Fifty Years of Blue Ash Review Art Exhibition

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The UC Blue Ash College Art Gallery is pleased to present our first exhibition of the 2019- 2020 academic year, Fifty Years of Blue Ash Review. This exhibition celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the literary journal at UC Blue Ash College in the spring of 1969 (then UC Raymond Walters College). The show features work from the various incarnations of the college literary magazine including: a collection of the covers of all 40 published volumes of the journal; original cover artwork and photographs; a collection of visual and concrete poetry published in the journal; a room full of visual art culled from the pages of the magazine; and a series of poetry and music videos related to published features.

The centerpiece of the exhibition is a portfolio of poetry broadsides (small posters of poem texts illustrated with visual designs). This portfolio was conceived and published by the UCBA Art Gallery to celebrate the journal’s fiftieth anniversary. The broadside portfolio includes twelve poems by professional poets that were commissioned by the editors of Blue Ash Review. Twelve additional poems were selected by the editors from the journal’s archive to represent the variety of work published in the journal over the past fifty years. All of the poems in the portfolio collection were then illustrated by professional artists and designers to create the finished broadside.

In addition, page spreads from a special Blue Ash Review chapbook project titled Merle as Muse will be on display. This fiftieth anniversary project of Blue Ash Review collects the work of fifteen poets responding to paintings by the late Cincinnati artist Merle Rosen. The collection was originally published as a PDF booklet in the premier edition of Blue Ash Review Online (Fall 2018). A limited print edition of the chapbook will be released in conjunction with the current exhibition. The exhibition was curated and organized by H. Michael Sanders with the able assistance of gallery director John Wolfer, assistant curator Nicole Trimble, and video specialist William Boyle. Blue Ash Review editor Rhonda Pettit and Blue Ash Review Online editor Claudia Skutar were consultants on the exhibition project. A catalogue of the exhibition, and a special gallery publication on the history of Blue Ash Review, will be available in the gallery upon publication.

A closing reception will also be held from 5:00 - 7:00 PM on Thursday, September 26, 2019. with additional readings and performances to be announced. The closing reception will also serve as a publication release party for the limited edition chapbook project.

Please note that Fifty Years of the Blue Ash Review has been extended for two weeks following the closing reception, and will continue to be open for viewing in the UCBA Art Gallery through October 11, 2019.

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