Posted inArt

How One Regional Craft Museum Is Expanding Its Horizons

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky — The Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft in Louisville has spent the last couple of years staking out a place in discussions occurring in contemporary art circles about the line dividing art and craft. The recent exhibition PRESS: Artist and Machine was a romantic show focused on illuminating the relationship between 19th-century printing-press technology and 20th- and 21st-century art production.

Posted inArt

In Kentucky, Tomorrow Comes Today

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Since moving here with my family a couple of years ago, The Land of Tomorrow (LOT) has been on my mind. It is a provocative production and exhibition space established by Drura Parish and Dmitry “Dima” Strakovsky, first in Lexington (2009) and then in Louisville (2010), Kentucky.

Posted inArt

Reverend, Collector, and Unlikely Tastemaker: The Story of Al Shands

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky — Long before Reverend Al Shands bought his first contemporary artwork, he founded an Episcopal church that met weekly at a Washington, D.C. seafood restaurant. “I find the wholesome, institutional nature of the church rather boring. But I do not find religion boring. To pray, I do not find boring,” he said. For six years during the 1960s, Shands was able to maintain this unusual congregation. “The only place we could afford to start meeting was in the restaurant. We used the mixing bowl as the baptismal font, the wine came from the bar, our bread was the rolls they served and our altar was the table.” For Shands, “The religious encounter is like a dinner party.”