Tag Archives: Toledo

Museum Exhibitions

Beauty is Strange…

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…and this strangeness differentiates it from prettiness, which is no ordinary thing.”                    Fred Tomaselli 2008

In Keep Looking: Fred Tomaselli’s Birds, now on exhibit at the Toledo Museum of Art,  the artworks first soothe and attract, then disquiet and disturb.  This  show is part of a series featuring   bird-related imagery which is held biennially in conjunction with a prominent yearly convention of birders in the Toledo area.  While this is as good a pretext as any for bringing this work to the rust belt, it doesn’t begin to describe the importance and interest of this artist.

Tomaselli Mob
Mob 2016

I have been a fan of Fred Tomaselli’s paintings for years, and looked forward to this golden opportunity to see them in person without buying a plane ticket (thanks TMA!) This show includes 5 paintings, a tapestry and a few assorted works on paper, all installed in Gallery 6 of the museum’s contemporary art wing.

The first thing you respond to in looking at a Tomaselli painting is its sheer obsessive  and hallucinatory beauty. The paintings feature layers of meticulously collaged images covered in resin and then over-painted.  The black backgrounds evoke night skies and acid trips. Though it isn’t mentioned in the accompanying museum text, it’s clear that Tomaselli is no stranger to altered states.

artwork_images_117082_505034_fred-tomaselli
Bird Battle

I loved all these paintings, but my favorite was Bird Battle (1997). The subdued palette and obsessive repetition of cutout birds with human eyes and (actual) hemp leaves put me in mind of some outsider visionary art.  From a distance the painting delivers a pleasurable punch of decorative pattern.  But as you draw near you see that this is a savage battle of all against all.  Birds attack each other in the air and in the trees, with many lying newly dead on the ground.  Tomaselli has distilled in one image all the beauty and all the cruelty of nature. In other pieces in this show, birds attack each other (Bird Mob), eat insects (Starling) and steal fruit (Migrant Fruit Thugs) but because the paintings are so intricately gorgeous  you can’t look away. You must keep looking.

Keep Looking: Fred Tomaselli’s Birds is on exhibit until August 7.  To see this must-see work and to get more information about hours and directions to the Toledo Museum of Art go here 

 

 

 

Art News/Regional Art Interests

Arts Writing in the Rust Belt

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In the cities of the Rust Belt, arts writing is distinguished by how much of it there isn’t. The upper mid-west is thought of -when it’s thought of at all-by the art establishment on the coasts as a cultural backwater. But we all know that there are many, many artists living and making and showing their art here. Much of the work is good, some of it great.  But because regional arts writing is so scarce, artists often don’t get the attention their work deserves. Artists with ambitions to acquire a broad  audience are forced to decamp for New York or L.A. (or at least Chicago) to get a viewing.

The Rust Belt’s woeful shortage of thoughtful arts writing  is the result of a number of unfortunate historical facts and technological trends. The financial hardships of  mainline news media have forced them to re-organize as online platforms with unsteady revenue streams. Legacy newspapers like the Detroit News, the  Detroit Free Press, and the Ann Arbor News, never enthusiastic commentators on the visual arts of the region in  any case, have eliminated staff writers who covered the cultural scene. In some cases these writers have been replaced by unpaid or poorly paid online stringers. Often they haven’t been replaced at all. In this  critical vacuum, the arts ecosystem in the northern mid-west lacks the intellectual oxygen that allows it to breathe and grow. And most importantly for artists, without arts writers to provide context for the art consuming public, there is no consensus – or even discussion – on the relative importance, interest or value of various artists and approaches to art.

But there’s no reason this has to be the story of Rust Belt  art commentary going forward.  There are a few online and/or print arts magazines such as Hyperallergic, Flashart, Art in America and Artfixdaily that write occasionally about art news here in Southeast Michigan.

More importantly there are now a few fairly new blogs and websites that cover artists and the arts in Detroit and environs.  Herewith a list:

And if you just want a comprehensive listing of art exhibits and events go to: http://artdetroitnow.com/

I’d love to hear from readers of this post about any other arts blogs or online journals.  Just send me the link and I’ll post!

 

 

 

Art News/Regional Art Interests

Changes Coming to TAA – 95 Blog

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When I originally published TAA-95 a year and a half ago, I expected this blog to serve as a way for the artists participating in the Toledo Area Artists 95 exhibit at the Toledo Art Museum to keep in touch and to spread news on their art exhibits, projects, professional accomplishments and the like.  It turns out that I vastly over-estimated the appetite of my TAA artist friends for self promotion! Either because they are way too modest or just don’t have an appetite for verbal self-expression, very few posts have been forth-coming.  I find I am writing about regional artists and art issues pretty much on my own.  That’s not a bad thing, just different from what I intended at the outset.

On the other hand, I find that the more I express my opinion and share information about art events in Southeast Michigan and Northeast Ohio,   the more I enjoy it. Recently, with a bit of  (perhaps ill-considered) encouragement from talented arts writer and Kresge Fellow Sarah Rose Sharp, I’ve started to cover regional art news in more detail.  I’m not writing because I’m a great writer (though I hope to improve over time) but because I don’t think there is enough coverage of visual artists and the arts in our region.

To reflect the more personal nature of this blog going forward, I will be making some changes in its format.  Soon the domain name will change from taae95artists.wordpress.com  to rustbeltarts.com, and I’ll be tweaking  the home page appearance. Other than that, those of you following the blog won’t notice much difference (except I will be posting even more frequently).  I still hope to hear from the artists in last year’s Toledo Art Museum exhibit whenever they have something to report, but in future I will be the sole author on this blog.

 

Art News/Regional Art Interests

River House Gallery moves to Downtown Toledo

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River House Arts, formerly located in a historic building overlooking the Maumee River in Perrysburg, Ohio, has moved to downtown Toledo. The new space (or I should say spaces) are located in the Secor Building,  a former luxury hotel at 425 Jefferson. The former Secor Hotel, built in 1908, is also the home of the Toledo Opera and the Registry, an upscale gourmet restaurant.   The main gallery on the ground floor  features high ceilings and grand baroque-style windows. Gallerist Paula Baldoni says that in addition to providing a larger space to display more ambitious work,  River House Arts is now located in a busy urban setting with lively street life.      River House Opening 2

River House Arts also has a smaller, more intimate space on another floor of the building to accommodate works on paper and smaller artworks.

Artworks by various artists represented by the gallery are displayed in the spacious lobby of the building and throughout the common areas.

The inaugural exhibition is a solo show by Cuban artist Augusto Bordelois.  His work is an example of the more ambitious scale and scope of work that will be featured  in future shows in the gallery.

The show is entitled Immigrants, Outcasts and Other Heroes. Immigration and war, insecurity and fear, romantic and familial love and the absurdity of the modern age are some of the themes addressed in these colorful and intricate compositions. Mr. Bordelois’ style can called a kind of magic realism, a  visual counterpart to the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  Filled with symbolism and allegory, the paintings give the viewer plenty to contemplate.

The exhibition will be open April – June 4.  Call 419.441.4025 for hours, or email: info@river-house-arts.com

 

 

calls for art

Re:Formation Call for Art

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Accomplished independent curators Rocco DePietro and Gloria Pritschet of  Gallery Project are planning their  4th dual-site exhibition entitled Re:Formation. The exhibit  will open in August, 2016, in a modified 17,000 sq foot 50’s department store space in downtown Toledo, OH, and then move to the Ann Arbor Art Center in downtown Ann Arbor in mid-September-October.  The Toledo site has abundant space for large scale installation and 3-D work. Artists interested in participating in this exhibit should send jpg images and/or proposals to: galleryproject@gmail.com

Re: Formation examines this unique moment when ordinary people are declaring, ala Peter Finch, “I am mad as hell and I won’t take it anymore.”  What is different at this time is that people who have been silent, or silenced, are standing up, speaking out, and, mobilizing for needed change.  Highly divergent in life styles with broad-ranging backgrounds, beliefs and values, these individuals are expressing justifiable anger at the accumulation of horrific events and unrelenting injustices that characterize our current era. They are teaming up, across race, gender, politics, and social status with empathy and compassion for their fellow human beings.  Their actions are reestablishing belief in a positive future based on fairness, equity, and genuine possibility for all.  Is this a tipping point, a moment for reform, or even a revolution?  Or is it just another blip before capitulation and regression?

The exhibit challenges artists to express, in all media and in any size including large installation, their perspective of this time of Re: Formation.  What is shifting? How are these shifts taking form? How do you experience this time of formation?  What is your relationship to it, its impacts on you, your participation in this awareness and militancy? What can or should be done?  What outcomes might result and what will the future look like?  Re: Formation invites artists to actively express this unfolding reality as observers, participants, documentarians, conjurers and critics.

Artwork for Re: Formation depicts:

  •  the process of pivotal change in perception, perspective, assumptions, beliefs,      habits, choices and actions;
  • dramatic relationship changes among people, objects, and places;
  •  bold, redirected thinking and resulting responses about crucial issues;
  •  new forms and structures of a transformed society;
  •  movement in a transformative direction such as towards alternative futures;
  •  recent horrific events and gradual eroding events, their aftermath, and possible solutions;
  •  classism and prejudice in issues of social justice;
  •  conditions that force change; and
  •  challenges to the status quo.

 

 

exhibitions

Wish List reviewed in Hyperallergic

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gaewsky-in-wish-list
Tim Gaewsky’s “If I had a Million Dollars…”

Wish List, an art exhibit described as “a contemporary statement of curatorial desire” has opened in Toledo in a former department store Lamson’s (which was recently the venue for Artomatic 419). The show was curated by Rocco DePietro and Gloria Pritschit of Gallery Project.  It has been reviewed in the online arts magazine Hyperallergic: http://hyperallergic.com/232456/an-abandoned-department-store-stocks-up-on-art/