University of Cincinnati’s Reed Gallery begins this year with a show, Urban Interventions, curated by three of DAAP’s faculty. The collected artists find inventive ways to insert art-making into life outside typical gallery presentations; they frequently make use of limited resources, a relevant model for artists trying to survive in a rattled economy. A cardboard installation by Keith Benjamin might recall the piles of bouquets that accumulate at the feet of performers during their bows. Cardon Webb reinterprets crude flyers advertising apartments or lost pets into four-color posters, sparking conversations about the functionality and necessity of good design. The high point of the exhibition is Lee Walton’s Making Changes, a video compilation of the artist making small alterations in his landscape to try and influence action and aesthetics. Only Cole Carothers, a virtuous enough painter, is noticeably out of place in the exhibition. The relationship between his window-view landscapes and the rest of the clever exhibition is so tenuous its inclusion is only clearly justified in the press release.
The exhibition continues through Feb. 19. Gallery hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday. Get venue details and find nearby bars and restaurants here.
This article appears in Jan 13-19, 2010.
