Forget comfortable assumptions about slavery as a terrible habit we’ve outgrown. Marjorie Gann and Janet Willen, in a crisp history of this ancient element of human life, let us know not only where slavery has been, but where it is today, in places you might not expect.  

In the crowded confines of Northside's NVISION, the most eclectic shop in the city's most eclectic neighborhood, the current special exhibition is a knockout. Iowa-based mixed-media artist Nancy Gamon makes fabric constructions that hang on the wall like pictures and invite you to imagine your own story lines for what's going on in them.  

"I laughed and cried — what a wonderful group of stories!" says a note in the exhibition comments book for 'Positively Ninety' at the Sharonville Fine Arts Center, which run through May 21. Someone else writes, "A wonderful collection of interesting faces!" The faces belong to people who are 90 years old or more, going about their lives with zest and relish. Nonagenarians are sometimes overlooked, she feels.  

The faces belong to people who are 90 years old or more, going about their lives with zest and relish. Photographer Connie Springer's nonagenarian portraits were first shown at the Kennedy Heights Arts Center in January 2009. The exhibition has had an unexpected continuing existence.  

Duveneck lives! Well, not quite, but the northern Kentucky artist who made an international name for himself more than 100 years ago is remembered at the 43rd Annual Duveneck Memorial Art Show, noon-5 p.m. Sunday at George Rogers Clark Park in Covington.An innovator in his time, Frank Duveneck was also an inspired teacher, here and abroad, who would have been deeply pleased to be remembered by this juried show, with a total of $3,000 in awards.  

Martha MacLeish's art, whether two- or three-dimensional, is concerned with “aspects that raise questions and create tension,” according to her artist's statement. The thing she doesn't mention is the joyful sense of life these works convey, a bursting, vibrant delight of echoing forms and interacting colors.  

Martha MacLeish of Indiana University's Fine Arts faculty allows her work to break exuberantly into three dimensions in 'Shape Shift: Recent Works,' at Manifest Gallery through May 13. MacLeish's art, whether two- or three-dimensional, is concerned with "aspects that raise questions and create tension," her artist's statement says. The thing she doesn't mention is the joyful sense of life these works convey.  

Impressionism and love of gardening serendipitously developed at the same time in the United States, 100 or so ago, resulting in such irresistible works as those on view at the Taft Museum of Art in 'The American Impressionists in the Garden' through May 15. Flowers all but burst out of the canvas in paintings by John Singer Sargent, Childe Hassam, Ernest Lawson and others.  

'Creating the New Century,' a jam-packed exhibition with few artists represented more than once, is on view at the Dayton Art Institute through July 10 and worth the trip up I-75. Drawn from the collection of Ohio businessman James Dicke, himself an exhibiting artist, all the works are post-2000 but reflect Dicke's admiration for 20th century stalwarts like Sean Scully, Philip Pearlstein and Alex Katz.  

Now in the middle of its first fund-raising campaign under the new name ArtsWave, the organization formerly known as the Fine Arts Fund wants to pioneer a new approach to valuing the role of the arts in our community. But with that might come controversy. Some worry that in trying to broaden its mission, ArtsWave will be spreading its dollars thin.