For almost half a century, the Cleveland Arts Prize honored the city’s artists one at a time in an annual ceremony. But on May 2^nd the venerable organization’s interim director Alenka Banco announced the names of no less than nine honorees for 2014. The artist/winners are spread over five disciplines, and all receive a monetary award that has grown steadily in recent years. As of last year, the award was raised to $10,000.

This year Valerie Mayen receives one of CAP’s two annual Emerging Artist awards. Mayen is Lead Designer/Owner at Yellowcake Shop, an art and philanthropy-oriented clothing design business. Mayen has appeared as a designer on the Lifetime channel’s Project Runway and is a graduate of Virginia Marti School of Design and the Cleveland Institute of Art.

CWRU teacher and poet Brad Ricca, who also won an Emerging Artist Prize, has recently published The Amazing Adventures of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster – The Creation of Superman. Ricca has been interviewed about his book, which was ten years in the making, by the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Boston Globe, and on NPR’s program All Things Considered.

Midcareer Prize winner and recent CPAC and Guggenheim Fellow Kasumi is widely noted for her experimental work with film,video, and sound clips. Her latest 82-minute narrative digital montage Shockwaves journeys through fifty years of world history, interwoven with moments cropped from the lives and fantasies of its two protagonists.

Another Midcareer award goes to Cleveland Public Theater’s Executive Artistic Director Ray Bobgan, whose development and promotion of ensemble theatrical productions during his eight years at CPT have brought national attention to one of the city’s best and longest running alternative arts venues.

CAP’s juries awarded the only annual Lifetime Achievement Award to seminal experimental filmmaker Richard Myers. Myers is, in the words of one juror, “Our filmmaker.” Teaching at Kent State for more than three decades beginning in 1960, he taught a generation how to think about the fluid dynamics of the art, influencing countless young artists in the medium. During his long career he has also been the recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships, an American Film Institute Grant, an NEA Grant, and several Ohio Arts Council Fellowships. His works explore the incomparable, fast-paced poetry of film montage.

CAP’s two other, non-monetary awards, the Martha Joseph Prize and the Robert Bergman Prize, are each split between two nominees. William Busta, probably the city’s most revered gallerist and private curator, and DanceCleveland’s Executive Director Pamela Young, share the Joseph Prize, honoring the vision and unique achievements of each. The Gund Foundation’s Deena Epstein and the Cleveland Foundation’s Kathleen Cerveny share the Bergman Prize, recognizing the many ways in which their leadership helped to build the arts communities that now flourish in northern Ohio.

 

The Cleveland Arts Prize 54^th Annual Awards Ceremony

6:30 pm Thursday, June 26

Gartner Auditorium

Cleveland Museum of Art

 

Hosted by WVIZ / WCPN’s Dee Perry

Tickets: $75 – $225

For information, go to clevelandartsprize.org

 

 

The Cleveland Arts Prize

PO Box 21126

Cleveland, Ohio 44121

clevelandartsprize.org