Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, released recently from more than two months in detention

Beijing’s tax authorities have asked the dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, released recently from more than two months in detention, to pay 12 million yuan ($1.85 million) in back taxes and fines, a friend of his said on Tuesday.The 54-year-old artist was released on bail last Wednesday, a day before Premier Wen Jiabao left for Europe, where Britain and Germany have criticized Ai’s detention. On Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed Ai’s release as she met with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Berlin.Liu Xiaoyuan, a lawyer who has advised Ai’s family and is a friend of the artist, said that Ai had received a notice on Monday from the tax authorities requesting him to pay 5 million yuan in back taxes and 7 million yuan in fines.”He has three days to raise any opinions in writing he might have (on the demand),” Liu told Reuters by telephone.”In accordance with the law on tax evasion … if he does not pay then he could be subject to legal action,” he added.”For such a large sum, there could be a hearing,” Liu said, adding that any hearing could take place before July 7. He did not elaborate further.Ai could not be reached for comment. Under the terms of his release he is not allowed to talk to the media. Family members were not immediately available.The official Xinhua news agency said last week that Ai was freed “because of his good attitude in confessing his crimes as well as a chronic disease he suffers from,” citing the police.A company that police said he controlled was found to have evaded a huge amount of taxes and intentionally destroyed accounting documents, and Ai’s release last week came after the artist has vowed to pay the taxes he evaded, Xinhua reported.Analysts say Ai’s release is far from a signal of a policy shift by the ruling Communist Party. Authorities have muzzled dissent with the secretive detentions of more than 130 lawyers and activists since February, amid fears that anti-authoritarian uprisings across the Arab world could trigger unrest.The Foreign Ministry has said Ai, who had a hand in designing the Bird’s Nest stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, remained under investigation for suspicion of economic crimes.But police have issued no formal notice to explain why he was being held. Ai’s family says the allegations are an excuse to silence his criticism.

 

FAVA FOLDING FESTIVAL

FAVA Folding Festival 2011

FREE & Event Schedule

New Union Center for the Arts
39 S. Main St., Oberlin, OH
Children 11& under must be accompanied by an adult.
WORKSHOPS MEET IN FAVA CLASSROOM 220
Saturday, July 2
10:00am-12:00 pm – Intro Origami
Learn some traditional models and carry them home in a handy box.
1:00-3:00pm – Intermediate Origami
Step up your game with some more challenging (but accessible!) models
3:00-5:00pm – OPEN FOLDING
hang out! Learn from your neighbors.  Flip through some books.
Fold to your hearts’ content.
6:30pm – Gallery Talk
Get a personalized tour of the Folding Festival exhibit with curator, James W. Peake.
http://www.foldingfestival.com/2011-folding-festival.html

 

Concealed/Revealed: Seeking Transcendence – Opening in Vermilion

The artseen, an art gallery located at 5591 Liberty Avenue in Vermilion, is pleased to announce the opening of Concealed/Revealed: Seeking Transcendence, a collaborative effort between noted artist John Pearson and his daughter Cadence. It is the first time that the two of them have exhibited together. We hope you will be able to join us.

 

VSA – Oberlin Workshops

Since 1986 the VSA has sponsored workshops in conjunction with Oberlin College in Oberlin Ohio. The workshops offered every summer offer an outstanding and important opportunity for violin and bow makers to learn methods and subtleties in the art of making fine stringed instruments and bows. The original Restoration Workshop was created by the noted restorer Vahakn Nigogosian. Today there are five programs held during the month of July, which offer in-depth instruction by a distinguished faculty supplemented by renowned luthiers. The current programs are:

Acoustics June 11-19
Violin Making (advanced level) June 12-25
Bow Making (advanced level) June 12-25
Bow Restoration June 26 – July 2
Violin Restoration June 26 – July 2

http://www.vsa.to/oberlin_schedule.htm

 

Weitzheimer/Johnson House Open 1st & 3rd Sun. each month

Weltzheimer/Johnson House

The Weltzheimer/Johnson House, 1948

Architect: Frank Lloyd Wright

Photograph: Dirk Bakker

The First Usonian Home In Ohio

The public entrance to the house is located at 534 Morgan Street.

The Weltzheimer/Johnson House holds public open house hours on the First and Third Sundays of each month.

Hours are 12pm until 5pm.

Guided tours begin on the hour (12pm, 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, and 4pm).

Admission is $5 per adult, and is payable at the house.

Advance registration is not required, except for groups of 10 or more.

Parking is available on the south side of Morgan Street (the golf course side). Don’t worry about the  “No Parking” signs – city services are familiar with the house!

The W/J House does allow visitor photography of both the interior and exterior of the building. At this time, the house is not available for use as a rental conference space.For further information, please contact the AMAM Education Department at (440) 775-8671, or send us an email.

Closed Major Holidays – New Year’s Day, Easter, Independence Day, and Christmas.

The Weltzheimer/Johnson House at Oberlin College is a Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian House that sits on a lot several blocks from campus. Designed in 1947 and completed in 1949, it is the first Usonian house in Ohio and one of the few in the nation open to the public.

The Weltzheimer/Johnson House stands as another expression of Wright’s answer to the demand for beautiful and affordable middle-class homes in the post WWII America. Pairing innovation with basic owner-builder construction materials and techniques, the concepts of organic architecture evolved into these Usonian characteristics: a flowing floor plan with distinct public and private wings; concrete, grid patterned, slab floor with radiant heat; flat roof and cantilevered carport; masonry fireplace mass; board and batten walls with simple built-in furniture; and tall glass walls and doors opening to the landscape.

The Weltzheimer/Johnson House uses brick masonry and redwood and has several distinctive features, including the hundreds of stained croquet balls forming the roof dentil ornamentation whose circular motif is echoed in the shadow panel screens of the clerestory and the interior brick columns that separate the workspace from the living room.

The Weltzheimer family lived in the house until 1963 when the property was sold to developers and “remodeling” efforts scarred the space. However, in 1968, Art History Professor Ellen H. Johnson purchased the home and began the restoration process. In 1992 at her death, the house was given to Oberlin College to serve as a guesthouse for the Art Department and the Allen Memorial Art Museum. The house is now open to the public for tours and programs.

Frank Lloyd Wright at Oberlin: The Story of the Welzheimer/Johnson House, Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin 49, no. 1 (1995), is available at the Weltzheimer/Johnson House during tour hours. Bulletin is $10 per copy.

 

Pipo’s delicious fields

Rolling farmlands, looming factories, majestic matter-of-factness – these descriptions apply to Ohio as a cultural and geographic site distinct from other regions of the United States.  But what can that mean for photographers working in our midst?  “Delicious Fields” derives from “Champs Delicieux,” a portfolio of photograms created by Man Ray and published by Tristan Tzara in Paris in 1922.  As an avant-garde publication heralding the beginning of photographic surrealism in Paris, the images in Champs Delicieux represented revolution in their own time and are reprised in experimental contemporary photography.  Man Ray’s images, created by placing everyday objects onto a sheet of photographic paper exposed to light, offered a scrambling of reality.  Just so, the nine Ohio photographers exhibited here overlay personal narrative on the Ohio landscape, or conversely, subject this and other topography to overt manipulation and examination.  What results is a selection of photographic work imbued with the spirit of the enigmatic, as descended from its French forbearers.

Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland. 8501 Carnegie Ave. 216-421-8671 or mocacleveland.org. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday (until 8 p.m. Wednesday). $4; $3, senior citizens and students with ID (free on Friday). The Cleveland Play House provides secure parking for $7.50. Exhibit: “Delicious Fields: Nine Ohio Photographers at Work.” Works by Jodi Boatman, Bruce Checefsky, Joy Christiansen Erb, Mary Fahy, Marcella Hackbardt, Benjamin Montague, Ardine Nelson, Pipo Nguyen-Duy and Jordan Tate. Opening reception: 7-10 p.m. today. Through Sunday, Aug. 21.