At War With The Obvious
“Not Just Pretty Pictures: The Carl M. Jacobs III Collection” at the Cincinnati Art Museum “I am at war with the obvious,” Photographer William Eggleston once said when asked about his work. I have a feeling Carl M. Jacobs III, the collector the exhibit […]
Thunder-Sky’s the Limit
“Hard Knocks: Art without Art School” is a loosely curated collection of more than one hundred works of art by thirty-one artists from around the globe. By making use of their three curators (visual artists Antonio Adams, Ran Barnaclo, & Spencer van der Zee,) Thunder-Sky’s Face Book page, and exhibition blog to cast a wide […]
Fun Between the Covers
Books. From the tiniest , “Musical Boxes” by Mark Palkovic measuring a mere 1” X 1 1/2”, to the largest, also qualifying as the most outrageous,”Zulu: A Book Doll” by Pamela Howard, Bookwords 12 at the Main Library through August 29, 2011, is a plethora of invention and imagination. Pop-up book artists are now known […]
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Harry Reisiger at The Phyllis Weston Gallery Clement Greenberg once said that “the superior artist is one who knows how to be influenced” and the current survey of paintings by the late Harry Reisiger reveals just such an artist. Born in 1922, Reisiger studied at both the Art Academy and the University of Cincinnati, eventually […]
What’s The Big Idea? “Body of Art” at Prairie Gallery
“Body of Art,” the exhibit currently at Prairie Gallery (on display through August 20, 2011), is a group show in which the weirdness and greatness of the individual works often outshine the reason they were pulled together in the first place. The show is a grab-bag of video, photography, sculpture, painting and drawing, and while […]
Ode to Trendiness
Initial Impression: Darkened rooms, interestingly arranged for multi-screened film projections. Walls and partitions simultaneously displaying black and white events. A slim man scatters a white powder over a grassy area. He is printing the universal signal for help, SOS, in large letters by drizzling a white powder on the grass. Written material nearby indicates that […]
It’s Oh So Quiet
Andre Alves’ Mute Motives at Semantics In the late1950s and into the 1960s, the philosophies of composer John Cage permeated the arts. Allan Kaprow took Cage’s notion of incorporating all of life into (and as) music and invented the “happening,” where the human body took […]
Treeline: Photos by Kent Krugh
It might seem flip to start a review of “Treeline,” Kent Krugh’s (American, 1955- ) rather magnificent exhibition of 22 black-and-white photographs* of the Angel Tree, the largest tree east of the Mississippi, with the old chestnut that “you can’t the see the forest for the trees.” But in this case, the Quercus virginiana, an […]
Meanwell at Mary Rand Gallery
In Cincinnati painting circles two names, from a recent past, keep their magic. The late Paul Chidlaw and the late Jack Meanwell, both of whom painted with a flashing style raised from the canvas in waves of impasto excitement. Both artists’ works are available at […]
A Star is Born
A Star is Born: the Douglas S. Cramer Collection at the CAM. If you go to the Cincinnati Art Museum this summer you will see artwork from the contemporary art collection of Hollywood producer Douglas S. Cramer in two separate exhibition areas: one just upon passing the entrance foyer, where the Museum often houses small-scale […]