2021 National Juried Exhibition

The Peer Show

The Cleveland Print Room's National Juried Exhibition, THE PEER SHOW, is an annual exhibition since 2015, showcasing the work of photographers across the country. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the exhibition will be, for the second time, completely digital. The call for art was again opened to include art of any medium. We received over 300 submissions from across the US and the World. 42 images have made it into the show.

Our jurors, Courtenay Barton, Peter Cohen, and Andrea Gyorody, meticulously examined each work and decided on the following awards. The recipients of the Best in Show and both Director's Awards will be given the opportunity to show their work in a group exhibition at the Cleveland Print Room in 2022. An Honorable Mention category has been again been created this year.

 DON PENN - RECENT WORKS

August 21, 2021 - September 3, 2021

The Cleveland Print Room presented works of photographer Don Penn from August 21, 2021 through September 3, 2021. A Cleveland native, he is a retired businessman, photographer and board member of CPR. His first solo exhibition features works created within the last five years.

 No Woman is an island

Works by Da’Shaunae Marisa Jackson

From the Artist:

Growing up I felt isolated. I felt my family was isolated. Just the three of us alone in this big world and I wanted to know why? I knew my family had problems but I did not know how deep those problems ran. My journey towards reconnection came from the desperation of witnessing my mother struggle with fleeting moments of happiness. After years of no contact no one knew that "cancer" would be the reason for an overdue reunion. Then like a wave of overwhelming relief, everything was back to normal with the exception of the dreaded inevitable. As a family reborn we spent our time basking in the present. Now is all that we have nothing else. I continued to ask how did we get here & could it have been prevented?

May 5th, 2020 was the day my mother passed away at the age of 49 just one month before her 50th birthday. My mother and those that knew her would agree she lived a typical lifestyle and yet cancer crept in without a sound. Cancer can be considered a "lifestyle" disease. Lifestyle diseases characterize those diseases whose occurrence is primarily based on the daily habits of people and are a result of an inappropriate relationship of people with their environment. African Americans have the highest death rate and shortest survival of any racial and ethnic group in the US for most cancers. This project is here to take a deeper look into the connection of how diet, mental health, & socio economics play a factor in the destruction of African American health in a systemically oppressive society.

On view in Cleveland Print Room’s Gallery, 2550 Superior Ave, through Saturday, July 24. Gallery Hours: 12-6pm Tuesdays, 12-9pm Wednesdays, 12-6pm Thursdays, 12-6pm Fridays, 11am-2pm Saturdays, 11-4pm Sundays.

Gallery images taken by David Joseph.

 Project Snapshot student showcase

Project Snapshot, Cleveland Print Room’s signature photography program, is a 16-week arts workshop for high school students in Northeast Ohio that fosters creativity through analog photography, giving students access to film cameras and teaching visual literacy. Normally, students are taught the skills to hand-process their film in our community darkroom where they are trained in the art of traditional developing and printing. During this pandemic we have had to shift our programs to an online setting, where students learned traditional photography skills and produced digital images in a virtual classroom.

This project is funded through the generous support of the Cedars Legacy Fund and the Cleveland Foundation. PS is taught by Hadley K Conner, a Cleveland-based artist, musician and educator, and Aja Grant, a Cleveland-based artist and founder of Ease Mag. Thanks to the George Gund Foundation, the Callahan Foundation, and the Char and Chuck Fowler Family Foundation for their generous support.

El Sueño Americano

The American Dream: Photographs by Tom Kiefer

El Sueño Americano is a photographic essay of the discarded personal effects and belongings of migrants and smugglers apprehended by Border Patrol agents, discarded while being processed at a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Facility near the U.S./Mexico border in southern Arizona. These personal effects and belongings represented their choice of what was essential for them to bring as they crossed the border to start or continue their life in the U.S. Keifer’s intent is to explore the humanity of the migrants who risk their lies crossing through the desert and to create a personal connection for the viewer to a migrant and their hope for a better life. Kiefer continues to document the vast archive of personal belongings that he recovered between 2007 through August 2014 and produce prints for display to foster community dialogue surrounding the state of migration and the millions of undocumented and essential workers living in a state of fear of our government.

View Kiefer’s recent artist talk here.

Surrealism & Mixed Media

Student Showcase

Cleveland Print Room's Teen Institute presents an exhibition of student work from the 2019 session of Surrealism and the 2020 session of Mixed Media. These photography-based classes ran throughout the 2019/2020 school year in CPR's gallery. Student work from both of these programs are showcased in this special online exhibition. All of CPR's Teen Institute programs focus on mastery of photographic skills, techniques, and concepts, along with visual literacy as its base.

Thanks to the Cleveland Foundation, Fowler Family Foundation, The George Gund Foundation, and the Callahan Foundation for their support.

Digital photography Student Showcase

Cleveland Print Room's Teen Institute Presents: a Digital Photography Exhibition featuring artwork by students from the City of Cleveland hosted by Cuyahoga Community College. This show features new student work from the program's Fall 2019 and Spring 2020 semesters of both Digital I and Digital II. CPR's Digital Photography program focuses on mastery of photographic skills, techniques, and concepts, along with visual literacy as its base.

Thanks to the Cleveland Foundation, Fowler Family Foundation, The George Gund Foundation, and the Callahan Foundation for their support, and Tri-C for use of their incredible facilities.

instant Foto Student Showcase

Cleveland Print Room's Teen Institute presents an exhibition of student work from the 2019/2020 Instant Foto program. These Instant Foto sessions ran throughout the 2019/2020 school year at 12 different site across Cleveland. Student work from each of these sites are showcased in this special online exhibition. All of CPR's Teen Institute programs focus on mastery of photographic skills, techniques, and concepts, along with visual literacy as its base. Thanks to the Cleveland Foundation, Fowler Family Foundation, The George Gund Foundation, and the Callahan Foundation for their support.

Artemus Ward, Fall 2019

Bethany Baptist Church, Fall 2019

Cleveland Print Room, Spring 2020

Cleveland School of the Arts, Fall 2019

Cleveland School of the Arts, Spring 2020

Collinwood Recreation Center, Fall 2019

Cudell Recreation Center, Fall 2019

Foluke Cultural Arts Center, Fall 2019

Lake Erie Ink, Inkspot, Spring 2020

Lake Erie Ink, Impact, Words Meet Images, Spring 2020

Lincoln West Global Studies, Fall 2019

 SmartY’S Program at University Settlement In Partnership with Broadway School of Music & The Arts, Spring 2020

Project Snapshot student showcase

Project Snapshot, Cleveland Print Room’s signature photography program, is a 16-week arts workshop for high school students in Northeast Ohio that fosters creativity through analog photography, giving students access to film cameras and teaching visual literacy. Students are trained in the art of traditional photo developing and printing in CPR’s community darkroom. The goal of the program is to inspire students to pick up a camera, take pictures, share their world, and learn what it means to be an artist. Through our partnership with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, this project also focuses on students' self-awareness and identity development through visual storytelling. This show features the work from students who participated in the 2019/2020 school year. This fall, work produced by students will be put on exhibit for one year at the Ohio Civil Rights Commission offices located in Columbus, Ohio.

This project is funded through the generous support of the Ohio Arts Council and the Ohio Civil Rights Commission along with the Cedars Legacy Fund, and is taught by Hadley K Conner, a Cleveland-based artist, musician and educator, and Aja Grant, a C.S.U. graduate with a B.A. in Psychology and Art. Part of the Cleveland Foundation’s Arts Mastery Program, Teen Institute is also funded by the Cleveland Foundation, the George Gund Foundation, and the Char and Chuck Fowler Family Foundation.

Shtetl in the sun

works by Andy Sweet

Cleveland Print Room is proud to present a selection of works by photographer Andy Sweet. In the 1970s, after his schooling at University of South Florida and University of Colorado, Sweet returned to his native Miami Beach. He and his friend Gary Monroe set out to document life there, focusing on the significant retired Jewish population. Sweet captures the essence of these aging adults with playful composition and vibrant color. 

Lauren Goff said of Sweet in her essay The Brightest Still the Fleetest, "..But Sweet is really looking. He's paying attention. The way he sees people nearing the end of their life is vibrant; he loves them in the brightest colors he can magic out of the camera...the colour shouts old age triumphant: a woman in a red wig leans on her yellow umbrella, grinning rakishly. A man in a cabana full of trophies--everything matching in red, white, and blue--beams with pride from under his captain's hat. Picture after picture shows old ladies sitting quietly in their beach chairs outside of their tiny hotels, gentle moments of rest, their sneakers huge at the ends of their columnar, panty-hosed legs.. hot and slanted sun and lengthening shadows, there is a sense of swiftly depleting time, a threnodial quality to the work that underscores the humour and deepens it."  Though created more than 40 years ago, Sweet’s images are ever more fresh and full of color.  Sweet bears witness to his native Miami and its elderly Jewish inhabitants with tenderness. There is a sense of leisure, humour, and play so quietly juxtaposed. He has with intention abandoned some formalist conventions and all self-consciousness to allow ideas and identity to permeate visually. Said to be drawn back to the "ferocious strangeness" of a transitioning Miami and the beauty of old faces, some assert that Sweet was potentially aware that the geriatic haven of Art Deco Hotels would give way to a much different "youth-hungry" Miami.

In 1982, Sweet met an untimely demise. His work would not again be seen for another 25 years. The discovery of Sweet's test prints in a family storage unit has garnered new interest in his photography, and some of his surviving prints have been restored over the last decade, forming the basis of the book, Shtetl in the Sun, and The Last Resort documentary, favorably reviewed in the New York Times. These works of Sweet, some debuting publicly in this exhibition, are a striking commentary on culture, age, place, and displacement.

Special thanks to our community curation team Susie Zimmer, Lisa Kurzner, Paul Markowicz, and Dan Rothenfeld. 

Link to the Netflix documentary, The Last Resort, here.

2020 NATIONAL JURIED EXHIBITION:

THE PEER SHOW

The Cleveland Print Room's National Juried Exhibition, THE PEER SHOW, is an annual exhibition since 2015, showcasing the work of photographers across the country. This year, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the exhibition will be, for the first time, completely digital. The call for art was also opened to include art of any medium. We received over 200 submissions from across the US and even from the UK. 49 images have made it into the show.

Our jurors, artists Lissa Rivera and Ruddy Roye, meticulously examined each work and decided on the following awards. The recipients of the Best in Show and Director's Awards will be given the opportunity to show their work in a joint exhibition at the Cleveland Print Room in 2021. There are so many exceptional pieces that an Honorable Mention category has been created.

Lissa Rivera is a photographer and curator based in New York, NY. Rivera received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts, where she became fascinated with the social history of photography and the evolution of identity, sexuality and gender in relationship to material culture. Beautiful Boy, Rivera’s latest project, takes her interest in photography’s connection with identity to a personal level, focusing on her domestic partner as muse.  

Radcliffe (Ruddy) Roye is a Brooklyn-based documentary photographer specializing in editorial and environmental portraits and photojournalism. A photographer with over twelve years of experience, Radcliffe is inspired by the raw and gritty lives of grassroots people, especially those of his homeland of Jamaica. Radcliffe strives to tell the stories of their victories and ills by bringing their voices to matte fibre paper.

For purchase inquiries, please email emilie@clevelandprintroom.com.