“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 […]
Off Ludlow Gallery: “What’s Left Unsaid…”
The ironic fact that this exhibition, delving into the current state of communication today, is sited in a repurposed community postal office, is not lost on this writer. Netherland native Yvonne Van Eijden shows paintings and smaller works that emerge from her intriguing investigation of how human communication takes place. Van Eijden posits that along […]
A Walk Through Time
When one walks through the hallowed halls of the Taft Museum of Art, you are instantly transformed to a different time. One of majesty, where stately homes set the standard, and their inhabitants acted as patrons of art and culture in their respective cities and throughout our burgeoning nation. Fashion exhibits at the Taft have […]
A New Book, “Sara Kathryn Arledge: Serene for the Moment,” Shines Light on an Underrecognized, Pioneering Artist
Chimerical figures and nebulous forms sprout, mutate, and dance through the delirious dreamlike realms of Sara Kathryn Arledge’s films and paintings, which, once seen, are impossible to forget. Although she earned a degree in art from UCLA, taught at several colleges, and acknowledged her indebtedness to art history, Arledge (1911-1998) retained a nonconformist ethos; her […]
A Wing and a Prayer
He was a quiet and unassuming man. Admittedly shy, he leaned toward President Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign policy: “speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” His stick was his art—especially his series of digital collages, Tales from the Near Side, which he worked on for nearly five years until he died of […]
“The Committed” by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Viet Thanh Nguyen burst onto the literary scene about three years ago with his brilliant, Pulitzer-prize winning novel “The Sympathizer”, which dealt with The Vietnam War and its aftermath from the point of view of a double spy; we left off with him departing Vietnam by boat while his blood brother departing Vietnam by airplane […]