Tag Archives: Cincinnati Art Museum

Discovering Ansel Adams at the Cincinnati Art Museum

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I post a lot of pictures on the internet, and occasionally, someone will say something nice about one of them. Any photo of mine that is worthy of a compliment is invariably the result of me accidentally being in the right place at the right time. Just like Ansel Adams — except for the “accidentally” part. The remarkable landscape photos that Adams became famous for were almost always the result of significant study to determine just what the right spot and right time were and usually some significant effort in getting there. The Discovering Ansel Adams exhibit contains plenty of those famous landscapes along with many of his lesser-known works.

The exhibit begins with items from the not-yet-famous part of his life. In addition to family snapshots and letters, one display contains a compass and some light meters used in the complementary “getting there” and “getting the shot” aspects of Adams’ work. The leftmost picture on the wall is the earliest landscape photo by Adams in the exhibit and probably the only one that is fairly well known with the word “inadvertently” in a description from Adams himself. Taken on his very first visit to Yosemite with his parents, the photo and description are here.

Black and white photos from large format cameras are most commonly associated with Adams and those make up the bulk of the exhibit. Many, but not all, are of various national parks. A couple of photos are accompanied by display cases holding backlit negatives and associated laboratory notes.

To support his fine art tendencies, Adams did a fair amount of commercial work including some in color. He even took pictures of people now and then and sometimes used small handheld cameras instead of bulky tripod-supported boxes. Sometimes, he even took pictures for his own enjoyment. Several things we don’t normally associate with Ansel Adams are associated with this photo of Georgia O’Keeffe and Orville Cox, described here, that shows the same crisp detail seen in his large-format people-less landscape work.

Copies of several of the books that Adams authored or contributed to are available to leaf through as part of the exhibit. I spent some time in one of those padded chairs reading bits from The Camera. The exhibit runs through January 19, 2025.

I also took in CAMaraderie: Artists of the Cincinnati Art Museum while I was at the museum. This impressive exhibit is comprised of numerous works of art from members of the museum staff. It runs through January 5, 2025.    

The Berlin Masterpieces in Cincinnati

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This post’s title is a take-off of the title of an exhibit at the Cincinnati Art Museum the full and accurate title of which is Paintings, Politics and the Monuments Men: The Berlin Masterpieces in America. At the heart of the exhibit is the story of a wildly popular, though somewhat controversial,1948 tour of paintings with its own title: Masterpieces from the Berlin Museums. The tour did not reach Cincinnati although two of the fourteen cities it did reach, Cleveland and Toledo, were in Ohio and there is a major Cincinnati connection.

The picture of General Eisenhour looking over some of the paintings that the Nazis had hidden away is at the entrance to the exhibit. On the other side of the wall it is mounted on, there is a timeline of the Nazis’ rise and fall that ends with the Masterpieces from the Berlin Museums tour. Two items from late 1943 are “Allies invade Italy”, in September, and “Monuments, Fine Art, and Archives section (Monuments Men) of the U.S. Army is established”, in December. The Monuments Men (the subject and title of a 2014 movie) set out to locate and protect artworks at risk of being destroyed by the Nazis.

Thousands of items were located, some in a large salt mine, and brought together at Wiesbaden, Germany. This is where the Cincinnati connection comes in. The director of the Wiesbaden Central Collecting Point was Cincinnatian Walter I. Farmer. By itself, his work in documenting pieces of art and preparing them for return to their owners would have been noteworthy but there was something more.

When he became aware of plans to ship a large number of paintings to the U.S. for safekeeping, Farmer organized thirty-two Monuments Men to produce the Wiesbaden Manifesto which protested what Farmer feared was “spoils of war” type treatment of the European treasures. Smithsonian Magazine calls this “the only act of protest by Army officers against their orders during the entirety of the Second World War”. Although it was eventually published, the manifesto was initially suppressed by Farmer’s superiors. The paintings were shipped to the National Gallery in Washington, DC, and placed in storage. As plans formed to return the paintings to Germany, it was decided to put them on display before their departure. An exhibit at the National Gallery was so popular that the U.S. Congress took notice and actually legislated the tour of thirteen additional museums. All 202 paintings were returned to Germany at the conclusion of the tour. 

Photos of “The Berlin 202” are displayed on a wall near the center of the exhibition. Four of the actual paintings, on loan from the State Museums of Berlin, are on display. The exhibit is fleshed out with other paintings in CAM’s possession by some of the artists contained in the 202. Paintings, Politics and the Monuments Men: The Berlin Masterpieces in America runs through October 3, 2021.

Cincinnati Art Climb

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It probably would have been a low-key opening in any case, but in the middle of a pandemic driven shut-down the opening of the Cincinnati Art Museum’s Art Climb seemed extra muted. Even so, I was aware of the May 7th opening of the first phase and wanted to check it out. Then, just about the time that enough restrictions had been lifted to make me start thinking seriously about a visit, nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police caused me to back off. I finally made it on Wednesday. Broad steps now connect the museum at the edge of Mount Adams with Gilbert Avenue. For road fan readers, Gilbert carries US-22 and OH-3. The steps end at the museum’s parking lot about 450 feet away. There are 166 of them covering roughly 100 feet of elevation change.

The project isn’t 100% complete. There are empty niches where works of art will someday be displayed and additional tables, benches, and landscaping might appear as time goes on. Dave Linnenman, the museum’s Chief Administrative Officer, notes that “It will be a thing to enjoy, not just a way to get up and down.” Right now it is fully functional as a way to get up and down and even as a thing to enjoy for many. Plentiful lighting and numerous security cameras are there to make it safe. The lighting will be certainly be appreciated when the popular Art After Dark events resume.

People simply enjoying the steps on Wednesday included parents with young children and some athletic types going up and down multiple times for exercise. A few were even running up some empty sections. What might at first might look like someone celebrating making it to the top is actually one of the people making multiple climbs. The young woman had passed me on her way down and again on the way up and was just stretching a bit before starting back down.

The closest thing to sculpture currently on the steps is this tri-level not-yet-operational water fountain. I’m sure that a cool drink of water would be a great reward for the climb especially if the temperature was a bit higher. Today, looking back over where I’d been was reward enough.

The museum was closed, of course, but I walked across the nearly empty parking lot anyway. As usual, Jim Dine’s Pinocchio (Emotional) lets us know how happy he is to be alive and he always makes me feel that way, too. Banners at the museum’s entrance let us know some of the things we’ve been missing during the shut-down. On the day after I took these pictures, it was announced that museums were among facilities allowed to open next week. The day after that, the Cincinnati Art Museum announced plans to reopen on June 20 with reduced capacity and some other restrictions. That announcement is here.

This “steps” sign has nothing to do with the new Art Climb. It has been at the east edge of the parking lot for years and I’ve walked past it many times. I was vaguely aware of where the other end of the steps it refers to was located, but I’d never had any reason or desire to travel them. When I first thought of taking in the new stairs, I figured I would park at the museum and go down them then return. However, when I saw I could park near their lower end, I decided it made more sense to do it the other way around. Not only would going up use the steps as intended for museum visitors, it would have me headed downhill when I was likely to need it more.

I know that all downhill paths are not equal but decided that today was probably my best opportunity for checking out the old steps. The route does have steps on both ends and there are some in the middle, but they are nowhere near as wide or as even as the new ones. In between is a sometimes paved and sometimes not path that is always narrow. There are no lights on any of this. The lower end of the Art Climb is at the intersection of Gilbert Avenue and Eden Park Drive. The old steps emerge on Eden Park maybe 500 feet away. I’d parked on Eden Park Drive about midway between the two sets of steps so using the older ones for my return was somewhat sensible. I suppose I might come down them again sometime but I’m rather certain that I’ll never go up them.  

Treasures of the Spanish World

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When the Cincinnati Art Museum announced this upcoming exhibit near summer’s end, I was interested but not overly so. In fact, I didn’t put it on my Gotta-See-That list but on my I’ll-See-That-If-It’s-Convenient list. That was a mistake and I’m sure glad there was a day when taking in Treasures of the Spanish World was convenient and it didn’t end up on my Sorry-I-Missed-That list.

First off, it’s big. Its more than 200 objects fill several of the galleries I associate with temporary exhibits. And it’s not just big in terms of space but in time as well. The oldest items in the exhibit are from the middle of the third millennium BCE; The newest are from the twentieth century CE. Most items, including intricately decorated fabrics and ceramics, call for some up-close study. The pictured “books” are letters patent of nobility (cartas ejecutorias de hidalguia) that attest to “the holder’s gentility” and social position. They are wonderfully decorated and often contain images of the holder and/or grantor.

Numerous paintings, including quite a few portraits, are on display. These, showing a wide range of scale, are the work of Domenikos Theotokopoulos (a.k.a, El Greco).

At the beginning of a section named “Golden Age“, visitors are reminded that “In the 1500s Spain was the most powerful country in the western world”. The western world was getting a whole lot bigger in those days and Spain played a huge role in that. The large map, from which the clip of the Americas was taken, was created by Giovanni Vespucci in 1526 as a royal wedding gift. Giovanni inherited the job of maintaining Spain’s master nautical chart from his uncle, Amerigo.

Of course, Christianity was really big in both Old and New Spain. The large wooden relief sculpture was once part of an even larger piece in a Mexican Church. It dates from around 1600.

The exhibit is organized chronologically and physically divided into two parts. The second section is certainly interesting enough  — there are a few Goyas among its several paintings — but I only have one photo from it. I seem to like my history with a side of art more than the other way round. “Advances of the Nineteenth Century” is a set of tiles recounting recent progress from the vantage point of 1903. The bicycle, locomotive, flush toilet, and sewing machine are clearly steps forward. Not so clear is whatever advance the bullfighting tile is touting.

This touring exhibit was made possible by a major renovation project at the Hispanic Society Museum & Library in New York City. That’s where the items in the exhibit normally appear and many of them have never been displayed elsewhere. The exhibit initially appeared in Madrid, Spain, and appeared in Mexico City and Albuquerque before reaching Cincinnati. There’s still time to see it but not much. This is being published when just one week of the fourteen-week run remains. As I said in the opening paragraph, I’m glad Treasures of the Spanish World avoided going on my Sorry-I-Missed-That list. I recommend you keep it off of yours, too, if you can.

More Man at CAM

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I visited Phase 1 of the Cincinnati Art Museum’s Burning Man exhibit about two weeks after it opened (Burning Man at CAM). It took me more than a month, however, to take in Phase 2. Phase 2 adds three galleries to “No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man” while leaving everything that was part of the first phase in place. The pictured quote — and line — went unnoticed on that earlier visit although they were certainly there. I was probably looking only at the structure that stands above the line. It represents the Burning Man Temple which, like the man itself, is turned to ashes before the festival ends. It’s a fraction of the size of the real temple but is still much too large to fit into my lens inside the museum. Here are shots of the top half, of one of the panels, and through one of the peepholes.

Christopher Schardt’s Nova was actually part of Phase 1 but, like the line at the entrance, I somehow missed it on my visit in May. Images in the ceiling-mounted LED panel are coordinated with classical music. The last photo was taken while I lay on the floor. I kind of wish I had waited for the skull to come around again.

One of the galleries added for Phase 2 is filled with three polyhedral sculptures from Yelena Filipchik and Serge Beaulieu. There’s a direct view of the suspended polyhedron here. One of the sculptures, with yet another polyhedron inside, can be entered.

This is a part of Phase 1 that I definitely did not miss. In fact, I ended that first post with a promise “to listen to those gongs some more.” I very much kept my promise and am now pretty much convinced that living inside Gamelatron Bidadari would make me a nicer person.

This is the largest of the Phase 2 additions. It consists mostly of two-dimensional art including photographs. I took the picture of the bicycle seat primarily to show the tag but I didn’t do a very good job. It is slightly more readable here.

The third Phase 2 gallery is the balcony above the temple replica and the museum’s main entrance. The central space is filled with clothing created for and worn at Burning Man. Photographs showing the many aspects of Burning Man fill most of the wall space but some of that space holds Candy Chang “Before I die…” chalkboards. Apparently, more than 4000 of these have been erected around the world giving people an opportunity to “pick up a piece of chalk, reflect on death and life, and share their personal aspirations in public.” Some truly deep and personal thoughts have appeared on the walls and the Cincinnati board contains some noble sentiments such as “Help others” and some fairly modest goals like “Go whale watching”, but “Travel” is a very common theme. Pay attention, people.

My post on Phase 1 opened with a photo of the smallish Truth is Beauty standing above the museum’s Great Hall. This one is closing with a photo of it taken from the balcony across the way. There are pictures on display that show the original 55-foot sculpture at Burning Man with no roofs or walls penning it in. It’s obvious that seeing this one third scale copy in climate-controlled comfort is a very poor substitute. I’m guessing that seeing reproductions of or even some of the actual pieces that were once part of Burning Man is just about as much like the experience of being there as my tapping on the steering wheel is like manning the riser behind Mick and Keith at Wembley Stadium. But it’s as close as I’m likely to get. I’ll take it. 

Burning Man at CAM

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I have never been to Burning Man but I’ve a son who has. I texted him while attending the recently opened “No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man” at the Cincinnati Art Museum. “Those things aren’t supposed to make it off the playa”, he said. “Burn it. It’s in the frickin’ name.” Those aren’t angry words. They’re amused words. In context, he seemed to be chuckling at the idea of people trying to understand the annual gathering by looking at some things that had once been there. I’d already picked up some sense of how silly this was from the exhibition’s title. “No Spectators” comes from Burning Man’s “radically participatory ethic”. “Participation” is one of the community’s ten principles. No one attends the actual event as a spectator. The joke (possibly even intentional) is that, regardless of the name, the majority of people viewing the objets d’art at the museum are 100% spectators. Silly or not, I spectated profusely.

As is apparent from the first photo, the Burning Man pieces are not shuttered off in an isolated gallery but share space with the museum’s permanent displays. The Truth is Beauty standing at the top of the main staircase is a third the size of the original 55-foot tall sculpture that appeared at Burning an in 2013. A description is here; Another view here.

Although several examples of the art of Burning Man are unavoidably encountered on the way, there is a gallery devoted to Burning Man history which is a good place to visit before actively seeking out the rest. Burning Man of today bears little resemblance to the original 1986 event. Today it is well organized and scheduled far in advance. The “city” that is created annually in the Nevada desert now has a population near 70,000. Given the name Black Rock City, a Department of Public Works exists to operate the city and a group called the Black Rock Rangers patrols it. A large part of the Ranger’s success is credited to the fact that they are not outsiders but participant volunteers helping keep other participants safe and enjoying themselves. There is a brief description of the DPW and BRR here. The jacket belongs to DPW founder Will Roger Peterson.

The history display includes some actual artifacts from past events. Starting in 1998, Crimson Rose, one of the organizers, has collected remnants of the Man on the morning after the burning. The keys were found on the playa by organizers Michael and Dusty Mikel between 2005 and 2012.

The guy on the right of the first picture is Thorax, Ambassador of the Insects. The mutant vehicle in the center picture is from 2008. It is named Tin Pan Dragon. I liked it so much that I grabbed a full side view and a shot of the video playing nearby. The big screen visible beyond the dragon show a loop of various Burning Man scenes with seating for a small audience.

The capacity of this theater is much higher with three rows of four seats each. Although No Spectators officially opened on April 26, several items, including this self-propelled theater were in place when I visited another exhibit just about a month ago. On that occasion, I took this picture of the screen with my phone. This time I took no screenshots but did sit through the entire presentation of silent shorts.

While some of the Burning Man pieces appear a little bit awkward in makeshift settings, this piece and this circular room seem made for each other. Gamelatron Bidadari is comprised of 32 bronze gongs played by computer-controlled mallets. There’s a better explanation here.  The few minutes I spent in this room were the most pleasant of my entire day.

Photos of Shrumen Lumen appear in promotional materials for this exhibit including the program cover. It is one of the few items that require a little participation and at least slightly supports the “no spectators” idea. As explained here, each ‘shroom is activated by stepping on a pad at its base. In the third picture, a non-spectator steps on a pad then steps back and back again to watch the show.

Phase 1 of “No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man” opened on April 26. Phase 2 additions will be made on June 7 and everything will remain through September 2. I’ll be back for Phase 2 and to listen to those gongs some more.

ADDENDUM 4-Aug-2019: As promised, I returned to the museum for Phase 2 and reported on the visit here.

More Museum Returns

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I’m sure there was at least one occasion when Ooola pulled Alley Oop into a major cave cleaning project. Among all the other repairs and additions, something very much like that must have occurred with the popular cave attraction at the Cincinnati Museum Center. The artificial limestone cave has been touched up and cleaned while retaining the appropriate level of dim damp caveiness.

I remember when the Natural History Museum moved to Union Terminal from Gilbert Avenue and the cave went missing for a while. My memory may be in error, there is no doubt that it’s foggy, but my recollection is that the cave was different after the move. Bigger, perhaps. Improved, maybe. I believe that the cave I saw Friday was pretty much the same cave I saw before the 2016 closing. The subtle wear and tear of twenty-five years of traffic have been dealt with but the pools, stalagmites, and narrow passages visitors have become familiar with over the years are all right there. They are simply a little cleaner and fresher.

In addition to the reopened cave, Friday’s members only “preview” saw the return of Cincinnati in Motion, another museum favorite. This 1/64 scale model of the Queen City presents different sections in different decades from the 1900s to the 1940s. Both of the first two pictures contain the Roebling Bridge and those who look close enough might see street cars entering the Dixie Terminal Building after crossing the bridge. There’s a closer look here.

Friday’s event was just the latest in a series of reveals following the Museum Center’s two year long renovation. It has been and will continue to be a mix of old and new starting with November’s “grand reopening” which included a brand new Dinosaur Hall and the refurbished Public Landing. I’ve no doubt that more new exhibits await and the list of previously displayed items yet to be unpacked is a mile long. Unwrapping this present is going to take a while and it’s going to be a lot of fun.

Cincinnati in Motion once again welcomes visitors to the history museum but there’s not yet a lot beyond it. There is a possibly temporary display of Cincinnati related vehicles called Engines of Growth with a literal bright spot in this 1951 Crosley Super Sport. As noted on a nearby plaque, the car was a gift from Michael C. Warmbier in memory of his grandson Otto Frederick Warmbeir. Otto Warmbeir was the college student who died in 2017 shortly after being released from a North Korean prison. It’s a very nice car and a very sad story. The phrase “in memory of his grandson” is heartbreaking in any context. 

The Mighty Qin… and Friends

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I can’t really explain how the word Qin got turned into China, but it did. Some oriental linguistic transformations, such as Peking to Beijiing, are fairly recent but Qin has been China for a very long time. During a period actually called the Warring States Period, Qin was merely one of the states that warred. But it was better at it than most. In 221 BCE, under the leadership of Ying Zheng, Qin conquered the last of those other states to unify Qin/China. Although the Qin Dynasty was short lived (221-206 BCE) it gave the world its most populous country, biggest wall, and most mind boggling tomb.

Construction of that tomb, a 38 square mile complex clearly deserving of the name necropolis, began before China’s unification. Ying Zheng launched the project in 246 BCE after becoming ruler of Qin following his father’s death. He was thirteen. One of the best known of the many astounding aspects of the site is the army of nearly 8,000 life sized terracotta figures populating it. Ten of those figures are among the 120 items currently on display at the Cincinnati Art Museum. The chariot in the opening photograph is a replica of one found at the burial site. It is on display near the museum entrance separate from the actual exhibit.

The majority of items in the exhibit are much smaller than those soldiers and some predate the Qin dynasty  Many of the smallest are jewelry or other decorative items. A lot of the mid-sized items are more practical. The earthenware mask, believed to have been used by an exorcist, dates from 4000-3000 BCE. The metal cladding in the second picture was used to join construction timbers. The Chinese have long used ceramic tile for roofs and other construction needs. Both items in the third picture are tiles used in water supply systems.

This was the third time I’ve been able to gaze upon some of the twenty-two century old figures. The first was in 1980 at the Field Museum in Chicago; The second just two years later at the 1982 Knoxville World’s Fair. In Chicago, six soldiers and two horses were part of a large “Great Bronze Age of China” exhibit. In Knoxville, two soldiers and a horse accompanied a tiny piece of the Great Wall in China’s first World’s Fair exhibit since 1904. Both were remarkable in that the figures had been discovered just a few years prior in 1976. I find the fact that they were forgotten for more than two millennia as extraordinary as the fact that they existed at all.

The terracotta army contains a broad range of ranks and duties and every member is unique in some way. This exhibit includes a representative sample ranging from general to stable hand with foot soldiers, a couple of archers, and a charioteer. The cavalryman in the first photo does look like the one whose thumb was broken off in Philadelphia last December by some jerk from Delaware, but it’s not. That set of figures has returned to China. The Cincinnati exhibit was organized by the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts where it had been displayed until mid-March. Those and other details are found in a press release here.

Terracotta Army: Legacy of the First Emperor of China runs through August 12.

There is another traveling exhibit at the Cincinnati Art Museum currently. It’s one I failed to do any homework on at all and I regret that — maybe. The main part of the exhibit is called The Visitors which is described as a “multi-channel video installation”. It’s the work of Ragnar Kjartansson. His Scenes from Western Culture is also on display. It’s possible to find descriptions of both of these works elsewhere but this is the only place to get a description of how I experienced them. Lucky you.

Ragnar Kjartansson’s name was on the entrance to a fairly large room that often holds traveling exhibits with several large video screens on the walls of the approaching hallway. I’d seen the name when visiting the museum website but I hadn’t been interested enough to do any reading and I really had no idea what to expect. I scanned a blurb on the wall about short movies that set a mood rather than telling a story before watching a couple kissing on a dock by a boat and a group of kids playing almost sedately in a park. A screen with a fire burning in what looked like the foundation of a house triggered a memory. I’d recently seen a similarly framed image of a cabin ablaze and realized it must have been on the museum’s website. The blurb next to the screen mentioned a 32 minute running time. I needed to kill some time and the cabin, if that’s what it was, had completely collapsed so maybe it was near the end. I sat down across from the screen to see if it would cycle to the remembered image of a cabin.

I checked email and Facebook and verified that City View Tavern, where I planned to eat, was open. The fire was still going pretty good within the outline of the building, so I decided to go on into the main room. Even bigger screens lined those walls with little activity on any of them. I studied each of them briefly then went back to the hallway to check on the “fire”. The flames didn’t hold my attention very long this time and I soon decided to walk on through the main room and exit. A couple of the screens were now dark but the others showed the same motionless scenes as before. As I paused near one of the screens, a man appeared and walked toward the camera. The screen went black when he presumably switched it off. I waited long enough for the same thing to happen to another screen. The pause gave me time to rethink things and realize that I still had time to kill and doing it here was probably my best option. I returned to my seat near the fire video.

I now noticed a blurb on the side if the door away from the “fire”. I learned that the installation inside, The Visitors, involved musicians, in different rooms of a mansion, playing and singing a song. The fire in the video didn’t seem to be progressing much, so, when I heard voices singing on the other side of the doorway, I went in and, for the first time, considered that Ragnar Kjartansson might not be a full on con-artist.

All the screens were lit and all the rooms occupied: a cello, a couple of grand pianos, an accordion, a banjo, several guitars. The show — I mean installation — had become interesting. Though the music wasn’t gripping, it was quite pleasant. It swelled and softened. In some of the mellowest spots, the drummer sipped a beer. After a while I noticed the bare shoulders of a young woman lying in the bed one of the guitarist sat on. The run time was given as 64 minutes, and, as far as I know, she didn’t move for the entire shoot. If so, that’s almost as impressive as her roommate contributing to the performance guided only by earphones.

The museum is free and so is this. I’m really thinking of returning to watch the whole thing in the proper sequence now that I know what’s going on. Through some belated homework, I learned that Ragnar’s the guy in the bathtub. A quite remarkable selfie.

The Visitors and Scenes from Western Culture run through June 17.

Star Wars Costumes

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I may have missed attending a traveling exhibit at the Cincinnati Museum Center in the last several years but, if I did, I don’t remember what it was. The museum brings in world class exhibits which I very much appreciate and enjoy. I was, however, rather wishy-washy about Star Wars and the Power of Costume. Still am to some degree. My initial lack of desire came from a lack of familiarity. I guess I’ve been sort of wishy-washy about the whole Star Wars movie franchise beyond the first one. I feared that not knowing all the details of the full story would make it impossible to appreciate the exhibit. That turned out not to be the case at all. My current wishy-washiness comes from the price. As a museum member, attending the exhibit on Friday cost me $17. The regular adult admission is $24 or $16 for age twelve and under.

As I purchased my ticket, a fellow who had just emerged from the display and the fellow printing my ticket, had a brief discussion about how much they had each enjoyed it. One aspect they both liked was that the organization is by “type” rather then chronological. Once inside I very much appreciated that too. Having things displayed chronologically either by story line or movie release sequence (They’re different, you know.) wouldn’t have helped me at all and would likely have confused me.

There are small clusters of similar characters such as androids, empire soldiers, and rebel fighters.

Sometimes a single pair of related costumes are displayed together. Here a couple of different Princess Leia outfits are combined and Chewbacca and Han Solo stand side by side in front of a hyperspace image.

And, of course, some characters seem to just belong alone. Darth Vader masks used for specific scenes are displayed nearby. Bits of Jedi wisdom are projected on the wall behind Yoda.

The last room in the exhibit contains many of the Star Wars toys manufactured by Kenner and tells the story of how the Cincinnati based company ended up with the contract that nobody wanted. The line was incredibly successful and revolutionized the marketing of movie based toys but did not keep the company from being merged into Hasbro in 2000.

I was honestly quite surprised that the exhibit actually made me want to see all nine Star Wars movies. I saw the first Star Wars movie and thought it was great despite feeling that George Lucas had really ripped off Dune author Frank Herbert. I also saw and enjoyed the second and possibly even the third but I don’t think so. Then the whole prequel/sequel thing made me lose interest completely. Now that the story exists in its entirety, my curiosity is coming into play. Besides the more than sixty costumes, the exhibit contains many informative panels and videos. They remind me of something I already knew which is that Lucas borrowed from and/or honored many more science fiction and adventure stories than Dune and he seems to have done a better job presenting the essence of Dune than anyone who has actually used the name. I don’t see myself doing an all day or more binge but maybe I’ll finally get around to watching what everyone’s been talking about for years.

Now I’m going to invent a additional Cincinnati connection. A panel in the Star Wars exhibit states that some of the areas costume designers studied were World War II, Vietnam, and Japanese armor. Cincinnati is home to a serious collector of Japanese armor and the Art Museum has many pieces in its collection. Dressed to Kill, an exhibit of much of this armor, ended about a month ago and I’m going to turn this into an opportunity to post a couple of pictures I took there with my phone under less than ideal lighting. And now I’m going to turn this into an opportunity to mention that all the other pictures in this post were taken with my pocket Panasonic and the lighting for most wasn’t all that good either. Here’s hoping you won’t judge them too harshly.

Traveling exhibits like Star Wars the Power of Costume, are possibly even a little more important now than normal since they and the Children’s Museum are the only public spaces that remain open during the restoration of Union Terminal. Since my last visit. a large window has been opened into the rotunda that permits a view of a portion of the murals there. Reconstruction is scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2018.