NEAR*BY Curatorial Collective is pleased to announce the second biennial High Art exhibition, wherein artists tackle issues of perspective, spectacle and scale while engaging with the surrounding cityscape. Artwork will be viewed from a 574-foot vantage point: the rooftop observation deck of the Carew Tower, Cincinnati’s second tallest building.

Visitors to the one-evening exhibition will ride the elevator to the 45th floor, board a tiny elevator and ride it to the 48th floor, then climb one last flight to visually comb the landscape and identify the work of artists, strategically placed around the city.

Artists will present temporary, large-scale works &/or performances that may be seen from atop the rooftop deck of Cincinnati’s French Art Deco skyscraper, the Carew Tower. The aim of this exhibition is to activate the city with art, rewarding curiosity with engaging moments of fleeting creativity.

Please note that there is a $4 (cash only) entry fee for all visitors to the Netherland Plaza Observation Deck, and we suggest you bring binoculars. NEAR*BY is in no way affiliated with the Carew Tower. For that reason (and also because we think this location is one of our city’s most mythic sites,) please respect their process—analog though it may be.

High Art 2 will take place on Saturday July 2nd, 2016, 4:00 – 6:00 p.m. at The Netherland Plaza, Carew Tower, 441 Race Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202.

Participating artists: Regan Brown, Emily Chiavelli, Joe Girandola, Sidney Cherie Hilley, Pam Kravetz, Avril Thurman and Rick Wolhoy.

Using a combination of recited poetry and performed actions, visual artist and performer Elsie Mort will explore the sexualization of the male body from a female perspective.

Employing the language of romance novels from artist Abby Friend’s past collective feminist performances, the artist will address the discrepancies between the objectification of womxn in pornography and the ways in which notions of womxn-led forms of obscenity can fit into a broader conversation about feminism.
Contemporary dancers McKenzie Barkdull and Amelia Koper Heintzelman of MamLuft&Co. Dance will use their bodies, (the most integral instrument of human experience,) to enact a series of three performances, demonstrating ways in which the body can act as a physical interlocutor of normative space.

From the Contemporary Arts Center Cincinnati’s website:

2015 will mark the 25th anniversary of the CAC’s landmark presentation of Robert Mapplethorpe’s survey exhibition The Perfect Moment in Cincinnati. And while 25 years have passed, this event continues to reverberate as much for the artwork on display as for the reactions it inspired, and the historic controversy that ensued. Amidst the ripples, then CAC Director Dennis Barrie was acquitted on charges of obscenity, first amendment laws were shaken and galvanized, the HIV crisis and gay rights movement took on added visibility and revealing light was cast upon the polarizing politics of what is seen and by whom. In an aftermath that has yet to fully settle or cease, the CAC will consider the legacy of this artist (and the events surrounding The Perfect Moment) through the lens of artists working today. Seven curators from across the tri-state region (Ohio, Kentucky & Indiana) will each select 5 artists who will present new work that measures how Mapplethorpe’s photos, exhibition and censorship shaped the artistic landscape they navigate today.

http://www.contemporaryartscenter.org/exhibitions/2015/11/after-the-moment

After The Moment

Reflections on Robert Mapplethorpe

November 06, 2015 through March 13, 2016

Tree Board by Joe Castrucci

Bail or No? The Impossible Tricks Show is an exhibition on restraint. It is also an exhibition about skateboarding, DIY culture, the arts, and the metaphor of micro-rebellion – in spite of the forces that expect & want such things – that envelope all three. It’s an exhibition about, of all things to frame an art show around, spirit, and the notion that to bail is okay, but to move without risk or chance, safety be damned, is to bail anyway.

What it is:

Several makers and artists are tasked with making physical skateboards that are, by their design, nearly impossible to skate on.

Several skateboarders attempt to skate on them anyway.

The results are documented/filmed and shown in a one night screening

Further contributions to the film look at the state of the skate video today (dissemination, youtube, amateurism, etc. etc).

A catalogue/book of essay with contributions from Maria Seda-Reeder, Curt Miller, and Chris Reeves is available right HERE

Artists include:

Able Projects, John Auer, Liz Cambron, Joe Castrucci, Chris Collins, Abby Cornelius, Zach Kincaid Chris Little, Daniel P. Lopez, Tim McMillan, Curt Miller, Rick Silva, Marc Slobada, Lauren C. Sudbrink Jordan Tate, Aaron Walker, Loraine Wible, Erica Wine
with generous assistance and contributions from: Alex Jameson, Grace Cross, Lizzy Duquette, and Phil Spangler.

exhibited 8/15/15 at Lohioh in Cincinnati, OH with Near*By. Documentation by Lauren C. Sudbrink

On Saturday May 9th, NEAR*BY Curatorial Collective hosted “Heirloom: an exhibition of objects from the childhood homes of artists” at Wave Pool Gallery in Camp Washington.

Knowing that visually sensitive artists are so often effected by their early environment—and that aesthetic tastes can be something creative people are both born with and cultivate over the span of a lifetime—NEAR*BY sought to find a visible missing link between a dozen artists’ formative cultural experiences and their current artistic output.

With that aim in mind, four curators chose three different artists to each pick an object from their childhood domestic world that reflects the questions they remain concerned with asking in their own work. Artists were interviewed about their chosen subject and as a result of those conversations, NEAR*BY created a standalone catalogue with text from each curator and corresponding photographs describing the objects’ significance. View or download the complete catalog: HeirloomCatalog.pdf by Jiemei Lin.

Saturday, May 9th, 2015. 7 – 10 p.m.
Wave Pool Gallery
2940 Colerain Ave. Cincinnati

PARTICIPANTS:
* Chelsea Baker * Amanda Checco * Lizzy DuQuette * Izy Hardy * Sarah Jones * Brent Lashley * Caleb Marhoover * Jamie Muenzer * Matthew Shackelford * Nic Scrimenti * CM Turner * Christy Whittmer *

Andy Marko appearing at a local rock concert to bring the people of downtown Cincinnati a much-needed message of hope. This election season, make the right choice: Andy Marko for Minster of Performance Art.

Andymarko.us

Paid for by Near*By

Click the image to read more about Hamilton County Issues and candidates related to Andy Marko’s campaign.

Cincinnati arts and culture magazine AEQAI called the exhibition “Peculiar, grim, but somehow self-involved enough to be fun and funny…wears its IQ like a tank-top and jean cutoffs, comfortably numb and comfortably smart-assed and just plain comfortably accomplished.”

THE MOON SHOW
A Visual Exposé of the U.S. Apollo 11 Moon Landing:
Terrestrial Spectacle or Lunar Triumph?
In Association with Flat Earth Societe Anonyme.

Near*By collective’s curatorial debut exhibition explored the idea of simulated and actual reality using the first moon landing, U.S. Apollo 11, as a starting place.

The moon landing was, for many, seen as a victory for (hu)mankind.  For others, the event was a politically charged American power play.  In more recent history, conspiracy theorists have charged that the moon landing was a hoax, directed by Stanley Kubrick in a Hollywood studio.  Was the moon landing an important cultural moment or merely a Baudrillardian simulacrum?

Since the moon landing, conspiracy theories about world events have only multiplied.  The proliferation of claims of hoaxes for major happenings say as much about the likelihood of the reality of those events as they do about our collective loss of trust in our most powerful social institutions.  The Kennedy assassination, 9/11, missing airplanes—thanks to the internet, as quickly as events unfold, individuals are able to create and promote their own narratives.  In a society where we more frequently engage with events and reality through the media and social media, in whose reality are we living?  What are the repercussions of our loss of faith in institutions and metanarratives?  And what becomes of the role of the artist?

Scratching the (lunar) surface of those questions and more are fourteen area artists. Of these, six (Britni Bicknaver, Lyndsey Nehls, Tyler Hamilton, Rodney Gustke, Michael Molloy and Kelley Cartledge) are involved in the creation of physical works of art that reference the authenticity of the moon landing; while six others (Joey Versoza, Lauren Post, Madeline Walker, Jacob Riddle John Cairns, and Dan Muenzer) created videos for a separate area of the gallery. The installation work of Greg Swiger links these two spaces through the fabrication of a “control room” and movie/surveillance cameras; Aaron Walker contributes the image for a takeaway poster.

The result is a collaborative exhibition that melds curatorial and artistic practices while blurring the boundaries between installation and white cube.

Like the Apollo 11 astronauts coordinating with NASA, artists are given specific missions.  But unlike NASA astronauts or control room operators, artists are celebrated for their unique abilities to embellish and lie.

Begin ignition sequence! In 10, 9, 8…

Artists:
Britni Bicknaver
John Cairns
Kelley Cartledge
Rodney Gustke
Tyler Hamilton
Michael Vneck Molloy
Dan Muenzer
Lyndsey Nehls
Lauren Post
Jacob Riddle
Greg Swiger
Joey Versoza
Madeline Walker

& a takeaway poster by Aaron Walker