When I first caught wind of Spectacle: The Music Video, opening Saturday at the Contemporary Arts Center downtown, I felt like I was heading over to Steve’s all over again. The new exhibition explores the music video’s past and present while considering its future through a series of artifacts, photos, immersive environments and literally hundreds of music videos.  

The Contemporary Arts Center’s second-floor galleries are presently shared by a solo exhibition of sculptures by Matthew Monahan and Majr Gazr, a multimedia installation by the collaborative Maidens of the Cosmic Body Running.  

One of the stranger artworks on display at Contemporary Art Center’s current Where Do We Go From Here: Selections From La Coleccion Jumex is a urinal. It is seemingly ready to use, planted right out in the open on a gallery wall. If not for the fact that on close inspection it is too sculptural and painterly to have any functional purpose, it might actually get used.  

Over the next few months area museums and galleries are presenting a variety of outside-the-box fare, including quilts, wedding dresses, motorcycles and even an installation made of trees. The Taft Museum, Cincinnati Art Museum, Contemporary Art Museum, Country Club, Manifest Gallery, Carnegie Center, Weston Art Gallery, Carl Solway Gallery and Thunder-Sky Inc. are pulling out all the stops for patrons.