’s Carousel Form II (1969) and Alisha Wormsley’s afro-futurist manifesto, “There are Black people in the Future,” announce their presence as you walk into the first gallery of Promise, Witness, Remembrance. Gilliam’s Carousel hovers. It is a monolith of canvas, pigment, and pure zeal. Promise, Witness, Remembrance at the Speed Art Museum “reflects on the […]
“Identity: (un)real” 2021 Taft Museum Artists Reaching Classrooms Annual Exhibition The Annex Gallery, 1310 Pendleton Street, Cincinnati, OH through May 29, 2011
While reading this review, I invite you to consider how to continue the rich tradition of art in Cincinnati. The exhibition Identity: (un)real presents artwork created by high school students from seventh through 12th grade. The exhibition is the culmination of relentless effort put forth by participants of the annual Taft Museum Artists Reaching Classrooms […]
“The Sound of Still: Tina Tammaro & Leslie Daly,” Indian Hill Gallery, through June 6
The enchantment begins with the title of the two-person show at the Indian Hill Gallery: “The Sound of Still.” (The curator and exhibition coordinator, Casey Dressell, wisely stayed away from Simon and Garfunkel’s The Sound of Silence.) The exhibition “contemplates the idea of the sound of stillness–moments, figures, and forms at a standstill,” according to Dressell. […]
Collective Impact: Females Joining Forces at KHAC
A knitted banner that says “Stronger Together” stretches over the steps on the front porch of the Kennedy Heights Arts Center (KHAC). With its quirky multicolor letters, pompoms, and flowers crafted by members of the BombShells of Cincinnati, it’s a rallying cry for collaboration, and a fitting introduction to the Center’s current show, “Collective Impact: […]
Some Things Cosmic: Cauleen Smith’s Black Feminist Utopia
Give It Or Leave It is on view at the LACMA until October 31, 2021 Due to the Covid-19 pandemic my visit to the newly reopened Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) felt a bit utopian to me, allowing me to feel – in the words of Jose Esteban Muñoz – the then and […]
A Young African-American Woman Makes Her Mark at the White House
Carahna Magood, a single African American mother of 27, serves as creative director of the digital team for the White House. How does someone that young get to that position in Washington, D.C.? Magood,, who graduated from Howard University in 2016 with a BFA, rose quickly through the ranks. She started as an administrative assistant […]