Periodical Supplement to Cleveland Jewish News, August 20, 2021
NORTHEAST OHIO | arts | music | performance
Fall 2021
FULLY SEEN
A new exhibition fills in missing stories of Cleveland’s LGBTQIA+ artists
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6 Editor’s Note
Ensemble members perform the workshop performance of Cleveland Public Theatre’s “Panther Women: An Army for the Liberation” by India Nicole Burton. | Photo / Steve Wagner
26
Amanda Koehn discusses audiences’ return to local stages
8 On Deck
Noteworthy upcoming openings and events from around Northeast Ohio
Back from intermission
Stage lights are shining on local theaters’ transition back to in-person performances. But are some changes here to stay?
INSIDE
10 ‘Crossroads’ shines different light on Cleveland
Art, apps bring depth to the first citywide AR show
16 Fully Seen
A new exhibition fills in missing stories of Cleveland’s LGBTQIA+ artists
20 Making SPACE(S)
With a new leader, SPACES continues to challenge itself
30 Bridging the sound barrier
SignStage theatrical program brings deaf, hearing actors together Periodical Supplement to Cleveland Jewish News, August 20, 2021
34 The state of the arts critic NORTHEAST OHIO | arts | music | performance
Fall 2021
On the cover
“Artists of CONVERGE” detail, by Melissa Bloom (2021). Acrylic on wood, 71 5 x 5 inch panels, cropped. Courtesy of Artists Archives of the Western Reserve.
FULLY SEEN
A new exhibition fills in missing stories of Cleveland’s LGBTQIA+ artists
4 | Canvas | Fall 2021
As theaters and local entertainment resume, what kind of press will they be met with?
36 Stage Listings Listings for local theaters
37 Curator Corner
“Cleveland Renaissance Visitors” by Anthony Eterovich
38 Listings
Local listings for theaters, museums, galleries and more
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Editor’s Note
I
n my last Canvas editor’s note, I wrote about how reacquainting myself with in-person arts events was likely to be a highlight of the summer. And it sure was. Going to local gallery openings, museum exhibitions and concerts – where we often post photos to Canvas’ Instagram account, @canvascle – has been a staple of the season. Like many of you, I adapted quickly to being out and about postvaccination. It felt oddly normal, yet so exciting to again experience our local arts and cultural scene. Now, things are changing again. As I’m writing this at the beginning of August, we are seeing another surge in COVID-19 cases because of the delta variant and low vaccination rates here in Northeast Ohio (with a sigh, I decided to use my “mask headshot” with this column, once again). This comes just as many local theaters are gearing up to return to in-person seasons this fall, after a year and a half of virtual, outdoor and other creative performances developed to enjoy theater safely during the pandemic. As we wrap this issue of Canvas highlighting stages – as we have in past years for the fall issue – how exactly those performances will be experienced remains to be seen. Knowing the wealth of fantastic theater organizations we have locally, I have no doubt they will rise to the occasion however necessary. At the same time, on a personal level, I’m frustrated for them. I grew up performing in youth theater at the Fairmount Center for the Arts. As a shy kid, it was a kick of confidence for me to participate in plays, transporting me to a different world outside the anxieties of elementary school and with a flair of dramatic fun. Later in high school, I became so obsessed with the musical “Rent” when it became a major motion picture that I convinced my mom to take me to New York City to see the show on Broadway. Growing up in a small town with what I would consider a lack of cultural offerings and exposure to a world that honors cultural diversity, queerness and urban, artistic life, “Rent” altered and added to my perspective. My parents also took my sister and me to see “Rent” at Playhouse Square a couple years later, which became a very memorable and special experience to my
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Editor Amanda Koehn editor@canvascle.com Design Manager Stephen Valentine
President, Publisher & CEO Kevin S. Adelstein Vice President of Sales Adam Mandell Managing Editor Bob Jacob Controller Tracy DiDomenico Digital Marketing Manager Cheryl Sadler
family. Seeing “Rent” live in Cleveland was a highlight especially for my dad, who died in 2019. Leading up to the show, I thought he’d be shocked and perhaps bothered by the racy nature of “Rent.” But he loved it. Almost a decade later, I would still hear him listening to the soundtrack at home, blaring “Take Me or Leave Me” from his computer in our basement. As Gina Vernaci, Playhouse Square’s president and CEO, told Canvas, “The audience experience is one where it’s a shared social experience. That’s why you come together.” I couldn’t agree more. As sung in “Rent’s” “La Vie Boheme” it’s about, “being an us for once – instead of a them.” Stages, to me, mean coming together both with strangers in the audience, as well as family and friends who may have very different beliefs and life experiences – and being electrified by the show together. How do you measure (more than) a year in the life of no in-person theatrical experiences, or significantly more than 525,600 minutes without that shared experience? I’m not sure you can. But as local theaters, big and small, are gearing up for a strong return, I can’t stress the need to support them strongly enough. And not for their sake, but for ours – for our own connectedness and enlightenment.
Columbus Bureau Chief Stephen Langel Events Manager Gina Lloyd Editorial McKenna Corson, Jane Kaufman, Alex Krutchik, Becky Raspe Contributing Writers Bob Abelman, Carlo Wolff Violet Spevack Editorial Intern Jamie Insul Clifford and Linda Wolf Editorial Intern Sammi Fremont Custom Publishing Manager Paul Bram Sales & Marketing Manager Andy Isaacs Advertising Marilyn Evans, Ron Greenbaum, Adam Jacob, Nell V. Kirman, Sherry Tilson, Yocheved Wylen Designers Jessica Simon, Ricki Urban Digital Content Producer Alyssa Schmitt Business & Circulation Tammie Crawford Abby Royer Display Advertising 216-342-5191 advertising@canvascle.com
Amanda Koehn Editor
Canvas is published by the Cleveland Jewish Publication Company, 23880 Commerce Park, Suite 1, Beachwood, OH 44122. For general questions, call 216-454-8300 or email info@cjn.org. CanvasCLE.com
The Century of the American Motorcycle is an extraordinary traveling exhibit from the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum in Birmingham, motorcycles from their world-renowned collection. This exhibit opens at the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum on August 19, 2021, and closes in March 2022. The Century of the American Motorcycle is a comprehensive display of beautifully restored motorcycles, ranging from the 1905 Indian Single, to the 1907 Merkel Light, to the 2018 Motus MST. This is only the second time this remarkable gathering of American motorcycles has been displayed outside the Barber, and is Don’t miss this extraordinary opportunity that provides riders, enthusiasts, and the entire AND
of the most remarkable motorcycles America has ever produced.
ON DECK
Upcoming openings and events from around Northeast Ohio Event details provided by the entities featured. Compiled by Sammi Fremont and Jamie Insul. TRANSFORMER STATION “New Histories, New Futures” | Through Sept. 12 “New Histories, New Futures” features three contemporary Black artists addressing the present and the past. The exhibition, presented by the Cleveland Museum of Art and on view at Transformer Station in Cleveland’s Hingetown neighborhood, focuses on art by Johnny Coleman of Oberlin, Antwoine Washington of Cleveland and Kambui Olujimi of New York City. In the exhibit, Coleman creates an immersive installation including sculpture, sound and projection that centers on a family’s harrowing history moving through the Underground Railroad. Washington subverts the stereotype of the absent Black father through portraits of his own family painted in a style showing homage to artists of the Harlem Renaissance. Olujimi’s work showcases paintings and video of weightless, floating Black bodies to imagine a future where political resistance can result in complete freedom. Transformer Station is at 1460 W. 29th St. in Cleveland. : transformerstation.org.
BAYARTS “We Not Linkin’” | Through Sept. 18 Inspired by the lack of connection, understanding and the divisiveness demonstrated throughout 2020, Cleveland Heights-based artist Davon Brantley created his new show “We Not Linkin’” to take viewers through a narrative of his life and what he grapples with. Brantley uses self-portraits that reference religious paintings and Renaissance and Baroque portraits to flip the traditional expectations of these styles, as people of color were not typically depicted in the work of those eras. In “We Not Linkin’,” on view at BAYarts in Bay Village, Brantley shares his experiences with colorism, racial stereotyping, meditations on death, life, sexuality and masculinity. Brantley turns negative expectations for people of color on their head, and instead takes viewers through a series of religious-like self-portraits aimed to consecrate rather than demonize. BAYarts is at 28795 Lake Road in Bay Village. : bayarts.net.
Above: “Black Family: The Myth of the Missing Black Father” (2019) by Antwoine Washington, on view at the “New Histories, New Futures” exhibition. Acrylic on canvas; 24 x 30 inches. Collection of the artist. Image © the artist. YARDS PROJECTS “Uplifters: New Beginnings from Old Things” | Through Sept. 25 Nostalgia in art is normally frowned upon. It may even be seen as a gimmick to make people like art simply because it’s familiar and gives off a sentimental vibe. But coming out of the last pandemic year, “Uplifters” at YARDS Projects in Warehouse District of Cleveland seeks to use the old to create new possibilities. The artists of “Uplifters” work to innovate and adapt materials from the past to create contemporary work, celebrating innovation and looking ahead to a more promising future. The exhibition features bright and colorful work from artists Eleanor Anderson, Andy Dreamingwolf, Amber Esner, Connie Fu, J. Leigh Garcia, Amber Kempthorn, Loren Naji, Edward Parker, Ron Shelton, Judith Salomon, Stephen Yusko and Jonathan Wayne. YARDS Projects is at the Worthington Yards apartment complex, 725 Johnson Court in Cleveland. : yardsproject.com.
Right: “No, You Cannot...” (2021) by Davon Brantley, on view at his show “We Not Linkin’” at BAYarts. Charcoal drawing on mixed media paper, 42 x 72 inches. Image courtesy of the artist. Right: Mixed media woven material/fabric piece by Eleanor Anderson, part of “Uplifters: New Beginnings from Old Things” at YARDS Projects. Image courtesy of YARDS Projects.
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Editor’s note: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, museums and galleries may change how exhibitions are able to be seen. Visit their websites for updated information regarding exhibition visitation prior to visiting. CURRENT “Mouse House Party” | Through Sept. 30 The Akron Art Museum and Current commissioned “Mouse House Party,” a collective art project featuring work by over 150 contemporary Northeast Ohio artists. The project by Liz Maugans, an artist, curator and director of YARDS Projects, asked artists to fill a mouse hole-shaped frame, drawing on how their art helped fill the emotional holes felt during the COVID-19 pandemic. On view at Current’s space at the 78th Street Studios in the Edgewater neighborhood of Cleveland, the show was born during the height of the pandemic and has a goal of offering local artists the opportunity to share their work and demonstrate the complex creativity of the region. Current is a stand-alone gallery at the 78th Street Studios at 1300 W. 78th St., Suite 101 in Cleveland. More information about the exhibit can be found at bit.ly/36DsOXN. : currentcleveland.org.
Left: Collage of Mouse House Party artwork (2021), on view at Current. Image courtesy of Liz Maugans. CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART “Ashcan School Prints and the American City, 1900-1940” | Through Dec. 26 In the Cleveland Museum of Art exhibit “Ashcan School Prints and the American City, 1900-1940,” prints by urban realists represent an era filled with demographic, social and economic changes to the country’s cities. With New York City as a hot spot of change – including vibrant new communities of immigrants from Europe and Latin American countries, and Black Southerners who migrated north – artists responded to the lives of residents. Using advertising and mass media techniques with their depictions of the lower classes, immigrants, working women and social elites, artists from the Ashcan School broke norms and zeroed in on observing the interactions between individuals and the places they inhabited. The prints featured, consisting of CMA’s holdings and those of a local private collection, not only show social and economic tensions of the past, but viewers may see many of the same themes that still persist in America’s cities today. “Ashcan School Prints” can be viewed in the James and Hanna Bartlett Prints and Drawings Gallery of CMA, 11150 East Blvd. in Cleveland. The exhibition is presented in conjunction with “A New York Minute: Street Photography, 1920–1950,” on view in the Mark Schwartz and Bettina Katz Photography Gallery through Nov. 7. : clevelandart.org.
Right: “The Holdup” (first state), 1921 by George Bellows (American, 1882-1925), on view at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s “Ashcan School Prints” exhibition. Lithograph, 32.8 x 26.5 cm. CMA, gift of Leonard C. Hanna Jr., 1936.548. IMMERSIVE VAN GOGH CLEVELAND Immersive Vincent van Gogh exhibit | Sept. 9, 2021 – Jan. 2, 2022
Above: Artwork from Kimberly Chapman’s “Eighty-Six Reasons (for asylum admission)” exhibition. Image courtesy of the artist. FAWICK ART GALLERY “Eighty-Six Reasons (for asylum admission)” | Aug. 30 – Sept. 24 “Undesirable behavior” – chattering, dispassion for domestic chores, even novel reading – was often deemed as hysteria in women during the Victorian era. With that diagnosis, many of these women were sent to asylums. Northeast Ohio artist Kimberly Chapman’s exhibition at the Fawick Art Gallery of Baldwin Wallace University tells the stories of these mistreated women. Encompassing a collection of porcelain sculptures and large-scale tintype images of the artist as the asylum patient, the exhibition details why women were sent to mental asylums and the botched diagnoses and treatments they received. Chapman is known for tackling issues like silencing women, domestic abuse, refugee crises and American school shootings through her delicate, ethereal porcelain sculptures. Fawick Art Gallery is located in Baldwin Wallace’s Kleist Center for Art & Drama, 95 E. Bagley Road in Berea. An opening reception will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. Sept. 10. : fawickgallery.com.
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The globally popular immersive Vincent van Gogh exhibit will make its Cleveland debut this year and into the next. The digital art experience aims to mesmerize viewers by transforming a still-secret local space, utilizing architecture, history and community to create a unique art experience with the Dutch painter’s works. The city of Cleveland is working with the exhibit to incorporate the city’s rich history as a part of the show. The experience includes 500,000 cubic feet of projections, 60,600 frames of video and 90 million pixels, according to its website. Before the exhibit opens, existing ticket holders will be emailed information about the name and location of the venue. : vangoghcleveland.com.
Above: A scene from the Immersive Van Gogh exhibit when it visited San Francisco earlier this year. | Photo / Cheshire Isaacs
Fall 2021 | Canvas | 9
‘Crossroads: Still We Rise’ shines a different light on Cleveland’s east side
Fresh art, versatile apps bring depth to the first citywide AR show Gina Washington’s “I Am” installation includes digital photography and video on site at The Sculpture Center. And if you open the 4th Wall app at the Forest Hill Footbridge in East Cleveland, augmented reality shows her photos across the bridge. | Photos / Amanda Koehn
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By Carlo Wolff Twelve African American artists who believe in Cleveland’s east side deploy augmented reality to highlight, enhance and comment on sites in East Cleveland, Glenville, Slavic Village, Kinsman, Buckeye and Central neighborhoods in “Crossroads: Still We Rise,” an ambitious exhibition by The Sculpture Center of Cleveland. The purposefully immersive experience, driven by imaginative art, transformative apps and the city’s racial inequities, runs through Sept. 25, both at The Sculpture Center and at 12 outside sites. The artists featured are Lawrence Baker, Donald Black Jr., Marcus Brathwaite, Gwen Garth, Amanda King, Hilton Murray, Ed Parker, Shani Richards, Vince Robinson, Charmaine Spencer, Gina Washington and Gary Williams. Robin Robinson, who curated “Crossroads: Still We Rise” and worked with Sculpture Center head Grace Chin on what Chin said is the first citywide AR exhibit, selected the artists for their ideology and professionalism. All the works involving the democratizing AR process are commissions. The exhibition is designed to draw people to view economically wounded, historically resonant neighborhoods with a fresh eye and to foster dialogue about what can be done to celebrate and strengthen them. Its long-term purpose is to generate discussion of the potential of neighborhoods that for too long have effectively been left for dead. “Still We Rise,” Robinson acknowledges, is profoundly political; it may be the start of something bigger, like a Black arts district, she suggests. At the minimum, she and Chin hope it is the first of many installations. “We wanted to create a new program for The Sculpture Center where we were bringing art outdoors in a specific context,” says Chin, who became the center’s executive director in 2019. “I wanted content that was meaningful and that would create dialogue that reflected conversations going on in the rest of the country.”
Eye,” the African spirit vessel that Charmaine Spencer, a Cleveland sculptor, superimposes at the gates of Woodland Cemetery in Central, the Reality Composer app can make it spin and wobble, even get its clay bands to shake. While Reality Composer creates the interactive AR experience, 4th Wall is the app used on site to publicly access the installations. The artists had to convert their works to JPEGs and PNGs, turning them over to Nancy Baker Cahill, who created the 4th Wall app, for AR use outdoors. There was a major learning curve, says Spencer. “You have to consider when you’re making your piece what you want the viewer to see in virtual reality and how your piece is going to help that, not
putting in anything that’s going to hinder what your vision is in virtual reality,” she says. Because the technology was unfamiliar, the artists had to work with the technologists, making this project collaborative on yet another level, says Chin. “That was part of the goal because we wanted the artist to have the experience of working in a new medium.” RISING AGENDA Robinson, a community activist to the bone, has been living in Cleveland off and on for most of her life. She owns a home in Glenville. She’s tired of the incessant phone calls asking if she wants to sell her house (she doesn’t). She loves her neighborhood, dominated by East
Above: Vince Robinson’s “Rising From the Ashes” (2021) is a photo of the Great Sphinx of Giza and can be viewed via app at E. 99th St. and Buckeye Road in the Buckeye neighborhood of Cleveland. Below: Artist Gary Williams views his oil on canvas “Nubian Graces,” (2021) at the Sculpture Center, and watches the AR elements via iPad.
APP APPEAL Chin also wanted to hitch new technology to new art. Augmented reality in the gallery is hosted by RazorEdge, a Cleveland-based digital innovation firm. It uses iPad Pro cameras and an Apple app. As RazorEdge’s Ocean Young recently demonstrated with “Listening
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Fall 2021 | Canvas | 11
Charmaine Spencer’s “Listening Eye” (2021), created from clay, soil, glue, paper, burlap, reed grass and hemp, has augmented reality elements viewable via this iPad at The Sculpture Center and on site at Woodland Cemetery via an app. | Photo / Carlo Wolff 105th Street. To the Philadelphia native, “Still We Rise” is more than an invitation to see the eastern core of this troubled city in a new light. It’s an opportunity to shine that light unforgettably bright. “When I was a child, East 105th Street was like going downtown. My parents wouldn’t send Easter clothes with me because they knew my grandparents would just buy them on East 105th Street,” she recalls of her time there. “Anything else I may have needed, we could get right here.” It had been about 20 years, after earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Temple University in Philadelphia, motherhood and a divorce that Robinson first moved to Cleveland around 1979. She then left for Fort Wayne, Ind., with her second husband around 1983. Even more years later, after a second divorce, Robinson returned to Glenville permanently in 2011. “Coming back, it was just devastating to me,” she says. “I hadn’t seen the gradual progression like people who live here saw, I saw just the devastation.” She eventually became executive director of Sankofa Fine Arts Plus, a nonprofit in the St. Clair neighborhood designed to empower African American artists. Sankofa is the name of a West African bird that can turn its head backwards. “The symbology is that you can move forward but always remember your past,” Robinson says. Sankofa commissions murals and community engagement is one of its key tenets. So is the activism that led to “Our Lives
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Matter,” an AR overlay on the Cuyahoga County Courthouse unveiled through 4th Wall on Juneteenth 2020, shortly after George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis. A collaboration among the Sculpture Center, artists Robinson and Gary Williams, and Cahill’s app, it is the direct precursor of “Still We Rise.” The difference is scale. “I’m passionate about the east side of Cleveland, and as an African American artist in Cleveland, I’m always fighting the system that funds art in Cleveland,” Robinson says. “I also am aware of the systematic racism of Cleveland between the west side and east side. I know where the red line is, and it’s in the middle of the Cuyahoga River.” After many years away, she could see how foreclosures have damaged the east side far more than the west side. “I’m always dealing with these communities on the east side in my professional capacity,” she adds. “I’m also on the west side as an artist and I work with these organizations as a teaching artist, so I know what’s happening there and not happening over here.” THE AFRICAN CONNECTION Vince Robinson, a photojournalist, musician and poet who has been covering the Cleveland scene – and more – for more than 40 years, chose East 99th Street and Buckeye Road for his “Still We Rise” installation. The place is empty, though there are signs it may have been a park, and a catch basin there suggests it’s a drainage site, perhaps under the jurisdiction
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Creativity Takes Center Stage at Hawken Given that Hawken School has always been a haven for creative minds, it’s no surprise that opportunities for students to participate in the arts abound. While many other schools are forced to cut funding for the arts, Hawken’s programming continues to grow and thrive, enabling students to participate at various levels no matter what their age or experience.
A designated arts wing on Hawken’s Lower and Middle School campus featuring four classrooms designed for exploration, creation and performance represents a physical manifestation of Hawken’s commitment to the arts. Beginning in early childhood, music educators work with students to reinforce a love of music and to provide a basis for the development of musical concepts and skills. In third grade, students are introduced to the soprano recorder; in fourth and fifth grade, students select a string, woodwind, brass, or percussion instrument for musical study; and from third through fifth grade, students can opt to participate in Lower School Choir, which presents an annual musical production. In the Middle School, chorus, strings and band are offered as part of the curriculum. Students also have the opportunity to be part of the Jr. Hawken Players’ Society through participation in the annual musical either on stage, behind-the-scenes, or in the pit orchestra. At Hawken’s Upper School, students can select from a wide variety of music, dance and theater courses including Acting Fundamentals, Advanced Acting, Chorale, Concert Band, Creative Movement, Jazz Band, Global Rhythms, Stage Craft and String Ensemble. Outside of the academic day, small performing groups like Hawken Harmony provide additional opportunities for students interested in musical performance. One of the most popular clubs at Hawken is The Hawken Players’ Society (HPS), which produces at least one play and one musical each year. Open to all students at both the Mastery School of Hawken in University Circle and the Upper School in Gates Mills, HPS productions are largely studentdriven. Under the guidance of adult mentors, students are given the latitude, tools, and responsibility to take full ownership of their role as an artist, whether in set design and construction; props, costumes, or makeup; marketing and graphic design; acting, singing, dancing; and even assistant directing. Hawken students have been the recipient of numerous Dazzle Awards from Playhouse Square over the last several years; most recently, a senior won the Best Actor award for his performance in Hawken’s COVIDsafe, live-stream musical, Songs for a New World, by Jason Robert Brown.
Hawken School also places great value on the visual arts, often in collaboration with the performing arts department. An annual Early Childhood Art Show, a Visiting Artists Program, the annual Evening of Art and Music, the creation of artwork to accompany the fourth and fifth grade musical, middle school set design, and the Biomimicry Art and Science Forum mark just a number of the many highlights of visual arts programming on Hawken’s Lyndhurst campus. Visual Arts offerings for Upper School students include Art Fundamentals, Art and Design Principles, Graphic Design, Drawing and Painting, History of Western Art, Photography, Sculpture, Ceramics, AP Studio Art, Animation, as well as several advanced courses in these subjects. Stirn Hall academic building at the Upper School campus, with its Media and Communications Lab and Fabrication Lab, has opened up a whole new world of creative, interdisciplinary possibilities. The Creative Movement class has worked with Groundworks Dance Company on a collaborative project, which took students to Playhouse Square to perform. In addition, numerous classes including the Design and Engineering and Comedy classes have utilized the new spaces for creative, hands-on projects. The Goldberg Innovation Lab on the Lyndhurst campus provides even our youngest students the opportunity to immerse themselves in the art of creative design. Visit hawken.edu to learn more about the full menu of arts options available at Hawken. To learn more about visiting our campus, go to hawken.edu/admission or call 440-423-2955.
of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District. Visit that intersection, download the 4th Wall app to your smartphone and view Vince Robinson’s photo of the Great Sphinx of Giza. Vince Robinson (no relation to Robin) traveled to Egypt and the Sudan in fall 2019 on a cultural tour. “It was transformative, it was phenomenal,” he says of the trip, which brought him “a greater level of understanding and appreciation of being African.” Vince Robinson has added spiritual layers through his terrestrial and philosophical voyages. He also amassed indelible images like the one he captured at Giza, designed as “something to replace what has been destroyed or erased,” he says. “I’m also saving that space, in a sense, with something that is essentially African and relates to us there as well as here.” Augmented reality “provides opportunities for artists in a very revolutionary way,” he says. “Back in the day, you could express yourself as an artist with graffiti, and when you did that, it left an indelible mark wherever you left your art, and in the process of providing your art you may have defaced something else.” There’s no defacing with AR, which leaves only a virtual trace. “When you understand how augmented reality works and you’re connected with the right entities, you can put art anywhere,” Vince Robinson says. “It’s a different way of creating permanence – without intrusion.” BLACK ARTISTS MATTER Robin Robinson has been trying to establish an east side arts district for African American artists and residents in Glenville. Despite the occasional gallery “popping up in different places, we’re not cohesive enough to say, ‘This is an arts district,’” she says. “We’re kind of forced to be, you know, disassembled – and compete with each other. Why should we have to compete with each other?” Is “Crossroads: Still We Rise” the seed of a Black artists collaborative? “It’s not, really,” Robinson says carefully, hedging her denial in the next breath. “I have based a lot of my adult experiences on my favorite film, which oddly enough, is “Field of Dreams” – ‘If you build it, they will come.’ What I want to do with ‘Crossroads’ is have people see for themselves that these neighborhoods are not as forgettable and devastating, only able to be utilized as a resource for freeways, parks or whatever it is that money wants to be. These communities are not surplus.” Chin says, “One of the goals of the exhibition is for the participants and viewers to take this information and say, ‘What should we do?’ Have people ever been to Central? East Cleveland? Not necessarily. Do people who have driven through Central know that once there were all these magnificent, four-story buildings? They’re gone. It is eyeopening because it’s a little bit shocking. Now, these are some of the poorest neighborhoods in Cleveland, in Ohio, in the country.” Central used to be a thriving neighborhood, home to the storied Majestic Hotel, a Black visitor-only haven at East 55th Street and Central Avenue featuring great jazz. The artist Gwen Garth lived there for a time. Her AR work at that spot aims to resurrect the corner’s vitality. “These communities already have their gems,” says Robin Robinson. “These neighborhoods already have something that they feel ownership for and they feel pride in. I just want other people to see that.”
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Above: Amanda King’s “Resurrection” (2021) depicts Cory United Methodist Church in Glenville, which has AR elements on site that look to the church’s racial justice history and ahead to the future of the movement and Black children as the next leaders. Below: Gwen Garth’s “A Majestic Vision” (2021), digital drawing and AR, reimagines a vacant Goodwill Industries building as a cultural arts center to serve the Central neighborhood of Cleveland. The site is significant as the historic home to the former Majestic Hotel that once was the area’s primary African American hotel in the early- to mid-1900s.
ON VIEW
“Crossroads: Still We Rise” is on view through Sept. 25 at sites around Cleveland and at The Sculpture Center, 1834 E. 123rd St., Cleveland. To download a map of the locations, visit sculpturecenter.org/crossroads. To view the artwork at any of the locations, download the 4th Wall app on the Apple App Store or Google Play.
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Please join us! Thu Aug 26, 6:30–8pm Opening event
Reinberger Gallery
2021 Faculty Exhibition
11610 Euclid Avenue Cleveland, OH 44106 Gallery Hours Starting Aug 27 Mon–Thu 10am–5pm Fri 10am–9pm Sat–Sun 12–5pm
Aug 26–Oct 10
A tradition that spans more than eight decades, the Faculty Exhibition is a celebration of art, design and their makers. It provides an opportunity for the public to view new, original and innovative works by CIA’s world-renowned art and design faculty.
For more information about our programming and current COVID-19 visitor protocols: cia.edu/exhibitions 216.421.7407
Also on view: Snickers That Turn Into Livable Joy Ann and Norman Roulet Student + Alumni Gallery Curated by Curatorial Assistant Amani Williams
reinbergergallery #ciafacultyexhibition Artwork: Joseph Minek 853_kpempp_e61dcd_rd , 2016 Unique C-Print
a program of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland
literature
Our exhibitions are generously supported by CIA’s Community Partners. Visit cia.edu/partners.
Roe Green, Honorary Producer
theater music
film
visual arts For more information about the 2021-22 season, email israelarts@jcfcleve.org.
www.jewishcleveland.org/israelarts @CanvasCLE
Fall 2021 | Canvas | 15
FULLY SEEN By Becky Raspe
16 | Canvas
A new exhibition fills in missing stories of Cleveland’s LGBTQIA+ artists
Pride isn’t just the month of June for the 71 artists featured in the Artists Archives of the Western Reserve’s upcoming multi-venue exhibition, “CONVERGE,” bringing together diverse stories from the queer community, including voices of women, transgender and artists of color throughout the region. With installations at the Artists Archives of the Western Reserve, the LGBTQ Center of Greater Cleveland, Lake Erie College and MetroHealth Main Campus Medical Center, “CONVERGE” will acknowledge both the historic and everrelevant struggles of the LGBTQIA+ community, incorporating themes of protest, pride, celebration and transformation. The exhibition runs from Aug. 26 to Oct. 16. A satellite exhibition at Judson Manor retirement community will also feature LGBTQIA+ artists already part of AAWR’s permanent collection. And, the display of MetroHealth Medical Center Gallery’s biannual exhibition of the national AIDS Memorial Quilt will coincide with the show. HOW IT STARTED The show was born out of a committee meeting when AAWR – a regional museum that’s also an archival space to preserve work of Ohio artists and share and promote local cultural heritage – discovered gay artists in their files, but no archived lesbian artists. That gave birth to a larger conversation about filling the gaps in their collections, says AAWR Executive Director Mindy Tousley.
“It brought up the whole issue of other groups that are kind of disenfranchised in the greater scheme of things,” she says, which led to the concept of a show exclusively for and by LGBTQIA+ artists. “(This show) aligns perfectly with our mission because we aim to preserve the legacies of Ohio artists. Just by doing this show, even if work doesn’t go into the permanent collection, we’re providing documentation that will be on the internet forever.” JOURNEY FOR DIVERSE NARRATIVES Knowing their collection needs those stories included, Tousley says lack of historical documentation of local LGBTQIA+ artists is a broader issue in the arts community. “Even with older artists who are in their 80s, which several of them will be part of the show, you couldn’t be out in their day, it wasn’t safe,” Tousley says. “So, documentation would’ve been under the wire. They weren’t out because you needed to keep things secret for safety, especially in a place like Cleveland.” Kelly Pontoni, a curator for “CONVERGE” and one of the artists in the show, says AAWR made sure to portray a wide range of stories in the show, especially since the queer
Above: Max Markwald, who will be featured in AAWR’s “CONVERGE” show, pictured with self-portraits using acrylic paint on canvas. Opposite Page: “Shining Light” by Andrew Reach; digital print on paper featuring photos of his husband, Bruce, 30 x 20 inches. Reach will be featured in the “CONVERGE” show. Photos courtesy of Artists Archives of the Western Reserve.
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experience is so diverse. Some of those stories will touch on the HIV/AIDS epidemic and how those fears tied into living in the age of COVID-19. “It was hard on people with HIV and AIDS to experience a second pandemic,” she says. A big topic the show will explore the experience of young queer artists, their transformations and the art they’ve made as a result, Pontoni says. For example, local artist Max Markwald, a transgender man, will have a series focused on his top surgery, which will be on display at MetroHealth. Another artist will focus on what it’s like to be both Black and trans. As a featured artist herself, Pontoni says as someone in her 50s and an out lesbian, she believes she’ll learn a lot from younger artists who are naturally and unapologetically themselves. “Growing up in a time where you didn’t talk about any of this, I embrace the younger generation,” she says. “So, I think this show will also have a touch of education because I know a lot of people have challenges with the idea of non-binary and trans experiences, so I think this will be educational in that sense. Even me as an out lesbian, if I’m not willing to understand and learn from the younger generation, I’m as bigoted as people were to me when I was in my 20s.” When selecting featured artists, Pontoni says it all came back to representation within the vastly diverse queer experience. “It’s not going to be a show with over 60 artists all about rainbows and butterflies,” she says, noting a lot of the featured works will be nonrepresentational and will more subtly tackle ideas of queerness. Tousley adds, “There are a lot of shows that focus on specific issues already, so that’s why we wanted a lot of different viewpoints from the artists because it is a documentation of the artists. We wanted to create a space to tell a story of the broader experience.” ARTISTIC INTERSECTION OF QUEERNESS, RACIAL IDENTITY That intersection of a broader life experience and inherent queerness is where featured artist Lo Smith’s work lives. A 27-year-old Black artist from Cleveland Heights, Smith says they agreed to get involved because of the broad spectrum of stories detailed in “CONVERGE.”
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“Desire at Midnight” by Cathy Dully; oil on canvas, 30 x 24 inches, who will be featured in AAWR’s “CONVERGE” show. Actual featured work by artists may differ. Photo courtesy of Artists Archives of the Western Reserve. “Something that happens a lot with queer shows is that they always feature a majority of queer white men,” Smith says. “(AAWR) told me right away that this is not that. In queer spaces, other narratives exist. So, when Kelly asked me to get involved, I asked if I was the only one that would look like me, sound like me or have this experience with race and gender like I do. And in the walk-through, the answer was already no. So, this makes me excited.” Playing with the combination of being a Black and queer artist, Smith’s work for “CONVERGE” focuses on the idea of rest, and how true rest is hard to come by for someone who is living a similar experience. “I often say that my art and my identity are the same thing,” Smith says. “People will ask if Blackness or queerness take precedence, or my gender because I’m non-binary. The Black experience is the queer experience,
and the queer experience is the Black experience when you’re both. You don’t exist in a vacuum. So, with my art, it is a reflection of that.” In tackling the idea of rest, Smith addresses how mindfulness and meditation spaces are heavily white and steeped in East Asian appropriation, but that is not what restfulness and mindfulness looks like for them. “Doing yoga, for example, stresses me out – having my eyes closed surrounded by other people based on my experiences as a Black queer person,” Smith says. “That is not restful for me. They’ll say you just have to let go, but no, that sounds like danger to me. Going to a park and sitting with my eyes closed isn’t always safe for me. There is an assumption that this is a peaceful action, but that is not true. So, my work for the show addresses that need for rest, to address these things I carry with me all day.”
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“Is It Natural” by Lo Smith as part of their “Racism or Gluten: Why Do I Feel This Way” series from 2019, using Hot Cheetos, frosting, Sour Patch Kids, Stouffer’s Macaroni and Cheese and Pop-Tarts. Smith will be featured in AAWR’s “CONVERGE” show. Photo courtesy of Smith. IMPACT ON CLEVELAND’S ARTISTIC, QUEER COMMUNITY With all of this in mind, Phyllis Harris, executive director of the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland, says she believes this show helps tell the collective story of the queer experience through a local lens – something that has been long needed in the community. “This is exactly what we wanted for Cleveland,” she says. “It’s a fantastic opportunity. This is our history, our story. This time, it’s all about us.” Harris also says the exhibit opens up the discussion that Pride is not just a month in the year or a moment, but a movement. “There is so much we can do to extend the season of celebrating who we are and bringing visibility to our lives,” she says. “Part of it establishing our places where we can amplify our voices. It’s OK to conform at times, and we do, but we have a culture and we’re part of a movement. Any time we can hang our flag out and take a stake, like with ‘CONVERGE,’ it’s progress. But we have a long way to go. This is an opportunity for us to find something that speaks to us, and amplify those stories, our history and potential.”
ON VIEW
Artists Archives of the Western Reserve presents “CONVERGE” Aug. 26 to Oct. 16 VENUES: Artists Archives of the Western Reserve | 1834 E. 123rd St., Cleveland | Wednesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturdays, noon to 4 p.m. LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland | 6705 Detroit Ave., Cleveland | Mondays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Lake Erie College, Royce Hall | 391 W. Washington St., Painesville. Call 440-375-7050. MetroHealth Main Campus Medical Center | 2500 MetroHealth Drive, Cleveland | Call 216-778-7800. Judson Manor, South Concourse Gallery | 1890 E. 107th St. Cleveland | Daily, 10 a.m.to 4 p.m. SPECIAL EVENTS: Artists Archives Opening Reception: Public reception is from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Aug. 26, with a private VIP reception to precede it from 5:30 to 6:30. LGBT Community Center Reception: Public reception from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Sept. 17, with the private Plexus LGBTQ Young Professional Reception to precede it from 5:30 to 6:30. LGBT Center Heritage Day special viewing : Oct. 9, time TBA Cleveland MetroHealth Reception: Date TBA, Cleveland MetroHealth Lake Erie College Closing Reception: 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. Oct. 14 PROGRAMMING: Virtual Program: “Un(masc)ing Drag History with Dr. Lady J,” 7 to 8 p.m. Sept. 14, presented by the Artists Archives of the Western Reserve Virtual Panel Discussion: Art and AIDS, date TBA, presented by the Artists Archives of the Western Reserve and Cleveland MetroHealth AIDS Quilt Workshop at MetroHealth More information on all programming is available at artistsarchives.org
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MAKING S P A C E With a new leader at the helm, SPACES continues to challenge itself By Amanda Koehn
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tarting a new role, in a new city leading a 43-year-old arts organization during a once-in-a-century pandemic and amid a reinvigorated societal reckoning with racism and social issues may seem daunting. But to both Tizziana Baldenebro, SPACES’ 33-year-old new executive director, and the organization itself, it’s an opportunity to try to do better.
To Baldenebro, that means making the arts organization more inviting to all, having hard conversations about the intersection of the international artists SPACES engages and the local Cleveland community, and understanding the many dynamics at play in creating a more equitable future. “I think there is something very radical about post-industrial landscapes,” says Baldenebro, who arrived at SPACES in August 2020 after about a year as Ford Curatorial Fellow at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. “I’ve written a bit
Amanda Koehn
SPACES is at 2900 Detroit Ave. in Cleveland’s Hingetown neighborhood. Inset: Tizziana Baldenebro.
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(S) about how it does feel like things are possible here in a way that they don’t feel possible in a coastal city, sort of like major art centers. And there’s a real, sincere opportunity to envision an artscape that is equitable, that is actually challenging culturally,” she says. But for Baldenebro and the contemporary arts organization as a whole, expanding equity and helping produce and show work that addresses some of the most difficult issues of our time involves questioning long-held functions at the root, and asking, what audiences are being served? NEW LEADER, AN EVER-EVOLVING MISSION SPACES functions as a gallery space and a resource and public forum for artists “who explore and experiment,” according to its mission statement. It commissions artists from around the world to develop work that responds to current issues. Around the featured artists’ projects it develops educational programming to inform and provides grants to artists. When Baldenebro arrived at SPACES, programming was slower due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Built into that was a little more time to learn and adapt. And she jokes that instead of a “big debutante party” to welcome her, she made one-onone connections with those involved in the organization. With a staff of three full-time and three-part time employees, the organization lived in a hybrid work model. A Los Angeles native, Baldenebro received her bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of Chicago and went on to earn a master’s degree in architecture from the Art Institute of Chicago. Prior to the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Baldenebro held roles at the Art Institute of Chicago and STRATA Marketing in Chicago, according to the news release announcing her hire. She’s also a published writer. Baldenebro says her master’s program has served her well to empower artists and make the gallery space accessible. “I think in terms of spatial awareness and understanding how things need to be laid out or what the flow feels like, or even sort of recognizing the challenges our differently abled visitors will have,” she explains. “What is the aural experience? What is the visual experience? What is the sort of experience of not being able to walk into a gallery? The entry
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Nastassja Swift’s exhibition “Blue/Black/Baby Smiles, Singin’ To An Old River – We Hear You Coming” is on view at SPACES through Oct. 15. | Photo courtesy of SPACES conditions, stuff like that, all of that kind of feeds into what accessibility means.” Both the Midwest region she’s grown to love and the size of SPACES lends itself to “visibility but also agility,” which led to her interest in the executive director role. Its previous leader Christina Vassallo left near the end of 2019 and in the interim was led by Megan Young, former deputy director, who stepped down earlier this year. Key Jo Lee, vice president of the board at SPACES, says she was impressed with Baldenebro’s commitment to supporting artists and staff. Specifically, Lee says “ensuring everyone is paid equitably (and) offering opportunities to people from underrepresented communities that maybe had nontraditional trajectories into the arts. She struck me as being really invested in artists and in relationships with artists, and (having) an understanding that there is sort of no one-size-fits-all when it comes to supporting an arts community,” says Lee, who also serves as director of academic affairs and associate curator of special projects at the Cleveland Museum of Art. “She seemed really smart about thinking about programming, thinking about our local community but as part of a national and international community.” One issue at the forefront for SPACES is how to engage more with the local community while also inviting in and commissioning work from artists from all over. With Baldenebro’s leadership, an aim is to bring Cleveland into
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With bins painted by Cleveland artists Antwoine Washington, James Quarles and Davon Brantley, SPACES and the Tamir Rice Foundation collect donated art supplies for a series of healing-centric art workshops for incarcerated youth in the Cuyahoga County Detention Center. This bin is located outside of SPACES in Cleveland’s Hingetown neighborhood, as one of the initiatives SPACES has to support the local community and its artistic endeavors. | Photo / Canvas / Amanda Koehn
the conversation with artists who work with SPACES or participate in one of its residencies, Lee says. It also means directly supporting Cleveland artists and in turn helping them find value in what SPACES offers from around the world. “How do we better have artists that look like folks from Cleveland?” Lee asks. “How do we have more and better conversations with our local arts community? How do we expand SPACES feeling welcome to everyone?” INVITING MORE PEOPLE IN One challenge in taking over SPACES during the pandemic was making sure people who used to frequent the gallery didn’t forget about it during a year of quarantining. Another goal was making SPACES more inviting for those who maybe hadn’t felt welcome or didn’t know about the gallery before – a major ambition of Baldenebro’s. Bilingual in English and Spanish herself, she says language is one important barrier to entry that needed to be addressed. With the support from the Minority Arts and Education Fund of the Cleveland Foundation, SPACES translated its programming guides into Spanish. “I know that the two largest growing populations in
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Cleveland are Latinx and Arab American, and so thinking about how you encourage those communities to connect with arts like in the general arts way also involves making sure they are represented both in the galleries, but also in language,” she explains, adding translators are also being sought to translate guides into Arabic, and she hopes to expand to Mandarin in the future. In engaging new audiences, representation matters. To engage more artists from underrepresented communities means offering support for artists’ families, as well as rethinking how the gallery handles members’ and juried shows to make them more equitable, Lee says. “I think part of what we have to do as an arts space and as a space that’s meant to be a think tank, is think about the critiques and criticisms that we receive and have conversations about that,” Lee says. “So I think that in some ways, it’s about saying, if we are going to actually change, or if this is something that we need to address, then what’s at the root?” One such question the organization received was in respect to a recent members’ show about the representation of Black and brown artists, Lee says. A juror for the show stepped down due to the lack of artists of color, leading SPACES to further consider its historical identity and connections, Baldenebro says. She adds, “I think for us it was less about that specific instance, and more about the sort of overall structure of what barriers exist that would prohibit artists of color from wanting to engage in really thoughtful ways.” The organization is having its strategic plan reviewed by an external consultant and at the forefront for the organization and the evaluation is breaking down remaining barriers to inclusion and listening when the community speaks out. As part of this, the board participated in “fairly extensive programming” in regard to “ways that we support communities of color, work with communities of color and what our board looks like and the values it reflects,” Baldenebro explains. Two new board members, Dolores Garcia Prignitz and Gulnar Feerasta, were also added to the board this past spring. Lee says that the programming “led us to think differently about how it is that we open up membership, how do we remove our economic barriers, how do we remove perceived barriers to entry in other ways? We assume a comfort with a white box gallery space, but how do we actually make those spaces feel more comfortable?” UP NEXT This August and into October, SPACES has exhibitions planned in a range of mediums, featuring both local artists and those visiting for residencies. Baldenebro highlights Virginia-based artist Nastassja Swift, who is doing a SPACES residency and works in fiber, audio, performance and film. Her exhibition opens Aug. 20. “There are very few times in an artist’s career where they actually get to devise an entire exhibition, and so really providing the resources and the opportunities for that is what we are aspiring to,” Baldenebro says. “Of course that makes fundraising a little difficult because you are always applying for grants and you are like, ‘I don’t know what it’s going to be.’” Lee says she’s especially intrigued by an upcoming installation of the Black Art Library created by independent curator Asmaa Walton as a living archive of Black creativity. With programming in partnership with the Museum of
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MALTZ MUSEUM OF JEWISH HERITAGE ANNOUNCES THE SPECIAL EXHIBITION, STORIES OF SURVIVAL, LAUNCHING OCTOBER 2021
When youʼve lost everything, a single object can take on extraordinary meaning Stories of Survival: Object. Image. Memory. is a landmark exhibit that showcases more than 60 never-before-seen personal items brought to America by Survivors of the Holocaust and genocide. Each artifact is dramatically showcased alongside oversized photographs by renowned documentarian Jim Lommasson with handwritten responses by Survivors or their family members. The objects are as everyday as a baby doll and a black suitcase and as symbolic as a young mother’s cookbook and a wedding announcement—saved by local Survivors from genocides around the world, including Armenia, Bosnia, Cambodia, Iraq, Rwanda, South Sudan, and Syria. The objects are a reflection of their owners’ journeys and family histories. And though the objects and memories start from very different origins, from Germany to Belgium to Armenia to Syria, common threads bind them all together. These are the threads that bind us all, the common story of moving to a new land, building a new life, yet holding on to the past. We are all connected to these stories; we have them in our own families. They are the commonality of an immigrant experience, an American experience. Stories of Survival: Object. Image. Memory. is a project of Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center with photography by Jim Lommasson. The special exhibition will open to the public on Wednesday, October 27, 2021 at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage (2929 Richmond Road in Beachwood). In celebration of opening week, tickets will be available at a reduced price of only $5 for general admission (museum members are always free) from Wednesday, October 27 to Sunday, October 31. Visitors will be able to explore the exhibition one of two ways: • Online via virtual tour • In-person at the museum Docent-led drop-in tours will be offered every Sunday and Wednesday at 2 p.m., November through February. Coordinating public programs will also be offered online and in-person, and include a variety of series, such as: • The Holocaust Speaker Series, presented for free in partnership with the Holocaust & Humanities Center in Cincinnati. First, second, and third generation
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Ursula Meyer’s Childhood teddy bear retrieved after surviving the Holocaust in Theresienstadt. Many family items had been saved by neighbors, including the bear, which Max and Ursula Meyer then retrieved after returning to Bremen, Germany in 1945. Holocaust survivors tell their stories over Zoom. Get close to history. • Documentary Film Series on Genocide, presented in partnership with Classrooms Without Borders. Watch award-winning documentary films each month at home. Then, join together for talk-backs with subject matter experts discussing stories of genocide in Armenia, Cambodia, Rwanda, and Syria. • Becoming American, a series that investigates what it means to become an American as a refugee or immigrant. Interactive storytelling workshops and lectures on themes of identity, assimilation, and the American Dream.
For more information or to purchase tickets, call 216-593-0575 or visit maltzmuseum.org Fall 2021 | Canvas | 3
Work by Nafis M. White was on view at SPACES during Canvas’ visit this summer. Her work, made from synthetic hair, honors Black hairstyling techniques and was shown during her recent SPACES artist-in-residency. | Photo / Amanda Koehn
Contemporary Art in Cleveland and the show hosted jointly with Cleveland Heights-based artist Davon Brantley, it aims to invite people to learn about Black arts in a new way. Also on Baldenebro’s radar is FRONT International 2022, the Cleveland contemporary arts triennial that debuted in 2018. Specifically, she’s interested in how local artists respond to the opportunities it presents and how SPACES may be able to help them. “It’s thinking about how we can sort of motivate local artists to collectivize and create these kinds of really cool sort of side experiences to really reflect the ethos of the city, which I think is very DIY, very industrious,” she says. “... Just encouraging artists to be renegades and just do the cool things.” Generally, Baldenebro says the organization seeks both art that is challenging and speaks to contemporary issues, but also which pushes Clevelanders to be more engaged in the art scene. It should also address “the function of art in general – really to seduce people into moving forward.” As a gallery that addresses hard-hitting, current issues, a question to consider is how to balance art that’s both cutting edge and accessible to visitors. “The onus really becomes on the institution to really hone in on (education) and the didactics and ensure those are accessible and legible in ways that are instructive, as opposed to sort of assumptive,” Baldenebro says. “You know like, if it is a very challenging installation, that’s not necessarily legible, we can work with the artists to really create text that helps shape and foster understanding. But there are other situations
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where the art was meant for a very specific group of people and you don’t want to over explain that. You don’t want to be so cavalier as to reveal everything.” She describes a recent exhibit by artist-in-residence Nafis M. White, who crafted artwork honoring Black hairstyling techniques. In fact, SPACES has a solid theme this year of featuring artists and work revolving around Black hair. Those who have it and who most connect with the exhibit don’t need its significance spelled out. “A lot of those things resonate with a Black community that doesn’t need to be over explained to,” Baldenebro says. “... I think there’s something we can all walk away with regardless of our race or ethnicity, but I do think that certain elements are speaking specifically to an audience. And that’s OK, that’s a good thing.”
ON VIEW
For more information on SPACES exhibitions, visit spacescle.org/exhibitions. • “Blue/Black/Baby Smiles, Singin’ To An Old River – We Hear You Coming” show of SPACES artist-in-residence Nastassja Swift is on view through Oct. 15. • “Art History,” a joint show with Black Art Library and Davon Brantley, is on view at SPACES through Oct. 15, with programming in partnership with moCa Cleveland. • “The Riptide,” a visual short story by multimedia artist Nazanin Noroozi, is on view at SPACES through Oct. 15.
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BACK FROM INTERMISSION Stage lights are shining on local theaters’ transition back to in-person performances. But are some changes here to stay? By McKenna Corson For over a year, a dark storm cloud encapsulated Earth. This raging tempest of COVID-19 kept people in their homes, away from others. Industries reliant on in-person experiences had no choice but to adapt to this new dependency on the internet. Greater Cleveland’s theater companies, like Playhouse Square, Cleveland Public Theatre and 2nd Act Ohio, all in Cleveland, and Beck Center for the Arts in Lakewood, sought creative alternatives to transform their live, on-stage productions into equally engaging virtual renditions. The COVID-19 blight has now calmed slightly due to the brute forces of vaccinations and safety protocols. Greater Cleveland’s theaters finally have the opportunity to return to center stage once again, with some key safety alterations. However, those whose livelihoods are in theater cannot help but question if their return beneath multicolored lights will be met with ongoing, raucous applause, or if the virus’ acidic precipitation leached deeper into pre-pandemic’s “normal” than supposed. “Our viewpoint is that art is essential, and that we have a mission for our community that we need to deliver on,” says Raymond Bobgan, executive artistic director of Cleveland Public Theatre. To local theaters, this highly anticipated transition to in-person, live performance carries positives and caveats. But as the mantra in theater goes, the show must go on. BREAKING THE DIGITAL MOLD Even though many local theater companies found success with their digital content, the dream of returning to in-person
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performances remained tenacious. It was on St. Patrick’s Day this year that Playhouse Square threw a curve ball into the local theater scene. Cleveland’s largest theater company announced “The Choir of Man” would come to town June 11 to perform a large-scale, in-person production – the first since the industry closed its doors in mid-March 2020. “The way for us to break loose of the darkness was to make that bold decision that we were going to move ahead, even though there was no way to predict that was going to be possible,” says Gina Vernaci, CEO and president of Playhouse Square. “Within the bounds of safety, we were going to do everything in our power to see how we could make that happen.” Months later, CPT and Beck Center announced their returns to in-person performances. CPT made its live, on-stage homecoming with “Panther Women: An Army for the Liberation,” on July 1, and the Beck Center with “This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing” on July 23. “We wanted to produce something that was just a one-person show and that we had all our safety protocols in place,” says Beck Center’s artistic director Scott Spence, who explains that Beck Center had to receive permission from its union, Actors’ Equity Association, before it could commence in-person shows. “It really paves the way for us to go into our next season.” Actors’ Equity required every member of Beck Center’s team – actors, directors, stage managers, designers, crew members and orchestra members – to receive the COVID-19 vaccine for the center to resume in-person shows.
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Buyi Zama performs as Rafiki in “Disney’s The Lion King.” Playhouse Square will host “The Lion King” from Oct. 1-15. | Photo / Deen van Meer The idea for CPT’s return came about when the theater company had rented tents to host its series of educational programs outdoors. Seeing the tents inspired the staff to do a summer season, despite being atypical and not having special funding. CPT opted for a gentle return to in-person audiences, performing workshop versions instead of full-scale productions with large sets, costumes and props. “Panther Women” was performed on CPT’s campus under a tent and also at the Cleveland Cultural Gardens’ Rockefeller Park on a brandnew stage that was built at the beginning of COVID-19. “It’s an opportunity for artists to get their sea legs, for audiences to be together, to see work that’s in development,” Bobgan says. 2nd Act – an organization in which actors in recovery, staff and volunteers raise awareness about addiction and recovery through dramatic performances and theater workshops – will make its physical return to performances at schools and other organizations Nov. 1. The company’s Ohio regional director Karen Snyder says until its grand return, 2nd Act will use the time to take a creative hibernation, workshop scripts, undergo rehearsals and perform three virtual shows. Snyder hopes for a future filled with in-person shows that rival performances prior to the pandemic by 2nd Act, formerly known as Improbable Players before merging with another organization under the new name 2nd Act this summer. “Being back in person for all of the actors is going to provide a lot of healing and much needed in-person connection,” Snyder says.
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REDEFINING NORMALCY With companies sweeping the dust from their stages, theater goers will sit in front rows again instead of watching productions confined to a television or computer screen. But fans shouldn’t expect the exact same theater experience they were accustomed to before the pandemic. Some might not even be ready to make their theater homecomings with the virus still in the air. “I think people are going to come back; some might have trepidation, and some will not,” Bobgan says. “But I think it’s going to normalize really, really quickly. It’s what we do as people: we come together, we share our stories and we reflect on who we are.” One big question Greater Cleveland’s theaters have had to ask is if audience members are now adjusted to the shorter show lengths the theaters did virtually. Playhouse Square’s “The Choir of Man,” is 90 minutes without
an intermission, which Vernaci says is “perfect because it’s an easy night at the theater.” However, she doesn’t see a future of shorter plays written without an intermission, as she believes audiences miss every aspect of observing live theater. “In our business, you can’t sing faster or play the music faster to gain efficiencies, and you aren’t going to skip Act Two in order to accommodate that,” Vernaci says. “The audience experience is one where it’s a shared social experience. That’s why you come together.” Another key question theaters have had to ask is if their virtual offerings should continue alongside in-person shows. At the forefront of Beck Center’s decision regarding digital programming is that children under 12 are currently unable to receive the vaccine. Spence says while theatrical productions probably won’t see virtual iterations endlessly into the future, its education classes and camps could continue online versions until at least the fall. “We’ll be ready to pivot if something necessitates that,” Spence says. “... Every day brings up a new question about how we should move forward.” Playhouse Square and CPT echo Beck Center’s decision against doing a majority of online programming, aside from possibly doing some virtual education courses for children and families. 2nd Act, however, will continue virtual shows into the future. Snyder says the theater company will meet school or organizations’ requirements when it comes to safety protocols, being that many of 2nd Act’s shows preCOVID-19 were done for 100 to 1,000 students gathered in auditoriums.
Nick Koesters, an alum of Beck Center for the Arts and member of Virginia’s Barter Theatre, rehearses for Beck Center for the Arts’ first virtual production, “Fully Committed,” a one-person comedy by Becky Mode. | Photo / Beck Center for the Arts
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Ensemble members perform the workshop performance of Cleveland Public Theatre’s “Panther Women: An Army for the Liberation” by India Nicole Burton. | Photo / Steve Wagner. “As a touring theater company, our space is dependent on the clients who book us,” Snyder says. “Depending on what the restrictions are, we’re aware that the audience sizes could be smaller. I don’t think that the size necessarily is going to affect the performers.” UNEXPECTED POSITIVES The pandemic’s impact on theater has been disastrous. But it’s in moments of uncontrollable hardship that Greater Cleveland’s theaters have no choice but to think optimistically and find ways to adapt. At Playhouse Square, Vernaci says this transition period – where the company isn’t seating its fully capacity at its theaters – is prime time to test new things, like digital ticketing and digital playbills. And while Playhouse Square turned to online content during the pandemic, it served over 95,000 students throughout Northeast Ohio – a feat the theater company had never achieved before. “Our approach is that it’s not like, this is the hand that was dealt to us,” Vernaci says. “This is the hand we were waiting for because look at all this that we now need to do, and can do.” Snyder says the pandemic’s break allowed 2nd Act to receive more reactions and discover what its audience wants to see. Among the most important feedback Ohio’s 2nd Act chapter received was from the Cleveland Metropolitan School JOAN DIDION’S featuring
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AN UNCLEAR FUTURE Greater Cleveland’s theaters will continue their in-person transition from the COVID-19 pandemic as safely as possible, the leaders say. It was while seeing people enter the Mimi Ohio Theatre for “The Choir of Man” that Vernaci remembered how theater runs deeper than onstage productions. “We as human beings are meant to gather; you can see it in the eyes of the audience who is coming to see ‘The Choir of Man,’” Vernaci says. “... You just feel like coming to the theater is the most normal thing we’ve done in a year and a half.” Spence looks back with gratitude to have made it to the other side. He acknowledges that many theaters, restaurants and small businesses didn’t receive the same governmental funding and arts advocacy support that helped pull Beck Center out of COVID-19’s drowning rip current. “We’ve learned that despite an international crisis, people still need the arts in their lives,” Spence says. “We’re all definitely leaning into next year with our eyes and ears open, because none of us are quite sure how all of this will work moving forward. But our glasses are half full.”
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District, after the theater company did a number of virtual performances primarily centered around alcohol use. CMSD students informed 2nd Act that they were actually seeing more drug use either in their homes or in the community. The students’ responses perfectly coupled with 2nd Act’s joining with Rhode Island nonprofit theater company, Creating Outreach About Addiction Support Together, effective July 1. Through the merger, 2nd Act acquired from COAAST a family drama targeting opioids that Snyder says “is going to be more relevant and powerful to our audiences.”
To stay up to date with these and all Northeast Ohio theaters preparing for and transitioning to returning to the stage, visit canvascle.com. Receive biweekly news and events in Canvas’ free e-newsletter by subscribing at canvascle.com/signup.
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In the celebration of our fifth anniversary, this unique Gallery features a collection of high quality Ohio artisan work in a beautiful and spacious setting. With special activities throughout the day and a spectacular evening filled with festivities and feasts for the body and soul. You won’t want to miss this! For more information on the Gallery, its Artists, and Events, please visit www.artisanscornergallery.com, or of course, please feel free to stop by in person Tuesdays through Saturdays during the hours of 10:00 am until 4:00 pm or by appointment.
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sk William Morgan to interpret his spoken words into American Sign Language, and there’s a hesitation. While ASL and English are related, they don’t share a common sentence structure. A direct translation of either language won’t quite make sense. “In English you say, ‘What’s your name?’ In ASL, you say, ‘Your name what?’” explains Morgan, artistic manager of SignStage, a program of the Cleveland Hearing & Speech Center in the University Circle neighborhood of Cleveland that engages deaf, hard of hearing and hearing students in acting as a form of communication and expression. “It becomes a little more signed English.” In fact, Morgan says, there’s an expression that refers to signing and speaking English at the same time by a single speaker. It’s called simultaneous communication. The sign in ASL for sim-com is an “S” formed with the right hand enclosing the left hand’s “C.” The sign appears to be a bit of a visual entanglement – perhaps because sim-com is an imperfect form of communication. It challenges the speaker to think simultaneously in two quite different languages. These inherent complexities in theatrical productions with both deaf and hearing casts, crews and audiences may contribute to the sense of closeness and shared ingenuity at SignStage as they close the gap between the hearing and deaf communities, producing shows that attract both. Back after a pandemic hiatus, the group is preparing its next production starring both deaf and
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Jaison Anderson and Erin LaFountain work on choreography for “Dancing Hands Jukebox.” hearing actors. At SignStage, each actor’s spoken lines are signed by an interpreter; likewise each actor’s signs are voiced by a different speaker. Through his work at SignStage, Morgan says he hopes to create “really strong bonds between deaf and hearing people.” Those bonds take hold in an environment that values each person’s contributions to the fabric of the production and where, taking a cue from deaf culture, honest communication is honored.
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Cast members of “Dancing Hands Jukebox” rehearse their routine for “Walking on Sunshine.” HISTORY OF PERFORMING, EDUCATING SignStage’s mission, according to its website, is to create programs and performances that promote awareness and demonstrate the value of cultural diversity between deaf and hearing communities. SignStage performs and holds theatrical residencies at schools and provides workshops in gesture communication skills and theater-based education programming incorporating ASL. In July, SignStage players were in rehearsal for “Dancing Hands Jukebox,” an anthology of songs, scenes and playlets of both previously performed and newly written original material. For example, it will feature a scene from “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” which SignStage put on in 2019, as well as dance routines and songs. At the first rehearsal, about a dozen actors – both deaf and hearing people of all ages – gathered to hear a synopsis of the show and begin rehearsing what’s likely to be a show-stopping and humorous take on Katrina & The Waves’ recording of “Walking on Sunshine.” Two of the cast switch off to interpret for Morgan, who is hearing, as he directs the cast. There is a great deal of smiling and chuckling during the rehearsal as Morgan gestures broadly to convey the story, mood and vibe he hopes to create in this piece of the show, in which actors play nursing home residents startled awake by the music who begin to line dance. They then break out into improvisational dances, solo or together, and then fall back into a stupor. SignStage began in 1975 as Fairmount Theatre of the Deaf at the Coventry Village Branch of Heights Libraries in Cleveland Heights. Founded by Brian Kilpatrick, a deaf actor, and Chas St. Clair, the troupe staged plays and interpreted them in ASL. In 1979, the company moved to the Cleveland Play House.
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Under the name Cleveland Sign Stage Theatre, there were performances at the Brooks and Studio theaters. At that venue, the program won four local Emmy Awards and two Cleveland Critics’ Circle Awards. After falling on difficult financial straits in 2000, Morgan, who was then artistic director, worked with trustees at Cleveland Hearing & Speech Center to bring SignStage under its auspices. That transition came to fruition in 2007. One recent and successful show was “The Ugly Duckling Doesn’t Quack,” which went on national tour and then was staged in Chagrin Falls in 2018. Based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale, Morgan added a new dimension to the main character: deafness. That alteration allowed SignStage to educate its audiences about how a deaf child learns to speak. PERSONAL EXPERIENCE When Jaison Anderson learned he landed the lead role in SignStage’s production of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” in 2019, he was surprised and nervous. The Maple Heights resident has hearing loss and had never acted before he auditioned for the show. A friend who is an interpreter suggested he try out. “Honestly, I liked everything about it: the cast, how it was arranged, and everything was fun,” says Anderson, who now teaches ASL at Oberlin City Schools. “I mean, we worked hard. We worked together. The group was amazing – amazing people, and we all put our ideas together.” Anderson says in rehearsals he learned to sign more broadly than he does in communicating one on one in order to get his message out, in much the same way a hearing actor needs to project. He also learned to face the front of the stage to be seen. “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” as it turns out, was one of SignStage’s most popular recent productions.
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William Morgan, artistic manager of SignStage, front right, leads the cast in rehearsal. “It was almost magical in a good way,” Morgan says. “These actors, they put it together.” The camaraderie and shared creativity Anderson found at SignStage are two of the intangibles Morgan hopes to foster as deaf and hearing communities bridge the sound barrier. Morgan says one of the surprises in landing his first role in deaf theater in 1997 was how “blunt” people are in the deaf community. If he put on weight, he says, he might be told, “Wow, you got fat.” Members of the deaf and signing community often have a natural facility for acting because ASL depends on facial expression as an integral part of the language, he says. “They have a real connection to the deep, deep emotion,” Morgan says. “They’ve got the expressions easily. You don’t have to show them or even ask them, and they recreate it.” ‘HIGHER LEVEL’ OF COMMUNICATION Like most theater companies across the country, SignStage took a hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ramping back up for the first time in July since the pandemic took hold has been challenging for Morgan. The theater where he hoped to stage SignStage’s next production has decided not to reopen just yet. So, Morgan has improvised and will offer the next production, “Dancing Hands Jukebox” by videotape. Julianne Kuchcinski and her son Matthew Kuchcinski, 16, travel from Twinsburg to be part of the production. Both are veteran actors of SignStage. In “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” Matthew played Augustus Gloop. A hearing actor, he signed the role. His mother, who is also hearing, voiced the part for him. The two practiced signing daily during that rehearsal process
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and in the car on their way to rehearsals. “I started learning sign language right out of high school,” Julianne Kuchcinski says. “I’ve done it for many years. Never knew why, I just did it for fun. And it wasn’t until I found the audition notice for ‘The Ugly Duckling’ that I thought, ‘Now I know why.’ It’s just an awesome community of people. Every show has been just amazing. … You’ve got the people who are completely deaf and the people who know very little sign language, and yet we can get along, and we can communicate to the best of our ability, and it’s just an awesome family experience.” She says she enjoys working with Morgan because he’s supportive. “He’s very animated,” she says. “When he’s showing you what he wants, he’s like doing it right there, and it gives you a good role model to follow. And yet, he’ll let you put your own little touch to it.” Morgan hopes audiences note the beauty of signing as they take in the show. “You see things you’ve never heard at a SignStage production,” he says. With its rich emotional content, Morgan has great respect for the language of ASL as well as for the deaf community. He is also aware that what he’s doing is, in a way, sacred work. “It’s almost like you’re lifted up to a higher level in communicating,” he says.
To view a video with this story, visit canvascle.com/signstage
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A Neil Simon classic with humor, heart, and a very dysfunctional family... SEP 10 – OCT 3 TICKETS: beckcenter.org
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The state of the arts critic As theaters and local entertainment resume, what kind of press will they be met with? AJ Abelman Photography
By Bob Abelman
I
t is safe to say William Shakespeare had no critics in the late 1500s and early 1600s. Sure, there were supporters, sponsors, detractors and promoters, but there were no professional theater critics scuttling out of the Globe to meet a deadline for the morning edition. Newspapers and a large, literate audience to read them did not surface in earnest until the late 1700s. And even then, those who chose the theater as a profession – as artists and critics – were not deemed particularly newsworthy. In London, theater critic was an occupation pursued only by what has been described in one historical text as “managerial toadies who were puffing their own wares, opportunistic knockers (or) unclassified eccentrics.” In the United States at that time, theater criticism was described as “fly-by-night news-sheets and scurrilous pamphlets popping up everywhere, mingling blind-item theatrical gossip with detailed analysis, often willfully and malevolently inaccurate, of plays and performances.” As a Cleveland critic myself for the past 20 years, I know first-hand that this perception of the profession has changed very little. THE RISE OF MODERN CRITICISM Western arts journalism evolved largely in the coffee houses of London and saloons of the United States in the aftermath of the industrial revolution in the mid-1800s. The growth of cities, rail transportation and leisure time by an increasingly large privileged class gave way to the development and support of arts institutions and museums. And the growth of newspapers and magazines led to the well-educated and highly opinionated arts journalists they employed. “Comprehension without critical evaluation is impossible,” said Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, an 18th and 19th century philosopher.
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Also, arts criticism grew exponentially when artists began to make works that were not sponsored by the church or state, whose commissions demanded ideological and often stylistic conformity. Artists had become freelance freespirited producers for a market that was not always there. Finding, informing and intriguing a market required objective evaluation from a credible source, which reinforced and bolstered the role of the critic. THE ROLE OF THE CRITIC “We read critics for the perceptions, for what they tell us that we didn’t fully grasp when we saw the work,” noted Pauline Kael, the late film critic who wrote for The New Yorker. Andrew Sullivan, former editor of The New Republic and columnist for The Sunday Times in London, suggested that “Many readers were bemused by Marcel Proust and James Joyce until (American literary critic) Edmund Wilson wrote about them. When Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting For Godot’ opened, the audience was puzzled until (English drama critic) Harold Hobson’s famous review came out. ... If they had not been there, our artistic world – our inner lives – would have been more anemic.” Without the “consciousness that only a critical infrastructure can supply,” wrote American novelist and essayist Cynthia Ozick in an article in Harper’s Magazine, “readers and writers are doomed to talk at cross-purposes, or at random; it takes a corps of influential critics to unite individual reactions into a common discussion. Indeed, superior criticism not only unifies and interprets a literary culture but has the power to imagine it into being.” And so, over time, the critic has earned a certain sovereignty over art history, or at least great influence in creating the canon of art by naming modern movements and their influential artists, and evaluating their works. In the early 20th century, the professional arts critics’ opinions were revered and often feared by their respective industries. They not only helped inform audience opinions, they also dictated sales, kept the
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arts the topic of discussion, and – for critics the likes of George Bernard Shaw (theater), Clement Greenberg (fine art), H.T. Parker (music), Carl Van Vechten (dance), James Agee (film) and Northrop Frye (literature) — shaped the arts themselves. “At best, the critic is an artist whose point of departure is another artist’s work,” wrote the late theater critic Harold Clurman. Just a few decades ago, in the most arts-centric cities in the country with access to the most powerful publications in the world, critics were an elite corps of taste-makers, culture shapers and standard bearers. In 1973, Newsweek ran a special issue on “The Arts in America” and writer Arthur Cooper heralded in “the era of the critic as superstar.” Critics often molded the arts by pushing artists to raise the bar on the quality of their work or the amount of creative risk being taken. Of course, sometimes the artists pushed back. PUSHBACK In Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot,” it is no coincidence that he makes the profession of critic the most grievous insult among the many exchanged between the two main characters in his avantgarde play. Similar slights have appeared in many other works, including Ken Ludwig’s 2011 whodunit comedy “The Game’s Afoot,” where a theater critic is stabbed to death in the opening act, and in M. Night Shyamalan’s 2006 film “Lady in the Water,” where a film critic is unceremoniously eaten by evil forces. In the same year as that Newsweek special issue, in a New York City restaurant, actress Sylvia Miles dumped a plateful of food on New York magazine critic John Simon’s head after he wrote unflattering comments in his review of her off-Broadway performance in “Nellie Toole and Co.” Simon, ever the stickler for minute details, wrote that the plate consisted of a fine pâté, steak tartare, brie and a mediocre potato salad. Cleveland has not been exempt from such bad behavior, even though the market is smaller than New York and the critics are less powerful. In 2006, then-theater critic Tony Brown wrote a negative review of the Cleveland Play House’s production of “Rabbit Hole” for the city’s only and the state’s largest daily newspaper, The Plain Dealer. During a nasty curtain speech at a subsequent production, then-artistic director Michael Bloom called out the critic in the crowd. When Bloom walked out of the theater after the speech, Brown was close behind. The two met in the lobby and the artistic director took a swipe at the critic but missed, much to the chagrin of the season ticket holders who were hoping for a better fight. “If Attila the Hun were alive today, he’d be a drama critic,” said playwright Edward Albee. THE DISAPPEARING CRITIC Print journalism has been in a state of crisis and decline over the past 15 years, reeling from a digital revolution that has seen decreased subscriptions, diminished advertising and which spearheaded the move to less profitable online platforms. The New Yorker reported that more than one in five newspapers in the United States have shuttered, and the number of journalists working for papers has been cut in half. As collateral damage, the ranks of the arts critic has similarly dwindled. The roll call of the fallen reads like a high profile who’s who, including the chief film critic and longtime theater critic at Variety, two veteran film critics at Newsday and The Village Voice’s full-time film critic, who was laid off before the storied New York alt-weekly eventually shut down in 2018 after a 63-year run (it returned online and in print
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“La promenade du Critique influent” (“The Promenade of the Influential Critic”) by French lithographer Honoré Daumier from Le Charivari magazine, June 24, 1865. Reprinted with permission from Bob Abelman and Cheryl Kushner’s “Refereeing the Muses” (Peter Lang Publishing, 2013), and via open access through the National Gallery of Art. quarterly this year). Ruth Reichl was one of the last towering food critics until her magazine, Gourmet, folded. Steven Leigh Morris, the longtime theater editor and critic at the LA Weekly, survived six rounds of layoffs before he was let go and his position eliminated. Literary critics and classical music critics fell by the wayside when McClatchy, the third-largest newspaper chain in the country, cut 10% of its workforce. In the last decade, longtime TV critics at major-market dailies – including the Dallas Morning News, Seattle-Post Intelligencer, New York’s Daily News and the Houston Chronicle – had been either let go or reassigned. New ownership by ever more extractive, cost-cutting private equity firms and hedge funds no doubt added to the casualty list. As the Chicago Tribune’s Lori Waxman noted in her recent op-ed “Where Have All the Arts Critics Gone?” – “when money is tight, arts coverage is often the first to go.” In Cleveland, Scene Magazine senior writer Sam Allard observed that “The Plain Dealer/Cleveland.com is utterly devoid of cultural criticism” after the latest series of layoffs of arts journalists in April 2020, including the movie, TV, book, theater, dance and dining critic. “The classical music writer is now freelance,” adds Allard. “There is no comedy columnist or humorist, no nightlife columnist, no gossip columnist, no ‘minister of culture.’ There is no pop music critic.” Scene’s arts and entertainment coverage has also constricted dramatically, particularly during COVID-19. The music editor, Jeff Niesel, who reviewed concerts, interviewed local bands and touring acts, and assembled the weekly concert listings, was among those laid off in the pandemic’s wake. And much of Allard’s resource-intensive feature reporting and investigative work, which includes film criticism, has been reverted to daily blogging responsibilities. “Arts criticism,” he says, “is only valuable when it’s
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thoughtful, which tends not to fit into this equation.” “The tragedy isn’t just that knowledgeable, experienced, caring voices on the arts are being jettisoned wholesale,” says Mark Dawidziak, former TV critic at the Plain Dealer, “but that they are being tossed aside at a time when their voices are most needed.” CRITICISM AMIDST COVID-19 Since the closing of arts venues due to COVID-19 beginning in March 2020, it’s been estimated that, nationwide, almost 1.4 million performing arts related jobs and $42.5 billion in sales have been lost. The arts scene in London between 1603 and 1613 suffered similar devastation when festivals and playhouses were shut down for a total of 78 months – more than 60% of the time – because of recurring bubonic plague outbreaks. When theatergoers reluctantly returned, they found that the quarantined Shakespeare had written “Measure for Measure” and put the finishing touches on “King Lear,” “Macbeth,” and “Antony and Cleopatra.” Only now are some Cleveland theaters, galleries, halls and museums reopening for business, and audiences – like their Elizabethan counterparts – are finding revised performance seasons that include original and innovative works created during quarantine and reflective of their recent struggles to survive. But audiences are still hesitant to return to indoor venues, citing health concerns as the overriding factor. “I worry that without numerous, diverse voices writing about and bringing greater visibility to the arts, it will make the work of professional theaters to bounce back and thrive considerably more difficult in the years to come,” says Nathan Motta, artistic director at Dobama Theatre in Cleveland Heights. In light of the past 15 months and their devastating impact on the arts, perhaps arts critics still employed and with access to
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sizable audiences will find their writing to be more personal, more empathetic, and less adversarial. Perhaps it will be a while before we see our next negative review. Not according to some of our area’s most high-profile working critics – specifically the News-Herald’s Mark Meszoros, the Akron Beacon Journal’s Kerry Clawson and Scene’s Christine Howey. Some, myself and Clawson included, feel an obligation to chronicle how arts organizations have adapted to connect with audiences during the pandemic and call attention to the financial challenges they’ve faced. But few feel particularly compelled to overtly advocate for the arts as we begin to review, believing that audiences will return when they are psychologically and financially ready to do so. “I certainly want to see the Northeast Ohio arts scene thrive,” notes Meszoros, “but my primary obligation is to my readers.” And fewer still feel the need to adjust our critical expectations and evaluations based on a “pandemic curve” – that is, the financial struggles of the past 15 months, the difficult rehearsal protocols and the decreased budgets. Says Howey, “I owe the theaters and all the creative people involved my honesty, and that’s what I attempt to provide.” Playwright Oscar Wilde once warned an age without criticism is “an age that possesses no art at all.” He never could have imagined an age when the arts are eager for resurgence, but there are few critical voices to herald their return.
STAGE LISTINGS BECK CENTER FOR THE ARTS 17801 Detroit Ave., Lakewood P: 216-521-2540 : beckcenter.org Beck Center for the Arts in Lakewood is thrilled to produce Neil Simon’s classic comedy “Broadway Bound,” featuring venerable stage and screen actor, Austin Pendleton. Season tickets for the entire 202122 Professional Theater Season are on sale now. Single tickets are on sale at 216-521-2540 ext. 10 and beckcenter.org/professional-theater. 2021-22 Season • Sept. 10 to Oct. 3, 2021: “Broadway Bound” • Oct. 8 to Nov. 7, 2021: “The Exonerated” • Dec. 3 to Jan. 2, 2022: “Elf The Musical” • Feb. 4-27, 2022: “LIZZIE The Musical” • April 1 to May 1, 2022: “Meteor Shower” • May 27 to June 26, 2022: “The Legend of Georgia McBride” • July 8 to Aug. 7, 2022: “Something Rotten!” CESEAR’S FORUM
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2796 Tinkers Lane, Twinsburg Kennedy’s, Playhouse Square, 1501 Euclid Ave., Cleveland P: 330-405-3045 : cesearsforum.com Cesear’s Forum will present Joan Didion’s “The Year Of Magical Thinking,” featuring Julia Kolibab. Following the loss of her husband and daughter, the work about coping, in this time of pandemic, is distinctly resonant. Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Nov. 5 through Dec. 11, with two Sunday performances at Playhouse Square. 2021-22 Season • Nov. 5 to Dec. 11: “The Year of Magical Thinking”
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CURATOR CORNER “Cleveland Renaissance Visitors” by Anthony Eterovich
By Amanda Koehn
A
contemporary reference to the Renaissance era, vivid color and an ode to local landmarks all come together in Anthony Eterovich’s “Cleveland Renaissance Visitors.” While viewers may be able to easily picture themselves at the location depicted in downtown Cleveland, there’s an obvious historic and out-of-place aspect of the painting that offers a witty perspective on both the artistic era and historic hotel that share a name. Eterovich (1916-2011), a Cleveland artist whose work spanned several styles over his career, was known for his magical Nicholis Coon realism – incorporating both realistic and fantasy elements, which are captured in “Cleveland Renaissance Visitors.” On view at the Massillon Museum through Sept. 26 as part of “A Thrilling Act: The Artwork of Anthony Eterovich” exhibition, the museum’s executive director Alexandra Nicholis Coon shared her interpretation of the painting and how it fits into the local artist’s repertoire and history. CANVAS: What makes this piece noteworthy? What stands out to you and what should viewers note when they see it? NICHOLIS COON: This painting combines multiple elements that characterized Eterovich’s artwork and exploration of media and styles over the course of his long and accomplished career. The scenery and landmark building reflect his love of Cleveland, where he called home all his life. The photorealistic treatment is in sharp contrast to abstracted artwork from his earlier periods, which are also included in the exhibition to illustrate both his versatility and ability to seek inspiration in every facet of life. A hallmark of Eterovich’s paintings is his sense of humor and marriage of seemingly disparate elements. For example, in this painting, we see landmarks familiar to Northeast Ohioans as belonging to Public Square. The Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument sits to the left, adjacent to the historic Renaissance Cleveland Hotel. Passersby at the bottom left are contemporary to the period during which Eterovich painted this, while another figure is anachronistic to the scene. A man in the foreground at bottom right seems to be a literal manifestation of the painting’s title, pulled from the Renaissance era and deposited into the painting as though through a time machine. This subtle device is a common thread throughout the exhibition and keeps viewers looking for additional clues and ways to engage with the artist’s diverse interests. It may also be a nod to Eterovich’s love of theater and literature. CANVAS: What is notable about the process or medium the artist used? NICHOLIS COON: Eterovich was primarily a painter. Many artists of his era also experimented with printmaking and other media, and while he certainly tried his hand at many artistic facets, he steadfastly held to painting and drawing as his primary interpretive devices. Eterovich studied at the Cleveland School of Art (currently the Cleveland Institute of Art) and later taught evening and summer classes there. His exposure to the arts via
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Photo courtesy of the Massillon Museum his academic career, later his experience teaching high school in the public school system, his marriage to skilled dancer and choreographer Alice Eterovich, and frequent visits to New York City museums and galleries provided him endless sources of inspiration and opportunities to be surrounded by art and artists. CA AS o does this ie e t into the artist s larger body of work? Where was he in his career when it was created? NICHOLIS COON: Nearly 70 years worth of Eterovich’s artwork and creative endeavors are represented in this exhibition. He was in his 70s when this painting was created and had retired from teaching high school, but he had only started experimenting with this more realistic style of painting about a decade earlier. He would return to a looser handling of the paint in years following “Cleveland Renaissance Visitors.” CANVAS: Where can viewers see it? NICHOLIS COON: Viewers can see the painting through Sept. 26 in the Aultman Health Foundation Gallery on the main level of the Massillon Museum. It is part of the “A Thrilling Act: The Artwork of Anthony Eterovich” exhibition. A website created specifically for this exhibition can be found at artofanthonyeterovich.org, and the painting is visible there also.
ON VIEW
“Cleveland Renaissance Visitors” Artist: Anthony Eterovich Details: Created in 1990, oil on canvas, 40 x 50 inches. Collection of the Anthony Eterovich Estate, photo courtesy of the Massillon Museum. Find it: “Cleveland Renaissance Visitors” is on view at the Massillon Museum’s Aultman Health Foundation Gallery in “A Thrilling Act: The Artwork of Anthony Eterovich” exhibition through Sept. 26.
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LISTINGS MUSEUMS ARTISTS ARCHIVES OF THE WESTERN RESERVE 1834 E. 123rd St., Cleveland P: 216-721-9020 : ArtistsArchives.org : facebook.com/ ArtistsArchivesoftheWesternReserve
The AAWR invites you to sample “Converge,” a five venue, visual celebration of the Western Reserve’s LGBTQ+ arts community: The Greater Cleveland LGBT Center, Lake Erie College, MetroHealth, Judson Manor and the AAWR Gallery. Exhibiting works by 71 diverse artists in an exciting range of styles and disciplines. Runs Aug. 26 – Oct. 16. “Fly,” by artist Cathy Dully. Oil on canvas, 36 x 36 inches.
MALTZ MUSEUM OF JEWISH HERITAGE 2929 Richmond Road, Beachwood P: 216-593-0575 : maltzmuseum.org
The Maltz Museum introduces visitors to the beauty and diversity of that heritage in the context of the American experience. It promotes an understanding of Jewish history, religion and culture, and builds bridges of appreciation and understanding with those of other religions, races, cultures and ethnicities. It’s an educational resource for Northeast Ohio’s Jewish and general communities. MASSILLON MUSEUM
121 Lincoln Way East, Massillon P: 330-833-4061 : massillonmuseum.org : facebook.com/massillonmuseum
“A Thrilling Act: The Art of Anthony Eterovich” (through Sept. 26); “Eterovich Contemporaries”; “The Monument,” “Flu and Football”; “Stark County Artists Exhibition” (Oct. 16, 2021 – Jan. 16, 2022); by Anthony and “Judi Krew: Hoard Culture, Where Art Eterovich. Meets Fashion” (Aug. 21 – Oct. 6). NEW Greatness Cafe and vintage photobooth in the lobby. Free admission.
GALLERIES ARTICLE/ART IN CLEVELAND 15316 Waterloo Road, Cleveland P: 440-655-6954 : facebook.com/artincle Article/Art In Cleveland gallery, studio and classroom in the Waterloo Arts District provides local artists a supportive community environment for creative growth and artistic development. Visit our gallery shows and open studio evenings each first Friday of the month during “Walk All Over Waterloo.” Check our Facebook page for gallery openings and art activities. Artist studio spaces now available.
ARTISANS’ CORNER GALLERY 11110 - 6 Kinsman Road, Newbury P: 440-739-4128 : artisanscornergallery.com : facebook.com/artisanscornergallery Artisans’ Corner Gallery is Geauga County’s premier gallery featuring Ohio artists and craftsmen. Showcasing original artwork, jewelry, woodwork and pottery, the gallery also offers professional custom framing services with 35 years’ experience with superior craftsmanship and creative designs. Be assured you can shop in a beautiful, safe and stress-free environment. CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART 11610 Euclid Ave., Cleveland P: 216-421-7000 : cia.edu : @cleinstituteart CIA’s Reinberger Gallery features emerging and established national artists and hosts popular exhibitions by faculty, students and alumni, and CIA’s Cinematheque is one of the country’s best repertory movie theaters, according to The New York Times. Learn more and view upcoming programming at cia.edu/exhibitions and cia.edu/ cinematheque. CLEVELAND PRINT ROOM
2550 Superior Ave., Cleveland P: 216-389-8756 : clevelandprintroom.com : facebook.com/ClevelandPrintRoom
The Cleveland Print Room wants to advance the art and appreciation of the photographic image in all its forms by providing affordable access to a community darkroom and workspace, gallery exhibitions, educational programs and collaborative outreach. HUNTINGTON CONVENTION CENTER OF CLEVELAND
300 Lakeside Ave., Cleveland P: 216-920-1449 : clevelandconventions.com
Located in the heart of downtown Cleveland, the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland connects meeting planners to over 410,000 square feet of meeting and event space, including exhibit halls, meeting rooms and two ballrooms. Managed by ASM Global, the Huntington Convention Center is connected to the 600-room Hilton Cleveland Downtown. M. GENTILE STUDIOS
1588 E. 40th St., 1A, Cleveland P: 216-881-2818 : mgentilestudios.com
A personalized art resource for individuals, collectors and businesses. We offer assistance in the selection and preservation of artwork in many media. Our archival custom framing services are complemented by our skill in the installation of two- and threedimensional artwork in a variety of residential and corporate settings.
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CanvasCLE.com
LISTINGS KENT STATE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF ART GALLERIES AND COLLECTION
TRICIA KAMAN STUDIO/GALLERY
School House Galleries in Little Italy 2026 Murray Hill Road, Unit 202, Cleveland P: 216-559-6478 : triciakaman.com : facebook.com/ TriciaKamanArtStudioAndGallery
325 Terrace Dr./141 E. Main St., Kent P: 330-672-1379 : galleries.kent.edu : @ksuartgalleries
The annual Kent State National Ceramics Invitational opens Aug. 26 at the KSU Downtown Gallery, followed by Navajo artist Dakota Mace’s solo exhibition “Badahani.” Reception and artist talk Nov. 5. A David C. Driskell, “Chieftain’s Chair,” 2011. David C. Driskell print retrospective (in collaboration with the Driskell Center), Mixed media, 31 x 27 opens Oct. 6 at the CVA Gallery. inches. Gift of Curlee Raven Holton.
LEE HEINEN STUDIO 12402 Mayfield Road, Cleveland P: 216-921-4088, 216-469-3288 : leeheinen.com : facebook.com/leeheinen This new series loosely drawn from Dutch still life is updated and printed on aluminum. Ours is a working studio in Little Italy. To visit, you may call ahead for an appointment or “Fleur,“ 24 x 24 take your chances and drop by. print on aluminum by Lee Heinen. $500. LOGANBERRY
13015 Larchmere Blvd., Shaker Heights P: 216-795-9800 : loganberrybooks.com
Loganberry Books Annex Gallery features a monthly rotation of local artist exhibitions, with an opening reception on the first Wednesday evening of the month. NORTHCOAST PROMOTIONS, INC. P.O. Box 609401, Cleveland P: 216-570-8201 : northcoastpromo.com Northcoast Promotions, Inc. specializes in art shows, craft fairs and festivals. Please visit us at Walkabout Tremont Second Fridays, Third Fridays at 78th Street Studios, every Saturday at Old Firehouse Winery, Makers Town every Sunday at Saucy Brew Works Vibe Garden from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and the Tremont Farmers Market. Every Tuesday in Lincoln Park/Tremont for Tremont Farmers Market until Oct. 12, 2021, returning the second Tuesday in May 2022. Visit our website for more events and details.
“At the Easel,” 30 x 24 inches, oil. Artwork by Tricia Kaman.
Tricia’s studio/gallery is housed in the Historic Little Italy Schoolhouse building. Visits are welcome by appointment. The studio features Tricia’s original oil paintings, Giclee and canvas prints. Visit triciakamanboutique.com for unique artful gifts.
VALLEY ART CENTER
155 Bell St., Chagrin Falls P: 440-247-7507 : valleyartcenter.org
The hub of the visual arts in the Chagrin Valley, providing local communities with art classes, exhibits and fine art shopping for almost 50 years. Each year, we offer more than 400 classes, workshops and summer camps for students, from children to seniors, beginner to seasoned professional.
FRIENDS OF CANVAS CLEVELAND ISRAEL ARTS CONNECTION Jewish Federation of Cleveland E: israelarts@jcfcleve.org : jewishcleveland.org/israelarts
The Cleveland Israel Arts Connection Fall/Winter 2021-22 Season features the finest in Israeli film, documentary, theater, dance, music, visual art and literature. A digital copy is available at jewishcleveland.org/israelarts. Please join the Cleveland Israel Arts Connection Facebook page for additional opportunities to experience Israeli arts. ROBERT & GABRIEL JEWELERS FOR GENERATIONS
5244 Mayfield Road, Lyndhurst P: 440-473-6554 : robertandgabriel.com : facebook.com/ RobertandGabrielJewelers
Our family-owned store is the ideal destination to find beautiful jewelry and giftware. Our selections include traditional and contemporary items from national designers, or we’ll help you create your own unique design. We also provide excellent watch and jewelry repair. We’re proud to serve our customers for over 90 years!
Listings are provided by advertisers and as a courtesy to readers.
@CanvasCLE
Fall 2021 | Canvas | 39
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Get ready to do school differently.
LOWER & MIDDLE SCHOOL OPEN HOUSE Sunday, 11/21/21, 1:00 pm Toddler – Grade 8, Lyndhurst Campus
BIRCHWOOD SCHOOL OPEN HOUSE Sunday, 10/24/21, 2:00 pm Preschool – Grade 8, Cleveland-West Campus
UPPER SCHOOL OPEN HOUSE Sunday, 11/7/21, 1:00 pm Grades 9 – 12, Gates Mills Campus
MASTERY SCHOOL OPEN HOUSE Sunday, 11/14/21, 1:00 pm Grades 9 – 12, University Circle Campus
Events will be virtual if they are unable to be held in person.
P lan your visit; RSVP today! Lower & Middle School: 440-423-2950 Birchwood School: 216-251-2321 Upper School: 440-423-2955 Mastery School: 440-423-8801 or visit hawken.edu/admission
Coed Toddler – Grade 12
hawken.edu Lyndhurst
Cleveland–West
Gates Mills
University Circle
