Book Review: Three New African Talents
by Daniel Brown A virtual plethora of new African writers is taking the literary world by surprise and by storm. Last year’s Amerikah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ended up on The New York Times’ five best novels of the year, most deservedly (I had not, at that time, read it). The writer’s narrator is a […]
Book Review: Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932
by Daniel Brown Francine Prose’s newest novel, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932, is both her finest to date as well as the best novel of 2014 to date. The book is written from several different points of view, and by several different narrators/protagonists. Prose takes us to Paris in the late 20’s, and […]
Fresh Air: Art from the Bernheim Arboretum Review
by Matthew Metzger Fresh Air: Art from the Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest at the Ascent Private Capital Management building was curated by Elizabeth Leach of Elizabeth Leach Gallery in Portland Oregon, with direction from Martha Slaughter, Bernheim’s Visual Arts Coordinator. It presents works by current and past artists in residence at the Bernheim Arboretum, […]
Artificial Intelligence: Charles Woodman at Weston Art Gallery
by Keith Banner The basement space at the Weston Art Gallery has always felt claustrophobic and a little spooky to me, like a staged scene in a really serious movie about abduction, no matter what art goes on the walls. It’s the ceiling that does it, kind of looming over the whole area like a […]
Alice Aycock Review
by Matthew Metzger Alice Aycock’s Super Twister at the University of Cincinnati Medical Science Building Alice Aycock was a seminal presence in the New York avant-garde art scene in the 1970s, and has since continued to create work that simultaneously dissects and combines aspects of monumental sculpture, architecture, science and modern machinery. In stride with […]
Metazoa Exhibit at Popp=d Art
by Shawn Daniell After last month’s lackluster experience at The Carnegie’s Art of Food, I was looking for something a little less mainstream. I was looking for something off the beaten path. I desired something fun and quirky. I’m always searching for new galleries or spaces that don’t see a lot of coverage. During one […]
RECOGNIZED: Contemporary Portraiture
by Fran Watson The Carnegie, April 4 – May 17, 2014 The magnet piece in Recognized: Contemporary Portraiture at the Carnegie Arts Center was definitely “Biker Mice”. With the same fury seen in Jean-Michel Basquiat’s art, Marci Rosin splashed her signature subject based on the cartoon, “Biker Mice from Mars” with graffiti and speed. I […]
Book Reviews: PTSD in Translation
by Daniel Brown Two recently published books, one fiction, and one non-fiction, have recently come out, and both of them are utterly outstanding in trying to explain what is happening to our soldiers when they come back from either Iraq or Afghanistan. Phil Klay’s Redeployment is a work of unmitigated brilliance, and presents a powerful […]
Erwin’s Pastels: Recent Portraits Studies of Estrangement and Reconciliation
by Marlene Steele Gaela Erwin, Manifest Gallery Cincinnati Ohio Chi.a.ro.scu.ro: An effect of contrasted light and shadow. Origin Latin: chiaro ‘clear,bright’ + oscuro ‘dark, obscure’ Pas.tel pastel: noun: a crayon made of powdered pigments bound with gum or resin. adjective: of a soft and delicate shade or color. The interlude where I met Gaela Erwin […]
Epic Epicene: Michael Combs at 21C (Cincinnati)
by Keith Banner In 1964, Susan Sontag wrote an essay called “Notes on ‘Camp’” that still wraps and winds its tentacles throughout culture today. Basically a survey of “Camp’s” meanings, practices and perversions, the essay reads like a Bible for drag, piss-elegance and artful political incorrectness used to both disembowel and deconstruct the mainstream. When […]