In recent weeks, there have been some thought-provoking guests at our art museums. I’ve attended talks by the French superstar street artist/photographer JR at Contemporary Arts Center and renowned architect Billie Tsien, who is designing the new Barnes Collection building in Philadelphia, at the Cincinnati Art Museum. Both offered ideas and comments worthy of further discussion.  

The current show at the Cincinnati Art Museum, 'The Amazing American Circus Poster: The Strobridge Lithographing Company,' is appealing on a number of levels. The work is spectacularly colorful with finely rendered and detailed imagery and features excellent examples of the labor-intensive lithography process. The exhibit tells fascinating stories and — since they date from 1879-1939 — it also sheds light on the way we once lived and entertained ourselves.  

'Paper With A Past' features Sara Pearce's imaginative, colorful, witty and delightful collage work on paper and antique book boards; its overall themes are to revisit and redefine Victorian Era imagery, as well as to look at the role of women in popular pictorial work. The show draws on three of her series: "The Grand Tour," "Reinterpreting the Victorian Illustration" and "Mad Women."  

The open-house Art Walks inside the vast Essex Studios (2511 Essex Ave., Walnut Hills) are always popular events. Not only do the artists who maintain studios in the old factory open their doors to the public but there's also a museum that can be toured — the American Sign Museum. The first Art Walk of 2011 occurs this Friday and Saturday, beginning at 6 p.m. each night.  

Akron has been home to some important figures in Alternative/Modern Rock — Chrissie Hynde, Devo, Robert Quine, Tin Huey, The Waitresses, The Black Keys and more. But, strangely, Akron/Family isn't one of them. The trio, touring in support of its new album 'S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT,' formed in Brooklyn in 2002 and its members now live there and in Portland.  

Akron/Family is a hard group to pin down, geographically and otherwise. Over the course of the albums its members have made, both solely as Akron/Family and in collaboration with others, it has mixed elements of Freak Folk with Rock and experimentalism. Its new album its new album, S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT, continues and expands that visionary quest.   

Randy Newman’s foray into southwest Ohio this week, performing at Miami University’s Middletown campus Saturday, is a rare treat. It’s not that he doesn’t like going on the road, but he has so many competing interests it’s often difficult to find the time. In addition to being a singer/songwriter whose often-ironic, satirical and sometimes-character-driven compositions have become contemporary Pop classics, he’s also become a major composer for film.  

Art Academy of Cincinnati's annual Minumental Exhibition is about to open its 24th annual installment of one of smallest traditions on the Cincinnati arts calendar. No, we're not demeaning the show — it's small for a good reason. Work by Academy students, faculty and alumni must measure no more than 2 inches in any dimension, although it can be done in a variety of forms — painting, printmaking, collage, sculpture, mixed-media, fiber art, even photography.  

Randy Newman's foray into southwest Ohio this week, performing at Miami University's Middletown campus Saturday, is a rare treat. It's not that he doesn’t like going on the road ("I enjoy doing that," he says during a telephone interview), but he has so many competing interests, it's often difficult to find the time. In addition to being a singer/songwriter, he's also become a major composer for film.  

Middletown, a 1982 PBS documentary series about everyday life in Middle America has had a troubled history. Produced by Peter Davis, it was meant as a return to the searing, revelatory, verite-style reality television that PBS pioneered with 1973’s An American Family.