Allen Ruppersberg, Then and Now

Cleveland Museum of Art Through December 2 Commissioned by FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art Billboards suck. That was the first thing I thought about when I read Cleveland native Allen Ruppersberg (born 1944) was paying homage to his hometown in his new body of work commissioned by FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, titled Then and Now. […]

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Back to FRONT

Whether or not many people, local or otherwise, actually saw any of the works and projects completed by its 111 artists, or visited some (or even none) of its 26 sites in Cleveland, Akron, and Oberlin, FRONT Triennial was a big deal. It succeeded in putting our region decisively on any map of international twenty-first century art events. Ambitious planners […]

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THE LOCAL COHORT: Local Artists-in-Residence for FRONT International

Back in October, the FRONT International team announced the names of six local artists who would represent Cleveland during the global art triennial. Chosen by curators Michelle Grabner and Jens Hoffman (who has since left his role in the wake of sexual harassment charges), these six artists come from a wide spectrum of interests, media, and disciplines: Julie Ezelle Patton […]

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This Summer at Akron Art Museum

FRONT International: An American City Karl and Bertl Arnstein Galleries, Beatrice Knapp McDowell Grand Lobby, Bud & Susie Rogers Garden July 14–September 30 For the premiere edition of FRONT International, artists from the US and around the globe will offer perspectives on aspects of “An American City” at the Akron Art Museum. Works by fifteen artists and one collective—including three […]

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CREATIVE FUSION: The City as a Setting – Guillaume Leblon / Paris, France

What follows is excerpted from a phone interview.   Guillaume Leblon’s art defies categorization. Known for working in many different mediums from paintings to film, hand-blown glass, and everything in between, perhaps his most successful medium is working with space itself. The spaces he creates often feel uneasy, unfinished, alienating – once Leblon moved a wall from inside the gallery […]

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CREATIVE FUSION: Site Very Specific Juan Araujo / Caracas, Venezuela

Of all the venues to be used by FRONT International’s Madison resident artists, the Oberlin Weltzheimer/Johnson House is a peculiar one–not only because it is an artwork unto itself, designed by Frank Lloyd-Wright, but also for its physical distance from Cleveland, and perhaps the distintion of character between the city and the small college town. The Venezuelan painter Juan Araujo […]

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CREATIVE FUSION: The Political, Personal Art of Indrė Šerpytytė – Palanga, Lithuania

Indrė Šerpytytė’s Two Seconds of Colour, rectangular painted color fields stacked brick-like in a grid, looks like a work of vibrant minimalism, and that sensibility is only enhanced when the work is presented as a series, as it was last year at the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius, Lithuania. It’s pleasing, with a nearly lulling effect. But Šerpytytė, a Lithuanian […]

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