The Annex Updated

08/16/2026

The smell of fresh ink on a print just lifted from the press has a remarkable ability to turn devotees into addicts. So do the uneasy intervals built into the process, which forge a very particular bond with the craft. This lies at the origin of nearly every printmaking and screen-printing workshop. Another trait they tend to share is an unusual capacity for endurance. Taken together, these elements account, to a considerable degree, for the history of Tiger Lily Press.

The smell of fresh ink on a print just lifted from the press has a remarkable ability to turn devotees into addicts. So do the uneasy intervals built into the process, which forge a very particular bond with the craft. This lies at the origin of nearly every printmaking and screen-printing workshop....

08/13/2026

Since Wednesday, August 12, Annex Gallery has been presenting Tiger Lily: Collective Impressions. Tiger Lily Press is a cooperative printmaking workshop founded in Cincinnati in 1979, conceived as an open space for practice, teaching, and the preservation of artistic printing techniques. Over several decades, it has brought together printmakers from different generations, providing access to presses, tools, workshops, and shared technical knowledge, while establishing itself as one of the city’s longest-standing independent printmaking communities.

Since Wednesday, August 12, Annex Gallery has been presenting *Tiger Lily: Collective Impressions*. Tiger Lily Press is a cooperative printmaking workshop founded in Cincinnati in 1979, conceived as an open space for practice, teaching, and the preservation of artistic printing techniques. Over seve...

07/31/2026

Given its scale and significance, I will present my analysis of this project in several installments. These are the ten design proposals shortlisted for the next series of euro banknotes. At this moment, they are under the gaze of millions. Citizens of the euro area have been invited to choose their favorites in a survey that will remain open until September 21. The Governing Council will select one of them at the end of the year. I suspect it will not be the proposal that receives the most votes. Popular approval guarantees nothing. If time proves the selection to have been a blunder, those consulted will be the ones left to pick up the pieces.

Given its scale and significance, I will present my analysis of this project in several installments. These are the ten design proposals shortlisted for the next series of euro banknotes. At this moment, they are under the gaze of millions. Citizens of the euro area have been invited to choose their...

07/19/2026

Ai Weiwei's art leaves me with certain reservations. The public figure strikes me as overly polished, burnished almost to excess.

Some years ago he dropped an authentic Han dynasty urn onto the floor. Made sometime between 206 BC and AD 220, its first and only purpose was to shatter. He had bought it in Beijing in the early 1990s, during China's rapid urban expansion, when such objects could still be found in considerable numbers. Weiwei himself has said that he began collecting them after returning from the United States in 1993.

Ai Weiwei's art leaves me with certain reservations. The public figure strikes me as overly polished, burnished almost to excess.Some years ago he dropped an authentic Han dynasty urn onto the floor. Made sometime between 206 BC and AD 220, its first and only purpose was to shatter. He had bought it...

07/08/2026

Among the most rewarding things about running an art gallery is the chance to meet extraordinary artists. In the past two months, for instance, I encountered for the first time the work of two important American photographers who share a great deal, Matt Herron and Jim Marshall.

06/22/2026

Nearly eighty articles originally published between 2010 and 2011 have now been recovered and are available through ‍The Annex Updated AEQAI Section

These first texts mark the beginning of a larger undertaking: the recovery of the archive of aeqai.com, a publication that, between 2010 and 2019, brought together valuable writing on art, artists, exhibitions, and the cultural history of Cincinnati.

While ÆQAI.org remains active and preserves an important body of the publication’s later content, aeqai.com is no longer directly accessible online. Some of its articles survived through a mirror site hosted on Blogspot; others were transferred to ÆQAI.org, often with the text retained but their original visual material, formatting, or contextual information lost along the way.

Nearly eighty articles originally published between 2010 and 2011 have now been recovered and are available through The Annex Updated. These first texts mark the beginning of a larger undertaking: the recovery of the archive of aeqai.com, a publication that, between 2010 and 2019, brought together v...

06/09/2026

Although I am an avowed admirer of her solo work and have known her for nearly twenty-five years, I do not remember ever having spoken in person with Liudmila Velasco. About her work, about the weather, about how unbearable this or that artist can become. When I left the island, Liudmila was already practically an institution within Cuban women’s photography. For a long time, and until then, I associated her with her legendary binomial with Nelson Ramírez de Arellano.

06/09/2026

When we first came across Tim Harrier’s Shaman Spirit Guides, we dismissed them without mercy as the product of artificial intelligence. The mud-covered faces, the animals emerging from the background, and an unbroken frontal force produced, almost at once, a malignant suspicion. Suspicion ran far ahead of the work. And we are right to suspect almost everything in life. This series, no.

When we first came across Tim Harrier’s Shaman Spirit Guides, we dismissed them without mercy as the product of artificial intelligence. The mud-covered faces, the animals emerging from the background, and an unbroken frontal force produced, almost at once, a malignant suspicion. Suspicion ran far...

06/08/2026

There is a book. Before the exhibition, before the charcoal drawings spread across the galleries of the Contemporary Arts Center, before the viewer crosses the blue thresholds into the dreamworld of Freeman Little, there is a self-published book, hand-sewn with red thread, bound by Cereal Box Studio in Cincinnati, arriving in a paper bag stamped with the CAC logo.

There is a book. Before the exhibition, before the charcoal drawings spread across the galleries of the Contemporary Arts Center, before the viewer crosses the blue thresholds into the dreamworld of Freeman Little, there is a self-published book, hand-sewn with red thread, bound by Cereal Box Studio...

05/07/2026

The solo exhibition Amazonia, opening on May 22, brings together a body of work produced by Julia out of her sustained engagement with the Shipibo Indigenous community of the Peruvian Amazon. The show is structured around four groups of pieces and combines watercolor and ink on paper, embroidered textile work, installation, and cyanotype. Together, the pieces operate as a series of visual reflections on the use of medicinal plants, the experience of the Amazonian "dieta," the artist's family inheritance, and her condition as a migrant.

The solo exhibition Amazonia, opening on May 22, brings together a body of work produced by Julia out of her sustained engagement with the Shipibo Indigenous community of the Peruvian Amazon. The show is structured around four groups of pieces and combines watercolor and ink on paper, embroidered te...