1300
launched another great show with a hip urban aesthetic Friday May 27th.
“Pound and a Bear Hug 2� features the work of artists Bask and Tes One. The
main gallery is filled with paintings (the majority) and mixed media works.
Several of the pieces make use of truly original supports. “Riding the Rails�
is a good example; created by Bask, it is made from five shabby vintage
suitcases hung on the gallery wall to form a semi rectangular surface for a
painting. A stick with a bandana tied at the one end -- like an old-fashioned hobo would carry - is positioned on top
of the suitcases.

The special traveling exhibition Masterworks from the Phillips Collection is now on view at the Cleveland Museum of Art through May 29th. The exhibit includes 59 works from the Phillips Collection and 18 related works from the CMA collection. The exhibition’s next stop is the Mori Arts Center in Tokyo, Japan.

Spaces latest show “Dissent: Political Voices� brings together a nearly overwhelming number of artists who address a wide range of political and social issues in their works. As expected the Bush administration and the war in Iraq are the inspiration for many of the works, but sexism, racism, homelessness, the risks of GMOs, and human rights violations are just some of the other issues addressed.

The art history students of Case Western Reserve University organized another successful Cleveland Symposium Friday April 15th. The Cleveland Symposium is an annual graduate art history symposium, which takes place at the Cleveland Museum of Art. This year nine graduate students from universities throughout the country presented 20 minute papers. Their papers covered a wide range of historical periods and geographic areas: Italian Renaissance fresco, 17th century Peruvian manuscripts, 18th century French sculpture, 19th century photography, Hudson River School landscape painting, American modernism, abstract expressionism, and contemporary art.

You are Invited to a

Resident Artist Showcase

Location

The third of my students this semester who has taken on a topically-focused blogging assignment is Jennifer Mack. She is a double major in music and management, and she still finds time to track down really interesting references to music in business contexts, and to the business of the music industry.

Berkeley artist Jan Wurm was welcomed to Cleveland this past weekend by the Miller Weitzel Gallery with a one-woman show titled “Drawn In: The Seduction of Line.� Wurm initially met the owners of the Miller Weitzel Gallery Online, through a call for submissions. Her 15 mixed media drawings on canvas on view now until April 16th are raw and thought provoking commentaries on the human condition. Hung in two groups of four, and one group of five, they cover such timely -- and timeless -- subjects as war, feminism, and service and the cycle of life. Two smaller works, Samson & Delilah and the Organ Grinder and Monkey, are independent from the three groups. All are recent works on unstretched canvas, tacked to the gallery walls in a manner that conveys the intimacy and immediacy of the artist’s studio rather than the distance of a gallery.

With a major expansion project about to commence at the Cleveland Museum of Art, it is easy to forget about the exciting expansion project going on only 45 minutes away at the Akron Museum of Art. Access to the Arts’s “Arts on the Air� program Monday, March 14th brought much deserved attention to this project through an interview with Dr. Mitchell Kahan, Director of the Akron Museum of Art and Tom Wiscombe, Project Partner of Coop Himmelb(l)au, the architectural firm that designed the addition to The Museum. Steven Litt, the Arts and Architecture Critic of the Plain Dealer conducted the interview before a live audience of approximately 100 in the Ritz-Carlton.

The 03.22.05 Tuesday@REI is focused on the topic of creating Arts Districts as "Economic Engines�. Four presenters will discuss specific initiatives already showing great value in the region. Lots of people think of arts districts and think of Playhouse Square – a commercial district – but today we are looking at neighborhood based districts – linked to residents that live in the area. We hear a lot about silver bullets around NEO – half billion-dollar projects like convention centers – but research finds these projects don’t necessarily do it – there may not be a “downtown� solution – “downtown� may just be another neighborhood. The jury is still out on the broader “Richard Florida Creative Class� concept, but it is certain that making neighborhoods desirable with arts districts is valuable – that has been a fact all through history.

The 03.16.05 Community of Minds get-together featured Jurgen Faust, Chair of TIME (The Integrated Multimedia Environment) at the world-class Cleveland Institute of Art. Community of Minds is the longest-standing and most innovative entrepreneurial networking initiatives in NEO, providing attendees highly valuable, free, bi-monthly insight sharing meet-ups at the Case University Dively Center, held with support from the Center for Regional Economic Issues (REI) and Thompson Hine law firm. At this March meeting, Jurgen Faust offered important insight on developing NEO as a "Future Center" of design excellence.

Could cultural consciousness icon David Byrne truly " PowerPoint"? Co-founder of the groundbreaking and fascinating Talking Heads, Byrne is known for creating globally relevant music and art, making it surprising he would go on tour championing the close-minded "Office" anti-intellect of big brother champion Microsoft, the icon of anti-culture. Yet, as Byrne posts to his website, I have been working with PowerPoint, the ubiquitous presentation
software, as an art medium for a number of years. It started off as a
joke (this software is a symbol of corporate salesmanship, or lack
thereof) but then the work took on a life of its own as I realized I
could create pieces that were moving, despite the limitations of the
"medium." Before the talk, attendees were treated to some of
Byrne's EEEI PowerPoint art project, which was striking.

The Cleveland Institute of Art's vision for strengthening NEO Design is an encouraging development. In the tradition of Hugh Greenlee and Victor Schreckenghost - honored seatholders in the Pantheon of Cleveland designers - the region's design center credentials are getting burnished.

Building a Creative Online Environment:
Collaboration, Innovation and Education

March 22, 2005 at
11:30 AM - 1:00 PM Register Now!

Location

The Convention
and Visitors Bureau (CVB) of Greater Cleveland will be hosting a forum to
present a concept for development of an online marketplace for the sale of
discount surplus tickets to events in Cleveland.  Loren Chylla, Director of Marketing,
Cleveland.com and King Hill, Principal, Director of Marketing Services,
Digiknow will be in attendance to give an overview of the proposed online
model.  Community Partnership for Arts
and Culture conducted significant background research on discount ticketing
models for the arts and cultural tourism committee of the CVB.  This research has helped to shape and inform
the model that is being proposed.  The
FINAL FORUM will be held on the following date:

Location

Clevelander's last chance to hear Latina artist-provocateur Yolanda Lopez speak is tonight, Wednesday March 16, 7 pm, Ford Auditorium in the Allen Library (Corner of Euclid and Adelbert).

Tower City and Tower City Cinemas are often empty and eerily
quiet, even on a Saturday night, but that all changes during the Cleveland
International Film Festival. This past Saturday night the 29th
Cleveland International Film Festival transformed Tower City and its
surrounding areas into an energy infused cultural event that felt distinctly
unfamiliar and un-Cleveland like. A diverse group of thousands of people,
flowed through the building excitedly talking about the films they had seen or
planned to see.

The phrase “lights, camera, action� could be the title for the group show that just opened Friday night (March 11th) at Buzz Gallery on West 25th Street. The works currently on view lack a unifying theme, though together they create a more than satisfying show. The show is curated by co-op member Andrew Kaletta and includes photographs by Steve Mastroiani and Al Fuchs, and lamps Kaletta himself designed and created. Kaletta is also a performance artist. He has scheduled an event for Sunday March 13th that sounds like a happening; anyone who stops by Buzz on Sunday afternoon will be encouraged to play board games.

Access to the Arts
The Arts on the
Air series continues with Mitchell Kahan, director of the Akron Art
Museum, & Tom Wiscombe, architect, interviewed by Steven Litt, art
& architecture critic for The Plain Dealer.
March 14 at 11:30 am with lunch; $; Ritz-Carlton Riverview Room, 1515 W Third St, Cleve; 216-791-4654.

Location

Notacon is the second iteration of a yearly technology, arts and music event held at the Cleveland Holiday Inn.

Location

Mary Black: Songs for Ireland.  She invites us in with the warmth of her voice and the liveliness of her song.  How lucky we are to have the Cleveland Museum of Art include in their Festival of Performing Arts the talents of Mary Black, a singer from Dublin.  As she comes on stage, she tells us as that she loves the snow we have here in Cleveland and that last night she took the opportunity to romp in this white world and throw some snowballs.  Now she draws us into her world of melodies and Irish rhythms, playfully sharing her stories of Ireland and blending together Celtic and American folk music.  She sings to us of the sadness of a couple parting as a soldier goes off to war; she weaves a melody around the joy of two lovers; she energizes the audience with the drum beats and riffs of her supporting drummer, guitarist, and keyboard player.