1310 PENDLETON STREET CINCINNATI, OH
| (513) 407-7077 | WED - SAT 11:30 AM - 4:00 PM
THE
ANNEX
GALLERY
Within Next to Nothing, we will present an exhibition whose name is, precisely—and paradoxically—Next to Nothing. The Annex Gallery will host a pop-up show by the Cuban multidisciplinary artist Claudia Ricardo, known in the Cuban art circuit under the pseudonym Kina Matahari. Next to Nothing explores how tensions between opposites generate new realities—paradoxical thought, an oxymoron that, from within dilemma, produces a result free of ambiguity. Here, contradiction itself becomes the discourse that underlines it.
Photographs by Pedro Abascal
It is cold in Harbin, a city located in China’s northeastern reaches. It is the capital of Heilongjiang Province, on the banks of the Songhua River. Winters here are long and severe. Nearly three quarters of its territory borders the far—and frozen—Russian Far East. One of the qualities I most admire in the Chinese people is their practical intelligence. They perform small miracles with whatever lies at hand...
My interest in Asia does not arise from fascination, but from the recognition of a cultural sediment that resists superficial readings. China and Japan have been fundamental references in this process, both in the realm of visual arts and in that of symbolic management. Their literature and philosophy have not lost their capacity to converse with contemporaneity—not as untouchable corpora, but as tools for living thought, applicable to politics, ethics, cultural architecture, and aesthetics.
Why share an image that, from an aesthetic standpoint, I find unpleasant? Of all possible complementary color pairings, this is probably the only one I would never use in a design or in a work of artistic intent. Together—yellow-gold and cold violet—they vibrate in an unbearable way, imposing a visual rhetoric saturated with meaning. Perhaps because, over centuries, they have been associated with institutions now perceived as decadent, with a solemnity that fails to justify itself.
It is 18 degrees in Cincinnati right now—remarkably close to the record high for a December 26: 20 degrees Celsius, registered in 2016. No snow. It would be tempting to invoke climate change if I were looking for a quarrel, but I’ve just come off several days of snow. I lack serious arguments to do so. Snow is beautiful, as are snow-covered landscapes—especially when the sun is out and the air stands still.
Sargon of Akkad’s grandson was born hunchbacked. His grandfather had raised the first known empire, anchored in the lands of ancient Mesopotamia. He was fond of the boy, and let him do whatever he pleased. When he strode peacock-proud through the palace corridors, the servants—because of his short stature—bowed as he passed. And so his most recurrent vision became an endless rosary of crowns: some hairy, others smooth and shining. It gave him an utterly distorted view of life. Today’s grandchildren are not all that different.
Featuring the formative body of work of a young Vietnamese photographer.
I met Mark at Annex Gallery, where he is working as an intern. Before I knew he made photographs, and therefore counted as an artist, I thought of him simply as someone who always needed a drink bottle within reach. One of those insulated flasks used by athletes or hydration fanatics that seemed to follow him more faithfully than his own shadow. I also knew, before seeing a single picture, that he supported Barça, a very popular club in this ecosystem and reason enough to label him an “irreconcilable enemy.” Still, perhaps because of his background and his way of being, he is not a visceral fan and does not behave like many of his peers, who are mostly Latin American.
More than a dozen portraits of the current President of the United States
Jorge Rodríguez Diez, known across the cultural circles of Havana, Madrid, and South Florida as R10, began his series on Donald Trump on November 9, 2016, only hours after he had won his first election. In the artist’s own words, it was an unexpected turn and a stark reminder that in today’s world anything—however unlikely or unthinkable—may indeed happen. The very first piece in the series was immediately acquired by collectors from North Florida, curiously together with a portrait of Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama.
A Selection of Iconic New Yorker Covers from Jens Rosenkrantz’s Private Collection
Jens G. Rosenkrantz’s collection of The New Yorker covers constitutes far more than an archive of graphic design or illustration. It is, instead, a lens through which one can read a century of American visual and political culture, refracted through the pages of one of the most influential magazines of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. For Rosenkrantz, the act of collecting these images is not a passive accumulation but a curatorial gesture in itself—an insistence on the political significance of images that once circulated weekly, now reframed as testimony of their time.