The FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art was launched in 2018 to bring artist commissions, performances, films and public programs to locations across Northeast Ohio every three years. It is going through its second iteration four years later instead of three because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The 2022 version of FRONT, titled “Oh, Gods of Dust and Rainbows,” has a unifying curatorial vision of embracing art as an “agent of transformation, a mode of healing, and a therapeutic process.” The focus is inspired by our current time of tragedy and loss through the pandemic, but also through the social upheaval happening all around us. The triennial is taking place at more than 25 sites in Cleveland, Akron and Oberlin.

More:Art Review: Exhibit is both visually absorbing and conceptually engaging

The Akron Art Museum exhibit follows the same curatorial lead as the rest of the Triennial. However, this exhibit also focuses on craft. In this case, craft does not represent things we might have made in school or with our families, although the themes of the show do not dismiss that type of memory either. Rather, the curators have focused on craft as a “creative process tied to the artist's hand and body, a form of thinking through making and doing.” The exhibit focuses on the repetitive process of daily art making and the therapeutic value that type of making can have.

The themes of the art focus on the “traumatic legacies of segregation and displacement, the specters of urban violence and natural disaster, the insidious effects of environmental classism and racism, and normative ideas of gender, body, ability, and beauty.” This is a lot for one show to take on. However, the included works do an excellent job of further exploring and highlighting the chosen curatorial ideas.

Detroit artist Allana Clarke’s “At a Depth Beyond Anyone” is a 2022 work commissioned by the Akron Art Museum and FRONT. It is made with 30-second, hair-bonding glue and weighs so much that the museum had to order special cleats to hold the work up on the wall. Clark is best known for critiquing the ritual and ideals of Black femininity that she has encountered throughout her life. The glue this piece is made from is most often used for gluing hair extensions directly to the scalp. 

Clarke’s piece confronts time and gravity through the artist’s choice of a unique medium. The glue takes days to set, so Clarke can pinch and twist it over an extended length of time. The size and material of the work give the piece a commanding presence and the work nearly vibrates with the gestural marks of the sculpture’s surface. The piece’s color holds and captures the light around it. The draped shape furthers the overall “weighty” feeling of the artwork and immediately creates questions in your head about what the material could be doing to the people who use it. 

An installation of four assemblage works by late Hudson artist La Wilson has also been included in the show. These pieces highlight the unusual qualities that helped make Wilson famous during her lifetime. Through celebrating the “detritus of everyday life,” Wilson’s pieces show off how the artist would collect small castoffs of everyday items and then assemble them into engaging forms. “Retrospective, 2004-06” is a large, slotted, wooden box full of found objects that include things like pencils, springs, dominoes, pencils, crayons, straws and small toys. 

The familiarity of the objects chosen for the construction of this work and the repetitive nature of the assembled pieces create something akin to a visual language. Wilson rarely planned a work ahead of time. Here before us is the artist’s process of making on display for all to see, and while it’s repetitive, it’s also visually energizing.

Certainly, seeing a presentation of a large grouping of Robert Reed’s work is one of the highlights of this exhibit. Reed was the first tenured faculty at Yale’s School of Art, where he taught drawing and painting for more than four decades. While his works are abstract in nature, the artist referred to them and all his work as  “visual stews” that are representative of the racism he experienced growing up in the segregated South.

Three pieces that have been included are made with acrylic, pastels, cut paper and metal fasteners. In the works, cut clear lines and shapes come out of the picture plane. Lines fold over lines and expressive architectonic forms grow and shift throughout each composition. The metal fasteners provide a visual stopping point, pattern and structural element all at once. These pieces are exceptional in their execution, color and form.

The Akron Art Museum’s part of the FRONT really benefits from the overall curatorial vision of the Triennial along with the enhanced focus on the theme of “craft” in this particular show. This is an exhibit with grit and power. It is well worth a visit to the museum.

Anderson Turner is director of the Kent State University School of Art collection and galleries. Contact him at haturner3@gmail.com. 

Exhibit: “Oh, Gods of Dust and Rainbows” through Oct. 2

Event: FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art 

Place: Akron Art Museum, 1 S. High St.

Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Extended hours until 8 p.m. on the second Friday of each month

More info: https://akronartmuseum.org/ and 330-376-9186