The March issue of aeqai has just posted, and it’s a very large issue, full of reviews and essays and profiles and Letters from other cities. We are trying to put these different categories of article into groups, and the headings should help our readers go directly to what they want to read, and, too, at the end of the e-blast, you can now click one thing and go directly to the site (readers have been asking for these things). We’ve posted the information about our benefit party, to be held on April 17 at Marta Hewett Gallery, first, so you can get that information right away. The benefits are always fun and filled with creative people and we hope that you can come and help support aeqai: we are now an official 501(c)3 non-profit organization. And if you can’t come, we hope that you’ll consider making a tax-deductible contribution: your donations help to pay for our writers, our computer experts and the like. We have a total, now , of nearly 500,000 annual combined readers and hits, and we will be starting to review exhibitions in Columbus in two months.
Jon Kamholtz offers a splendid and often witty analysis of the Boucher (and friends) exhibition at the art museum, a particularly refreshing exhibition as we haven’t seen European drawings in quite awhile. Fran Watson covers the museum’s Art Smith jewelry show, too. (Aeqai’s review of the Todd Pavlisko show will appear in our April issue).
Stephen Slaughter returns to aeqai with an exceptionally clear review of the “rebuildering” show at CAC, which he explains and analyzes and helps draw us into the show and its underlying themes concurrently. The CAC will be offering wonderfully challenging programming all year. Kevin Ott reviews the photo show curated by William Messer at Iris Book Cafe: it’s a beautiful show , and an intimate one, which we hope you’ll go see. Louisville critic Julie Gross returns with a brilliant review of work by Stephen Watson, neither a folk nor outsider artist, but a Christian one, and Gross raises all sorts of contemporary issues via this show. And Marlene Steele offers an exceptional look at Gaela Erwin’s work at Manifest Gallery: Erwin examines familial relationships with intensity and integrity. Jane Durrell looks at some brand new paintings by Kay Hurley, one of our region’s greatest colorists and interpreters of our spiritual longings via landscape at LaPoste Eatery in Clifton.
Karen Chambers reviews the show at Clifton Cultural Center, curated by area artist Yvonne von Eijden, which includes some of our region’s finest talent, including her own. New aeqai writer Trish Richter reviews the Xavier University Faculty show astutely and freshly. Accidentally, two aeqai writers, Bob Wallace and Keith Banner, reviewed the same show at 2lc hotel, work by Michael Combs (editor’s fault)–but it’s fascinating to read them both back to back, as their analyses differ by a wide margin: that’s part of what makes good art fascinating, as there’s no one “right” reading of it. Dustin Pike returns with a review/interview of work by Ken Henson at the Lloyd Library downtown. And Shawn Daniell tells us why she finds the Art of Food show at Carnegie a tired concept.
My third essay on the roles of art museum directors appears this month; while we are waiting to hire a new one, it seems very timely to define what we want /expect from our directors (no doubt the same questions are just as relevant nationally). Laura Hobson offers a very thorough profile of art dealer Doug Eisele, owner of both Eisele Gallery and Old World Restoration (now in one building in Fairfax). And aeqai also welcomes new writer Liz Teslow, who has written a double profile of the two artists-in-residence at Manifest Gallery this year, Jeremy Plunkett and Niciholas Mancini: by interviewing them both together, she makes a singularly interesting conversation/profile/analysis.
Cynthia Kukla found herself skiing near Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and found a terrific gallery and two Abstract Expressionists’ work to review, one first and one second generation. Aeqai also welcomes writer Judith Fairly, formerly of Columbus, now living in Texas, with her wonderful Letter from Roanoke: we are very keen on learning what’s going on culturally in America’s mid-sized cities as well as its large ones, and Fairly approaches her topic with verve, sophistication, and wit. She, Liz Teslow and Trish Richter will all be regular aeqai writers.
Saad Ghosn, who’s currently in Lebanon (the country) visiting friends and relatives, offers his monthly Art for a Better World, with poetry and art by Kimberley Henson and Susan Glassmeyer. I offer my second of two poems I’ve ever written (some may sigh with relief), as well as a book review of new novel The Apartment, while Maxwell Redder gives us two new exceptional poems.
Louis Zoellar Bickett of Lexington returns with series of conceptual photographs; groups of these will appear monthly on aeqai.
We hope that you will find this issue of aeqai stimulating and clearer to read, and we also hope that you’ll come to our benefit party to help us to grow and pay our not-terribly-large bills. Please send comments as you see fit.
Thank you.
Daniel Brown
Editor, AEQAI
https://www.aeqai.org