TradeMarks
March 1-April 26
CAN launch & opening reception 6–9pm Friday, March 1

In the 1960s, Andy Warhol famously made silk-screened copies of Brillo boxes. In the ’80s, Richard Prince re-photographed magazine ads for Marlboro cigarettes and Barbara Kruger created large-scale word-and-photographic image pieces that objectified her experience of the world, transforming her job as a designer into her work as an artist.

The artists, Stephen Bivens, Keith Berr, Dana Depew, JoAnn Dickey, Gabriel Gonzalez, Joe Lanzilotta, Cathy Law, mr. soul, and Jordan Wong delve into their own examinations and the challenges regional artists face who hug both the commercial field and art world in their practices. These artists all produce new work at a rapid pace to keep up with the commercial market, seek profit and recognition, and generally produce art that can please themselves and their clients.

The exhibition considers the impact commercial art has on the NEO avant-garde and offers a fresh view on the artists’ tenuous relationship to a 21^st-century torn and liberated marketplace. TradeMarks provides these artists with creative license to flex their own ideas apart from their day jobs, corporate clients and the commission-expectations of others. An industry night ART BAR will engage the commercial creative communities in the region with American Greetings,  LANDstudio, Northern Ohio Illustrators Society (NOIS), and American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) to network and speak more directly about best practices for contracted work, client-artist expectations and other negotiations that are often in tension or in sync or separated altogether in our arts landscape.

ART/VENTURES
10am–noon, Saturday, March 16

Meet at YARDS and hear about his work in show—then we travel to his studio.

At Keith Berr’s studio in the St. Clair Superior neighborhood, discover an amazing urban space he co-created with his partner Linda Barberic. Linda is the creative energy behind Soma Tea (somatea.com). Their beautiful urban space provides an amazing backdrop for commercial, health and wellness, and fine art production. Join us as Keith tells stories about his most adventurous commercial shoots and see one of the largest Cyc studios (short for cyclorama) in the region. A must-see space in Cleveland.

ART BAR
6–8pm Thursday, April 11

Industry networking event. Join us for a dynamic night with an audience of designers, illustrators, public-art artists, commercial photographers and business professionals who are—individually and collectively—helping to shape the conversation about art and design’s essential role in business and in the arts here in Cleveland.

Fabulism
May 9–June 28
Reception 6–9pm Thursday, May 9

The Magical Realist painter Henri Rousseau completed more than twenty-five jungle paintings in his career. He never once stepped out of France for inspiration. Even with no direct experience in a jungle, he created whimsical paintings using his vast knowledge of literature, colonial expositions, and visits to the Paris Zoo. The Dream (1910) is a luscious jungle and wild animal painting, and was inspired by Rousseau’s visit to the city’s natural history museum.

“Fabulism”—a term often used in literature to explain the fantastic and impossible, as in Alice in Wonderland and Gulliver’s Travels—describes things that appear real but are simply not possible in reality. At a time when false news and the blurred lines of fact and fiction are daily occurrences, art as an escape from reality resonates now more than ever. And because of these things, the current exhibition Fabulism leans towards the exotic, historical, once-upon-a-time, and the hard-to-believe. No time like the present or the past…

The artists Laura Bidwell, Kristen Cliffel, Meng-Hsuan Wu, Claudio Orso, Arabella Proffer, Dante Rodriguez, Omid Tavakoli, and Antwoine Washington exhibit in Fabulism: metafact and fictions, where they offer diverse outcomes of exploration for our own “escape rooms” that lead us to dreamscapes, future worlds, revisionist fairy tales and new realities.

ART/VENTURES
10am–noon, Saturday, May 18

Meet at YARDS then head over to Claudio Orso /Rian Brown studio.

 

TRADEMARKS | MARCH 1 – APRIL 26
CAN LAUNCH / OPENING RECEPTION 6–9PM FRIDAY, MARCH 1

ART/VENTURES WITH KEITH BERR & LINDA BARBERIC | 10AM–NOON, MARCH 16
Meet at Worthington Yards

FABULISM | MAY 9–JUNE 28
RECEPTION 6–9PM THURSDAY, MAY 9

ART/VENTURES WITH CLAUDIO ORSO & RIAN BROWN | 10 AM–NOON, MAY 18
Meet at Worthington Yards

YARDS Project Space
725 Johnson Court
Cleveland, Ohio 44113
yardsproject.com
216.570.0324