Cleveland Museum of Art's Latest Acquisition: Seed Pods

Seed Pods by Sopheap Pich courtesy Cleveland Museum of Art

We got a sneak-peek at one of the Cleveland Museum of Art's most recent acquisitions during a tour of the institution's conservation lab for "Art & Mind," our June 2016 profile of director William Griswold.

Seed Pods, by contemporary Cambodian artist Sopheap Pich, is made with bamboo and rattan shaped using heat and then tied together with steel wire. Close inspection of the sculptures shows singe marks on the strips of bamboo.

Griswold saw Seed Pods while visiting Pich's studio outside Phnom Pen, the country's capital city. He was there with Indian and Southeast Asian art curator Sonya Quintanilla and museum trustees in February.

"We went to his studio and fell in love with this piece," Griswold says. "As we were driving away from his studio [in a bus], I got on the phone with his dealer in New York and said, 'We’ll take it.'"

Griswold — who's fond of Asian art — spoke about the work and the artist, whose work he was introduced to a few years ago at Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition, with reverence.

"He’s really an interesting guy," Griswold says. "I think it’s a wonderfully lyrical, incredibly accomplished piece. The actual technique and materials are related to materials that are used in Cambodia for fishing traps. And so these are materials which a Cambodian is intimately familiar. The materials are familiar, but their use in art is altogether new, and it’s really him."

World Tour

Aziz Sahmaoui, photo by Manuel Lagos

If you missed out on this summer's sold-out Solstice, Cleveland Museum of Art's premier celebration of global music, you're in luck. Every Wednesday night in July you can soak up world beats with the new CMA concert and film series, Ohio City Stages. And there's no need to worry about tickets here, the event is free.

"It's an upscale, museum-style block party celebrating summer and the city," says Tom Welsh, director of Ohio City Stages.

The series introduces people to global musicians they wouldn't normally have access to, such as Aziz Sahmaoui & University of Gnawa from Morocco. On July 24, the band will share their interpretation of Gnawa trance music, a fusion of Arabic north and sub-Saharan south sounds, with attendees. Sahmaoui, who has only performed once before in the United States, is looking forward to playing for Clevelanders.

"We love cultural diversity," Sahmaoui says through a translator. "When people identify themselves to that powerful energy, then we all become one."

Tonight, Fanfare Ciocarlia, a Balkan brass band that plays gypsy music, will play a set at 7:30 p.m. on a stage set up on the block surrounding Transformer Station on West 29th Street. Don't worry about the gloomy weather canceling the concert — the show goes on rain or shine.

Fanfare Ciocarlia, photo by Arne Reinhardt

After the concert, continue your night of cultural enrichment with a film screening by Bellwether, a project of the museum's Contemporary Arts Society, on the lawn of the Transformer Station.

Up tonight is artist Kevin Beasley, who will show a selection of his favorite films that range form old Hollywood to foreign movies, artist films and movie trailers.

"It's films that I think are really great," he says. "I thought this was a good opportunity to show films people don’t really know about. They are kind of obscure, but they are things I like to think about."

Art for Dudes by Dudes

After regularly visiting art shows with his fiancee, Mathias Noble King says he realized there were only two or three vendors selling "dude-oriented stuff."

"I was finally like, Why don't I just make a show that collects all of these guys I've met throughout visiting all these other craft shows and call it Manly Mart?" he says.

Once he pinned down a location for the show, Mahall's 20 Lanes in Lakewood, King also found 17 male vendors to display their creations June 8. "They are selling everything from vintage to handmade items," he says. The manly wares on sale include cycling bags, books, furniture, watches and more.

One of the vendors, Nate Mucha, owner of A Hot Mesh, a design and alternative printing firm, will be rolling out a new brand, The Manly Gent, which includes goods for guys such as tasting journals, wearable items, posters and other products.

"If you have the meat journal, for example, as you find different kinds of meats, you can place them on the scale we have and make notes about it," Mucha says. "That way the guy has like a little address book of meats he has tried."

Although the event is named Manly Mart, King hopes to draw in the opposite sex, too. "I thought that saying it was a dudes-only vendor show would actually attract more ladies to buy the stuff for the dudes in their life," he says, especially with the show being right before Father's Day.

Photo courtesy of Alex Catanese

Visitors to the free show, running from noon to 6 p.m., can also enjoy bowling, drinks and food as well as music from Cholly and Plumjam.

"I know people want this to happen next year, so I want it to be an annual thing," King says. "Vendors are pretty excited, and everyone seems pretty enthusiastic about it."

Jimmy Kuehnle Lights Up Cleveland

Photo by Rob Muller 

If you've seen a floating ball of light on your commute home lately, your mind is not playing tricks on you.

It's local artist Jimmy Kuehnle and his latest creation: approximately 3,000 Christmas lights woven around a steel rod attached to a tricycle. If you have yet to witness the kooky contraption — rest assured — Kuehnle will light up the Brite Winter Festival in Ohio City from 5-8 p.m. this Saturday.

Kuehnle, an assistant professor at the Cleveland Institute of Art, designs colorful inflatable suits and impossible bicycles — wearable art that tests our perceptions of space and mobility — and is currently an artist-in-residence for the Spaces World Artists Program, which provides space and support for artists to create new work. We caught up with Kuehnle to chat about how his Twinkling Tricycle Tour of Enchantment is making Cleveland brighter this winter.

How does your light machine work?
It’s a workman’s industrial tricycle I bought from Craigslist from an old Ford factory in Indianapolis. [The Christmas lights] are powered by a 12-volt battery with a DC/AC power inverter because they’re just regular household Christmas lights. A quarter-inch steel rod armature supports the lights and forms a cloudlike shape so that the lights seem like they’re floating in the air.

Where did you get your inspiration for this project?
I’ve made many art bicycles and wanted to make one in Cleveland. It’s up north and cold in the winter, and I thought, What better way to be out and about and making people smile than a light-encrusted tricycle?

How have people reacted to you and your light machine?
People will stop in their cars along the street to snap photos. I've had people stop on their way home from work, circle back, come over and say 'Hi.' Complete strangers track me down to email me photos and videos [of me] from the Health Line. It's a great, all-around good experience.

What meaning would you attribute to your art?
It’s a reaffirmation of human ingenuity and the human condition. We're all basically meaningless in this big, fast universe of nothingness. If we take the time to realize we all have hopes, dreams and desires, and we're alive, maybe we could enjoy a bit of it.

This MOCA Isn't Coffee, and It's Coming to Cleveland

Jill Snyder gestured to a dirt lot scarred with tire marks and dotted with piles of gravel, explaining how in just a few months, that same space will be occupied by a tree-lined plaza.

Snyder, Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland’s executive director, was one of about 50 people mingling and marveling at MOCA’s new house of art in University Circle during its “signing off” event yesterday. Donors and members of MOCA’s board signed the building’s stainless steel cladding with permanent marker, marking the completion of its exterior.

The building is an odd shape. It resembles a bulging Chinese takeout container, but one for a king, or maybe Batman. The outside, although black, reflects the sun and the surrounding environment, giving it a look that’s dark and edgy, yet somehow colorful and interactive at the same time. The chic exterior almost teases passersby, with windows showing off only certain segments of the museum.

The new building, at the corner of Euclid Avenue and Mayfield Road, opens Oct. 8, replacing MOCA’s old house in the former Cleveland Play House complex in Midtown. The move is a product of “opportunity and necessity,” said Stewart Kohl, a MOCA board member and co-chair of the building campaign. The old location “wasn’t convenient to our constituency.”

The building itself is a work of art that will complement the pieces on display. A virtual tour shows broad white staircases, Navy blue outer walls and light fixtures illuminating art on white inner walls.

The $35 million project involved a decade-long effort from brainstorming to completion, but only took 16 months to construct. More than 60 donors gave $25,000 or more, with several more contributors at lower levels.

The museum is expected to be a central fixture in University Circle’s Uptown district, a new retail and residential neighborhood.

Snyder and Kohl addressed the small crowd, which Kohl dubbed “MOC-ites.” They ranged from elderly art lovers to yellow-vested Donley’s construction workers clad in hard hats. Many ate Sweetie Fry ice cream as they stood in the sun. One woman described the move as “wonderful.”

“I love the architecture,” said Elaine Harris Green, an abstract painter who donated $10,000 to the effort. “I can’t wait to go inside and see the art.”

Kohl, who had just returned to Cleveland on a flight from New York, noted how he could see the building “clear as a bell” from the sky, which prompted some ooh-ing and ahh-ing from the audience.

“And the finishing won’t just be the bricks and mortar, but it’ll be the lights and the program and the people that this is going to generate,” Kohl said.

“This is going to become one of the most exciting corners in Ohio, if not the U.S.”

MOCA's Last Hurrah on Carnegie Avenue

The end is near for the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland – well, at least for the museum’s current location.

MOCA reflects on its impending move from 8501 Carnegie Ave. to 11400 Euclid Ave. with its last exhibition, 8501 to 11400 (On Moving). The exhibition's opening night celebration, tonight from 7 to 9 p.m., debuts work from regional artists Corrie Slawson, Brandon Juhsz and Ben Kinsley, all of it exploring their perspectives and philosophies about moving.

Kinsley, known for his playful and engaging site-specific performances, has engaged two actors to play street preachers. One actor will stand outside at MOCA’s current location and announce, “The end is nigh!” while the other, in University Circle near the construction site, will proclaim “A new beginning is imminent!”

The actors debut the performance tonight and will appear on the street 12:30-1:30 p.m. every Sunday through March 24. They’ll distribute hand-written brochures to witnesses on the street that will contain testimonials about MOCA from visitors but never actually name the museum itself. Sound recordings of this quirky scene will play through the speakers in the exhibition space.

Slawson’s work explores the move through screen prints that mirror the streets and landscapes of MOCA’s current and future locations. A screen-printed mural on a glass partition depicts an evolving streetscape that viewers can walk along.

Juhsz is known for recreating and reshaping ideas by manipulating digital images into surreal artwork and then photographing them. His eye-catching work explores the theme of a moving transition, reflecting a balance between architecture and nature.

During the exhibit, a board on the wall will invite guests to share memories and moments of inspiration from MOCA’s old space.

“Guests can share what they like about MOCA and what they look forward to at the brand-new gallery,” says marketing and design director Tom Poole.

The exhibit will run until March 31, when MOCA shuts its doors for the move. It’ll reopen in early October at its new location.

Holiday Shopping Pops Up in Gordon Square

A new gallery has popped up on the Cleveland art scene, but it may not be there for long. Double Feature, an eclectic pop-up gallery, is set to open today in the Gordon Square Arts District on the city's West Side.

Double Feature’s two-room space will play host to an array of fine art, a unique shop and various events throughout the holiday season.

The gallery is run by four friends, who came together through involvement with other artistic ventures around Cleveland, namely Ctownartparty. The group wanted to create a space that showcased local and national artists in a fun and casual environment, according to founder Rachel Hunt.

“We saw that there was this gap where we felt there weren’t a lot of emerging national artists being exhibited in Cleveland,” she says. “So we really wanted to start integrating national and local art, and to frame it on the same wall.”

With its attractive layout, foot traffic and established arts organizations, the newly renovated Gordon Square is a good fit for the small gallery. The four partners hope to return the favor by attracting new people and young talent to the up-and-coming area.

Double Feature already has a number of events planned for its two-month residency, including participation in Gordon Square’s “Bright Night,” children’s art workshops with local artists, and a holiday sweater show.

Despite an inclination to bring in outside artists, the founders emphasize that the gallery is “quintessentially Cleveland,” from its prices (the most expensive piece being $2,000) to its feeling of community.

“It doesn’t matter who you are,” says Hunt. “You can buy art and be a part of the art scene. You’ll feel like you’re welcome to just kind of hang out with us on Friday nights like you would at somebody’s house.”

Join the friends of Double Feature in celebrating the gallery’s opening tonight from 8 p.m. to midnight.

1392 W 65th St, 440-263-2254

Building a giant cow out of car hoods

Remember artist Chris McConnell from our August 2008 issue?

He built a 13-and-a-half-foot tall horse out of wood. We told the story in our Experience section here, and on WCPN 90.3 FM here.

Chris just wrote to say he's finished his next project.


Now that's a cow. Out of car hoods.

We dig.

Chris is currently studying at the Cleveland Institute of Art, thanks, in part, to his mammoth equine.