January 25 - February 22, 2013.
Jason Franz, Manifest gallery director, quoted in a January 24th Cincinnati.com article by Jackie Demaline, Taking a close look at realism's realism, stated, "There are two photographs, 'a medium which one may naturally assume to be, by default, "realism", but we know that is not nearly always the case. The photographs in the exhibit, by Kent Krugh and Ann Pegelow Kaplan, give us a chance to think about photography from the perspective of realism, but each are presented as objects in quite different ways."
drawing room + parallel space
2727 woodburn avenue
cincinnati, ohio 45206
http://www.manifestgallery.org/
HIGH
(realism's realism)
The exhibit is dedicated to the memory of Aidan Schapera*
Despite its reputation for respecting and often including works of all genres and approaches, including realism, Manifest has never produced an exhibit designed to survey such works exclusively. Usually the gallery's exhibits and book projects include a wide range of types of works. Some have even focused solely on abstraction, or concept-based works. With this we figured it was about time, now in our ninth season, that we see what comes from a straight-up call for works of realism in any media.
What is realism? In the context of this exhibit it is work which provides an illusionistic or highly descriptive representation of some visible subject. Whether that be by painting, drawing, sculpture, or other media, it is nevertheless closely aligned to what the eye sees - tangible subject matter, with little distortion, subjective interpretation, or other manipulation of visible 'facts.' This is not to say works our jury considered could not have content, meaning, and drama, nor that they couldn't include other non-realistic components. In fact, the 'real' that is depicted could be invented. The goal of the works, however, was that they were designed to convince the viewer by way of the art that the work represents something that exists outside the art itself.
Within the genre of realism one finds subcategories of photo-realism, hyper-realism, and various other nuanced versions of the practice. Manifest offered this broad call in order to survey how contemporary artists approach such work, possibly in unexpected ways, and to present the public with a compelling exhibition, and a view into the relevance of making things real.
For this exhibit 265 artists from 43 states and 16 countries submitted 649 works for consideration. Twenty-five works by the following 25 artists from 16 states and two countries were selected for presentation in the gallery and catalog.
Rob Anderson
Park Hills, Kentucky
Bain Butcher
Knoxville, Tennessee
Shannon Cannings
Lubbock, Texas
Joseph Crone
Indianapolis, Indiana
David Dorsey
Pittsford, New York
Brett Eberhardt
Macomb, Illinois
Gaela Erwin
Louisville, Kentucky
Bridget Grady
Watertown, Connecticut
Nathan Haenlein
Santa Rosa, California
Mark Hanavan
Middletown, Ohio
Philip Jackson
University (Oxford), Mississippi
Ann Pegelow Kaplan
Charlotte, North Carolina
Hwang (Bo) Kim
Lake Saint Louis, Missouri
Kent Krugh
Fairfield, Ohio
Anne Lindberg
St. Louis, Missouri
Louis Marinaro
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Laurin McCracken
Leland, Mississippi
Michael Meadors
Jersey City, New Jersey
Joseph Moniz
Acushnet, Massachusetts
Douglas Norman
Columbus, Ohio
Jose Sanchez "Felox"
Medellin, Colombia
Aidan Schapera*
Bloomington, Indiana
Elise Schweitzer
Indianapolis, Indiana
Benjamin Shamback
Mobile, Alabama
Dennis Wojtkiewicz
Bowling Green, Ohio
