We’re late to this party, but an exhibit recently closed at BAYarts–Erjon Hajnaj: My Light & Shadow—makes us wonder how many highly skilled artists are out there, operating below the radar, actively practicing their craft, either working toward their first shows or just rarely showing their work. Hajnaj was born in Fier, Albania—one of the Balkan countries, directly across the […]
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One of the most dazzling and best-curated exhibitions on view in Northeast Ohio in many years is the exhibition on the Cleveland firm Rose Iron Works currently in view in the Focus Gallery, just off the main entrance of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Organized by the museum’s curator of decorative arts, Ada de Wit, it’s visually outstanding, and also […]
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I walked into Ron Sims II’s current exhibition, Altars x Amplifiers, expecting to see graffiti…and a lot of it. Why, you ask? Well, it’s because that was really all I knew about the man, even though we’ve known each other for 30 years. Let me explain. In a lighthearted tone over dinner this evening, just a few days after the […]
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Nostalgia gets a bad rap. We think of it as sappy, perhaps, a self-indulgent waste of time. But there’s another aspect of reveling in one’s past, of longing for one’s roots: For a person who has left one place for another in search of opportunity, or one who has blood connection to a place they’ve perhaps never known, it’s reconnection […]
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No one goes to an art exhibition expecting to be able to touch the art. But at the 10th International Artist Book Triennial Vilnius, on view at the Morgan Conservatory, it’s necessary to remind people. The reason, of course, is that books are best experienced by turning their pages. Artist books, though, are art, and fragile, and unless otherwise noted […]
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Being lost is an unfinished business, feeling unmoored despite being somewhere specific. Lost is destruction and grief, escape and adventure, terrifying freedom. Lost inspires awe in equal parts breathless amazement and fear in the gut, yet it provides respite from daily life and ordinary identity. Explore all aspects of lost in The YARDS Project’s current show, Let’s Get Lost: an […]
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If you’re like me and spent a large part of the last twenty or so years reading books to children, then you’re going to be familiar with Oliver Jeffers. Jeffers was born in Australia and raised in Northern Ireland. He is an award-winning artist, illustrator, and writer who has sold more than ten million picture books. His books Here We […]
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Nostalgia drenches us with the exalted and sanitized familiar, usually rooted in childhood or in shape-shifting adolescence. It’s comfort food for the weary soul, it tiptoes at the edge of cliché, and it provides great fodder for advertisers and semioticians alike. It’s now on view in a blast of color, readymades, and delight in Be Kind…Rewind: A Nostalgia Show, through […]
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The local impact of NEA grant cancellations has been a mix of real financial damage, fear and uncertainty, along with tentative hope due to the timing of the cancellation, and the timelines of affected grants. The whole dynamic is complicated by the slow pace of bureaucracy, the requirement of matching funds, and the lag time for the period of activity […]
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Shahzia Sikander: Collective Behavior premiered at the Palazzo Soranzo van Axel in Venice, (April 20–October 20, 2024) as a collateral event of the 60th International La Biennale di Venezia. The U.S. iterations are co-organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Cincinnati Art Museum. This is the most comprehensive presentation of the Pakistani American artist’s work to date, bringing together 40 pieces […]
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