Opening Fri 5/17 @ 5pm
By Josh Usmani
Once upon a time, for over a decade every spring, Cleveland became the center of the performance art world. “Present and Accounted” is a city-wide celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Cleveland Performance Art Festival. During its run, the festival, which began at Cleveland Public Theatre, featured over 1,000 artists from 27 countries.
Local landmark institutions participating in the celebration include the Cleveland Museum of Art, SPACES, MOCA, Cleveland Public Theatre, The Sculpture Center and universities such as Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland State University, Tri-C and Oberlin. These events seek to not only celebrate the festival, but also to examine its legacy on our society and culture.
To celebrate the festival’s 25th anniversary, the Galleries at Cleveland State will be showing six video compilations made by Festival Director (and Cool Cleveland creator) Thomas Mulready during a fellowship at The Wexner Center in Columbus. The public is invited to a free opening reception at the Galleries at CSU this Fri 5/17 from 5-8pm.
To truly appreciate any event in art history, context is crucial. Some of us many not remember Cleveland (or America for that matter) in 1988. To be honest, I was only 3 years old, but I love history. We’re talking about the year before the Robert Mapplethorpe controversy, and subsequent trial, in Cincinnati. Today’s perspective is tainted by years of conditioning by cable television and the Internet. I don’t think anyone would argue that America was not the same place in 1988.
The Festival ran for 12 consecutive years from 1988-1999 and returned in 2003. Its legacy boasts an impressive archive of 1,000 performances, 2,000 hours of video and 6,000 photos — all currently housed in Cleveland State’s Special Collections. However, due to the quality of the analog materials, they are not accessible, even to scholars, at the moment.
I sat down with Mulready to discuss the festival, and I was blown away by the sheer amount of content. Due to the very nature of performance art, many of these performances aren’t preserved anywhere else. Much of the archive still needs to be digitized — a project that will require both passionate interns and generous donors. After seeing just a small fraction of the videos, it’s clear to me that this collection needs to be preserved and made accessible to future generations of young artists. There is literally no collection like it in Cleveland… and, perhaps, the world.
“The quality of the tapes really starts to deteriorate after ten years” said Mulready. These tapes are a large part of Cleveland’s cultural history, and it would be a catastrophe to lose them due to only financial limitations. As a native of this town, I know there aren’t a lot of moments in the narrative of Art History that we Clevelanders can lay claim to. Digitizing this collection may be one of the most important art preservation projects in Cleveland ever.
I strongly encourage all of you to visit the various institutions celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Cleveland Performance Festival, experience the relics for yourself and encourage these institutions to invest in the preservation of our city’s cultural legacy.
Also opening on Friday at the Galleries at CSU are “Art for Hope: Helping Veterans through the Healing Power of Art,” an exhibition by Volunteers of America of Ohio celebrating the creative work of homeless veterans, and “Hold the Wall: Trends in Contemporary Painting,” a group exhibition by local artist, curator, writer and professor Dan Tranberg.
[Photo: Annie Sprinkle at the 1990 Cleveland Performance Art Festival]
“Present and Accounted: A Celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Cleveland Performance Art Festival” opens Fri 5/17 from 5 – 8pm and runs through Sat 6/22. Additional Hours: Wednesdays and Thursdays 10am-5pm, Fridays 10am-8pm, Saturdays Noon-8pm. Held at The Galleries at Cleveland State University, 1307 Euclid Ave., Cleveland. http://csuohio.edu/artgallery
Josh Usmani is a 27 year old local artist, curator and writer. Since 2008, his work has been featured in over 50 local and regional exhibitions.
Cleveland, OH 44115