The Contemporary Dayton presents Three New Exhibitions and Public Programs

Featuring a MacArthur Fellow, Internationally Renowned Painters, Sculptors, and Filmmakers May 5–July 22, 2022.

DAYTON (April 25, 2022) – The Contemporary Dayton (The Co), presents three new exhibitions that explore contemporary issues of our time: Beverly Fishman: CURE; George Rush: Assisted Living; and Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley: Night Kitchen. In conjunction with the exhibitions, The Co will present Artist Talks, First Friday events, Highlights Tours, educational Gallery Guides, and an exhibition catalogue.

“It is a great honor and privilege for The Co to exhibit distinguished MacArthur Fellow, Mary Reid Kelley. For over a decade, Mary and her partner, Patrick Kelley, have taken on the clash between utopian ideologies and the realities of contemporary life in a struggle for liberation, through political strife, wars, and other historical events. Mary and Patrick’s work in the Eichelberger Foundation Video Gallery follows our last presentation by acclaimed artist, Jeffrey Gibson, also a MacArthur Fellow,” states The Co’s Curator, Michael Goodson.

Presenting Beverly Fishman: CURE
The Dr. Robert L. Brandt, Jr. Gallery

Beverly Fishman is an American painter and sculptor whose work explores science, medicine, and the body. Her large, exquisitely crafted object-paintings feature titles like Untitled (Epilepsy, Pain, Chronic Pain, Opiate Dependence), derived from geometric arrangements of tablets, capsules, and pills; prescribed cocktails for the ailments outlined parenthetically in each work’s title.

Fishman imbues her glossy, exuberant pieces with the hidden implication of what lurks beneath the façade of pharmaceutical culture: the manipulative effect of color on the psyche and the penchant of these colors to mark mental connections between consumer and drug.

Working with this knowledge, Fishman uses a calming palette of dusty roses, soft lilacs, cool blues, and pale sands, mixing in the occasional shock of lime green, nuclear yellow, and traffic-cone orange. The subdued tones conjure the darker side effects of the drugs and the resplendent, yet minimal nature of her paintings mirror the promises of Western medicine.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an Artist Talk on Thursday, May 5 at 6:30 p.m. at The Co, and a Gallery Guide with an essay by Curator, Michael Goodson. The exhibition is courtesy of the artist; Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago, IL; and Library Street Collective, Detroit, MI.

Presenting George Rush: Assisted Living

The Contemporary Dayton is pleased to present a three-year project by George Rush that culminates in an installation of 200 paintings.

Rush, who has spent years painting the boundary between inside and outside, continues this exploration with paintings derived from cell phone photographs made during walks through his neighborhood, drives through Columbus, Ohio—the city in which he lives—and candid moments from work and home life.

Though each work starts with the now ubiquitous cell phone image, they are more than a treatise on technological reproduction, these works are a meditation on the visual rhythms of suburbia.

While this array of moments might potentially lend themselves to cacophony, they instead evenly and calmly illustrate the lay of our current psychological landscape. Collectively, they consider a span that begins before COVID-19, deepens during the height of the pandemic, and tapers off with the slow acclimation to our “new normal.”

The exhibition will be accompanied by an Artist Talk on Thursday, May 5 at 6:30 p.m. at The Co, a Gallery Guide with an essay by Curator, Michael Goodson, and a catalogue with an essay by Amanda Gluibizzi, Associate Professor, Departments of Art and History of Art, Ohio State University. The exhibition is courtesy of the artist and Belle Isle Viewing Room, Detroit, MI.

Presenting Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley: Night Kitchen
The Jack W. and Sally D. Eichelberger Foundation Video Gallery
The Ira H. & Susan P Thomsen Family Gallery

The Contemporary Dayton presents Night Kitchen, new works by painter-filmmaker partners, Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley, centered around their film, I’m Jackson Pollock. This installation also includes their sculptural, multimedia works that explore the mechanics of power and its fallibility.

The monologue-based film has at its center the verbose character embodiment of societal power who unflinchingly hurls arrogant claims in metered, rhyming verse. Populated with props, sculptures, and projections that saturate a gray universe created by the artists, questions the inherent tyrannies of leadership and its effect on the world we share and navigate daily, often in ways that are beyond our control.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a Virtual Artist Talk that will be viewable online and a Gallery Guide with an essay by Curator, Michael Goodson. The screening is courtesy of the artist and Fredericks & Freiser, New York, NY.

SPECIAL PROGRAMS

OPENING RECEPTION & ARTIST TALK
Thursday, May 5
Members Preview: 5–6 p.m.
Artist Talk: Beverly Fishman and George Rush: 6:30 p.m.
Public Reception immediately following until 8 p.m.
Free admission. Donation bar and light bites.

PUBLIC PROGRAMS
ALWAYS FREE

FIRST FRIDAYS | 6–8 p.m.
June 3 Virtual Artist Talk: Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley, 6:30 p.m.
July 1 Spotlight Tour of the Exhibitions with Curator Michael Goodson, 6:30 p.m.

Visit codayton.org/events for more information.

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ABOUT THE CONTEMPORARY DAYTON

Mission: To provide art for the community and a community for artists.

Overview: The Contemporary Dayton (The Co) is the region’s contemporary art center. Established in 1991 as Dayton Visual Arts Center (DVAC), a 501c3, The Co produces and presents original exhibitions and programs, art events, community partnerships, and artist opportunities. Exhibitions and education programs feature artists living and working today, both nationally and in Ohio, with an emphasis on those whose work focuses on issues of social justice. In addition to its three galleries—open to all and always free—its retail store, the CoSHOP, provides income for Ohio artists and extends The Co’s accessibility to art, from visitor engagement to educational outreach through store products, programs, and experiences.

The Co is proud to support the creation of connections among the arts, community building, civic engagement, community planning, and use of public space, and makes an annual economic impact of 3.4 million to the region. Recently raising 1 million during the Pandemic to expand and move into its new home in downtown’s historic Dayton Arcade, The Co is led by Executive Director Eva Buttacavoli, a 30-year art museum administrator, curator, and educator, whose previous roles were at The Contemporary Austin, TX and The Perez Art Museum Miami, FL; and Curator Michael Goodson, who previously served as Curator at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Beeler Gallery, Columbus College of Art and Design, OH; and as Director at James Cohan Gallery, NY.

The Contemporary Dayton receives operating support from Culture Works, Montgomery County Arts & Cultural District, Ohio Arts Council, the Virginia W. Kettering Foundation, and Members.