Northeast Ohio’s Museums and Galleries Offer a Full Palette of Paintings, Sculptures, and Photographs: Fall Visual Arts Snapshot
Lisa D. Wyatt
5 min read
Paul Gauguin’s 1888 painting ‘Breton Girls Dancing, Pont-Aven’ will be loaned by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, for the Cleveland Museum of Art’s upcoming exhibition on how the artist formulated his style of signature.
Northeast Ohio is a vibrant place for the visual arts, even during a recession. This is also true of the rest of the state.
Major museums have adapted to a tough economy not only through layoffs and budget cuts, but also by tapping into their permanent collections for budget-friendly exhibits. They reduced their schedules and extended shows from the normal eight weeks to 12 weeks or more. Some shows will last six months.
Even if the ambitions are relatively modest this year, the blockbusters are still there. Meanwhile, small non-profit venues, college and university galleries, and commercial galleries are making progress. All in all, this means a busy season is ahead, with plenty to see.
Here is an overview of what is happening, or will be soon:
Cleveland Museum of Art, 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7340, clemusart.com. “Paul Gauguin: Paris, 1889”, opens on Sunday October 4 and will be visible until Monday January 18. The show will explore how Gauguin, known around the world for his colorful and exotic images of Tahiti, created his signature in the late 1880s while staying in Martinique, Brittany and Arles.
The exhibition will recreate on a smaller scale a landmark independent exhibition at the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris, in which Gauguin joined forces with other artists known as the Symbolists to pioneer a new style that propelled the art beyond impressionism.
Co-organized by the Cleveland Museum and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the exhibition draws on collections including that of the National Gallery in Washington, DC
Akron Art Museum, 1 S. High St., 330-376-9185, akronartmuseum.org. In “Familiar Faces: Chuck Close in Ohio Collections,” the museum has collected three dozen works that explore the style and sensibility of an extraordinary contemporary artist.
Close, 69, has revitalized portraiture by inventing a style that combines logic and intuition in kaleidoscopic images that seem abstract up close but come into focus when viewed from a few feet away. The show is on view until Sunday, January 3.
On Saturday, October 10, the Akron Museum will open an exhibit of photographs of New Mexico nuclear sites by Patrick Nagatani. This will be followed on Friday, October 16 by an exhibit of Jacob Lawrence’s “Legend of John Brown” serigraph series, drawn from the museum’s own collection and that of the Summit County Historical Society and the Special Collections Division of the Museum. ‘Akron. – Summit County Public Library.
Countess Gallery, 24667 Cedar Road (Legacy Village), Lyndhurst, 216-382-7800, contessagallery.com. The gallery is displaying recent work by Chuck Close in an exhibition intended to parallel the exhibition at the Akron Museum. The show lasts until Sunday, November 1.
Cleveland Artists Foundation, 17801 Detroit Ave., Lakewood, 216-227-9507, clevelandartists.org. The foundation celebrates its 25th anniversary with an exhibition of 50 works by Cleveland School artists, including Frank Wilcox, William Sommer and Carl Gaertner, as well as contemporaries such as Ken Nevadomi and Mary Lou Ferbert. The show is accompanied by a 72-page catalog intended to publicize the foundation and its permanent funds.
Western Reserve Artists Archive, 1834 East 123rd St., Cleveland, 216-721-9020, artistsarchives.org. “A Celebration of the Life and Career of Phyllis Sloane” is a tribute to an important Cleveland artist who died in May at the age of 87.
Influenced by sources such as Henri Matisse and the Japanese ukiyo e prints, Sloane created still lifes, portraits and images of nudes imbued with a sense of quiet contentment. Sloane, who lived primarily in Cleveland and Santa Fe, NM, was a founding member of the archives, dedicated to preserving the works of area artists.
The spaces, 2220 Superior Viaduct, Cleveland, 216-621-2314, spacesgallery.org. Spaces, the artist-run nonprofit gallery in Northeast Ohio, is scrapping plans to show art this fall.
Until Friday, October 23, the gallery is hosting an experimental “exhibition” called “Plum Academy, An Institute for Situed Practices”, which consists of more than a dozen forums or group conversations about art and theory directed by animators such as Christopher Lynn, who took over as director of Spaces in 2008 after the retirement of former director Susan Channing.
A list of programs and dates is available on the Spaces website.
The Sculpture Center, 1834 East 123rd St., Cleveland, 216-229-6527, sculpturecenter.org. “The Sculpture of David E. Davis: Celebrating the 20 Year Legacy,” on view through Saturday, October 24, features a selection of works by the Cleveland-based artist and cultural entrepreneur who co-founded the Sculpture Center in 1989 Davis, known as a representative of geometric abstraction influenced by Constructivism, died in 2002 at the age of 81.
“Soft Edge-Dark” by Julian Stanczak, an acrylic painting on cardboard from 2008, exemplifies the artist’s Op Art style.
Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art,
8501 Carnegie Ave, 216-421-8671,
mocacleveland.org.
“Hugging and Wrestling: Contemporary Israel Photography and Video,” on view through Sunday, January 10, features the work of leading Israeli photographers, most of whom are based in Tel Aviv. Artists embrace their country but also “struggle” with its vulnerabilities and conflicts.
Also on display: “Julian Stanczak: recent works”. This exhibit examines the work of a prominent Cleveland artist who helped start the Op Art movement in the 1960s.
Wexner Center for the Arts, 1871 N. High St., Columbus, 614-292-3535, wexarts.org. In collaboration with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Wexner has co-curated the most comprehensive exhibition to date of the work of Belgian artist Luc Tuymans, one of Europe’s most important contemporary artists. With more than 70 paintings, the exhibition, presented from Wednesday to Sunday January 3, retraces the career of the artist from the 1970s to the present day.
“Gold Over Turquoise Blue Venetian #528” will be part of a fall exhibition of works by Dale Chihuly at the Toledo Museum of Art.
Toledo Art Museum, 2445 Monroe St., 419-255-8000, www.toledomuseum.org. The museum draws from its own collection of works by renowned contemporary glass artist Dale Chihuly for an exhibition in its glass pavilion from Thursday to Sunday, November 29.
Cincinnati Art Museum, 953 Eden Park Drive, 513-639-2995, cincinnatiartmuseum.org. “Roaring Tigers, Leaping Carp: Decoding the Symbolic Language of Chinese Animal Painting” brings together around a hundred paintings from the American collections and those of the National Palace Museum in Taipei and the Palace Museum in Beijing.
Opened on Friday October 9 and on view until Sunday January 3, the exhibition is based on the research of Hou-mei Sung, the curator of the Museum of Asian Art, on the evolution of animal-based symbolism in the world. chinese art.
