In advance of last year’s FotoFocus festival, probably the largest photography-related event in Cincinnati’s history, I asked James Crump — the festival’s co-chair and then chief curator/curator-at-large at Cincinnati Art Museum — if there wasn’t an unspoken spirit hovering over the proceedings: Robert Mapplethorpe.  

Matt Distel, an almost constant presence in the Cincinnati art scene for the last couple of decades, suddenly seems to be everywhere at once. But no, he’ll not be working three jobs  

Visionaries and Voices (V&V) has experienced many changes in the decade since it was first incorporated as a nonprofit organization...As the organization has evolved, so has its administrators’ approach to curating exhibitions.  

The School of Art at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning doesn’t yet offer a specific MFA degree in duct tape, but you have to wonder how soon before they do after seeing a current DAAP exhibition, Rise and Fall: Monumental Duct Tape Drawings by Joe Girandola.  

The Contemporary Arts Center is so excited about a performance piece that musician Jace Clayton will be doing there in April that it’s bringing him here earlier — Friday — as an advance introduction to Cincinnati.  

For The Art of Food, Kravetz is the “marshmallow, glue and sugar-coated sweetness” at the center of “Let Them Eat Cake (on the Cakewalk),” a fashion show of 11 delectable looks from 15 artists working with several layers of DAAP students, beauty experts, bakers and others.  

This week marks the opening Actors Theatre of Louisville’s 37th annual Humana Festival of New American Plays. First up is Meredith McDonough’s The Delling Shore, about two rival authors and their daughters, a work in which words become weapons.  

Cincinnati will be a hot spot on the international creative scene March 6 thanks to the Contemporary Arts Center’s efforts to bring the world-famous creative conference, OFFF, back to the city for round two (OFFF first made a Cincinnati stop in 2011).  

Heiress Marjorie Schiele studied and practiced art and befriended early-to-mid 20th century European avant-gardists. She also, later in life (she died at age 95 in 2008), decided to leave her estate to the Cincinnati Art Museum.  

The teen and twentysomething artists of After the Fall, Women Representing Women are just beginning to explore what being a woman means. I’m twice their average age, but I can relate. I am still sorting out questions of feminine beauty and identity.