Northeast Ohio’s art people know all about FRONT. This is for the rest of us.
Stretching across museums and galleries throughout the region, FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art is a free, public, contemporary exhibition with artwork, performances, films and public programs. It runs from July 16-Oct. 2, and it’s a major event, even for the non-art crowd.
Amidst a time of ongoing tragedy and loss, FRONT 2022 explores how artmaking offers the possibility to transform and heal us — as individuals, as groups, and as a society. Spanning over 20 sites in Cleveland, Akron and Oberlin, the exhibition bears witness to the region’s past and present scars, from the environmental degradation caused by industrial production to police violence and urban fracture. Yet alongside interlocking public and personal crises, healing is contemporary Cleveland’s biggest industry; furthermore, organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous (founded in Akron) or Art Therapy Studio (one of the nation’s first such independent institutions) represent influential models for collective care. Learning from these and other local precedents, Oh, Gods of Dust and Rainbows emphasizes collaborative creative processes, working closely with institutions across the region, and connecting artists with local communities. Emerging over multiple timeframes, FRONT 2022 approaches the slow process of curating as a way to leave lasting traces upon civic and cultural infrastructures, while also embracing the ephemeral glimpses of beauty that art — like a rainbow — can still offer.
The exhibition features over 75 regional, national, and international artists working across painting, drawing, sculpture, textiles, ceramics, photography, video, text, performance, and other media. Ongoing exhibitions and public installations work in tandem with online and time-based programs. Starting with how daily practice allows individual artists to cultivate liberation through the everyday rituals of creation, the triennial also demonstrates how aesthetic pleasure — sharing joy through movement, music, craft, and color — can bridge differences between people to bring them together. Finally, the exhibition suggests ways that artmaking can speak with power: showing us how to recognize and reimagine the invisible structures that govern contemporary life.
To learn more, go to Frontart.org.
