The Lens

Isaac Julien’s Lessons of the Hour, a key work in Revival, is a poetic meditation on Frederick Douglass’ life informed by some of the abolitionist’s most important speeches, such as “Lessons of the Hour,” “What to the Slave Is the 4th of July?,” and “Lecture on Pictures.” Douglass, the most photographed man of the 19th century, believed in the power of art and technology to shape lives and society. The still image of Douglass, his wife Anna Murray Douglass, and the noted African-American photographer J.P. Ball, Serenade, attests to the importance of the role of representation, in both politics and aesthetics,... Continue reading Revival: Digging Into Yesterday, Planting Tomorrow

The Sidney Project is an archive exhibition of photopolymer prints and other ephemera, resulting in a series of three books that document the architecture, history, and personal stories of the people who have lived at 2878, 2880, and 2930 Sidney Avenue in Camp Washington in Cincinnati, Ohio. A neighborhood that once cultivated a deep sense of community amongst the 21,000 residents during the 1920s and 30s now only has 1,234 people residing there. With much of the residential housing stock demolished as a result of the construction of Interstate 75, parking needs, and general blight, this exhibition focuses on three still-standing structures... Continue reading Lacey Haslam: The Sidney Project

Student Reflections highlights artwork by current Art Academy of Cincinnati (AAC) students working with lens-based materials and equipment. The exhibition is a juried open call, available exclusively to AAC's current student body. Student Reflections allows the public to gain insight into the perspective of college art students in the contemporary age.

Student Reflections presents selected artwork by AAC students and welcomes guest judge Vikesh Kapoor, whose work is also featured in the Art Academy’s Pearlman Gallery show, Deeply Rooted.

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Willy Castellanos’ post-documentary practice emerged from the photographic record he made in Havana, Cuba, during the 1994 Rafter Crisis. Despite the scarcity of 35mm film in the years following the fall of the Berlin Wall, Castellanos photographed complete sequences of events that included the construction of the rafts, farewell rituals, and scenes of crowds launching into the sea. Between August and September 1994, over 35,000 Cubans embarked toward the United States on hand-built rafts in what became one of the most dramatic exoduses in contemporary history.

A decade ago, the exhibition Exodus: Alternate... Continue reading Willy Castellanos: Exodus. Alternate Documents, 1994–2024

Finnish-American photographer Arno Rafael Minkkinen presents Afterwords, an exhibition of photographs with accompanying texts about their making. Over five decades ago, Minkkinen embarked on a personal quest to perfect a single concept: unmanipulated, nude self-portraits in communion and counterpoint with nature and urban settings. Minkkinen makes environmental portraits; however, his subject matter is always himself in dialogue with the environment. Curator: William Messer, Independent Curator Continue reading Afterwords: 50 years in Words and Images by Arno Rafael Minkkinen