FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art announces details of Great Lakes Research initiative

Exhibition to open at the Cleveland Institute of Art

July 14–September 30, 2018
Press and Professional Preview Days: July 12–13, 2018
Cleveland, Ohio

Contact: Karen Sandstrom
Director of Communications
216.421.7417
ksandstrom@cia.edu

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Twenty-one artists from cities surrounding the Great Lakes will have works on view in The Great Lakes Research, one of the many events that comprise FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art.

The triennial is a summerlong exhibition of contemporary art from around the world taking place July 14 through September 30, 2018. The Great Lakes Research will continue to be on view through October 7, 2018 at the Cleveland Institute of Art’s Reinberger Gallery.

The Great Lakes Research exhibition follows a yearlong tour of artist studios in the region by FRONT Artistic Director Michelle Grabner. The exhibition considers a local geographic home within the context of the international exhibition, reclaiming regionalism as a vital means of identifying and prioritizing cultural centers.

While the subcultures, histories, idioms, and dialects differ between Toronto and Minneapolis, Chicago and Cleveland, Milwaukee and Detroit, these cities’ physical and psychological distances from coastal cultural hub cities unite their diverse cultural output.

The Great Lakes Research celebrates the curatorial practice of the studio visit, which reinforces the importance of local cultural fieldwork. In the process of selection, Grabner visited numerous studios to investigate and inform a group of works by artists who shape local and regional cultural patterns. Many of them have been pivotal as teachers and mentors in forming the practices of young artists. They advance alternative geographic and theoretical positions and recognize regional discourses as legitimate while nurturing creative practices that work within a global framework.

This group exhibition will feature:

• Toronto: Alan Belcher, Paul P., and Scott Treleaven
• Milwaukee: Microlights and Paul Druecke
• Chicago: Nate Young, Jessica Stockholder, Diane Simpson, Anne Wilson, and Rebecca Shore
• Minneapolis/St. Paul: Joe Smith, Pao Her, and Bruce Tapola
• Detroit: Beverly Fishman and James Benjamin Franklin
• Cleveland: Christian Wulffen, Erin Duhigg, Amber Kempthorn, and Darius Steward
• Kent, Ohio: Gianna Commito and Scott Olson

FRONT’s website includes information on all the artists who participated in the Great Lakes Research studio visits and serves as a resource and archive, lauding examples of the cultural work shaping the cities dotting the Great Lakes watershed.

Along with the Great Lakes Research exhibition, related artist talks and gallery tours, will take place at the Cleveland Institute of Art.