Short Circuits and Exposed Networks: The Wired at Weston Gallery
Artworks today enter digital markets of circulation. Even the seemingly dematerialized, non-commodifiable works of land art and conceptual art are subject to economies of reproduction and intellectual property. The contours and cracks of these networks inform four very recent artworks in The Wired, an exhibition currently on view at the Alice F. and Harris K. […]
Why I Continue to Fight
In 2012, I found out that I had breast cancer. To avoid recurrence (since both my mother and grandmother had suffered the same), I opted for a double mastectomy, after which I underwent six rounds of chemo and 18 infusions of Herceptin, a fairly new drug on the market which has had dramatic results for […]
Inside the Judgment Zone
People can be so truculent, never missing an opportunity to censure others. That’s what makes Planet Fitness’ storied promise of a “Judgement [sic] Free Zone” so appealing. Yet behind the appeal is a shadowy void; the very act of establishing such a zone involves judgment. In his current show at And/Or Gallery in Pasadena, Jacob […]
Faith and Family: “Rembrandt and the Jews: The Berger Print Collection” at the Skirball Museum, Hebrew Union College, March 5-April 30, 2017
Rembrandt’s apparently substantial interest in things Jewish has been matched by western culture’s interest in Rembrandt’s interest in things Jewish. This has led to a range of misconceptions over the last century and a half: for example, he was Jewish (he wasn’t), or that he sought out Jewish models because they had individuality and character […]
Twice the First Time, a contemporary fusion of hip hop, visual art and performance
Twice the First Time, a contemporary fusion of hip hop, visual art and performance Twice the First Time was not the performance I expected. Sitting down in the darkened room of the Black Box Theater, I thought I knew what this was going to be. I had been anticipating this performance since I heard about […]
Explorations in Color
This show in the Main Art Gallery of the Fine Arts Center at Northern Kentucky University features four Cincinnati artists, Mike Agricola, Tina Tammaro, Celia Yost, and Amy Greene-Miyakawa. As his title indicates, gallery director David Knight selected works by these artists, all of whom are friends, in which color is a key element. The […]
Painting in the Network: Algorithm and Appropriation at University of Louisville’s Cressman Center for the Arts
Painting in the Network: Algorithm and Appropriation, which is currently up at University of Louisville’s Cressman Center for the Arts, and curated by Chris Reitz, is involved in a dialogue that has been unwrapping itself for just about forty years (and arguably since the advent of photography): how does new media (in all of its […]
"Birds of Paradise" at Marta Hewett Gallery
The birds in Kevin Veara’s paintings are vividly alive in their stylized natural world. Birds of Paradise, an exhibition of a dozen or so of the artist’s recent works at Marta Hewett Gallery, Cincinnati, is on view in an area far from the door, almost as though these handsome creatures might fly right out if […]
THE CASTLE OF DEBRIS —Tatsuya Tatsuta’s formative abstract representation of Lacanian desire
“There are only 2 tragedies in life: not getting what one desires, and getting it.” —Oscar Wilde The Castle of Debris is situated first from the entrance to the large exhibition hall in Tokyo’s National Art Centre. Piled on the floor are the ‘monad’ pieces of heat-transformed polystyrene, burned and melted from identical and flat […]
The Return to Beauty: Asian Influences on Contemporary Landscape Art
Chinese and Japanese art come from radically different traditions and assumptions than Western art. “Chinese painters are always painting essences, not likenesses,” according to Curator Daniel Brown. Because Asian art looks for essences and is highly reductive, artists radically reduce the visual information included in their work to the barest of essentials. In this sense, […]