If you want to learn about one of the biggest and most unusual public-art projects ever proposed for Cincinnati, see the display related to “The Soap at Baton Rouge” at Carl Solway Gallery’s current Thanks: 50th Anniversary Celebration.  

At Carl Solway Gallery in the West End, on a wall by a stairway leading up to his office, is a small but heartfelt tribute to the British Pop Art pioneer Richard Hamilton, who died last month at age 89. On the wall is one of Hamilton’s prints: “Kent State,” based on a photographic image he snapped from his television set during news coverage of the 1970 killing by Ohio National Guard troops of four university students on their campus.  

The fall season’s museum show that has attracted the most advance interest — because of its ambitiousness and its timeliness — is the Contemporary Art Center’s Realms of Intimacy: Miniaturist Practice from Pakistan, which opens Sept. 23 and continues until an as-yet-not-finalized January date.  

John Coplans: Photographs 1984-2000, on view at the West End’s Carl Solway Gallery through Aug. 13, offers viewers the opportunity to revisit photographs that set a new standard for the use of one’s body in making art and also allows us to consider Coplans’ work in the context of his multifarious careers. The black-and-white photographs on view cover a span of nearly two decades until the artist’s death in 2003.  

The surest cure for winter blues can be found in the West End’s Carl Solway Gallery, where Jun Kaneko's big, brash, superbly finished ceramic sculptures and his brilliantly colored paintings and drawings lift the spirit at first glance.  

This week through Sunday, Carl Solway Gallery is one of just 139 prestigious galleries from 30 countries (and the only local representative) involved in an international experiment to see if virtual, online-only art fairs can sell contemporary work. Based on technical problems early this week, that experiment has some room for improvement.  

Acclaimed visual artist Jay Bolotin — who lives in North Fairmount and has a Brighton studio — has been devoting time to a related but somewhat separate aspect of his artistic career. He’s finding new attention as a singer/songwriter, for both his past and present work.  

Let's hope you won’t be too busy during December preparing for and celebrating the various holidays to get to area museums and galleries for their art exhibits. There are quite a few good ones. Here are my recommendations, based either on seeing them or being familiar with the artists/subject matter.  

Over the next few months area museums and galleries are presenting a variety of outside-the-box fare, including quilts, wedding dresses, motorcycles and even an installation made of trees. The Taft Museum, Cincinnati Art Museum, Contemporary Art Museum, Country Club, Manifest Gallery, Carnegie Center, Weston Art Gallery, Carl Solway Gallery and Thunder-Sky Inc. are pulling out all the stops for patrons.  

The ubiquity of Installation Art in museums and galleries for decades now suggests, perhaps incorrectly, that it's a widely understood concept. But Carl Solway Gallery's latest exhibition seems to act as an introduction to Installation Art practices, with 15 artists creating piles, puddles and wall treatments that in many cases boast attractive color schemes and intricate handwork.