Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque hosts Cleveland premiere of art criticism documentary “Out of the Picture”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 15, 2025

CLEVELAND—The Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque will host the Cleveland premiere of Out of the Picture, a feature-length documentary film about U.S. art critics that explores a period of dramatic change for art and media.

Directed by Mary Louise Schumacher, a longtime critic for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Out of the Picture follows a handful of writers who have made it their life’s work to translate the experiences of art for others. The film illuminates the role of art criticism in contemporary society and the challenges faced by those who critique, prompting a national conversation about how meaning gets made in the 21st century.

The Cinematheque screening will take place at 1pm Sunday, January 26 in the Cleveland Institute of Art’s Peter B. Lewis Theater. Tickets can be purchased in advance here. College students will be admitted to this film for free with their student ID.

Following the screening, there will be a Q&A between Schumacher and Steven Litt, former art and architecture critic for The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com.

“Out of the Picture offers an incisive look at the fragile position of art criticism—and art critics—in an increasingly fragmented media landscape,” Litt says. “It raises questions about whether independent, critical voices can be heard amid a torrent of online content from social media and traditional outlets that are less disposed to support arts criticism. The film is essential viewing for anyone who cares about the future of arts and culture in America.”

In 2020, Litt received the prestigious Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation award for arts journalism. In 2024, after 33 years of covering architecture, city and regional planning, and Cleveland’s arts scene, he retired from The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com to explore new opportunities in writing, reporting and research.

“Steven left a giant hole in the arts writing ecosystem in Ohio when he left his post not so long ago,” Schumacher says. “I am excited to talk to him and others in Cleveland about about how arts journalism in the region could be strengthened now and in the future. Do we want criticism to become the domain of media outlets on the coasts? Who will bear witness to what artists are doing in Ohio now? What is the role of the broader community in sustaining a healthy arts ecosystem?

“Our team remains steadfast in our position that the job of discerning what’s genuinely artful, what’s worthy of our collective attention—the pathfinding role of art critics—is as important as ever,” she adds.

Out of the Picture is currently the centerpiece of a national impact campaign—with screenings in museums, galleries, art schools and journalism schools—that is provoking community conversations about how to sustain arts journalism.

“As an institution whose mission is to appreciate film as art and as part of the Cleveland Institute of Art, the Cinematheque is proud to host this important conversation around art criticism and to welcome the Cleveland arts community and beyond to partake in it,” says Cinematheque director Bilgesu Sisman.

Out of the Picture had its U.S. premiere in the spring at the Milwaukee Film Festival and a world premiere at the Master of Art Film Festival in Sofia, Bulgaria in February 2024. The film has been an official selection at nine festivals in the U.S. and internationally. Its runtime is 98 minutes.