7/31/09

Faculty/staff changes at DAAP/Art Academy: updated

There are changes currently occurring at both DAAP and the Art Academy of Cincinnati.

( UPDATE: Mark Harris informed me that he will be remaining in his role as Director. )I have only heard rumors at DAAP about changes in Mark Harris' status as Department Chair. I contacted the office of the Dean, Robert
Probst, but was referred to Mark Harris. Mark Harris in turn referred me back to the Dean. I am hence unable to confirm anything save this runaround. It is understandable that information cannot be given out at this time if the situation is not resolved.

Also, several staff members were let go from the Art Academy of Cincinnati. Apparently, there are rumors of other layoffs, but no one has contacted the journal to give a statement to this effect. I do not wish to publish rumors. If the journal is contacted by someone willing to make a statement, we will publish it here. Our readers are welcome to post their thoughts on our Forum.
The Business Courier reported today that President Gregory Allgire Smith and Academic Dean Keith Kutch have left their positions:
http://cincinnati.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2009/07/27/daily65.html


The Art Academy, its faculty and its students have a strong presence in the arts downtown, while DAAP produces artists and curators that sometimes remain in the area. Hence any changes in these institutions should be of interest to the local community.

7/7/09

“Getting nowhere”, some thoughts upon seeing Michael Wilson’s photographs at Iris Bookstore

Editor's note: We enjoy Bill Renschler's cryptic approach to criticism and invite you to explore it also as an example of a unique approach to responding to art.

—no thing: situations and flattened pictorial space arising from the triangle like in a Japanese print. Because the artist is totally present in the image, the image contains
him. To define the lyric: you had to be there, that’s all, oh and you couldn’t have any ideas and one must rehearse (prepare for the death (of the idea)) one's craft beforehand.

—harlequin-wise non-perspective space is divided, triangulated and both balanced and spilling: the dark and light found to be interpenetrating thereby becoming a vehicle, a still from a flattened parade, a frieze this frozen wheel now moves us. The narration has been compressed: we are now nowhere. We moved that far.

—through participating in the tension set up at the poles, the opposites (some are actual poles, others the arms of a triangle, some are pairs, things repeated) we’re allowed a secular glimpse of the eternal because again, we’re getting nowhere.

—from the delicate electricity of the bitter-sweet to the standoffish tension of a white part and a black part, just there, balanced and alive, we may see how the world snaps together. These images are relatively small, so their tonal-range springs are wound tight. The images were a gift given to the restless, the solitarily vigilant, the well-prepared.

—in beauty: guilelessness and loss of innocence. Having been moved, having stumbled upon an “image” (a “place” where we’re involved in the reconciliation of the polar world), we can see our limits, we’re free to do that. The pairings within the image are absurd and it’s a brave and humorous act that places them before us: the same one that allows us to see them in ourselves.
- William Renschler

Michael Wilson, 'Photographs From and For...Heads Bowed Eyes Closed, No One Looking Around' at the Iris Book Cafe, 1331 Main St. at Woodward, Cincinnati, OH 45202. Phone: 513.381.2665. Through August 7, 2009.
Photo: Wilson, Michael. Untitled, Newport, KY, 1984.