Development to Affect Art Dept

CSU seems to be chomping at the bit to put up new housing and commercial development right where we sit.  This is great; as long as we benefit from the deal.  They are talking about beginning construction on a $50 million project next year. Very exciting.  But the future of the Art Dept, as well as Drama, is uncertain.  Will we be relocating to Playhouse Square (see previous posts: one, two)?  The article ends with the possibility of building around us – perhaps not the worst option.  Stay tuned, stay informed… Read the Plain Dealer article.

Downtown Photo Challenge

The Downtown Photo Challenge is back! For the third year Cleveland’s amateur photographers will have the opportunity to win $500 and much more. Each entrant may submit up to two (2) photos. The deadline for the 2010 Downtown Photo Challenge is August 20th. Consider things like “What defines your experience here? What story do you want to tell about our city?” The Downtown Photo Challenge is open to photographers 18 or older from all over the region who would like to show their beautiful and unique depictions of Cleveland as seen through their own personal experience.

Each entrant may submit up to two (2) images. The maximum submission size per photo is 3 mb. Please make sure that you save a high-res copy of your photos. High-res image size is at least 8″ x 10″ at 300 dpi or shot with a 10 megapixel camera set to high. Read on for more information.

ENTRY CATEGORIES

Living City
Cleveland would be nothing without Clevelanders. Whether it’s large scale events, small informal happenings, spontaneous moments on the street, interactions among friends or between strangers… it is people that bring the city to life. Submit your best images of Cleveland’s great citizens and visitors to this category.

Urban Landscape
From classic Cleveland vantage points to views of the city all your own, we want to see the Downtown environment through your eyes. Submit your best shots of Cleveland’s architecture, green spaces, waterfronts and streetscapes.

Future Forward
In this category we are looking for images that exemplify growth, optimism and positive change around Downtown. What are Clevelanders doing to make the best of hard times? What types of projects are people taking on? How are businesses weathering the economy? What are people doing to stay positive? Submit your photographs that you feel show a bright future for our city! These shots may be altered to allow for creative expression.

DEADLINE

Entries to the second annual Downtown Photo Challenge must be submitted by 11:59pm on August 20th, 2010. Entries must be submitted digitally through this site. No submissions will be accepted in hard copy. Print photographers may wish to have negatives scanned to digital format for submission.

PRIZES

One (1) Grand Prize winner will receive $500 and a beautifully framed print of their work provided by The Plain Dealer.

Three (3) Category Prize winners will each receive $200 and a beautifully framed print of their work provided by The Plain Dealer.

These four (4) winners will be invited to attend Downtown Cleveland Alliance’s 11th Annual Ruth Ratner Miller Award Luncheon for the Advancement of Downtown Cleveland.

The top ten (10) entries, as chosen by our judges, will be shown on the PlayhouseSquare video boards at Star Plaza.

All entries will be shown on Dollar Bank’s Regional Showcase LED board at the Galleria.

JUDGES

Photo contest entries will be judged between August 17-31, 2009 by a panel of judges to include:
Bob Herbst, Bob Herbst Photography
Lynn Ischay, Staff Photographer, The Plain Dealer
Lillian Kuri, Program Director for Architecture, Urban Design & Sustainable Development, The Cleveland Foundation
Mary Jo Toles, Professor of Photography, Cleveland Institute of Art
Howard Tucker, Mort Tucker Photography

Visit www.downtowncleveland.com/photochallenge for more info.

Exhibition Opportunity…

…and it’s FREE, and it’s exclusively for STUDENTS, and it’s based in NYC!

International Deadline: June 16, 2010

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Chelsea’s Michael Mazzeo Gallery announces RSVP: Class Pictures.

Artists are currently invited to submit work for consideration in Class Pictures, an RSVP online exhibition of exceptional work by currently enrolled students of undergraduate photography programs. Students may submit up to five images from a single project.

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As the school year winds down, educators like myself have the pleasure of reveling in the birth of projects that have been gestating in classrooms, darkrooms, studios and computer labs for the past year. Challenged by rigorous institutional demands and the need to create compelling work while maintaining their individuality, students’ progress and achievements become evident in the richness and diversity of their final portfolio presentations. In an effort to bring some of this work to a wider audience, we will present a selection of extraordinary work by a few of these outstanding students.

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The names of those involved in the selection process will be posted here in the coming days.

RSVP is a Michael Mazzeo Gallery program of curated online exhibitions. By way of call and response initiated on the gallery blog, artists are asked to submit images to be considered for inclusion in specific, themed shows. RSVP exhibitions are handled in the same professional and enthusiastic manner as the gallerys on-site exhibitions, with advertising and sales efforts, on-demand printed catalogs and gallery support.

It is important to note that this is not a pay-to-play program and the exhibitions are not ‘competitions’.

There is no charge for entries.
There is no charge for inclusion in exhibitions.
There is no charge for inclusion in exhibition catalogs.

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Apply-on-Line.

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About:
The Michael Mazzeo Gallery specializes in contemporary photography, works on paper and related media. Originally named Peer, the gallery was founded by photographer and educator, Michael Mazzeo in October, 2005. It has since become one of the premier showcases of new and under-recognized talent in New York’s Chelsea Gallery District.

Click here to go directly to the submissions page.

Work Pick Up & Grades

Updated May 16:

Photo I, II and III: Your work, including Photo III’s artist packets,  is graded and ready to be picked up in the photo classroom.

Photo II and III:  Digital trade portfolio aren’t ready.  I’ll be away for a week, but then I’ll be back around on May 22 teaching an 8 week course in AB7.  I will have them for you then. Please stop by, pick them up and say hi. If you won’t be around, send me an email and we’ll figure out how to get them to you.

I don’t have files/clear directions from everyone on which image you want used for the portfolio.  If you didn’t give me a file, I’ll choose one.  I might have to scour the computer lab to get them, but I’ll do it.

Otherwise, have a good summer!  Those of you graduating –  best of luck and stay in touch.

Graduating? Get Adobe Software Before You Do!

CSU has a deal with Adobe to purchase software – including Photoshop and their Creative Suites.  You can score professional software at a fraction of the price.  I don’t know if CS 5 is available here yet.  But its still a great deal.  Visit CSU’s IS & T Software Purchase Page for details and prices.

Student Show Pick up

Please pick up your work from the Student Juried Show ASAP!

CSU Art Show on About.com

Read this review… of the current CSU Student Juried Exhibition on About.com.  The reviewer highlights work by Cory Scheider and Meghan Fischer.  And have I mentioned that they’ve been selling quite a bit of work since the show’s been up?

Detour at SPACES

OPENING FRIDAY MAY 14, 6-9PM

ARTISTS

Kristin Bly, T.R. Ericsson, Ben Kinsley, Arzu Ozkal, Lauren Yeager

COLOR COMMENTATORS

Lyz Bly, Bruce Edwards, Brandon Juhasz (HMNA), Michael Gill, Eleanor LeBeau (Ohio Authority)

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Detour is an exhibition of 5 artists’ practices rerouted by an obstruction. SPACES has created a framework for play wherein 5 selected artists meet to discuss their practices and address areas of comfort and discomfort. By the end of the evening each artist will be assigned an obstacle by his/her peers. One artist may rely very heavily on a specific media, but the other 4 artists may agree that it would be good to step out of that comfort zone. Another artist may be asked to utilize a certain subject matter while another may be asked to work collaboratively rather than as a solo artist. Each obstruction is assigned as a playful experiment and a tool for growth rather than a mean-spirited prank.

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The artists will then have seven days before the opening of the exhibition to realize their project while skirting around their new obstacle. Each artist will also be paired with someone who will document their processes and decisions. Like announcers at a football game, these individuals will run color commentary to make the artists’ play accessible to the public. SPACES’ website will function as the hub of the color commentary, but the exact relationship of the artist to their documentarian will be negotiated by the pair. Commentary may manifest itself as text, audio, video or some other means.

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These artists’ experiments may succeed, and they may fail. That is the nature of a detour. Sometimes a more scenic route is discovered off the beaten path, and sometimes you just get horribly lost. In the end, projects will be realized, but the artistic process will be brought to the forefront and privileged alongside the finished work.

Follow the progress on Twitter

Digital Trade Portfolio

I think we should continue the practice of the digital trade portfolio this semester.  Please edit one of your best / most representative pieces to a full resolution 11″x14″ TIFF document and submit it to me by Wed May 12.  I will burn them on a CD and make a colophon CD cover for them.  I will also print one hardcopy of each piece for the Department’s collection.  You can pick up your copy when you pick up your graded work.

Please participate.  Its a great way to share your work, build your own collection, and to look back fondly on your time here.  Also, you’ll be part of the institutional collection that I’m building in the dept (ie. a line on your resume).

Detroit Disassembled

Photographs by Andrew Moore on View at the Akron Art Museum

June 5 – October 10, 2010

Click for more about the exhibition

What happens when a city collapses and nature takes over? The majesty and tragedy of Detroit are displayed in Detroit Disassembled: Photographs by Andrew Moore, organized by the Akron Art Museum and making its world debut in Akron June 5 – October 10, 2010.

“Moore’s photographs of the Motor City are sublime – beautiful, operatic in scale and drama, tragic yet offering a glimmer of hope,” says the museum’s Director of Curatorial Affairs Barbara Tannenbaum, who organized the exhibition.  “Although it is hard to believe that his post-apocalyptic scenes reflect present day America, the artist has been scrupulously honest.”

Detroit, once the nation’s fourth largest city and the epitome of our industrial wealth and might, has been in decline for almost a half-century. The city is now one-third empty land – more abandoned property than any American city except post-Katrina New Orleans. As Americans travel to Europe and Mexico to view the remains of long-gone civilizations, Europeans have in turn started visiting Detroit to see its ruins.

About the Artist

Born in Old Greenwich, Connecticut in 1957, Moore currently lives in New York. His large format photography has been widely exhibited and is represented in numerous museum collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Canadian Centre for Architecture and Israel Museum. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, New York State Council on the Arts and Judith Rothschild Foundation. His film How to Draw a Bunny won a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Moore’s previous books include Inside Havana (2002), Governors Island (2005) and Russia: Beyond Utopia (2005).

Exhibition Related Events

“Urban/Arctic: Choose Your Adventure” Opening Party

Friday, June 4, 7 – 9 pm

Opening party for both the Detroit Disassembled: Photographs by Andrew Moore and Arctic Re-visions: Isaace Julien’s True North exhibitions.  Free for members. Tickets available at the door: $10 for non-members, $6 for Western Reserve PBS members. For more information call 330.376.9186 x222.

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ArtTalks@Dusk: 7:30 – 7:45 pm (during Downtown@Dusk)

Free in the museum’s Charles and Jane Lehner Auditorium

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*   Thursday, June 24 – The Accidental Aesthetics of Urban Decline

Terry Schwarz, interim director of the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative and founder of Pop Up City Cleveland

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*   Thursday, July 1 – Ruined Nation: Photographing Abandoned Buildings in Northeast Ohio

Carissa Russell, graphic designer and photographer

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*   Thursday, July 8 – Living with Detroit: An All-Purpose Guide to American Forgetting

Jerry Herron, Dean of Irvin D. Reid Honors College, Wayne State University

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*   Thursday, July 15 – Loveland: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Detroit Micro Real Estate…But Were too Afraid to Ask, Jerry Paffendorf, Loveland CEO

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*   Thursday, July 22 – Can Art Save Detroit?

Barbara Tannenbaum, director of curatorial affairs at the Akron Art Museum

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Artist Talk: Andrew Moore

Thursday, September 16, 6:30 pm

Moore will give a free lecture about his decorated career and recent Detroit photographs during this free lecture in the Akron Art Museum’s Charles and Jane Lehner Auditorium on Thursday, September 16 at 6:30 pm. Seating will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information call 330.376.9186 x230.