“Diagrams of the Unseeable”: Photography by Olivia Parker at the Peabody Essex Museum
“She has an interesting eye… but it’s wildly different than anything I would hang in my house.” I overheard a woman say that to her friend in “Order of Imagination,” a moving retrospective of Olivia Parker’s forty-plus years of photo-making at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA. Maybe I’ve followed one too many collage […]
Future Retrieval’s Leaves of Plates Launches a New Artist-in-Residence Program at the Lloyd Library and Museum
Earlier this year, the Lloyd Library and Museum in downtown Cincinnati, OH, launched their Artist-in-Residence program with an aim to enrich and bolster support for the arts. Recipients of the residency are tasked with interpreting and integrating the Lloyd Library’s collections, including botany; natural history; early travel and exploration; and histories of science, medicine, and […]
“AutoUpdate”: The Future of Photographic Arts
Cincinnati appreciators of art are, at this point, more than likely familiar with the FotoFocus Biennial. Every other year since 2010 FotoFocus has brought compelling, intellectual explorations of “digital technology’s impact on photography and video” to the region. FotoFocus commissions exhibitions across the city that work together to explore different artistic ideas that fall under […]
A Bowling Pin Turned Sideways Becomes a Lopsided Way to Signify Infinity: Jim Condron at Wilson College’s Cooley Art Gallery
Jim Condron’s newest show, “You Never Wash It Off Completely,” was commissioned by Wilson College as part of its sesquicentennial celebration and will run until December 15th at the Sue Davidson Cooley Gallery. For the show, Condron created three large, site-specific installations. No gasp at a miracle that is truly miraculous because the magic lies […]
September Diencephalon at Institute 193
“I thought, maybe you have to choose between happiness and truth and that is when I had my five imaginary children and I became happy.” And Other Self-Affirming Quasi-Truths by September Diencephalon at Institute 193. Before making my drive to Lexington to see September Diencephalon’s exhibition, Children Dance on Water I Wonder Why They Wash […]
Printed Voices from Lebanon: Social and Cultural Reflections
Lebanon has endured a tumultuous 45 years. Transitioning from the site of the “Paris of the Middle East” to a 15 year civil war, and the presence of Syrian troops for 29 years brought traumatic changes to the Mediterranean nation. Recent estimates for the ratio of current refugees within Lebanon place one refugee for every […]
Erotics of the Anthropocene: Margaret Smithers-Crump’s “Breaking Point”
A taut crimson thread inscribes a tension between two forms, not so much seen as felt. It wraps around a smooth basalt stone on the gallery’s floor, extending some feet up to a suspended form, a spectral lattice, like a 3D-printed tumbleweed, defined less by its appearance than its lightness and upward gesture — like […]
Fotofolio: Evelyn Sosa
Selections from “Retrato Femenino”. Series in progress since 2011 About Evelyn Sosa: Evelyn Sosa Rojas was born in 1989 in Havana, Cuba where she lives and works. Sos specializes in portraits when she is not busy covering events like the Havana Marathon. Sosa shows the power of femininity through photos of women in different familiar […]
"Art in Bloom" at the Cincinnati Art Museum
By its nature, Art in Bloom at the Cincinnati Art Museum comes and goes quickly in its biennial appearances. This year’s took place October 17 – 20 and as usual brightened the experience of Museum-goers on those fortunate days. If visual art is sometimes considered a for-the-ages sort of thing, blooming flowers are its exact […]
Decorative Arts Society of Cincinnati Offers Unusual Tours and Lectures
Decorative Arts Society of Cincinnati has a long tradition in town. In 1981 Dr. and Mrs. Kenneth Kreines joined a few like-minded friends who enjoyed learning more about decorative arts. The Kreineses loved folk art and Americana. An intimate group eventually morphed into the Decorative Arts Society of Cincinnati. In 1983, it became a 501©(3) […]