FRONT Triennial Cleveland @ Hyperallergic

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The inaugural FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art is described by founder Fred Bidwell as an all-out effort to put Cleveland on the radar as an international art destination, and described by The New York Times, in an article cited prominently on the festival website, as an endeavor that “offers artists the canvas of Cleveland”— and this it absolutely does. Scores of participating artists and nearly three-dozen venues across Cleveland, Akron, and Oberlin, have contributed to eleven “cultural exercises” and 20+ official installation sites, which include museum exhibitions, commissions, site-specific interventions, public programs, residencies, publications and research projects.

All this has been thoughtfully and thoroughly organized under the curatorial auspices of Artistic Director Michelle Grabner, at the behest of Executive Director and CEO Fred Bidwell who, along with his wife, Laura Beth Bidwell, is a crucial booster for the arts in Cleveland. (In addition to the couple’s personal collection of contemporary art, with an emphasis in photography, they founded the Fred and Laura Ruth Bidwell Foundation which, in 2013, opened Transformer Station, a contemporary art exhibition space on Cleveland’s West Side.) Fred Bidwell makes no bones about FRONT’s objective to put Cleveland on the map as a travel destination for art lovers, and the various contributing bodies and individuals have spared no expense in the 3½ year journey toward making it a reality.

Read more here…

Cleveland Mounts Global Triennial But Local Artists Are Largely Overlooked