ArtsWave has put out a very positive press release about the attendance for its first three Sampler Weekends, as well as information for the next three — including one this Saturday.

Read More

Having wrapped up a very busy first (extended) weekend of FotoFocus activities, I’m humbled by the fact that I only got to a portion of the exhibits and events occurring under the month-long, regional photography festival’s umbrella.

Before it’s over, more than 70 shows and related special events — like this Wednesday’s concert at the Emery Theatre by Bill Frisell/858 Quarter, featuring musical portraits inspired by photographer Mike Disfarmer’s work — will have taken place. I’m wondering if FotoFocus, like the National Park Service, should have a passport that can be stamped at each site of a sponsored activity. (Quite a few exhibits will continue past October – check here for schedules.)

“Umbrella,” by the way, is an apt word to use in one respect. Sideshow, the thoroughly charming outdoor kick-off party that took place Friday night, was bedeviled by rain and cold temperatures. As a result, attendance was small. That was disappointing because the alleys of downtown’s Backstage Theatre District had been turned into a colorful, imaginative, Fellini-esque carnival for the evening, with handmade booths, games of chance and photography opportunities.

A stage with a theatrical backdrop served to host A Hawk and a Hacksaw, a New Mexico duo — Jeremy Barnes on accordion and Heather Trost on violin — whose music had an East European/Middle Eastern flavor and whose musicianship was impeccable. They would have fit well at MidPoint. In fact, the Backstage Theatre District would make a great outdoor venue next year for MidPoint, which, as Mike Breen pointed out, needs a stronger downtown presence.

On Wednesday, I attended the preview opening of Doug and Mike Starn’s Gravity of Light in Holy Cross Church at the Mount Adams Monastery. I had gone a couple weeks earlier for a test, which I described in last week’s Big Picture column, where the noise and flying sparks from the giant carbon arc lamp’s scared me even as the magnitude and, well, gravity of the monumental photographs that its light illuminated astonished me.

On my second visit, with maybe two dozen other guests present, Gravity of Light wasn’t quite as scary — not when you see people using the carbon arc lamp’s brilliant white light to read their smart phone email. Ah, technology! But it’s still a profound exhibit — a major installation that uses photography as an intrinsic part of a created environment – and I can’t imagine that anyone interested in contemporary art or FotoFocus would want to miss it. And afterward, you’ll want to discuss what it means.

Two other exhibits I attended over the weekend were Anthony Luensman’s TAINT at the Weston Art Gallery and Let's Face It: Photographic Portraits by Melvin Grier, Michael Kearns and Michael Wilson at Kennedy Heights Art Center. Luensman is one of our most talented local artists, especially ingenious with installations involving sound and light, but I didn’t get a clear indication of how or why the presence of photography (and video) is supposed to crucially matter in this mixed-media show.

The Kennedy Heights exhibit had some remarkable large-scale black-and-white portraits by all three accomplished local photographers. Grier and Wilson, in their Giclee prints made from film negatives, got remarkable expressiveness their subjects like “Robert” and “Tony” (Grier) and “Thomas” and “Lamayah” (Wilson). Those Wilson photos, and some others, frame the pupils of their subjects’ eyes with a tiny white square, a stunning effect. In several of his large Giclee prints from digital photographs, Kearns achieves clarity of detail so rich (on “Chuck,” which is Wussy’s Chuck Cleaver, and “Andre”) that you could stand there and count every strand of the subjects’ hair. I don’t know who Andre is, but the way he is posed with head slightly upward and a triumphant smile emerging from a mouth that appears to be missing some teeth makes him heroically human. It’s a meaningful show.

On Thursday, I attended the Cincinnati Art Museum’s reception for Herb Ritts: L.A. Style, the Getty Center-organized show of the late photographer’s black-and-white prints. Beautifully installed, this exhibit features Ritts’ fashion and celebrity work, as well as his stylized, erotically charged studies of the nude male and female torso. The show doesn’t so much chart his “progression” from high fashion to high art as it spotlights the connection between fashion and art. It also underscores that the eternal human quest for perfection is about the body as much as the mind. (Kathy Schwartz will have more on this show soon.)

For opening weekend, the art museum’s Chief Curator James Crump — also FotoFocus’ co-chair — brought to town Paul Martineau, the Getty’s curator for the Ritts exhibit, and Charles Churchward, a magazine design and art director who knew Ritts and has written Herb Ritts: The Golden Hour.

Martineau, it turns out, is at work on a major Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit to be presented by the Getty and Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2016. (Getty Research Institute and LACMA recently acquired some 2,000 of his photographs, and the Getty already had acquired the archives of Sam Wagstaff, Mapplethorpe’s collector/lover.)

Martineau told me it might travel. Cincinnati would be a perfect venue for it — Crump has made a documentary about Mapplethorpe and Wagstaff, the authoritative Black White + Gray. Is it too early to start a Facebook campaign to bring that Mapplethorpe exhibit to Cincinnati? Any volunteers?

On Monday, Cincinnati Art Museum announced the resignation of James Crump, its chief curator and photography curator. He arrived at the museum in 2008. A press release said he would "pursue independent projects." The press release also included high praise for Crump from Aaron Betsky, museum director:

"We are so grateful for the great work James has done here in Cincinnati. His exhibitions and acquisitions have made us a center for photography, and we look forward to building on his extraordinary achievements."

One of those achievements, the exhibition James Welling: Monograph, just opened Feb. 2. Crump was also a leader in the organization of last year's multi-venue FotoFocus photography festival, and Cincinnati Art Museum sponsored two of its biggest shows — Herb Ritts: L.A. Style and Doug and Mike Starn's Gravity of Light.

The museum said an interim chief curator will be named soon.

Recently, the Italian art-book publisher Damiani launched a new line of Damiani / Crump books. It begins in March with Empire Falling, photographer Elena Dorfman's study of Midwest rock quarries.

OK, so it's Memorial Day weekend, and theater-going might not be what you have in mind. How about this? If you're heading downtown for the feeding frenzy at Taste of Cincinnati (and what true Cincinnatian isn't?), you can take a quick side trip to Jackson Street in Over-the-Rhine to pick up some tickets or a pass for the eighth annual Cincinnati Fringe Festival. It's the perfect time to find your way to Know Theatre (1120 Jackson, right next to the Gateway Garage), which is Fringe headquarters.

Read More

Tracy Letts' plays haven't quite caught on in Cincinnati. We're yet to see a production locally of August: Osage County, his 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner. Neither the Cincinnati Playhouse nor Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati� have picked up Superior Donuts, his 2011 Tony-nominated script that will be staged by at least eight major regional theaters across the United States during the coming season. However, a local pick-up company will present Letts' latest script at the Clifton Performance Theatre (404 Ludlow Ave.) in a brief run (Sept. 9-18).

Read More

As the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) prepares for next Tuesday's announcement of its 2009-10 season, there is indication it will be bringing the big, nationally reviewed Shepard Fairey: Supply and Demand show here from Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA). The first museum retrospective for the popular and controversial street artist, Supply and Demand looks at his career up to his creation of the iconic Obama silk-screen posters, depicting the then-presidential candidate, head slightly and nobly uplifted, above the words "Progress" and "Hope."

Read More

The Nutcracker, A Christmas Carol, model trains, zoo  lights, skating on Fountain Square - do you ever wonder if Cincinnati is capable of creativity around the holidays? Beyond the Ensemble Theater of Cincinnati - an institution that actually takes some risks - the others stick with the same old script with the only news being who will play Scrooge for the next 25 years.. 

 If you could pick  the Holiday line up for 2009, what would it look like?

Sometimes there are just too many theater events in town to feature every one of them in print. But let me bring to your attention one that's happening for just three days, Oct 23-25.

Showbiz Players, which usually offers larger musical theater productions is undertaking a piece that's more like a musical cabaret, A … My Name Is Alice, a work conceived in 1983 by Joan Micklin Silver and Julianne Boyd. This show combines the talents of numerous composers, lyricists and writers to create a work with 20 songs and sketches performed by five women who represent a broad spectrum of femininity.

Read More

Right now most theaters are readying shows that will be onstage in early September, so there's not a lot to see around town. But if you're looking for some dramatic entertainment on Sunday evening that will keep you outdoors, I suggest you head to the lawn at the Harry Whiting Brown Community Center in Glendale where Cincinnati Shakespeare Company's "Shakespeare in the Park" makes a stop at 7 p.m. –––

They're offering a stripped-down version of the tragic tale of Romeo and Juliet, using just eight actors (which means several performers play more than one role). You'll see some fine acting and a couple of well-staged fights. It might feel like a "back-to-school" special, what with the poetry and all, but even teens should enjoy the action and big emotions. Best of all, it's free (although your donation to the cause will be appreciated.)

Get details on the CSC web site.

If the last gasps of winter still have you shivering, you can warm up this weekend with some frothy musical theater at UC's College-Conservatory of Music, where Two Gentlemen of Verona is dancing its heart out. With a silly story (thanks to Shakespeare) and an eclectic score (from the guy who wrote the music for Hair), this 1971 show doesn't get staged very often. But you'll wonder why if you find yourself in Patricia Corbett Theater: Thanks to CCM 1995 grad Andrew Palermo, who's returned to direct and choreograph the show, the cast never stops dancing.

Don't fret about the story — changing affections, disguises, villains and heroes — just watch as the tale takes you from the university town of Verona to the urban Milano. The costumes (preppy white shirts and ties in the former, metropolitan chic black and Hip Hop in the latter) will tell you where you are. And the performers are all shining stars from CCM's musical theater program, several of them ready to move along to Broadway. This is the CCM musical people will continue to talk when the current season is over. Two Gentlemen runs longer than usual for a CCM show — two weekends (final performance is March 8) — but don't dally to get your tickets: By next weekend they'll all be claimed. Box office: 513-556-4183.