Side by Side
On view January 26th, 2007 through May 13th, 2007
Exploring recent creative developments from our region, Side by Side presents a group of ten artists from Northeast Ohio, who address topical issues. Identified through a cluster of themes, these artists are paired around concepts of abstraction, physical and conceptual barriers, malfunction, contemporary culture, and the fantastic and extraordinary. The exhibition includes the work of Laurie Addis, Rian Brown-Orso, Gianna Commito, Michelle Droll, Thomas Frontini, Neil MacDonald, Mark Moskovitz, Erik Neff, Susan Umbenhour, and Barry Underwood.
Painters Erik Neff and Gianna Commito both explore abstraction but with differing sensibilities. Rooted in the tradition of organic abstraction, Neff’s fluid vignettes are obliquely inspired by architecture, landscape, and environmental concerns. Commito also borrows from architectural sources. Her work emerges from hard-edged, geometric abstraction and focuses on isolating and reducing imagery to richly colored, graphic compositions.
Susan Umbenhour and Rian Brown-Orso explore conceptual and physical barriers in their respective bodies of work. Brown-Orso’s video installation, portraying the Oberlin Women’s Rugby Club engaged in rigorous physical activity, challenges conventional perspectives on gender. Umbenhour’s beautifully fabricated, minimalist wall-sculptures explore how physical space and architectural elements can be potential barriers.
Malfunction is at the core of Neil MacDonald’s and Laurie Addis’s work. MacDonald’s pixilated grid paintings visually reconstruct disasters and illuminate not only human error, but also technological failure. Notions of irregularity and chance are intricately interwoven into Addis’s exquisite weavings, in which she inserts software glitches into her loom’s computer to create deliberate imperfections in an otherwise perfect system.
A social critique of contemporary culture is explored by both Mark Moskovitz and Thomas Frontini. Working within the disciplines of industrial design and sculpture, Moskovitz marries art with consumerism in objects that are both functional and ironic. Frontini’s paintings address contemporary life and civilization through a different lens. Stylistically referencing the Renaissance, his compositions delve into our culture’s oddities, luxuries, and at times, downfalls through fragmented narratives.
With vibrant globs of paint and stacked Styrofoam, Michelle Droll’s constructions present narratives that suggest a variety of fantastical environments. Constructing and documenting both real and fictitious events, photographer Barry Underwood captures seemingly unusual or extraordinary situations.
As a focused ensemble of work by ten talented artists living in the region, Side by Side surveys some of the compelling issues driving artistic production in Northeast Ohio and beyond. To expand the scope of this exhibition, MOCA Cleveland will host, Side by Side: Face to Face, five weekly talks from February 1 – March 1, featuring each pair of artists discussing their work and the themes that link them in the exhibition.
CURATED BY ANA VEJZOVIC SHARP, ASSOCIATE CURATOR
Equipment provided for Side by Side is generously on loan from The Cleveland Museum of Art, the Allen Memorial Art Museum, and Oberlin College.
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