U2’s song, “With or Without You,” quickly became a hit in the late ’80s and the lyrics are widely interpreted to begin with a romantic relationship that goes sour. Bono, the lead singer and co-writer, offers another angle—the song is really about his intense relationship with himself. He says “that tension is what makes me an artist”. The artists in […]
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Daniel Levin has always been moved by highly creative people and the works they produce. It’s the kind of experience he feels at his torso’s center. Although the mediums are, of course, relevant, for Daniel to be moved to the highest degree, there must be a symbiosis between the ideas explored and the exceptional craft of the artist. When he […]
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The process wonks bloom all over the walls in Slowhand, a new exhibit at the YARDS Project, a venue tucked down a side alley between West 6th and West 9th, around the corner from St. Clair Avenue. Weavers who unweave first, seedpods encased in copper, the fevered discipline of cut paper fantasies, and empathy revealed by charcoal around the white […]
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As a general rule, nostalgia in art is frowned upon. It’s a shtick that makes people feel like they should care about your art more than they should, because it’s familiar, and sometimes stagnates as sentimentality. Nostalgia is viewed as an intellectual and aesthetic crutch that prevents cultural artifacts from reflecting their own epochs. With that in mind, we are […]
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Painting and drawing always have been primary modes of expression. Painters often make an initial drawing on a surface, using graphite or charcoal, as a starting point to begin to envision their works. Since drawing produces lines, it is important to keep the mindset of a painter and allow other things to emerge. Painters traditionally rely on shapes, value and […]
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The novel coronavirus was not only devastating to the art world in 2020: COVID drove evolution, as well. Some strategies artists and organizations invented or embraced were not only innovative in the moment, but are likely to endure in 2021 and beyond. Here are a few innovations, adaptations, and repackaging efforts that got our attention in this terrible, horrible, no […]
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The Women Picturing Cleveland exhibition started as the “perfect vision” for a show scheduled back in March. Clearly, this show has significantly shifted gears. What has not changed is the number of talented and active women photographers shooting pictures here in Cleveland (and beyond). Many of the featured artists are mentoring younger women as mothers, grandmothers, daughters, university faculty members, […]
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CAN Journal has been pleased to partner with Worthington Yards to present Art Made in the Shutdown, an exhibit featuring works of more than 120 artists who have in common this tumultuous moment in history, when a global pandemic intersects with our long-overdue reckoning with racism. In the wake of a recent Zoom dialog among the artists, we continue […]
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Since the beginning of the COVID Shutdown, CAN has shared virtual gallery tours and studio visits and other updates from artists about how they were impacted, how they were challenged, and how they coped during the isolation. Now more than three months into the crisis, we know artists have not stopped making work, even if they have had to channel […]
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You gotta give them hope. Harvey Milk Hope is the sea change within ourselves, how we imagine our world and those who are in it. My middle name is Hope, and hope brought me to Worthington Yards. To hope is to gamble, and with hope comes a world of possibilities. Worthington Yards and its developer, Dalad Group, took a gamble […]
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