Saturday, February 19, 2011

A Literary Art Crowd



Tonight is Literati Glitterati, U.turn's version of a fundraiser. We hope you will be joining us, lots of wonderful surprises have been prepared for you. One being the beautiful full color exhibition catalogues we have been working on for quite awhile now. Of the exhibitions U.turn has mounted to date we currently have 14 publications available for purchase through our Lulu storefront.  We plan on continuing to produce little volumes to accompany each of our future shows as well.








This is a great boon for us as a collective. At the outset of U.turn the five of us involved envisioned a catalogue project, and it is so rewarding to see one of our goals realized. Each publication was written, designed, and layed out with the original concepts pertaining to the particular show in mind. The resulting books are quite honestly the gems in our gallery crown (if our gallery were to have a crown).  












Each catalogue in our Lulu store is available for purchase in two formats.  First for the lovers of the printed page, our catalogues come printed paperback in full color glory in a lovely hand held 7.5 x 7.5 size (the catalogue for One Solid Mutiny is available in a larger 8.5 x 8.5 size) with saddle-stitch binding. Additionally, each of the carefully organized books is attainable as a .pdf download one can read on an e Reader. 

We will have one copy of each of the catalogues so far produced on hand this evening for the curious, as well as information how you can procure your own copies.  Hope you can make it!

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Literati Glitterati (Where the Beautiful People Will Be)



Literati Glitterati: A U·turn Fundraiser

$10 suggested donation at the door

Cincinnati, OH—In little more than a year and a half of consistent monthly programming, U·turn Art Space is proud to have exhibited sixty artists from our region and from around the world. Now we are asking for your help. But don’t worry; we put the ‘fun’ in fundraiser. On the evening of the 19th, there will be books, buffets and beauty. Along with a delic...ious homemade meal, we will be offering beer for sale, live poetry readings and intermissions filled with a playlist designed especially for the event.

The evening will double as a book release night. Here are a few of the exciting releases planned:

-Brighton Approach Gold Edition- A special edition of Brighton Approach, U·turn’s art and literature periodical, will be available for sale. A number of the writers included in the book will be reading their work throughout the evening, including Keith Banner, Jennifer Glaser, Michael Hennessey, Meg Prichard, Nick Story and Dana Ward. These books have been printed full color, with art and writing contributions from Cincinnati and all across the country. As a Gold Edition, the book has been themed around alchemy, the pursuit of transforming the mundane into something precious. As an alternative arts space, we readily identify with such a goal.

-The U·turn Folios- The gallery has created four sets of full color digital prints, featuring work by the collective, as well as over twenty other artists that have exhibited with the space since October 2009. Three small folios have been curated and each will be available for $15. A larger folio that includes all of the prints from the smaller collections will available at a discounted price. All folios will include a certificate of authenticity from the gallery. These will be printed in a limited run for the event.




-Exhibition Catalogues- Since the beginning of 2010, the gallery has been designing print-to-order catalogues for every exhibition. A full run of these books will be unveiled, with information about how to order them from our online store (if you’d like to preview some of these books, visit the our Lulu storefront. This run of catalogues include essays and poems by Christopher Backs, Keith Banner, Shawnee Barton, Craig Damrauer, Micah Freeman, Hollis Hammonds, Isaac Hand, Justine Ludwig, Matt Morris, Patricia Murphy, Zachary Rawe, Eric Ruschman and Dana Ward.


A little about the cost of running the space:
U·turn is comprised of five members, all working artists with day jobs. The gallery takes no commission off of the sale of artwork in the space, wishing instead to pass all profits back to the artists. So far, we have financed the space with our own incomes.
It costs an estimated $585 a month to operate the gallery. This includes rent and energy as well as costs for producing an exhibition, such as wall paint, lights, reception refreshments, postcards and the cost to ship work back to artists. For a professional art gallery, this is amazingly economical. In the winter, our heating bills are much higher. We hope that this fundraiser will help us offset these expenses and make our spring exhibitions easier to produce.

This event coincides with our remarkable current exhibition, Marcia Hafif: Glaze Paintings. The renowned Hafif has designed a spacious installation of 8 small monochrome paintings that activate the entire room.

Steve Rosen reviewed this exhibition recently in CityBeat.

**SIDE NOTE**

Our friends at the alternative arts space CS13 will be presenting a 24-hour long exhibition called The Today Show that begins at 5 pm on Friday, February 18th and culminates in a reception on the evening of Saturday, February 19th, from 5-7 pm. A number of the artists included in their exhibition have shown or will be showing at U·turn in the coming months. The artists will mount an exhibition in which all of the work is conceived, created, installed, documented, written about and presented to the public in a 24 hour period. CS13 is located at 1420 Main Street in Over-the-Rhine. Make it an evening all about alternative spaces in the city: start at CS13 at 5 pm and then join us for dinner and a poem or two at 7 pm.