The Carnegie is pleased to announce its exciting 2016-17 Gallery Season under the leadership of Exhibition Director, Matt Distel.
The season’s exhibitions include a show featuring the best work of recent college graduates, two retrospective shows highlighting unique Cincinnati artists, and much more.
The season opens in September with Studio Open, an exhibition organized around the very best of recent graduates and MFA recipients in the region, the artists who will contribute greatly to the cultural landscape for many years to come. At the same time, William Knipscher: Where the Light Goes will consist of an exhibition in one of the Carnegie’s upper galleries as well as a permanent installation located in a public common area of The Carnegie lobby. Knipscher’s project, which is part of FotoFocus 2016, uses light sensitive paper as origami to create photographic images directly on the paper surface.
Tony Dotson: Late Night Muchies (Photo provided)
In December, The Carnegie Galleries host two exhibitions: Tony Dotson: An American Outsider, and Edie McKee Harper: A Retrospective. For An American Outsider, Dotson presents both two- and three-dimensional works, and constructs a tower through the center of the gallery. In the upstairs galleries, The Carnegie will host the first major retrospective of the work of Edie McKee Harper.
The popular Art of Food event returns in February, kicking off 2017 with two nights of stellar food, art, and fun. In March, the galleries play hosts to The Nothing That Is: A Drawing Show in 5 parts. Curated in collaboration with Bill Thelen, an artist, curator, and educator based in Raleigh, NC, the exhibition will combine artists of national and international stature alongside works by artists based in this region.
The season closes in April with two exhibitions, Demolition Man: Selected Works from the Raymond Thunder-Sky Archives and Wordly: John M. Bennett, Fred Ellenberger and Avril Thurman. Demolition Man will be the first major survey of Raymond Thunder-Sky’s work in the United States, while upstairs Wordly will examine language as it is employed by visual artists.
All of the exhibitions, with the exception of the Art of Food, include a free opening reception featuring a preview conversation with The Carnegie’s Matt Distel and exhibiting artists, light hors d’oeuvres, and a cash bar. After opening night, the exhibitions will be available for viewing during regular gallery hours, Wednesday – Saturday, 12- 5 p.m.
The Carnegie’s 2016-17 Gallery Season
September 9 – November 26, 2016
Studio Open
Studio Open is an exhibition organized around the very best of recent graduates and MFA recipients in the region. Each year, graduating classes of art students leave the university classrooms and studios and begin their artistic careers. These are the artists who will contribute greatly to the cultural landscape of this region and beyond for many years to come. Schools invited to participate include: Art Academy of Cincinnati, Miami University, University of Cincinnati-DAAP, Xavier University, Northern Kentucky University, University of Louisville, Wright State University, University of Dayton, Ohio State University, Morehead State. Artists were selected based upon their thesis and senior exhibitions.
William Knipsher: Where the Light Goes
William Knipscher: Where the Light Goes will consist of an exhibition within one of The Carnegie’s upper galleries as well as a permanent installation located in a public common area of The Carnegie lobby. Knipscher’s project will respond to the interior spaces of the building and create a new layer of documentation and interpretation to a space that is multi-use and attracts a diverse range of community members, arts patrons, students and school groups, and theatre goers. Where the Light Goes uses light sensitive paper as origami to create photographic images directly on the paper surface. This project is part of FotoFocus 2016.
Tony Dotson: 3 Myths (Photo provided)
December 9, 2016 – February 11, 2017
Tony Dotson: An American Outsider
Tony Dotson makes work that is firmly rooted in Folk Art traditions but frequently uses wry commentary to connect to contemporary issues and pop culture sentiments. Dotson has been a fixture in the annual Art of Food event, building crowd-pleasing environments using his immediately recognizable visual language. For An American Outsider, Dotson plans to present both two- and three-dimensional works, including constructing a tower through the center of the gallery. Dotson states, “I’m a self-taught outsider artist. I paint like a 6-year-old with an adult theme, and try to tell a simple story with each piece. My art and stuff is made from found objects, reused goods, and junk that other people don’t want.”
Edie McKee Harper: A Retrospective
This major survey of the work of Edie McKee Harper (American, 1922 – 2010) will examine the important moments in her career and development as an artist. Harper was trained at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, where she studied printmaking with Maybelle and Wilson Stamper and color theory with Josef Albers. She is best known as a painter, photographer, and illustrator, although she created a rich body of work in other media: jewelry, enamels, sculpture, silk-screen prints, and weavings. Her work has been featured in Graphic Content at Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center and Minimal Realism at the Cincinnati Art Museum. The exhibition and accompanying book, Harper Ever After documented her life and career alongside her husband Charley Harper. Despite her impressive exhibition history, this show marks the very first solo retrospective of Edie Harper’s work. This exhibition is organized with the assistance of The Harper Estate.
February 22 & 24, 2017.
The 11th Annual Art of Food The 11th version of this ever and increasingly popular event will once again feature a stellar cast of chefs, artists and performers.
March 10 – April 15, 2017
The Nothing That is: A Drawing Show in 5 Parts
The Nothing That Is presents an exhibition in five parts about drawing, curated in collaboration with Bill Thelen, an artist, curator and educator based in Raleigh, NC. His work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally and he operates the influential and ambitious Lump Gallery in Raleigh. The exhibition will combine artists of national and international stature alongside works by artists based in this region. The various sections of the exhibition will explore the practice of drawing from the very traditional to conceptual practices to community-based activity. A previous iteration of this exhibition was presented at CAM-Raleigh.
April 28 – June 10, 2017
Demolition Man: Selected works from the Raymond Thunder-Sky Archives
Demolition Man will be the first major survey in the United States of Raymond Thunder-Sky’s work. Thunder-Sky (1950-2004) was best remembered in Cincinnati as a man dressed in a clown collar and construction hat, walking the Cincinnati streets with a toolbox in tow, a serious expression on his face. He did this for many years, mystifying folks as to what he was up to. The man’s name was Raymond Thunder-Sky. And what he was doing was drawing demolition and construction sites throughout Cincinnati and other parts of the region. Raymond, a Native American with a rich family history, passed away in 2004, leaving behind over 2,000 drawings, and a vast array of clown costumes, construction hats, and tool-boxes. His work is now collected internationally, and has been in gallery and museum exhibits across the world. Thunder-Sky was the subject of a feature length documentary film. The primary focus of the exhibition will be a large selection of Thunder-Sky’s drawings but will also feature many of his outfits, tool kits and other ephemera that helped to define his unconventional practice. This exhibition is developed with the assistance of Thunder-Sky Inc.
Wordly: John M. Bennett, Fred Ellenberger, and Avril Thurman Co-organized with artist Peter Huttinger, Wordly will examine language as it is employed by visual artists. The artworks by Bennett, Ellenberger and Thurman are conjunctions of text, image, object and place realized through the mediums of sculpture, drawing, poetry (language-based, spoken or visual), assemblage and contextual installation. The three artists each approach the use of text in differing ways – as poetry, as object, or even as the mere suggestion of a word. Each artist will occupy a single gallery upstairs.
The Carnegie is Northern Kentucky’s largest multidisciplinary arts venue providing theatre events, educational programs and art exhibitions to the Northern Kentucky and Greater Cincinnati community. The Carnegie facility is home to The Carnegie Galleries, the Otto M. Budig Theatre, and the Eva G. Farris Education Center. More information about The Carnegie is available at www.thecarnegie.com or by calling (859) 491-2030.
The Carnegie receives ongoing operating support from ArtsWave, The Greater Cincinnati Foundation, The Cincinnati Wine Festival, Kenton County Fiscal Courts, the Kentucky Arts Council and the Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile Jr. / US Bank Foundation, and the Louise Dieterle Nippert Musical Arts Fund of the Greenacres Foundation.
