Big Photography News from (ahem) Cleveland

Traveled back to my old stomping grounds in Cleveland last week to attend an opening reception at the Cleveland Museum of Art for the new exhibition of Copia, the culmination of a decade photographing the American consumer landscape by Brian Ulrich.

Granger, IN. 2003
from the series Copia
© Brian Ulrich

The exhibition consists of over 50 images from the three subsets of Copia: Retail (2001-2006), his early documentation of shoppers in malls and big box stores around the U.S.; Thrift (2005-2008), focusing on thrift stores and their collection of unwanted or discarded consumer products; and Dark Stores (2008-2011), which explores the impact of the 2008 financial crisis thru images of abandoned malls and stores across the country. Taken as a whole, they remind us of the deep economic, social, and political ramifications of consumer culture.
The exhibition also coincides with the release of his book Is This Place Great or What, published by Aperture and CMA and including the entire Copia series.
As many of you know, I've been a huge supporter of Brian's work for a long time, so of course I highly recommend checking out this show if you're in/near or passing thru Cleveland. The print reproduction is phenomenal and the museum's presentation accentuates the works and gives the viewer a nice space in which to navigate the series. And as always, there's a wealth of little surprise details to be found in the images on close inspection -- treasures only revealed thru viewing the works in person instead of online. The exhibition will continue at CMA thru January 2012.
If you're not familiar w/ Ulrich or the Copia project, there's a number of great interviews out there to read on the web. I've written about them frequently on this blog, so I don't wanna go overboard or rehash old territory, but only to say, a good place to start would be this 2010 interview w/ him from BOMB Magazine.

Copia -- Retail, Thrift, and Dark Stores. 2001-2011
photographs by Brian Ulrich
ongoing thru 16 January 2012
Cleveland Museum of Art
11150 East Blvd., Cleveland

Last but certainly not least, while in Cleveland last week I was very excited to hear the official announcement about the groundbreaking for a new gallery to be opened there called Transformer Station, which will be a collaboration between CMA and the Akron-based art collectors Fred and Laura Bidwell.
The gallery will be located on W. 29th St. in Ohio City (my old neighborhood!) and is scheduled to open in late 2012. This promises to be a tremendous boost to the emerging contemporary arts scene on the city's west side, between Ohio City and the nearby Gordon Square Arts District.

(rendering of the new Transformer Station gallery to be opened on W. 29th St. near Detroit Ave.)

For six months each year, the Bidwells will run programming in the gallery and host exhibitions from their extensive collection of contemporary photography. Then for the other six months, CMA will program the space w/ experimental shows in painting, sculpture, photography, video and digital media. After 15 years, the structure and the project will revert to the full control of CMA.
In other words...if this all hasn't fully sunk in yet, this is HUGE news for photography and contemporary art in Cleveland and surrounding region. I had heard inklings over the summer about the arrival of this amazing gallery and resource, so its really awesome to see it now coming to fruition. Congrats to everyone involved, and a big thanks to the Bidwells, who are essentially covering the entire cost of this project.