Through Sun 8/18
It took decades for largely self-taught Cleveland painter Michelangelo Lovelace to attract attention for his work — and then he passed away in 2021 at the far-too-young age of 61, just as his work was beginning to get recognition beyond northeast Ohio.
Lovelace briefly attended the Cleveland Institute of Art, but he dropped out to earn a living. On his own, he developed skills that put him beyond the category of “outsider” art, but his work exudes some of the charm of that genre, where visual information is presented matter-of-factly, reflecting without judgment or irony the artist’s own milieu.
He was a figurative painter who took inspiration for the streets around him, packing his works with specific details about urban life — its buildings, businesses, billboards, signs and especially its people — showing viewers both its beauty and decay, both the liveliness and warmth of city neighborhoods, and their desperation and poverty. In his bustling works, so much is going on that it can take a while to absorb it all. But all of that is essential to his underlying “message”: this is who we are as Black people, and it’s complicated.
The Akron Art Museum put together a retrospective show of his work called Art Saved My Life, which has been on view all summer. But it closes August 18 so if you want to see it, hurry — it’s well worth a trip to Akron.
akronartmuseum/michelangelo-lovelace-art-saved-my-life/
Akron, OH 44308