An Open Letter to the Middle Art Powers of the Great Lakes

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s remarkable speech during the January 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland called on the “middle powers” to collaborate for economic and military strength to counterbalance the might-makes-right attitude of superpowers, recently laid bare by the talk and behavior of US President Donald Trump.

Carney acknowledged the outsized force of the US, and the historically compliant, go-along-to-get-along behavior of those middle powers, but made note that the smaller countries “are not powerless.” They could, for example, make their own trade agreements, and their own alliances for mutual benefit. They could act together to build new centers of international clout. “They have the capacity,” he said, “to build a new order that embodies our values, like respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of states.”

What does that have to do with the art of Northeast Ohio, or art at all for that matter?

Cleveland artists live in a world that looks to the coastal powers as a default reference. Artists look to New York City, Los Angeles, and Miami for inspiration—as they should everywhere—but also, sadly, for validation. Likewise, the artists of Buffalo, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Cincinnati, and many other places. They are overshadowed. They struggle for attention beyond their immediate surrounds. Their prices are much lower, pegged to smaller, localized marketplaces. Cleveland and a multitude of other cities around the Great Lakes and Midwest share these challenges, and could be considered middle art powers.

To wit: following the lead of PM Carney, by acting together could they form their own alliances, build their own markets, and establish a new American art identity rich in industrial heritage, environmental challenges and successes, resources, and progress, and diversity? The potential for thematic connections among these cities is just about endless, having to do with post-industrial economies and spaces, declining populations, climate refuge, fresh water and the need to protect it, and a multitude of other subjects. A couple of local organizations have already begun this venture with partners in aforementioned places, producing successful and valuable shows. More about that shortly.

Each of the cities named above is within day-trip or overnight range from Cleveland, and each has a metro population above one million people. Five of the six have populations above two million. Taken together, there are 14.5 million people, just in the major metro areas, within about three hours’ drive from Cleveland.

Additionally, each of those cities has major resources: Each has a legacy art museum. Each has a significant population of artists, and their post-industrial vacancy has left them with affordable space. Most have smaller art centers and contemporary art centers serving them, in addition to that legacy museum. Each of the listed cities has a public access print shop and a community of printmakers. They all have commercial galleries. They all have post-secondary art schools. Every one of them has an arts council, providing advocacy and some funding.

Standard operating procedure in all those cities has been to act locally, in their own self-interest, looking on in jealous envy of the art superpowers. But Carney’s wisdom for nations applies to the middle art powers: “The question is whether we adapt by simply building higher walls or whether we can do something more ambitious.” He endorses a plan of “building coalitions that work, issue by issue, with partners who share enough common ground to act together.”

And therein lies an enormous opportunity for the middle art powers of the Great Lakes. Two exhibitions covered on these pages in the last year provide an action plan and show the potential: Ohio Now: The State of Nature, created by moCa Cleveland with the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati; and the aptly named Common Currents, created by Cleveland’s Artists Archives of the Western Reserve (AAWR) in collaboration with the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo. In both of those cases curators from each city conducted studio visits to build a show, which opened for a run in one city before traveling to the collaborating city for a new installation, a new opening, and another run. That could be replicated. Carried out repeatedly, with different partners and different cities, that model could create a Great Lakes art network introducing more artists to more curators and broader audiences. It could build a regional identity stronger than any of those individual cities ever could hope to have on their own.

It’s a model that benefits from personal relationships. In each of the above cases, friends across the miles who had roles with institutions made the connections that led to the collaborations. It also requires money: curators need to travel, and shipping entire exhibitions of art from one city to another is expensive. It requires willing and capable institutional partners.

Both of the Cleveland organizations above express interest in continued pursuit of that collaborative model. Artists Archives of the Western Reserve Executive Director Mindy Tousley—who happens to be from Buffalo—believes a triennial exchange is do-able for them. She emphasizes that it takes money—in the realm of $15,000 from each participating organization to produce an exhibition like Common Currents. And it also takes planning time. Common Currents was in development for three years before the exhibition happened. A member of AAWR’s Board who was key to making the exhibit happen, John A. Sargent, says leadership at the Burchfield Penney wants to collaborate along the same lines again. Both Sargent and Tousley expressed interest in adding cities to the collaboration.

The collaboration between moCa and Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center suffered a blow when Christina Vassallo left Cincinnati for a new position back in Philadelphia. Nonetheless, moCa Executive Director Megan Lykins Reich says she “look[s] forward to exploring future opportunities with the new leadership [there] when the timing is right.” She also notes that “co-production allows us to share resources, expand access, and amplify awareness of exceptional artists and institutions.”

But moCa and AAWR are far from the only potential agents of such networking in Cleveland. The city is rich in this kind of capacity: capable institutions with interests that fit peer-to-peer collaboration well. In addition to those already named, Cleveland has a well-developed range of discipline-specific institutions like Zygote Press, the Morgan Conservatory, the Cleveland Print Room, and Praxis, which might find willing partners in other cities. Additional, capable contemporary art organizations include SPACES and the Sculpture Center. It has the Cleveland Institute of Art, and Kent State University’s enormous art department just a bit to the south.

It is easy to argue that Cleveland makes an ideal hub for this vision. That far-from-exhaustive list of assets is Exhibit A. Besides its world-famous headline institutions, Cleveland has a deep bench of nonprofit art organizations that benefit from its historically generous philanthropic community. Most cities don’t have as much of that.

In addition, there is geography. Cleveland is in the center of that group of cities. Move to the west or south, and population centers significantly spread out. Move to the east, and the outsized coastal cities threaten with their hegemony.

Finally, there’s this: the Cleveland Museum of Art owns and operates Transformer Station, which through its history has been dedicated to contemporary art. In 2025 and 2026, it’s specifically been contemporary art of the region. Partners in programming have included the Cleveland Institute of Art, FRONT Triennial, and the Cleveland Print Room. In July, the Museum will open Lake Affect—its own regionally-focused show there, juried by a panel of the museum’s own curators, drawing on artists from the same seven-county geographic footprint as the older and much-vaunted May Show. Like the May Show of decades past did, the validation that comes with a nod from curators of the major museum—and presentation on its walls—is a significant boost to the region’s artists. It does, however, remain regional, and without significant promotion or other engagement is unlikely to inspire much interest beyond the seven counties it draws from. Intercity collaborations could do more than that.

The Museum has not yet articulated an ongoing vision for Transformer Station, and has not commented publicly on this vision. But could intentional programming there via contemporary, inter-city partnering organizations make Cleveland a hub for the Middle Art Powers of the Great Lakes?

As Canadian PM Carney said, “this is the task of the middle powers, the countries that have the most to lose from a world of fortresses and the most to gain from genuine co-operation.”