Jun Kaneko: Blurred Lines Karl and Bertl Arnstein Galleries February 17–May 27 Undoubtedly one of the most acclaimed artists working in contemporary ceramics today, Jun Kaneko has spent decades pushing the boundaries of ceramics, sculpture, painting, the abstract and the figural, and has repeatedly blurred the lines that have traditionally separated the world of fine art and craft. Jun Kaneko: […]
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Soon after the end of the Second World War, Abstract Expressionism blew a hole in art history. The cultural effect was comparable to the Manhattan Project. Abstract Expressionism (AE) effectively transformed Western art, replacing the tattered late-modern remains of aesthetic intention and technique with guiding principles derived in part from psychoanalysis and Freud’s theories of the unconscious. Accidental marks, the […]
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A college’s alumni art exhibit—not that of an art school, but of a liberal arts college, with a football team and a whole variety of degrees—might seem to be an insular affair, of interest primarily to that college community. And on the front of thematic cohesion, this kind of show faces an uphill battle: if alumni are the focus, then […]
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Before Modernism, art drew upon a store of symbols common to all—or at least common to all the classically and biblically educated gentry who made up fine arts audiences. Modern and postmodern artists deconstruct common symbols, or dispense with them altogether. A contemporary artist’s pigeon need not represent the Holy Spirit—it could just as easily be an embodiment of resilience […]
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One of the area’s best Print Shows in years is tucked away in plain sight at Rubber City Prints’ new home on Main Street in Akron. The 1920s house with solid door and window frames, winding floor plans, and endless possibilities holds a budding print shop, complete with funky old letter presses, a hydraulic press that used to be housed […]
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Art is always about a relationship with the world. Sometimes that means trying to explain it, or re-interpret it, or document it, or comment on it, but sometimes it is simply a way of understanding how the world works. In Memory External—works of Matthew Gallagher and Mike Lombardy, on view now at Waterloo Arts—the key to understanding the works is […]
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The first time I saw Rebekah Wilhelm’s work I was seriously frustrated. The piece was a large installation of tiny scraps of paper strung together like a chain mail screen (above). On each piece of paper was a word, just barely legible in the dim light of the gallery. As I found myself struggling to read the words and piece together […]
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“Women don’t usually have muses” explains Lissa Rivera, gesturing at her genderqueer partner, artistic collaborator, and muse BJ Lillis during her recent artist talk at the Cleveland Print Room. And of course it’s true – women most frequently are the object of the male artist’s inspiration, the bottom player of a power structure so ubiquitous that it has become ingrained in the very fabric of art […]
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The Dead Boys were probably never your thing. That–based on Billboard charts–is a statistical fact, even in Cleveland, and more specifically even in Lakewood, their home town. Most people certainly knew the band’s name and rowdy fame more than their music. Even “Sonic Reducer,” covered by Guns N Roses and Pearl Jam, and now on occasion by twelve year-olds–their one […]
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How much is too much when everything is not enough? Welcome to the new Gilded Age, to climb onto a trope made famous by economist Thomas Picketty in his 2013 book “Capitalism in the 21st Century.” The original “Gilded Age” (so-dubbed by Mark Twain to describe the last quarter of the 19th century), was shiny and fundamentally rotten, just like […]
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