The May issue of Aeqai has just posted. It’s a shorter, abridged issue this month; we’re only publishing those reviews that are from the Greater Cincinnati area, skipping our national correspondents/critics this month, since I’ve been laid up with pneumonia for over six weeks. But we’ve got some great columns/features/reviews this month, anyway.
Chris Carter analyzes work by Cincinnati painter and former Art Academy painting professor Stewart Goldman at The Skirball Museum at Hebrew Union College. These paintings, called “Hanging Figures” relate directly to The Holocaust, and are compelling and almost frightening, concurrently. They’re painted on pages from a telephone book, showing us the arbitrary nature of those who were caught in the net of Nazi murderer in World War II, and are a reminder of how we are still looking at “The Other” with skepticism and hatred on borders both American and European.
Cynthia Kukla offers a brilliant analysis/critique of “Burning Man” at The Cincinnati Art Museum, which originated in the desserts of Nevada; it’s wildly creative and is a contemporary intervention into the collections/galleries of The Museum. And Jonathan Kamholtz went to Columbus, Ohio, to review “The Age of Rembrandt” at The Columbus Museum of Art. Don’t look for many Rembrandts in this show–they’re mainly etchings–but The Golden Age of Dutch Painting in the l7th century is much in evidence in the work in this show, and Kamholtz explicates all kinds of meaning from these works of art. Marlene Steele gives a great review of a large group show at Wash Park Art in OTR in Cincinnati.
Jane Durrell gives a profile of painter Nancy Nordloh Neville, who’s been around the Cincinnati art scene for many decades and is known for her paintings and watercolors of flowers; she’s just won first prize at a show at Cincinnati’s Woman’s Art Club. Laura Hobson offers a feature on the new “Art Climb” offered at/by Cincinnati Art Museum; the Museum is trying to connect physically with the Walnut Hills neighborhood adjacent to the Museum in its ongoing efforts to connect with others in its neighborhood. Jennifer Perusek, Aeqai’s fashion critic, offers an astute analysis of fashion from H & M in collaboration with the Italian designer Valli, and she examines couture clothes in the era of social media and younger audiences/consumers.
Kent Krugh’s Fotofolio looks at photographs by Lloyd Greene, and I offer two book reviews this month, one of the masterpiece “The Old Drift”, and the other of the brilliant new novel by Julie Orringer, “The Flight Portfolio”.
We’ll be back in June with a fuller issue, which will include reviews by our national critics as well as our regional ones. As always, we welcome your comments (and donations; Aeqai is a nonprofit and exists by gifts from friends, readers, and grants). To go directly to the site, click onto www.Aeqai.com/main.
Daniel Brown
Editor, Aeqai