Welcoming People, Pieces, and Programs

As those of you scratching out ’08 and replacing it with ’09 on your paperwork know, we are in a new year. With this new year comes new things, including me. I’m Brea, your new Urban Arts Space (UAS) blogger. I have been at the UAS since March of last year working mostly on marketing and advertising. My background is in performing arts, but I welcome the challenge of becoming more intimately involved with the visual end of the arts spectrum.


What better time to get my feet wet than now? Here at the Space we are installing the Ohio Art League 98th Annual Spring Juried Exhibition, which is slated to open Tuesday January 27th and run until Friday March 27th. This show features work by 35 Ohio Art League artists and was juried by David Pagel. In addition to a new exhibition we are also starting a new program, The Idea Lab, through a generous grant from the Efroymson Family Fund. The Idea Lab welcomes concept proposals from any Ohio State student in any discipline. Up to $3,500 in project funding is available. Students who participate in the Idea Lab program will have an innovative educational opportunity, as well as, a practical entrepreneurial experience. So if you are an OSU Student apply before the February 2nd deadline!


With all of the new things going on it’s a great time to come to the space. We even have a new road (the FINALLY completed Town Street) to get you here!

A Look Back: Poets Against War

For those who were not able to take part in any of poetry that happened back in October as part of the Poets Against War celebration. I have decided to post one of the poems I found particularly interesting for all you faithful readers out there to enjoy. Feel free to comment and start a discussion.

Who Sent Them

The target's head explodes in a pink mist.
The sniper half a mile away
pulls back the bolt, the spent
cartridge tumbles to the ground
hollow like old bone.

Hands in Nevada pull back on a joystick, a thumb
pushes a button, in Iraq
bodies curl like spiders dropped in fire.

Bombs thrust forward just above the ground,
sleek with purpose. No more than bullets
do they remember who sent them.

Citizens who watch explosions on TV
then turn away
do not remember who sent them.

~Edward Lense

Allen Wagner UAS student assistant

Inter-professional Student Council Mixer With Gordon Gee at The UAS

Urban Arts Space holds as a space for every individual. We strive on getting as many members of Columbus as we can involved in the arts. One way we achieve this is by hosting a wide array of events and meetings for the Columbus community. On Friday, January 9 Urban Arts Space held one of our many events in the form of a mixer and meeting for the OSU Graduate Student Council. The event was complete with catered food, open bar, some dancing, discussions, and even a visit and speech from Ohio State’s very own Gordon Gee.

Gordon Gee spoke of a time many years ago when the chemistry and biology department students at The Ohio State University started talking with one another and integrating. Now biochemistry is one of the most impressive and well-recognized departments at the school. His speech definitely emphasized the great outcomes that come from collaborations, a very appropriate topic for a meeting that was held for different graduate students ranging from business to pharmacy to mingle and get to know one another and each other’s work.

Just like different departments at The OSU overlap and mingle, we too here at The Urban Arts Space love to collaborate, for in essence art is the great collaborator, bringing together the arts and humanities and sciences. One example of this would be UAS’s “Ways of Knowing Water” exhibition, dedicated to our environment and spreading awareness through art that took place during the summer of 2008.

The event was a success. The graduate representatives all seemed to have a good time and left with smiles on their faces, which served as just another reminder that great ideas and accomplishments in life comes out of the collaborations between humans.

- Joanna Reed, UAS Student Assistant

Performance Improv at the UAS

Since the first day I worked at The Urban Arts Space last year till now I have been passionate about the unique space that composes Urban Arts and always dreamed of dancing in it. On Saturday, November 22, 2008 Sarah Gibbons (other student assistant to UAS) and I were working. Because it was Ohio State football's big Michigan game day, not many people came into the space. We decided to take this opportunity of bare galleries and extremely thought provoking and aesthetically pleasing art to do an improvisational dance jam.

Sarah, myself, and other dance major Meredith Hurst are all members of OSU Dance Department’s “PIE,” otherwise known as “Performance Improvisation Ensemble.” In this class/ensemble we learn to dance improvisationally using a variety of tools for movement creation. One tool we focused on was the different ways of seeing line (on one anothers body and our own body) while dancing. Dancing in front of the frantic and varying lines in Alan Crockett’s paintings was a refreshing way to explore new movement. I also found that working in the deep narrow space of the hallway of the gallery made me explore traveling movement choices I normally would not in a studio setting.

Malcom Cohran’s “Buffet of Anticipation,” Ann Hamilton’s “Shell,” Suzanne Silver’s pieces “Squiggle,” and “Deflated Painting from the Faculty Exhibition were other sources of inspiration for another improv jam. Being surrounded by the wide variety of textures in all the pieces: from silver to cloth to plastic to neon lights definitely influenced our dancing. A foreign vocabulary to each one of us was introduced. Because there was limited space around the work our movements became much more about gesture and motif than full body movement.

Dancing in such close proximity to the artwork and one another really forced us to make connections. These two improv jams were not seen as three dancers dancing around visual artwork, but a meshing of art forms; dance reflecting visual art and art complementing dance, dancers reflecting one another and contrasting one another, making connections physically and mentally, and acting not as a individual but an ensemble, even when dancing alone.

I enjoyed my dance experience at UAS and plan on dancing there again. To rent out or utilize our gallery space for your own personal events check out our website.

- Joanna Reed, UAS Student Assistant

Reflections on the Department of Art Exhibition

With the Department of Art Faculty Exhibition winding into its final days here at the OSU Urban Arts Space, it seems to be an appropriate time to reflect upon the experience. While a lot of positive and productive discussions have emerged as a result of this exhibit, among both the visitors and staff alike, a quiet and unspoken observation has alluded capture thus far.
The pieces that have stood out the most for me in this exhibit are Sergio Soave’s “The Kindergarten Project” and Ken Rinaldo’s “Buzz 2 2008”. I have found that when I talk to people about this exhibit, I often gravitate toward these pieces and find myself on the verge of ranting in their praise. While I cannot explain why I have been so invariably attracted to such different pieces, I could never shake the feeling that there was something under the surface that connected them. It wasn’t until today that I posited an idea about their connection, in that they serve as microcosms of the Department of Art Faculty Exhibition as a whole.
In Soave’s artist statement regarding his work, he cites that his prominent interest is using what he calls “a framework of small stories” to examine and enable “seemingly disparate images to create visual metaphors as counterparts to story telling rather than illustrations of particular stories.” The visual metaphors are illustrated in his piece and highlight the interconnectedness within that group of people. Rinaldo cites something similar in his statement, referring to the various “parallel networks” that are interconnected and intertwined through the creation of wine. Considering these similarities between the two pieces, I would like to then advance the claim that these traits of interconnectedness and ideas that overlap are representative of this exhibition in a macrocosmic sense. This is to say that visitors can come to the gallery and enjoy a presentation that features numerous pieces in a wide array of mediums and if they are further interested in these pieces, they can contact the artist directly since they are regular faculty members at The Ohio State University. This kind of accessibility allows the visitor to not only find connections between the pieces in the exhibit itself, but to also make connections for further education and enrichment.

David Hall, UAS Student Assistant