Anri Sala and "Time-Based Art"

"Time-Based Art" Looks Great at CAC

By Steven Rosen

(This first appeared in Cincinnati CityBeat on Aug. 12, 2009)

So often has it been said that the Contemporary Arts Center needs to carefully select shows to fit its unconventional Zaha Hadid-designed space that it’s almost a mantra.

As has been seen in the past, imported traveling exhibits — especially group shows relying on paintings — have a tendency to get lost amid the angles, offbeat spaces, stairways and hidden corners of the downtown building’s interior. But done right, the shows can be as exciting as the building itself — the galleries have an ongoing capacity to surprise.

And Raphaela Platow, since becoming the museum’s director and chief curator in 2007, has made that a top priority. For the 2008-09 season, she dispensed with group shows in favor of one-person exhibits, including mixed-media installations by Carlos Amorales and Tara Donovan that were site-responsive. Donovan’s recently concluded show was as good as anything I’ve seen at the CAC — sculptural assemblages made from everyday material that seemed to overflow its spatial boundaries and flood the entire building with its presence.

But I might even like the current show (and last of the 2008-09 season) better, the Platow-curated "Purchase Not By Moonlight: Anri Sala." Expecting “merely” an exhibit of short films/videos — possibly confined to small screens in compartmentalized side rooms — I went somewhat guardedly. But the show interacts so well, and so completely, with the two floors of the museum reserved for it that the experience is transformative.

Sala, an Albanian-born artist now living in Berlin, does far more than make short films/videos. To use a phrase I read (and liked) in The New York Times, he makes “time-based art,” a term that brings together film, performance, sound installations and sculptures made of permeable materials that undergo ongoing change.

Such work increasingly represents contemporary art’s vanguard. Sala is concerned not merely with pairing moving images with sound, but in trying to visualize the impact of sound (including music) on us and our environment.

If that sounds quixotically intellectual, he pursues his quest with a visceral punch and a sense of compelling drama. For instance, his “Answer Me” features a man playing drums while a woman appears to speak to him — or, rather, at him, since he apparently can’t hear above the din to reply.

The work is actually more than filmed imagery — there is a real drum and drumstick in the room that automatically make sound at intervals. “Answer Me” can be glimpsed and heard throughout the floor, echoing through the CAC’s spaces, massaging over and roaming past other films to create a total environment.

In “Long Sorrow,” which is in its own room, an improvising Jazz saxophonist slowly plays, outside the context of a club but rather within a busy urban environment. The camera and the sound mix move in and out to take in his surroundings and music while studying his determination.

The room for this particular piece has a bench to sit and watch, which raises an issue.As museums increasingly feature such “time-based art,” they need to create spaces to let visitors spend a lot of time with each piece.

Because this is a summer show — and film/video is harder to promote than sculpture and painting — I’m a little worried this exhibit isn’t going to get the audience it deserves. (It will stay indefinitely into fall, since the next exhibit, a group show called Young Country, has been cancelled.)

Piqua: An Ohio Travel Destination

Proud Piqua puts itself on tourism map
By Steven Rosen
From the Cincinnati Enquirer
August 9, 2009

It takes a lot of gumption - and a lot of pride - for a small Ohio city to post a huge billboard near its interstate exit, announcing to the thousands of otherwise-preoccupied daily passersby that it's the place "where vision becomes reality."


But that's what Piqua has done. It has about 20,000 residents and is just far enough north of Dayton, a bit less than 30 miles, along Interstate 75 to seem rural rather than urban. Farm town, in other words. Hardly a tourist destination, it would seem.

But Piqua lives up to its slogan, which is also painted on a train trestle as one leaves Interstate 75 and drives into town along Ash Street. It's a fascinating day-trip destination, featuring one of the most ambitious historic-preservation projects in the region. It also has some unusual stores in its surprisingly colorful downtown.

The primary attraction is the renovated five-story Fort Piqua Hotel, now known as Fort Piqua Plaza, the city's downtown landmark on West High Street near Main Street. The hotel originally opened in 1891, an impressive structure for such a hamlet. Built of stone in a style known as Richardson Romanesque, it exuded a sense of grandeur with its curved arches and rooftop towers. Among famous people who stayed there were Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Houdini and John Phillips Sousa. In 1947, the NAACP staged an early sit-in at the hotel's lunch counter, resulting in a groundbreaking desegregation victory.

After being vacant for more than 20 years, it reopened last year as home to the Piqua Public Library, which occupies roughly half of its 85,000 square feet of space. In May, Heritage Ohio recently awarded the project Ohio's Best Public Improvement.

The local Hotel/Library Legacy Alliance raised almost $4 million for the project, an incredible amount given Piqua's size. The remainder of the $21 million project came from federal, state and city funding.

The building also functions as a history museum, since many architectural features were preserved and restored, including a fourth-floor grand ballroom, a beautiful interior skylight and a grand staircase with stained-glass windows connecting the old main lobby - with its fireplace and decorative molding - with the second floor "ladies' lobby" and parlor rooms.

There also is a display case showing artifacts recovered during the $21 million renovation project - a matchbook from the Hotel Favorite Cigar Stand, a rusty meat cleaver with its handle missing, a sign advertising Egyptian Deities cigarettes, a commemorative plate from a 1910 convention of Ohio hotel clerks.

Winans Fine Chocolates and Coffees, a Piqua-based company that roasts its own coffee and makes its own candies, has an espresso bar/chocolate shop at street level that opens into the library. A restaurant may open soon.

If Piqua is proud of its preserved and restored hotel, it's equally proud of its famous favorite sons, the Mills Brothers. This African-American vocal group, which became internationally famous in the 1930s, is remembered with a monument in the public square.

Dedicated in 1990, it cites the group - brothers John, Herbert, Harry, Donald and father John Sr. - as "musical ambassadors" and lists such hit recordings as "Paper Doll" and "Glow Worm." Inside the library, there is a display case devoted to the act, which got its start performing on Cincinnati's WLW Radio, featuring artifacts from their early days. There's also a photo of Mills' downtown childhood home, now regrettably demolished.

While not huge, downtown Piqua is a fun place to stroll and shop. It even has its own Web site, www.mainstreetpiqua.com, to promote it. There are speakers attached to the streetlights - Electric Light Orchestra's "Evil Woman" was playing when we parked and started walking.

One business, which occupies three storefronts at 314-318 N. Main St., is Barclay's Men-Women Clothiers, whose old-fashioned wood floors, pressed-tin ceiling with fans, and displayed antiques belie the upscale clothing lines it carries. Z-Coil Pain Relief Footwear, at 431 N. Main, is an outlet for a still-small Albuquerque-based franchise that sells personally fitted shoes.

And there's the amazing Dobo's Delights Bake Shoppe at 417 N. Main, open since 1909, displaying cakes in a window that could be in a design museum. On our visit, it had a three-layer wedding cake with a beach theme, featuring brown-sugar sand and elaborate rolled-fondant-icing seashells.

At Readmore's Hallmark, 430 N. Main, a massive gift/card/souvenir shop, there are Piqua postcards and mementos of the Fort Piqua for sale, an indication of just how highly this town regards itself - and deservedly so.