annette bought the flowers herself.

Hi, this is Matt.

And this post is about Annette Monnier, one of the artists that I invited to exhibit in our first show. I wanted to thank her for being a role model. After earning a BFA in sculpture, Annette relocated to Philadelphia and dove right into running alternative art spaces, writing art criticism, and staging and participating in performance projects like bands and public events (read: zombies). All this and also making brill sculptures, installations drawings and more.

Annette is incredibly bright and well-read but totally unpretentious. Her newest online project is One Review A Month (dot) Com. Even her disclosure at the start of this project allows for the blurring between earnest aspirations in framing contemporary art with important discussion and the vitality of discussing the community in which one participates. She makes no apology for friends and colleagues appearing in her writing. Like me, her multiple roles in an intimate community probably make it damn near impossible to not be writing about someone she knows. But I feel that that is as it should be sometimes.

There is actually plenty about Annette online. The two part interview with her at ArtBlog is particularly insightful. Her work is socially and pop-culturally aware. Wisely, her materials list don't draw distinction between "traditional" art materials and the everyday stuff of life. IKEA or Martha Stewart bedsheets, glittery stickers, knives, DIY books on tape, and the floral arrangements that she presents in our exhibition are often paired with her popular highly-detailed drawings in pen on paper. Figurative, narrative, illustrative: Monnier resuscitates and reinvestigates some of the problems in this approach to art. One might think of Edward Gorey or some of the panning shots in a Sophia Coppola film when in these drawings' company.

As I said, Annette bought the flowers herself for this exhibition. These are two of the four arrangements made specifically for the exhibition. The artist's generosity abounds, as she indicated that she would rather receive no cut off the sale of these sculptures, offering all the proceeds to the gallery. We are wiped out by her kindness.

These arrangements themselves and their larger precedents are primitive and urban, whimsical and scrappy. Pairing humble recyclables with super-saturated craft store materials, these smaller arrangements are the bud vase equivalent of earlier works that were made in five gallon buckets and other street smart vessels. Like arte povera and like many of the other artists in the exhibition, Monnier's simple, frank, attractive objects utilize "low" materials to delightful effect. But more than just lo-fi, there is a naivete to these objects, a playfulness that is both critical and childlike. Monnier's collision of playforms causes the sculptures to resonate. Monnier is Outreach Program Director at The Clay Studio, which might offer a source for the pinch and coil pots that are built onto or around plastic containers.

I liked how the Unmonumental exhibition at the New Museum characterized more than one of the featured artists as archeologists of our present day. Monnier's sculptures are artifacts more than perhaps any of the other work in our first exhibition. Their distinct humility packs a politics; they are inarguably post-Reagan, post-9/11 and sensitive to our estranged class systems as well as the conceptual and economic collapses that characterize the world in which they have been created. They offer direct manuevers for the creative act. The pinch pot may be my first (and many people's first) interaction with making sculpture. Primeval and then dis/tastefully embellished with glitter glue, google eyes, tatters of floral print fabric, plastic beads and gold paint. Yet somehow anything but excessive.

katie labmeier

Katie Labmeier has been posting previews of the coveted prizes that will be available in her raffle on saturday at the opening. you can visit her blog Ceramic Animals Wearing Clothes here.


Labmeier was one of the artists invited by Zach Rawe. I think Zach wouldn't mind my paraphrased account of his rationale leading up to Katie's inclusion in the exhibition. First of all, Katie Labmeier was the only artist in the exhibition that we don't actually know personally. As I understand it, Zach's 'thank you letter' invitation to Katie was the first contact between the two of them. I'm fascinated by that, because it bespeaks of the communicative and connective potential of an exhibition. Zach had been living in New York for a semester during his schooling and his return to the midwest was a little difficult; reacclimating to this community and its expectations and biases was a bit daunting. As i have had it explained to me, seeing work by Katie Labmeier gave Zach a little dash of hope in what was possible in Cincinnati's art scene.






For Brought To You By, Katie is presenting "Major Award," which is a project that is as much performance as it is installation, as much detailed manipulated artwork as found object. A raffle will commence at our opening on Saturday night. For a buck a ticket, you can enter for a chance to win one of three prizes, each of which, as is shown on her blog, consists of a beautiful, beautiful cross stitch like the one above and a found figurine that is related to Labmeier's ongoing preoccupation in the personalities and eccentric qualities of these figurines that populate dime stores, thrift shops and flea markets.



proceeds from the raffle will benefit the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and, at the artist's request, U.turn. thank you, Katie! you = awesome.

The conglomeration of all of the components of this piece are clever and interestingly connected. That Katie collects anthropomorphized figurines of animals that are utilized in raffles that will eventually benefit and protect animals is a wholesome and fairly clean synthesis of parts. I'm reminded of a small piece that ran on a New York Times blog earlier this month that asked if Apple and similar companies should put money towards the protection and preservation of the animals that they market their products with (such as leopard, snow leopard, etc.). Read that here.

We're proud to include this project in our first exhibition. The generosity and social conscience demonstrated in Labmeier's efforts are closely aligned to our interests as a gallery to function as a relevant site upon which community can happen. More than just art for art's sake or artistic experimentation for the purposes of pure aesthetic advancement, the projects that we have been planning for the next year of exhibitions search for meaning in visual culture and practical application for visual literacy.

the scavengers + the pilots

last night we opened our doors for the first time to Cincinnati's public at large. SOFT OPENING participated in a vibrant evening in Brighton, joining Synthetica Gallery and semantics gallery in presenting group show exhibitions, with around twenty artists represented between the three spaces.

For our part, we presented a small number of small works of our own in conjunction with two pieces to preview from our upcoming exhibition Brought To You By. Dubbing the evening's art selections The Scavengers + The Pilots, each of us chose an artwork or two of our own work, most of which have never before been exhibited. Our intent was to accenuate the space that we have worked hard at getting ready. Patricia Murphy and Matt Morris both pinned works on paper to the vast walls. They each used craft store materials like glitter and pompoms. The drawings complimented each other and the other work nicely.

In our mission, we offered that this space and our interests will hopefully take us to new explorations in the exhibition of sculpture. With that in mind, Zach Rawe included a recent installation entitled The Future Is Clouds, as well as an untitled wall piece that collaged layers of white packing foam to the wall with brass pins. This wall piece was one of the most hidden works on display, in one of the small spaces on either side of our entrance's alcove, with the intent of coaxing visitors to look into all the parts of the space and appreciate its nuance.

Along with Molly Donnermeyer's photographs, she also decided to bring in brilliantly appropriate and restrained decorations to compliment our new silver vinyl signage. She set loose silver mylar balloons throughout the space. Like Warhol's Clouds, suddenly the history of Brighton's scattering of factories seemed invoked as an art factory in the early years of Soho.

Eric Ruschman created an installation above the entrance especially for the soft opening. Figurines of different animals held banners that spelled out "soft" repeatedly.





So, techno music pounded, pizzas, popcorn (compliments of Lindsey Whittle) drinks were shared. The night wore on pleasantly.


Thanks to all of our friends who joined us throughout the evening.
I hope you are all as excited about Brought To You By, opening October 3rd, from 7-10 pm.

our first exhibition!

The space has definitely seen some wear since it last functioned as a gallery venue. We are excitedly in the works of mending and brightening all of its physical parts, with signage on its way and lots of clean up inside the gallery. One of the last functions at Junior gallery included a wall painting by Cincinnati-based artist Ryan Mulligan. We are wistful as we paint it back into whiteness.

Wist-eria aside, the five of us couldn't be more excited by our first exhibition, coming to you in just one month! Here is an excerpt from our official press release:

October 3—31st, 2009
Opening reception: Saturday, October 3rd, 7:00 – 10:00 pm

In its first exhibition, the brand new alternative arts venue in Brighton presents the invitational group exhibition Brought To You By, which features the work of Evan Commander, David Dillon, Tracy Johnson, Katie Labmeier, Elaine Lynch, Annette Monnier, Ellen Nagel, Rebecca Seeman, Suzanne Silver and Lindsey Whittle. The collective of five working artists that runs U.turn wishes to commemorate the beginning of this gallery venture by expressing gratitude and recognition to artists who have had indelible affects on each of their creative practices. As professors, mentors or leaders by example, the artists included have influenced U.turn gallery and inspired collective members to be the artists and gallerists they are today. Individual collective members invited two artists each, resulting in this ten-person exhibition. The title of the exhibition is an Uroboros, a continuous idea that opens back onto itself. While the exhibition is brought to Cincinnati’s public through the efforts of the art space collective, the assertion of the exhibition is that, in many special ways, the exhibiting artists are responsible for inspiring and prompting this gallery into existence.

Please come celebrate the opening of Brought To You By and the grand opening of U.turn Art Space on October 3rd!


For more information, please contact the gallery by e-mail: u.turn.artspace@gmail.com

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Each of us took opportunity to contact two artists that we feel have been important influences in how we have arrived at the lives we find ourselves living: working artists in Cincinnati, who, for different reasons, have a passion to create this new exhibition venue in Brighton. We wrote thank you letters that doubled as an invitation to exhibit in Brought To You By. We are excited that all ten artists said YES and seem enthusiastic like we are about this project.

now is as good a time as any to also tell everyone that we will have a soft opening in two weeks- September 19th- where interested parties, supporters and friends can visit the space during install to celebrate this new endeavor. From 7-10 pm, we will have snacks and a light party atmosphere in the cavernous gallery to gather and get ready for a great run for the venue.

More About An Artist: suzanne silver

One of the artists set to exhibit in Brought To You By is Suzanne Silver. Suzanne Silver is an assistant professor in the Painting & Drawing program of the Department of Art. Silver studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and received a BA from Smith College and an M.F.A. at The Ohio State University. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally, including the Axel Raben Gallery in NYC, Nexus Contemporary Art Center in Atlanta, CJM in San Francisco, Michlelet David Yellin in Jerusalem, the Castle of Otranto in Otranto, Italy, the Weston Art Gallery in Cincinnati, and The Bureau for Open Culture in Columbus. She has received an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council and grants in mixed media from the Greater Columbus Arts Council and drawing from the Virginia Commission for the Arts. Silver advocates an expansive approach to the medium of drawing and combines unexpected materials such as powders, balloons, gold leaf, thread, paints, soap, and slate to create a visual language that is open to multiple readings.

Matt Morris, one of our collective members who is both art critic and artist in his own right, reviewed an exhibition of Suzanne Silver's work at the Weston Gallery last summer. It was this review, in fact, that has everything to do with his gratefulness towards Silver, as he explained to the rest of us in an early planning meeting. The text can be read below.

SUZANNE SILVER

CINCINNATI

In Seeing the Fugitive, Suzanne Silver enlists a mysterious vocabulary of powder, white neon, clear vinyl, and art studio detritus. Her installation is as abstractly expressive as it is semantically experimental in its anxious response to today’s unpredictable climate. In a room filled with text-based works, Silver manages to emphasize the heterotopic dimension of the gallery space, and to direct our attention to the minefield between image and written language. She liberates the pictorial possibilities of concrete verse, much as Stéphane Mallarmé did with dispersed words across white pages. In this, Silver expresses her disinterest in and mistrust of words’ and text’s typical orderliness, that is, their compliance to the page. Appropriating snippets of text about war and terrorism, she permutes them in two and three dimensions, as if she could parse through the possible motives and meanings behind the propaganda and its codes. She also slips small Jenny Holzer-like observations such as “white lies/ black truths” into the

exhibition.

Silver’ aim is a critique of the “sinister” inconsistencies of the present political landscape and its war on abstract adversaries. In the installation, winding paths, sculptural decoys resembling bombs, and gestural graphite and neon scribbles proliferate, creating an alternate universe where irrationality, double meanings, and ambiguities of fact and substance yield unassuming visual significance rather than political certitudes. What’s more, she dissimulates the disquiet of her politics under the guise of abstract expressionist afterbirth. The animated puddles of Pollock and the clamoring abstractions of Kline lie still on the gallery floor, beneath drifts of dust and powder. Silver’s use of powder raises issues of stillness, dematerialization, and an anxiety over loss. Her snowy floor improvisations are echoed in murmurs from faint wall drawings, décollaged with remains of evanescent debris. Roland Barthes once wrote on silence, noting, “What is expressly produced so as not to be a sign is very quickly recuperated as a sign. Silence itself takes on the form of an image.” Silver literalizes this assertion and more: the exhibition requires a certain suspension of prescribed judgments, demanding of both the artist and ourselves a definite implication—in

contrast to a federal government that notoriously speaks too quickly, overstepping the bounds of fact into baseless accusation.

Facing a pulsating white neon signs that reads “Drawing a Blank,” one expansive wall has been left nearly blank. Here, the marks are ethereal, as if Silver were drawing in tongues. Spirituality emerges through Zen whiteness,

establishing a contrast to the problems of diction and policy tackled elsewhere in the exhibition.

Bulging milky-white and greasy-brown discs edged with the various silvers of aluminum foil and metal leaf occasionally interrupt the pervasive whiteness of Silver’s work. These piles of shaped paintings are bodily and scatological. Fecal metaphors spill into the space of Silver’s anxieties, yielding a quite reckoning: what’s being discussed is bullshit, politicians flinging shit, and most of all the shit is hitting the fan. Jewish orthodoxy offers a blessing meant to be uttered after defecation—the asher yatzar—which encapsulates this dimension of primal

painting: “Blessed are You Hashem… [who] created within man many openings and many cavities… who heals all flesh and acts wonderously.”

Thus, conflating the sacred and the profane, the soupy excess that punctuates the exhibition’ sparseness brings the body sharply into focus. Concerned with much more than the present war, it foregrounds invisibility and the humanity. Through inchoate fragments of critical play, political fervor, and spirituality, Seeing the Fugitives’ post-fallout inquiry collapses the safety of internal reverie around the viewer’s feet.

—Matthew Morris

In a previous life...

Before first floor space was used as a record store, a church and then junior gallery, a personal residence, and now U.turn Art Space, it was a store that sold mixed paints, fine dress goods and feathers.

We are U⋅turn.

Let's get started shall we.

Our mission statement:

U⋅turn Art Space is a collective-run alternative arts space that was initiated in fall 2009. The U⋅turn Art Space collective is comprised of five Cincinnati-based artists: Molly Donnermeyer, Matt Morris, Patricia Murphy, Zach Rawe and Eric Ruschman. Each month U⋅turn delivers fresh, compelling exhibitions of emerging and established artists. The gallery has a special interest in new developments in sculpture and object making, but is excited to represent the contemporary landscape of art as broadly as possible. Our goal is to bring shows into Cincinnati that are relevant; that provide an opportunity for discourse, ideas, and play to be forced together, awkwardly or elegantly, and offer itself to a viewing audience. Along with art exhibitions, U⋅turn hosts a range of accompanying readings, performances and events that raise probing questions and plural perspectives. U⋅turn’s efforts are intended for audiences in the surrounding Brighton district, Cincinnati at large and the whole of the Midwest. Opening receptions for exhibitions usually take place on the evening of the first Saturday of every month to coincide with other gallery openings in the area. The gallery will also have regular hours on Saturdays from 12-4 pm. Other viewings are by appointment. Gallery is free and open to the public, with street parking in front of the space and on nearby streets.