Cleveland Hopes to Become the Next Venice
The Wall Street Journal, 07/12/2018
Kelly Crow
Cleveland Hopes to Become the Next Venice
The Wall Street Journal, 07/12/2018
Kelly Crow
"Cleveland Hopes to Become the Next Venice
With a new citywide art exhibit, Cleveland aims for a spot on the global art circuit; ‘If Kassel can draw a crowd, surely Cleveland can’"
Cleveland wants to be known for more than its craft beers and Cavaliers—especially now that LeBron James is leaving town. This weekend, the Ohio city on the southern banks of Lake Erie will launch a major bid to become the world’s next hotbed for contemporary art.
Organizers of a sprawling new exhibition, Front International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, have invited more than 100 artists to install works throughout the city as well as in nearby Akron and Oberlin. The Cleveland Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland will showcase many of the pieces, but other artworks will turn up in unconventional spots.
The triennial, which runs through Sept. 30 and is expected to be held every three years after that, is the brainchild of Fred Bidwell. A Cleveland collector who runs an art space called Transformer Station, he wants to add the Cleveland triennial to a global art circuit that has long included similar European shows such as the Venice Biennale in Italy and Documenta in Kassel, Germany.
“If Kassel can draw a crowd, surely Cleveland can,” Mr. Bidwell said.
Triennial organizers are using 28 venues, including a 1925 steamship moored beside Cleveland’s Great Lakes Science Center to show Los Angeles artist Allan Sekula’s film about seafaring economies, “The Lottery of the Sea.”
Several vendors in the city’s West Side Market will serve Milwaukee artist John Riepenhoff’s Cleveland Curry Kojiwurst, a sausage he created with help from a local chef and an urban farm. Mr. Riepenhoff’s past art projects have included brewing his own beer and making his own cheese, and he said his latest recipe, which contains everything from paprika to saffron, aims to capture Cleveland’s history “in a bite.”
At the Cleveland Public Library, British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare will wrap more than 6,000 books in African textiles to create “The American Library.” Mr. Shonibare has already embossed half the book spines with notable names of first-, second- or third-generation U.S. immigrants, from Steve Jobs to Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
Even the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland will be used to display art. Wisconsin-born artist Philip Vanderhyden plans to bisect its gilded, three-story lobby with 24 video screens to show “Volatility Smile 3,” his slinky, animated take on the uncertainties of money.
Mr. Vanderhyden said the video, which slices and twists historic symbols of wealth like coins and wheat, aims to subvert the intention of the lobby’s Beaux-Arts architecture, which was designed to stoke confidence in the reserve bank. Even so, he said the bank approved his proposal to take over the space. “The economists liked my exploration of fear,” he said.
The triennial’s artistic director, Michelle Grabner, said she wanted Front to “feel rooted in the Midwest,” so she visited studios in places like Sheboygan, Wisc., and Buffalo, N.Y., before coming up with her list of participants.
The regional focus highlights several Midwestern artists, including Allen Ruppersberg, who gained an international reputation in the late 1960s for papering walls with Day-Glo prints containing snippets of advertising texts and phrases like “It’s Not Art (That Counts Now).” He was born in Cleveland, but Ms. Grabner said he has never exhibited locally—until now.
For the triennial, Mr. Ruppersberg scoured Cleveland’s steel yards and lakefront byways for billboards and then took pictures from their vantage points. The works will be shown in lightboxes at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
The triennial is also re-creating a 12-story abstract mural by Julian Stanczak, a Polish painter who settled outside Cleveland after World War II. In 1973, he installed his striped piece on the side of a building in downtown Cleveland, and before he died last year, he gave Front permission to paint the same work in the same spot, at the corner of Prospect Avenue and Ninth Street.
Artists still living in the Cleveland area could also see their profiles boosted. Dale Goode, who sprays gold paint over bundles of wigs, rakes and other debris he finds in his Hough neighborhood, will show a glittering set at University Circle. Nearby, artist and Oberlin College professor Johnny Coleman will create a haunting installation and sound piece on the steps of an abandoned church in the neighborhood of Glenville.
Other artists from the Midwest used the invitation to investigate Cleveland, which picked up the pejorative nickname “Mistake on the Lake” after a loss of manufacturing jobs and urban blight in the 1970s.
Jonn Herschend, a multimedia artist born in Branson, Mo., but long based in San Francisco, said he was struck by how often he encountered Ohio natives in his travels who left the state but told him they wanted to return home. “I’m from Missouri and have no desire to return, so this longing is not simply Midwestern,” Mr. Herschend said.
As an artist whose works often take unusual formats like instructional videos or PowerPoint presentations, Mr. Herschend decided to capture this homesickness by producing “A Theme Song for Cleveland and Akron.” He enlisted composer Silas Hite, whose uncle is Devo singer and Akron native Mark Mothersbaugh, and the accompanying video features a local marching band, a step group and a roller derby team. It will be played at Cleveland’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Most of the triennial can be seen in three walkable sections in Cleveland and in Oberlin and Akron, each located about 40 minutes away by car. Architecture buffs should head to Oberlin, where Lisbon-based Juan Araujo’s surreal paintings of midcentury homes will be hung throughout a 1949 Frank Lloyd Wright house. Nearby at the Richard D. Baron ’64 Art Gallery, Chinese artist Cui Jie’s futuristic urban scenes and sculptures, some of which she makes with a 3-D printer, will be on view.
The Akron Art Museum has devoted 6,000 square feet to 16 triennial artists, including Buenos Aires artist Ad Minoliti’s “emoji-like” geometric murals that take on playful shapes like pigs and robots, said chief curator Ellen Rudolph. Another must-see: Gerard Byrne’s “In Our Time,” a wood-paneled radio station installation that broadcasts 1980s pop tunes, weather forecasts and news tidbits—some from Cleveland, others from Pittsburgh and beyond.
“He creates a vortex of place and time,” Ms. Rudolph said. “It’s mesmerizing.”
Photo: A 1973 work by Julian Stanczak will be re-created in its original location in downtown Cleveland.
A 1973 work by Julian Stanczak will be re-created in its original location in downtown Cleveland. PHOTO: JULIAN STANCZAK/THE CLEVELAND CITY MURAL PROJECT
Associated Artist
Associated News
-
August 5, 2019
‘Optical Art’ to be shown at Fort Wayne Museum of Art
Wane.com
August 5, 2019
Dirk Rowley -
April 8, 2019
JULIAN STANCZAK
The Lobby Gallery, 499 Park Avenue, New York
On view through September 2019
Reception: Tuesday, April 9, 5-7 pm
-
March 26, 2019
Rhythm, Rhythm, Everywhere
Toledo City Paper, 03/26/2019
Thena Cocoves
-
July 28, 2018
Unique art 'treasure hunt' spans dozens of Ohio venues
The Blade, 07/28/2018
Roberta Gedert
-
July 12, 2018
Cleveland Hopes to Become the Next Venice
The Wall Street Journal, 07/12/2018
Kelly Crow
-
February 17, 2018
Julian Stanczak
Visual Art Source, 02/17/2018
Amanda Malloy
-
February 9, 2018
Julian Stanczak at David Richard Gallery
Santa Fe New Mexican
Pasatiempo, 02/09/2018
Michael Abatemarco
-
February 8, 2018
Love is in the Art
Santa Fe Arts Journal, 02/08/2018
Emily Van Cleve
-
January 31, 2018
Press Release - Julian Stanczak "Dynamic Fields" -
July 22, 2017
FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art -
April 19, 2017
Julian Stanczak’s Contribution to Cincinnati Art
City Beat, 04/19/2017
Steven Rosen
-
April 11, 2017
Julian Stanczak, Abstract Painter, Dies at 88
New York Times, 04/11/2017
Roberta Smith
-
March 31, 2017
Julian Stanczak on the Power of Red
ArtInfo, 03/31/2017
-
March 28, 2017
Op Art Loses One of Its Leading Figures With Death of Julian Stanczak
ArtNet News, 03/29/2017
Perwana Nazif
-
March 28, 2017
Julian Stanczak, Central Figure of Op Art Movement, Dies at 88
ArtNet News, 03/28/2017
Alex Greenberger
-
March 28, 2017
Julian Stanczak (1928–2017)
Artforum, 03/28/2017
-
March 27, 2017
Julian Stanczak, globally renowned Op artist based in Cleveland, has died at age 88
Cleveland.com, 03/25/2017
Steven Litt, The Plain Dealer
-
December 16, 2015
Julian Stanczak Op Art paintings smash local price ceiling and rocket nationally
Cleveland.com, 12/16/2015
Steven Litt
-
January 29, 2015
Color Color' evokes harmony between two disparate mediums
The New Record, 01/29/2015
Christina Drobney
-
December 15, 2014
'Color Color' at the Cincinnati Art Museum showcases digital prints and poetry
ArtDaily.org, 12/15/2014
-
March 3, 2014
Press Release - Julian Stanczak "Lineal Pathways" -
February 23, 2014
1969 Cleveland Arts Prize for Visual Arts -
April 30, 2013
JULIAN STANCZAK
COLOR WONDER
Cleveland Magazine, May 2013
-
April 8, 2013
AKRON ART MUSEUM
Line Color Illusion: 40 Years of Julian Stanczak
Apr 13, 2013 - Nov 3, 2013 -
October 16, 2012
THE MARKET'S HOTTEST ARTISTS
Bloomberg.com, 10/16/2012
Ben Steverman
-
May 1, 2012
An Interview with Artist Julian Stanczak
GeoForm, May 2012
Julie Karabenick
-
May 1, 2012
An Interview with Artist Julian Stanczak
GeoForm, May 2012
Julie Karabenick
-
December 13, 2011
JULIAN STANCZAK: GREAT COLORIST OF THE 20TH CENTURY
Cleveland Institute of Art, 12/13/2011 -
November 6, 2011
Cleveland Institute of Art touts its own history in shows on Robert Mangold, Julian Stanczak and Ed Mieczkowski
Cleveland.com, 11/06/2011
Steven Litt
-
September 21, 2011
CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART OPTICAL ART EXHIBIT A TEST FOR THE EYES
WEWS, 09/21/2011 -
August 23, 2011
Press Release - Julian Stanczak "Tactile See Through" -
November 1, 2010
The New Criterion review of "Julian Stanczak: Color - Grid"
Gallery Chronicle, November 2010
James Panero