Photo By James Czar

Nam June Paik's transformative video sculpture at the Dayton Art Institute's contemporary gallery

In search of art in the region, we traveled to three area art centers known for innovative programming and superb spaces for visual art: Columbus' Wexner Center for the Arts, the Dayton Art Institute and Hamilton's Fitton Center for the Creative Arts. In short, you should, too.

Wexner Center for the Arts
One of the world's best multidisciplinary centers for contemporary arts sits squarely in the middle of Ohio State University in Columbus. The Wexner is an architectural amalgamation of huge glass panes, structural frames and towers that late writer and performance artist Spalding Gray called "the spaceship that crash-landed on the prairies." Built in 1989, the building's white grids reach to infinity, pulling and stretching your corneas in three-dimensional optical illusions.

The programming here is so diverse and comprehensive, the 2003-04 season brochure is a 120-page book. Lectures, performance, site-specific installations, traveling contemporary exhibits, dance, music, design, independent and international film, photography and sculpture pack the season with cutting-edge performing and visual arts.

The season, which closes in the summer, brought musical acts like Belle & Sebastian and turntablist Kid Koala, engaging lecturers including architect Zaha Hadid and film and video art by artists like Matthew Barney among show after show of top-rate visual art.

You have until Sunday to see Splat Boom Pow: The Influence of Cartoons in Contemporary Art. This pop-art retrospective is on view along with "Tea and Coffee Towers," an installation featuring tea services designed by leading architects.

In a few weeks, the Wexner honors innovative fashion designer Issey Miyake with lectures, installations and awards May 9-11. And beginning May 22, you'll find Visions from America: Photographs from the Whitney Museum of Art, 1940-2001. With its broad focus on the country's best art photography over the past 60 years, this exhibit provides a comprehensive view of some of the most evocative visual imagery ever culled from reality.

Other events include Cinema India! starting May 6 to showcase the best in Bollywood filmmaking; Teen Arts Fusion presenting summer workshops for teens in experimental photography, Manga and robotic sculpture; and artsy indie band The Magnetic Fields performing June 30.

If you go, the Wexner's visual art galleries are located in Columbus' Arena District, at the Belmont Building at Neil and Spring streets. The on-site galleries at the Wexner Center are under renovation until 2005. Performance spaces and theaters remain open at the main center on the OSU campus.

Dayton Art Institute
Frida Kahlo's haunting eyes gaze down at me. Her face, at 9-by-7 feet, towers over me, floating like a holographic image in a monochrome. Wide, horizontal brush strokes obscure enough details to give her mysterious ruddy glow a heady intensity. Kahlo's visage is one of 10 giant portraits of famous female artists looming large on these tall stone walls.

Allison Van Pelt's The Women is one of the current exhibits at the Dayton Art Institute, a tremendous space featuring galleries of important art history periods and geographies. The contemporary gallery, featuring works since the 1970s, reads like a contemporary art textbook, with Nam June Paik's transformative video sculpture mesmerizing your vision, Joseph Cornell's box assemblage packaging imagination, Andy Warhol's iconic paintings from his Myths series and Robert Rauschenberg's light box "Sling Shots Lit #5."

Each gallery carries you back through time, transporting you to another period or another continent in art history. They encircle a courtyard and an auditorium, where opera rehearsals were taking place when we visited.

Fitton Center for the Creative Arts
Look no further north than Hamilton to find the true meaning of a community arts center. The exhilarating and contemporary Fitton Center houses more than galleries: An impressive and varied number of arts groups call the this home, including the Great Miami Youth Symphony, the Hamilton-Fairfield Chorale and the Little Chicago Jazz Society.

If you're looking for hands-on participation, the center offers classes in everything from pottery and drawing to scarf-making and playwriting. Oh, and we did mention the galleries, right?

Beckoning the gallery prowler with its sleek hardwood floors, subtle smoky color and modern lighting, the Fitton's galleries promise a memorable visit. The first floor features two -- the Student Gallery, reserved for celebration of Fitton class achievements or community artwork, and the Lobby Gallery, showcasing traveling shows and emerging artists.

Currently, the Lobby Gallery features Americanos: Latin Life in the United States, a compilation of 120 photographs by 30 Latino artists. This national traveling show spotlights the themes surrounding the Latino community, including work, family, community and the arts. Revealing the diversity and synergy of this community, the photographers have captured an exceptional view of the Latino experience.

Climb to the second floor's Anne Ruder Bever Galleries to pick your favorite among the works of the 40th Annual Greater Hamilton Art Exhibit, a yearly juried exhibition of the area's artistic talent.