OBERLIN, OH.- The theme of architecture acts as a common thread in three Oberlin exhibitions presented by the Allen Memorial Art Museum as part of the FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art. From July 14 to September 30, Cleveland, Akron, and Oberlin host more than 100 artist commissions, performances, films, and public programs. The festival’s inaugural edition, titled An American City: Eleven Cultural Exercises, collaborates with museums, civic institutions, and alternative spaces to examine the ever-changing and politically urgent conditions of an American city.

FRONT-commissioned installations by Barbara Bloom and Juan Araujo were organized by Andrea Gyorody, the AMAM’s Ellen Johnson ’33 Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, and are presented with support from the Eric & Jane Nord Family Fund and the Nord Family Foundation.

Barbara Bloom: THE RENDERING (H x W x D =)
FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, 87 North Main St., Oberlin, Ohio
July 14–December 16, 2018
New York-based artist Barbara Bloom has created a work specifically for the museum’s Ellen Johnson Gallery, which was designed in the 1970s by influential postmodern architect Robert Venturi. Far from a neutral white cube, the gallery is a complex space that, in Bloom’s words, “screams ‘Architecture’ with a capital A.” Rather than ignore the gallery’s eccentricities, Bloom has chosen to accentuate them. Bloom has carefully curated and placed a selection of works from the museum’s permanent collection, all of which depict architecture in some form. The artworks are shown using a variety of display devices that allow the viewer to navigate the space architecturally, and to experience these works as though they are breaking away from the two-dimensional plane and into the third dimension. Bloom’s process of reverse-rendering the works into three dimensions heightens their architectural essences, directing attention back to the space of the gallery itself. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. This exhibition extends beyond the run of FRONT, through December 16.

Juan Araujo: Redwood
FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art
Weltzheimer/Johnson House, Oberlin College, 534 Morgan St., Oberlin, Ohio
July 14–September 30, 2018
A site-specific installation mines the multilayered history of the Weltzheimer/Johnson House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and highlights its impeccably balanced mid-century design, which artist Juan Araujo finds imbued with a sense of tranquility. Born in Venezuela and now based in Portugal, Araujo has long been interested in modernist architecture and how it circulates in reproduction, approaching his classical painting practice through a conceptual framework. Based on firsthand observation of the site (the first Wright home Araujo had ever experienced), interviews with docents, and visits to the collections of the Allen Memorial Art Museum and Oberlin College Archives, the installation, titled Redwood after Wright’s material of choice, comprises a video and a cycle of paintings for the interior and exterior of the house.

During the exhibition, the Weltzheimer/Johnson House will have extended hours: Fridays and Saturdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sundays 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday open houses on August 5 and September 2 will require advance registration. Juan Araujo is a FRONT artist-in-residence. The Madison Residencies are made possible with support from the Cleveland Foundation’s Creative Fusion program. For more information and related events, visit oberlin.edu/amam.

Cui Jie
FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art
Richard D. Baron ’64 Art Gallery, Oberlin College, 65 East College St., Oberlin, Ohio
July 14 –September 30, 2018
Born in the 1980s, Shanghai-based artist Cui Jie belongs to the post-Mao generation of globally conscious Chinese artists whose work renounces the Socialist political agenda of the previous era. Raised in Shanghai and schooled in Hangzhou, Cui experienced firsthand the architectural transformation of China into the modern megalopolis it is today, giving her works a sense of velocity across mediums.
Cui’s exhibition for the FRONT Triennial—her first solo presentation in the United States—comprises paintings, drawings, and 3-D printed sculptures. Modeled on existing structures, such as the Shanghai Bank Tower, Cui’s paintings fantasize her subjects by employing a painterly style and visual grammar that marries the artist’s academic study of modernism with dystopian surrealism.

The Baron Gallery is open Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sundays from 1 to 5 p.m. Presented with support from the Eric & Jane Nord Family Fund, the Nord Family Foundation, and Antenna Space, Shanghai.