Announcing details of Great Lakes Research initiative

CLEVELAND, Ohio (Monday, May 14, 2018) – 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 summer-long 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 informing 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.

“I am tremendously proud of CIA’s partnership in FRONT as we host The Great Lakes Research exhibition in Reinberger Gallery,” said Grafton J. Nunes, President and CEO of the Cleveland Institute of Art. “For 135 years, our faculty and alumni have influenced the cultural conversation at every level: regional, national and international. Likewise, our students are beneficiaries of a worldly sensibility and of a cultural perspective that grows organically from our region.”

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