This is my eighth article pertaining to the design field and its relationship with mathematics. Design in essence cannot be accomplished without specific degrees of control, and almost always has a definitive point to make. How well the ‘point’ can be made is attributed to how well the design was carried out. This cannot be said about all art-forms...
The surest antidote to a bleak winter day could be the joyous exhibition of paintings and prints by Frank Satogata at the Xavier University Art Gallery now through February 15. Satogata loves color as surely as Romeo loved Juliet, but with happier consequences. He is a meticulous and inventive painter – two qualities not always linked – and his works feed into each other in ways only an exhibition can explore.
There were many films I saw in Cincinnati last year that I thought deserving of honorable mentions. My best of 2012 list from last month was based on the same pool as the Golden Globes and Oscars Best Picture nominees, with a few exceptions: Django Unchained and Zero Dark Thirty had not opened here as of that time; Amour still hasn’t opened in Cincinnati yet, and Les Miserables, a film which, for various reasons of taste...
This year’s Lexington Art League Nude show exhibits portraiture and figurative work with a marked emphasis on conceptual undercurrents of personal and sexual identity, the body as object, the body as experience, societal pressures, politics and violence.
The Cincinnati Art Museum is nearing completion of the former Art Academy building which will house the Mary Schiff Library, offices and other spaces, including a beautiful terrace with outstanding views. Most importantly, this will result in an increase of 15,000 square feet or about 20%more exhibition space. This, of course, is great news. But, what will occupy the new space? Maybe more Contemporary Art?
After an autumn spent in the studio and with less time for gallery-going, I have recently been reflecting on several surprising shows from the past summer. The more mainstream of these included Josef Albers’ painterly studies at the Morgan Library, rarely seen works by Jan Müller at Lori Bookstein Fine Art, and an exhibition of Vuillard paintings at the Jewish Museum.
In Anne Arden McDonald’s “Self-Portrait #20, Utah, 1989” (her titles are generally not helpful or revealing), the artist depicts herself on her knees with a semicircle of lit candles in front of her like a ritual séance or old-fashioned footlights, and what might be a huge, time-scarred fireplace behind her.
“Straight from the Soul,” Kevin Cole’s exhibition at the Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Gallery, opened to a warm reception amid Cincinnati’s winter season. Cole is no stranger to Cincinnati, as indicated by the presence of numerous friendly faces.
Hick: “Seeing paintings by Beckman and Matisse, one understands the S/M dance of Germany and France a little better, ‘eef yoo pleece.’ ”
