Ohio is a pretty nice place, sure, but could it have been the Garden of Eden? Not a metaphoric Garden of Eden, mind you, but the real, true thing? The notion would seem to strike many people as absurd, not the least reason being that it’s a stretch to believe the Bible’s take on Creation is the literal truth.    

A new exhibit at Hebrew Union College’s Skirball Museum uses photographs, documents and other objects to solemnly, reverently revisit a once-vibrant Polish Jewish community almost completely wiped out by the invading Nazi Germans.   

One of the most acclaimed photography shows to open last year was The Radical Camera: New York’s Photo League 1936-1951 at New York’s Jewish Museum. Billed as the first major Photo League retrospective in 30 years, and accompanied by a catalogue, it prompted keen, renewed interest in the subject.   

The opening reception of a most unusual exhibit for a major arts institution will take place 5-7 p.m. Thursday evening. It’s FAUX REAL: A Forger’s Story, at the gallery of University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning.    

Artists have to come from somewhere, I suppose. Still, it’s remarkable how many of the giants of Pop Art came from and/or matriculated in our stretch of the Midwest — Andy Warhol was born in Pittsburgh, Robert Indiana in the Hoosier state, Roy Lichtenstein studied at Ohio State and Jim Dine and Tom Wesselmann both were born in Cincinnati.
  

Sometimes you have to leave Ohio — and Cincinnati — to discover how many interesting and unusual connections there are between the Buckeye State and the larger world of modern/contemporary arts and design.   

Columbus’ Wexner Center for the Arts makes a bold statement in its current retrospective of David Smith’s work: He’s the greatest American sculptor of the 20th century. If Smith, who died in an auto accident in 1965 at age 59, is ahead of Alexander Calder, Isamu Noguchi or Richard Serra, I’m not sure the general public knows it.   

When Chuck Lohre and Janet Groeber learned the innovative kitchen at Hyde Park’s landmark 1960 Corbett House was being replaced by new owners, they shifted into action to save it. They offered to take it and the owners agreed. They acquired the kitchen in 2010. Now, no longer wanting to store the disassembled kitchen, they are trying to find a new home for it.  

Carl Solway, celebrating his 50th year as a Cincinnati gallerist, was speaking recently to arts patrons in the residence at Hamilton’s Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park about the milestone that is his new show. He’s presenting a John Cage show, he said, because Cage was the 20th Century’s greatest artist.    

This year is the Taft Museum’s 80th anniversary — it opened in 1932, five years after Charles Phelps Taft and Anna Sinton Taft deeded their historic 1820 mansion and its 690 works of art to Cincinnati.    

Other museums have also tried this in order to get more of their collections on view. Now Cincinnati Art Museum, which has 60,000 objects, is trying the approach. It’s converting two important second-floor galleries — previously its prime space for temporary exhibits — to open storage for the next two years, when renovation of the old Art Academy building is complete.    

It was about a year ago this time I was climbing the steps of Notre Dame Cathedral to look beyond the famous stone gargoyles and see Paris. I recently climbed the winding stairwell of the usually closed-off, 145-foot-tall square tower at Clifton Heights’ Hughes High School to view Cincinnati from the exposed landing at the top. Not quite the same thing, but impressive.  

Beginning Sunday with a 4-6 p.m. reception, the Skirball Museum (3101 Clifton Ave., Clifton, www.huc.edu/museums/) is opening a new exhibition: Jewish-related fine-crafts objects, such as driedels, mezuzahs and shofars, made of Venetian glass by Michael Gore, an Illinois artist.   

There are two big reasons to be excited about Vermont-born, singer-songwriter Sam Amidon’s show at 9 p.m. tomorrow night in downtown’s Contemporary Arts Center (CAC). First is Amidon himself, whose records combine beautifully rendered, hauntingly sung, traditionalist-minded Folk songs with unusual arrangements.  

Whatever else, it requires bravery for a photographer to wander around abandoned buildings, subway stations, wave pools and other derelict remnants of the built environment. Vince Geier of Northside, who died in June at age 37, had it. His friend Cathy Heil, who accompanied him (and others) into Detroit’s massive Michigan Central (Railroad) Station, empty since 1988, can attest to that.