Aeqai has just posted its annual combined January/February issue, and we’ve found quite a few wonderful shows to review, even during this quiet/frustrating time defined by COVID. Jonathan Kamholtz offers us two reviews this month, the first of which is the Duveneck painting show at Cincinnati Art Museum, one of the finest reviews of this show anywhere to date, offering unusually astute insights into the man/artist and his work, and how and where they overlap. We see how Duveneck looked more backwards (towards the l7th Century Spanish Baroque) more than forward, to early modernism in artists such as Manet. The exhibition at CAM is one of the finest painting shows there in awhile.
We’ve been trying to get into the Dayton Art Institute to see the paintings of Siberia by Cincinnati artist Bukang Kim; not only has the museum been mostly closed because of COVID; they’ve also had a broken boiler, to date, so Jonathan Kamholtz got his hands on Brad Smith’s photographs of said show, from which he reviews her show. Kim’s work, which I’ve often reviewed myself (and/or written many of the catalogues for her shows), combines elements of Asian art and Western Abstract Expressionism; Kamholtz sees her work through the lens of formalism. We urge our readers to see this show when the museum reopens, as Bukang Kim is one of this region’s premiere painters.
Aeqai reviews all the new shows at the newly reopened Weston Gallery downtown in The Aronoff Center. Susan Byrnes’ review of an installation by Oberlin artist Johnny Coleman will make you want to go to see it as soon as you possibly are able to. Two quilt shows there, by artists Carolyn Mazloomi and Heather Jones, are reviewed by Aeqai critic/painter Cynthia Kukla. Karen Chambers takes a look at the annual Tiger Lily Press print show, this year at Caza Sikes Gallery in Oakley, and truly admires much of the work in this show. Will Newman went to Kennedy Heights Art Center to review the retrospective (2016-2020) work in the SOS show, always put together lovingly by area curator/artist Saad Ghosn.
Laura Hobon’s monthly feature is a fascinating look at how Cincinnati Art Galleries puts together their annual “Panorama of Cincinnati Art”, held there during the holidays for decades. These massive shows take a heap of planning, including a magnificent catalogue, and remains one of our city’s premier art exhibitions annually (various cultural institutions are always the beneficiary of a percent of the proceeds).
Two reviews from Los Angeles are both fascinating; former Cincinnatian Josh Beckelheimer, who now resides in Greater LA, looks at the work of Derek Boshier, in one show, and that of Luke Murphy and Christine Wang, in the other, at The Night Gallery. Annabel Osberg will once again wow our readers with her superb analysis of “Substrata” at The Epoch Gallery in LA (epoch.gallery); the shows there are meant to be virtual, and thus utilize the many strengths of the digital world.
Kent Krugh’s FotoFolio this month offers fascinating, occasionally enigmatic, photographs by Glenna Jennings, and I offer two book reviews, “Let Me Tell You What I Mean”, a new essay collection by genius Joan Didion, and ” That Old Country Music”, new stories by phenomenal Irish writer Kevin Barry.
We hope that you find this issue stimulating, and we’re glad to be back with these reviews. We’ll return in March with new reviews, including that of the Stuart Weizman shoe collection at The Taft Museum of Art, and new work by ceramicists Guy Davis and Katy Parker at Cincinnat Art Museum. Ekin Erkan will return with a review of artwork made by prisoners during the COVID epidemic at The Museum of Modern Art, as well.
To go directly to our site/the new issue, click onto www.aeqai.org and you’ll go directly there.
Daniel Brown
Editor, www.aeqai.com