The painting of portraits has a long and storied history. For hundreds of years, artists have sought to capture likenesses on canvas. In a post-postmodern world, portraiture still has a role to play, but what is it exactly? In a world of selfie sticks and Instagram filters, people still seek out traditional painted portraits, but the status of these paintings […]
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Back in September of 2018, Markwald legally changed his name to Max, and began painting large self-portraits documenting his gender transition. The tall vertical canvases are identical in size, impressively painted, and are all titled simply for the month they were created. Several of them are currently on view at BAYarts, in a new show titled “Skin” (until March 6), […]
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Cleveland-based artist George Kocar has an unmistakable style. His whimsical, colorful, and at times bitingly sarcastic paintings can be spotted across a room – and they have always delighted me. In particular, one of the things I like most about Kocar’s work is how dark his paintings can be, while still maintaining their bright shiny palette and whimsy. It’s a […]
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David King’s new paintings are like fiery dreams. Hot with neon color, memories fade, some crumble into dust, others linger. Looking at this body of work is a bit like time travel, but feels like you’ve accidentally stumbled into someone else’s history, like an uninvited guest at a family reunion. King won ArtNEO’s “Cleveland Creates” competition, a juried exhibition of […]
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In no particular order, here is a list of my ten favorite exhibitions, artists, performances, etc. in the North East Ohio arts scene during 2019. 1. CHARLES BURCHFIELD AT THE CMA: THE OHIO LANDSCAPES Early last year at the Cleveland Museum of Art in the Focus Gallery, Charles Burchfield: The Ohio Landscapes, 1915–1920 was a truly magnificent glimpse into the formative […]
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Are video games art? Back in 2012, The Museum of Modern Art in New York purchased 14 video games for their permanent collection, and several museums have shown video games on their walls, including a major exhibition earlier this year at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and last year at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Video games are […]
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On this, a day of giving thanks, I am thankful for Samaria Rice. Thrust into the spotlight five years ago when her son Tamir was gunned down by the Cleveland police, Ms. Rice has turned this tragedy into action – and a week ago on the occasion of memorializing this horrible date, she presented the plans for a Afrocentric Cultural […]
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The year 2019 marks a harrowing anniversary: roughly 400 years ago, Jamestown colonists bought a group of enslaved Africans from English pirates. The twenty to thirty men and women that walked ashore in Virginia in 1619 became the first of 380,000 Africans forcibly taken from their homes and dragged in chains across the Atlantic to North America. From the very […]
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Walking in to the Transformer Station’s current exhibition, Surface Tension, you will quickly notice that all of Tabitha Soren’s photographs appear hazy and out of focus. Upon closer inspection, you might notice that all-too-familiar pattern of smudge marks and fingerprints, a texture that is now a recognizable aspect of modern technological life, as our fingers swipe the various screens of […]
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Last weekend at the Cleveland Cinematheque the makers of The Foreigner’s Home, a documentary about acclaimed writer and Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, presented the film for the first time since Morrison’s death last summer. This somber fact made the film all the more powerful, as much of it features Morrison speaking directly to the camera, her words potent, compelling, urgent, and prescient. […]
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