University Circle

Street level: Clevelanders react to the 2016 Election
Fresh Water checks in with supporters of Trump, Clinton and Johnson as well as those that did not vote.
From flaming history to art therapy, grants foster eclectic projects
Cuyahoga Arts & Culture will invest more than $14.5 million in grants to 241 nonprofits across the county in 2017. Fresh Water takes an inside look at four of the associated projects.
PHOTOS: 20 holiday postcards, Cleveland style
An image roundup from points across the 216 full up with Santas and skaters and sparkling holiday finery as captured by Fresh Water's managing photographer Bob Perkoski.
Holiday shopping with a side of culture
This roundup of unique gift shops on the doorsteps of your favorite museums and cultural centers is perfect for those seeking a truly alt-holiday shopping excursion.
Biomimicry: nature meets industrial design at CIA
Cleveland Institute of Art professor Doug Paige is showing students how to take a page out of Mother Nature's playbook when it comes to industrial design.
Quiet Land Conservancy tackles blight, spreads green throughout Northern Ohio
From the reclamation of the Henninger Landfill to saving a Russell Township farm, the Western Reserve Land Conservancy fosters thriving urban centers, green space and more by preserving some 5,000 acres annually.
 
New curator brings New York sophistication, public art experience to MOCA
Andria Hickey, MOCA's new senior curator, has "hit the ground running," coordinating an event apropos of the swirling political season - with a host of other exhibits to follow in 2017.
Seventy-nine new homes coming to the heart of Buckeye
Five things: little known facts from inside the Cleveland Institute of Art
From an anthropomorphic aardvark to a golden guy named Oscar, the venerable CIA is brimming with surprises of fine art, pop culture and a heaping helping of quirk.
How big is Cleveland's heart?
In this special op-ed for Fresh Water, Brandon Chrostowski, founder of EDWINS Leadership & Restaurant Institute, gives Clevelanders powerful and sobering reminders on the heels of the city's remarkable summer of 2016.
 
Artist finds his voice in art, builds an international reputation
With a new show at the Cleveland Botanical Garden, Cleveland Heights artist Seth Chwast further establishes himself in the local art scene. That he was diagnosed with autism when he was a toddler only underscores his achievements.
PHOTOS: 21 Cleveland hot spots born after Fresh Water
This week marks Fresh Water's sixth birthday and to celebrate, managing photographer Bob Perkoski visually catalogs a few things that came along after our humble inception.
 
Being there: MOCA's fall exhibits ignite all senses
The Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (MOCA) reopened its doors last Friday after a short hiatus following the wildly successful Myopia exhibit. While completely different in tone from the Mark Mothersbaugh show, the new installations reflect a unique and unexpected study in contrast that stimulates every sense.
 
Visitors are well advised to start at the top, as it were, in MOCA's fourth floor galleries, wherein Wall to Wall: Carpets by Artists unfurls. The contents are aptly described by the title – these are carpets, which sounds mundane at first blush. The content is anything but, with lush and gorgeous images that are beautifully served by the textile medium.
 
A sampling of the 30 works: Faig Ahmed's Oiling (2012) literally melts the concept of a traditional middleeastern rug design while Deep Purple, Red Shoes (Polly Apfelbaum, 2015), invites visitors to walk upon it, provided they remove their shoes. Nautilus shells notwithstanding, Infinite Carpet (Pierre Bismuth, 2008) recalls the golden rectangle. And speaking of arithmetic, Joseph Kosuth's L.W. (Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics), 2015, will have viewers indeed believing that "2 + 2 + 2 are 4."
 
Traveling to the next component of the 2016 show sounds benign enough, but – as regular visitors have come to expect – MOCA's Stair A refracts the experience. While attendees navigate the twisting stairs, Anthony Discenza's audio installation A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats advises them thusly:
 
"Think Suicide Girls meets the Pillsbury Dough Boy."
 
"Think Baywatch meets the Cuban Missile Crisis."
 
"Think Jersey Shore meets Stephen King."
 
The deep resonant voice, which is fitting of any voice-over John Q. Public is fed by media sources at every turn, is so convincing, attendees may indeed be inclined to plop down and listen to every suggestion within the 23-minute installation.
 
"Think art deco meets Jurassic Park."

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