Contemporary Arts Center

A floating symphony of color and form

This installation, suspended from the ceiling of the CAC’s Dr. Stanley & Mickey Kaplan Hall Lobby, takes something invisible—gravity—and makes it visible. New York-based design firm SOFTlab constructed a frame made from shapes that mimic clustering bubbles. The custom cut and printed paper strips draped from this structure drift slowly up and down, following the movements of computer-controlled winches, causing their arcing forms to adapt to gravity’s pull. The hues of the brightly colored paper strips intermix as they adjust to the rise and fall of the winch, creating constantly changing patterns and colors. Taken together, these simple shapes generate a complex symphony of color and form.

SOFTlab found inspiration for this work in the floating concrete volumes of the Zaha Hadid-designed Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art. Stacked above Kaplan Hall’s open space, the forms appear to be floating, yet their heavy materials create a sense of stability. SOFTlab’s sculptural installation hangs from these boxes into the CAC’s voluminous, light-filled lobby, working with Hadid’s design to amplify the building’s own sense of gravity.

Source: contemporaryartscenter.org (opens in a new tab)

An archive of tangible memories

Artist Sarah Rodriguez’s work is an archive of tangible memories. Analyzing concepts of kinship and womanhood through discarded objects. Once reclaimed, objects are adorned and preserved, reflecting the intricacies of our lives, suspended between times of joy and sorrow.

With an emphasis on tactility, the work incorporates a variety of materials and techniques. Glitter, yarn, buttons, and beads are carefully assembled, forming text and highlighting the functionality of the object. Together, these elements examine the duality between the playfulness of girlhood and the weight and labor womanhood bears.

This practice seeks to honor the ordinary, transforming familiar materials into talismans of memory. By inviting viewers into this tactile archive, Rodriguez creates space for reflection on the stories we inherit, the ones we carry, and the ones we choose to preserve.

11 July 2026 Saturday 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM

Homespun Gathering

Homespun Gathering Join us in celebrating Sarah Rodriguez’s new exhibit, Homespun, now on view in CAC’s Community Gallery. Stop by CAC's 6th floor for a unique opening reception in the form of a community potluck. Pull up a seat to chat with the artist, share a meal, and create a unique memento to take home that’s...

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Bringing together seven regional artists whose practices engage with the concept of time, In the Interest of Time was developed through a FotoFocus juried open call, led by independent curator Theresa Bembnister.

Joseph Vitone and Lynn Whitney document their subjects over extended periods of time. In 1998, Vitone began photographing relatives around his hometown of Akron, OH, which evolved into a series of intimate portraits recording nearly three decades of life transitions: birthdays, divorces, illnesses, children growing up to become parents themselves. Whitney photographed the shoreline of Lake Erie stretching between Cleveland and Toledo for more than a decade. Her work captures humanity’s complex relationship to this priceless natural resource.

For the series 1655 Ireland Rd., Jordanne Renner mailed prints of her family home to her father and stepmother, who added their observations to the photographs with markers and Post-its. Twenty-three years later, Renner revisits the work, inviting her brother and father to respond to the images following her stepmother’s passing, reflecting on the passing of time and loss.

Julie Renée Jones’ work in Hold Still marks a time of transition—a new mother’s psychological shift in identity—using visual characteristics of the horror genre, such as deep shadows and stark camera angles.

Robyn Moore’s Being in the Land functions as a visual metaphor for deep time, the temporal framework for slow-moving geological change. Spectral figures appear in her compositions, alluding to the ancient history of the surrounding landscapes.

Elijah Howe preserves a timeworn historical subject—the small town of Chained Rock, KY—through a trove of archival materials, handmade crafts, and contemporary photographs. A close look, however, may lead viewers to question their assumptions of photographic truth.

Through his series Witness Trees and Indelible Structures, Osamu James Nakagawa documents land once used as Japanese American incarceration camps during World War II. This work visually preserves physical histories at risk of being otherwise lost to time.

With Theresa Bembnister (curator), Elijah Howe (artist), Julie Renée Jones (artist), Robyn Moore (artist), Osamu James Nakagawa (artist), Jordanne Renner (artist), Joseph Vitone (artist), Lynn Whitney (artist)

Cost: Free for Pass Holders in October, venue members, children 18 and under, and SNAP/EBT recipients. General admission: $12

Source: fotofocus.org (opens in a new tab)

Widline Cadet: Seremoni Disparisyon (Ritual [Dis]Appearance), the second presentation of the artist’s first solo museum exhibition in the United States, presents her acclaimed series exploring Black diasporic life through her family’s immigration from Haiti.

After leaving Haiti as a child, Cadet originally photographed her extended family to supplement the small number of images of her ancestors that had been passed down, counteracting both the physical separation from her home country and the loss of these relatives. But increasingly limited access to her family abroad inspired the artist to turn the camera on herself, as well as other Black women around her, creating a stand-in archive that explores absence through presence.

Seremoni Disparisyon addresses shared themes of immigration, including loss, aspiration, and memory, through the specificity of Cadet’s experiences. Many works contain concrete autobiographical details: family photographs and videos, personal belongings like the curtains her mother brought from Haiti, and Kreyòl titles drawn from actual conversations. Others stretch across distance and memory, like the photograph of a model in a gingham dress, a re-creation of the artist’s childhood school uniform. Although displaced from her original home, Cadet nevertheless finds echoes of it everywhere, such as the breeze-block architecture and bougainvillea flowers of her current residence, Los Angeles. This doubling recurs throughout Seremoni Disparisyon —building a dreamlike, proxy world inhabited by elements both real and imagined, experienced and missed.

This exhibition includes work from across the entire series, bringing together photographs, installation, and video to encompass the breadth of Cadet’s imagemaking practice and capacious approach to photography, including vinyl application, photo-sculpture hybrids, and multimedia presentations.

Artists: Widline Cadet

With Kristen Gaylord (curator)

Cost: Free for Pass Holders in October, venue members, children 18 and under, and SNAP/EBT recipients. General admission: $12

Source: fotofocus.org (opens in a new tab)

An Urban Native Collective Exhibition

Urban Native Collective is a Cincinnati-based organization that serves the broad interests and needs of the Indigenous community within the Tri-State area. Urban Native Collective presents its eighth Indigenous People’s Day Convergence. This four-day celebration, which includes this exhibition, focuses on current issues affecting the Indigenous community, their past, their resilience and their bright future.

The Indigenous Peoples’ Day Convergence exhibition is presented in partnership with the Contemporary Arts Center in The Collective Gallery sponsored by P&G, located in the lower lobby. It brings together contemporary artists to highlight that Indigenous expression is not a recover of what was lost, but an explosive celebration of what has always survived. Moving beyond colonial narratives, the exhibition honors Indigenous life as a living, Sovereign, and evolving force. Grounded in an “Indigenized” punk aesthetic, this multidisciplinary showcase demonstrates that Indigenous presence, creative defiance, and joy are the ultimate forces shaping our shared future.

Artists presented in this exhibition include Jaque Fragua "Mobil Savage" (Pueblo), Robert Franklin (Diné), Steph Littlebird (Grand Ronde), Kobi Morgan (Diné), Cole Reuben (Seneca), Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos), Mariana Varela (Mexican), Hiro Cash (Diné), Jeremy Dennis (Shinnicok), Carlos Ramirez (Mexican), Isaiah Stewart (Oglala Lakota / Mohawk) and Solstar (Mayan). Curated by Leonard D. Harmon (Nanticoke).

The opening reception for this exhibition will be on Friday, October 9th, from 5 to 9 p.m. It will feature performances from the Copper Face United Powwow Troupe and DJ Creepingbear. Tortilleria Garcia will have a selection of food items for purchase. The reception and performance are free and open to the public.

Artists: Carlos Ramirez, Cole Reuben, Hiro Cash, Isaiah Stewart, Jaque Fragua, Jeremy Dennis, Kobi Morgan, Mariana Varela, Robert Franklin, Sara Siestreem, Solstar, Steph Littlebird

With Leonard Harmon (artist)

Source: contemporaryartscenter.org (opens in a new tab)

Challenging misconceptions of Indigenous culture

Indigenous culture is too often trapped in history books or reduced to outdated stereotypes. People of the Good River challenges these misconceptions by capturing the vibrant, everyday realities of Indigenous people living in Cincinnati today. Grounded in the legacy of the Ohi-yo—the Seneca word for "Good River"—this exhibition pairs candid portrait photography with hand-pulled screen printing on paper. Each physical layer of ink builds a portrait of modern life, work, and community, moving past romanticized tropes to celebrate an enduring present and archive for the people who are actively shaping Cincinnati's contemporary narrative.

“They say the truth is in the eye of the beholder… but who’s looking?” ~ Leonard Harmon

Leonard Harmon has always been drawn to a life of expression. Leonard credits a large part of his passion too. As he puts it, his “direct bloodline to art”. His father was a furniture maker, and his uncle, and namesake Leonard Allen Harmon, was a well-known portrait artist featured in the Heard Museum of Arizona. Art, in one form or the other, was always present in his life. As a young man, he was inspired by his grandparents' love of cooking to attend Johnson & Wales University, one of the finest culinary schools in the country, where he not only learned the fine art of creating culinary masterpieces but also began to explore his love of music. Eventually touring the country as a DJ, it wasn’t until 2010 that Leonard began to explore a new form of expression, traditional and contemporary mixed media.

In an interview with The Stranger, Leonard explains, “I like using older images to tell a new story of putting perspective on our history. As a new artist, I like exploring all kinds of methods and mediums. Each new style I incorporate helps me express myself in a new way. I’m never scared to try new things and see where my mind takes me.”

A citizen of the Lenape Tribe of New Jersey and the Nanticoke Tribe of Delaware, Leonard currently lives on the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indian Reservation. He reflects often on traveling to Connecticut and Oklahoma to attend Powwows and be immersed in his culture. He continues to be actively involved in tribal traditions on the Siletz Reservation. This immersion is seen in his work as he takes inspiration from his ancestors to put modern spins on traditional arts.

Curated by CAC's Education Department

With Leonard Harmon (artist)

Source: contemporaryartscenter.org (opens in a new tab)