Press Releases

Richard Anuszkiewicz solo show to feature recent work by Op Art master

For Immediate Release
Contact: Ann McGuire
Director of Communications
amcguire@cia.edu
216.421.7417

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Four separate exhibitions running concurrently at the Cleveland Institute of Art in November – including a solo show by Op Art master and CIA graduate Richard Anuszkiewicz – will offer visitors a chance to become temporary art students, sampling the breadth of contemporary art.

The four shows – which run November 8 through December 14 – span the art spectrum from Op Art paintings, to narrative-rich political illustrations, to densely textured quasi-narrative watercolors, to dream-like experimental video. All four collections appeared in New York galleries in the last year.

“Playhouse Square brings Broadway productions to Cleveland; we’re bringing in Chelsea gallery shows,” said Bruce Checefsky, director of CIA’s Reinberger Galleries. “There’s a tremendous appetite for artistic diversity in Cleveland so I’m confident these shows will be well received.”

The exhibition kicks off with a lunchtime lecture by filmmaker James Nares starting at 12:15pm. Nares’s talk is open to the public and presented as part of CIA’s ongoing Lunch On Fridays series. The exhibition opens at 6pm in the Reinberger Galleries and is followed at 7:45pm by a free Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque screening of Nares’s feature film, Rome 78. Nares will introduce the film and lead a Q+A session afterward. All of these activities take place in CIA’s Gund Building at 11141 East Boulevard.

Richard Anuszkiewicz – Recent Work
A 1953 CIA graduate, Anuszkiewicz vaulted to international prominence early in his career with the rise of the Op Art movement when his work was featured in The Responsive Eye, the landmark 1965 exhibition of perceptual abstraction at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

In his elaborate early paintings, Anuszkiewicz explored the optical wizardry that occurs when high-intensity, complementary colors are applied to the same geometric configurations. New York Times art critic Holland Cotter wrote of Anuszkiewicz’s paintings in 2000, “The drama – and that feels like the right word – is in the subtle chemistry of complementary colors, which makes the geometry glow as if light were leaking out from behind it.”

Anuszkiewicz has work in the collections of more than 75 museums from Akron to Yale, countless private collections and was featured this summer in the international show, Dynamo - A Century of Light and Motion in Art, 1913 – 2013, at the Grand Palais Museum in Paris. The sampling of works in this fall’s CIA show – many of which appeared this past spring at the Loretta Howard Gallery in New York – was all completed in the last decade and reflects the painter’s evolution toward more subtle explorations of color and form.

Suzanne Treister – Hexen 2.0
While the medium – and the optical experience – may be the message in Anuszkiewicz paintings, British-born artist Suzanne Treister makes her political messages explicit in the form of thought-provoking conspiracy theories elaborately illustrated on giant tarot cards.

Hexen 2.0, which was exhibited in the P.P.O.W. Gallery in New York last winter, features major figures and movements of the post-World War II era, ranging from LSD pioneer Timothy Leary, to “Unabomer” Theodore Kaczynski. Wrote Ken Johnson for the New York Times, “The connections drawn within and among the cards are so mind-boggling to contemplate that it seems entirely appropriate to comprehend them within a magical system like the tarot.”

James Nares – Street
British-born artist James Nares spent one week in September 2011 filming 16 hours of footage from a moving car traveling the streets of Manhattan. He used the kind of high-definition camera usually reserved for capturing speeding bullets ripping through apples, then edited the footage down to one hour of super-slow-motion street activity put to music. The result is a trippy, dreamlike experience that played at The Metropolitan Museum of Art this past spring and will air on a loop in CIA’s Black Box Projection Room.

Arpita Singh – Men in Turmoil
Born in West Bengal and living in New Delhi, Arpita Singh creates richly textured figurative paintings that reference traditional forms of Indian art but seem to comment on domestic violence and sectarian strife. This collection of her work drew critical acclaim when it was on exhibit at the DC Moore Gallery in New York last winter.

All four shows are supported by a grant from Dealer Tire. Additional support for Richard Anuszkiewicz – Recent Work was provided by the Ben S. Stefanski family and the Polish-American Cultural Center. CIA’s public programming is supported by the residents of Cuyahoga County through a grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

Reinberger Galleries are open Monday through Thursday and Saturday, 10am to 5pm; Friday 10am to 9pm; closed Sunday.

About CIA

Founded in 1882, the Cleveland Institute of Art is an accredited, independent college of art and design offering 15 majors in studio art, digital art, craft disciplines, and design. CIA extends its programming to the public through gallery exhibitions; lectures; a robust continuing education program; and the Cinematheque, a year-round art and independent film program. For more information visit cia.edu.

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