So many things going on in the life and art of AAC professor and sculptor Keith Benjamin.

the weight: new works by Keith Benjamin, opens this Friday, December 16th at PAC Gallery, 5-9 pm.  PAC is located at 2540 Woodburn Ave, Cincinnati, OH 45206.

Keith Benjamin’s work investigates the potential of accumulated materials.

This most recent body of work employs selected found objects as foundations for cardboard structures.

****

Last month, Keith exhibited a sculptural installation created specifically for FrontierSpace, an art space in Missoula Montana.  The pics below are from Keith’s sojourn to the wild west.  Also featured in the pics are AAC grads Will Hutchinson and Katie Koga.

*****

“something-west” at Frontierspace

November 5^th 2011

In the fall of 2011 I was invited by AAC alum William Hutchinson to exhibit work at Frontierspace in Missoula Montana. Will and his friends Nathan and Josh (all graduate students at University of Montana Missoula) run the visual arts venue out of a rented space in an alley in the center of town. I accepted the invitation.

Because of the logistics of travel and shipping, I decided to create an installation that was responsive to the physical space and location of the gallery. I asked Will to save some cardboard boxes from the recycling bin in advance of my arrival. I would use whatever he was able to save as the raw material for my work.

The final installation is the result of 22+ hours of selecting, cutting, gluing and responding to the situation.

Keith Benjamin

*****

I tried to write you a letter that would fit into all the right squares
But I can’t
The only thing to do is draw honey colored things to remind me of you
Did I tell you? Today my teacher made me waffles
A steady diet of waffles and syrup and honey
And sticky molten glucose
Might just keep me together
Can you see where I’m going in my slept in eyes and tooth decay?
How many bleary borrowed jackets is it gonna take to get me home?
To a crummy corner building—
All those little phrases of mine
Dying little deaths
Forgetting myself.

*****

CHLOË BELL is a sophomore at the Art Academy of Cincinnati.

FRIENDS POEM

My dearest friends,
I need more click in my boots.
I need more shirts with buttons for their rolled up sleeves.
I need more vests and black ties so that
when you go crazy
either by drug or immaturity
and you go on and on and on about the universe
or yoga
or Zen Buddhism
or you start banging on the walls of a perfectly strange place
or when everybody that you know
starts to say that you’ve been possessed by something nasty
and that they don’t really want to be around you anymore
because every time you go out it’s a spectacle,
then at least I can still have my fashion.
Some new shirt in the mail
or a new pair of pants that say that
everything is gonna be alright
you’re gonna do great
you’re gonna be successful
there’s nothing to worry about
except for the fact that it’s 3 in the morning
and you just took even more magic mushrooms
and I can hear you yelling at the top of your lungs on the street
about when we were naked together
and you planted the words, “I’ll kill you” in between
two kisses, that pushed me across the bed
and to the floor, as far away from you as I could possibly get.
I just want the entire collection of Levi’s 510 super skinny jeans,
So that when all of you are gone, and I am gone,
I can make a whole other group of friends that wear
Levi’s 510 super skinny jeans.

*****

GABRIELLA

for Morteza Khakshoor

I picture you as a Jenny Saville painting
bloodied up in your brush strokes, your eyes are off
at a distance. I can make everything out
from a distance.
where your skin flushes red
and where your lips form highlights
in white paint. your face is worried.
your clothes are everywhere, the bed is everywhere
a fluorescent light bulb without a lampshade is casting
ugly shadows on everything,
everywhere
and as all of me is standing there in all of it
searching for your shirt, I am elated.
I see you, lying there on the bed,
still and unmoving,
referencing all tradition of painting the nude

*****

HOW TO WRITE A POEM

FIRST, WAKE UP
THEN, STAY UP LATE
WATCH FRENCH FILMS
PHOTOGRAPH CHURCHES
AND DRAW ANYTHING
DO IT YOURSELF, IN A NON D.I.Y. SENSE
STEP INTO THE SHOWER WITH ALL YR CLOTHES ON
MASTURBATE IN YR FRIEND’S BATHROOM,
WHILE EVERYONE ELSE IS IN THE OTHER
ROOM, TOGETHER
ORDER CHINESE FOOD
CALL OUT THE WINDOW
SIT DOWN AND HAVE A CUP OF COFFEE WITH
THE APOSTLES
GO TO SHITTY HOUSE PARTIES AND LOSE ALL NOSTALGIA
TRY TO WRITE A NOVEL
GIVE UP ON FICTION, WRITE POETRY
BUY A LOT OF WHISKEY ON A SUNDAY NIGHT
WRITE A LETTER TO YR FRIEND IN NEW YORK
FIGHT SOMEONE, JUST SO YOU’LL KNOW HOW TO FIGHT
AND WAIT TIL THE LAST POSSIBLE SECOND TO GET UP
AND GO TO THE BATHROOM, UNTIL THE
URGE TAKES YOU OVER
WRITE YOUR NAME ON A WALL,
JUST NOT YR OWN HOUSE
READ IN MY HEART I AM ALREADY GONE
BY JUSTIN TAYLOR
BUY NEW NOTEBOOKS, BUT NEVER FILL THEM UP
WRITE TYPEWRITER SOLOS
CROSS OUT A LINE
CROSS OUT EVERY LINE
NEVER GET DRUNK OUTSIDE YR OWN HOUSE
BUT IF YOU DO, ALWAYS BRING A PEN
RIDE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION, JUST FOR THE STORIES
GO AS MUCH AS YOU CAN
AND ALWAYS GO ON YR NERVE
NEVER GET DRUNK THE NIGHT BEFORE YOU READ POETRY
BUT WHEN YOU DO FIGHT THE HANGOVER
DRAIN ALL BODILY FLUIDS
DIG DEEP HOLES
ROLL UP YR SLEEVES
POUR OUT EXCESS GASOLINE
STRIKE A MATCH,
WRECK YOURSELF
QUIT READNG THE BIBLE
QUIT READING THE BUDDHA
QUIT READING ENTIRELY,
EVEN POETRY
PUT DOWN YOUR BOOKS AND TAKE OFF SOMEONE’S CLOTHES

*****

ALEXANDER GIEHL is a sophomore at the Art Academy of Cincinnati.

Poet Nate Slawson will be reading at the Art Academy of Cincinnati this Wed. November 16th at 7:00 – 8:30PM in Room N401. The reading is free and open to the public.  Current AAC students Chloë Bell, Alexander Giehl, Billy Golden, Samantha McCormick, and Ethan Schultz will also read.  See Nate’s bio, some links to his book and publisher Yes Yes Books, and a couple of poems below.  I’m also attaching the pdf poster that Yes Yes made for the event.

Authors include: Maureen Fellinger, Kristy Kemper, Fahrudin Omerovic, Kayla Sorenson, Kathryn DiMartino, David Canny, Kincy Fields, Jessica Burkhart, Ashley Serra, Sarah Grein, Graham Vogel.
Covers, book layout, and devils by Kathryn DiMartino.

View the comic below, via Scribd. You may want to zoom in to read some pages.

The old woman who as lived half a century in the asylum grows with little pale balls. Does she know I dream about her white eyelashes? In this love, this giant sex, there is instability here in the earth where spongy pale bodies writhe. The only way to know anything is making art for her. She dose not know, but paints a dozen orange boxes and asks me to point to which one Jesus is hiding in. It reminds me that my tongue, every atom of my blood, this air, this soil, will eventually all be used up, even though five is enough to weigh one’s self down in a stiff breeze. But these misty trees can cause accidents, fill a river’s summit with ten thousand homes, or simply sit there. So, Donkey-Ears, Bring me the bouquet! Even walls can’t stop me now!

***
From the Author:
This was a Cento poem I constructed using various lines from poems, safety posters, and event flyers. I modified the syntax to aid the flow of the poem and make it seem coherent in the sense that speaker believes they are coherent even if they are not.

*****

2. FLOUNDER

In elevators
When strangers say Hi
Cleavage
And questions

And veins
Eyes
Tentacles, maybe
That thing I forgot in the refrigerator
(Let’s name it Cthulhu)

Thirst in the ocean
Baby carrots in a shot glass
What I want to say to that girl I like
Bugles that don’t fit

Explain the word is
Tell me where ice cream comes from
That’s it I don’t know any other things,
I’m just a fish

***
From the Author:
To write this poem I received a song at random. The song I was given was “Weird Fishes Arpeggi” by Radiohead. I decided to explore the point of view of the weird fishes. Fish in general are pretty awkward creatures so I felt that this should be an awkward poem about all the awkward things in my life.

*****

NICK MONTAGNE is a Cincinnati based poet, a sophomore at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, a vertebrate, and visual artist.

(click link to read)

CESAR PELLI: THE ARCHITECT BEHIND THE ARONOFF CENTER FOR THE ARTS

*****

MICHELLE ROTH was a student at the Art Academy of Cincinnati.

(click on link to read)

DIEGO RIVERA’S ATTEMPT AT A MODIGLIANI IN THE PORTRAIT OF MISS MARY JOY JOHNSON, 1939

*****

JENNIFER LANGHALS is an Art History/Art Education undergraduate student with a concentration of fine art. She will receive her B.A. in Art History from University of Cincinnati D.A.A.P in 2012. Upon completion she will begin her student teaching to obtain a K-12 Visual Art Licensure.

(click title to read poem and author’s thoughts)

1. FEVER -  THESE TWO TABLES, PUSHED TOGETHER

2. VERTIGO -  POEM OF CLARITY AND STILLNESS

3. Of All Moons -  Of All the Moons to Venture Out On

*****

AVRIL THURMAN is a poet and visual artist living in Cincinnati, Ohio. Currently, a senior at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, she will receive her BFA in Printmaking in May of 2011. This past summer she has been awarded a Fellowship from the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets.