FRONT International is a free, summer-long, public art festival that takes place across Northeast Ohio every three years.
FRONT launched in 2018 with its inaugural exhibition, An American City, and returns in summer 2022 with Oh, Gods of Dust and Rainbows.
Building on the success of the first edition, FRONT 2022 furthers the Triennial’s commitment to the belief that by supporting creative communities and stimulating new cultural encounters in the region, contemporary art can be an important catalyst for positive social change.
Langston Hughes, “Two Somewhat Different Epigrams” (1957)FRONT International
Oh, Gods of Dust and Rainbows embraces art as an agent of transformation, a mode of healing, and a therapeutic process. The title is an homage to a 1957 poem by author Langston Hughes, who moved to Cleveland in his childhood and maintained an artistic connection to the region:
Two Somewhat Different Epigrams (1957):
I
Oh, God of dust and rainbows, help us see
That without dust the rainbow would not be.
II
I look with awe upon the human race
And God, who sometimes spits right in its face.
Installation View, FRONT 2022 Preview Exhibition, "Grand Prototypes, Humble Tools". On view October 8, 2021–January 2, 2022.FRONT International
This poem, a meditation on adversity and a prayer for transformation, inspires FRONT 2022’s curatorial approach. The exhibition’s title extends Hughes’s original invocation to signal a plurality of beliefs, stories, places, and people.
Installation View, FRONT 2022 Preview Exhibition, "Grand Prototypes, Humble Tools". On view October 8, 2021–January 2, 2022.FRONT International
Responding to today’s challenges as potential opportunities, Oh, Gods of Dust and Rainbows explores the emancipatory power of joy, as embedded within song, movement, and multi-sensory experience.
FRONT's 2022 exhibition opens on July 16, 2022 and will feature over 75 regional, national, and international artists working across painting, drawing, sculpture, textiles, photography, video, text, performance, and other media. Ongoing exhibitions and public installations work in tandem with online and time-based programs.
Starting with how daily practice allows individual artists to cultivate liberation through the everyday rituals of creation, the triennial exhibition also demonstrates how aesthetic pleasure—sharing joy through movement, music, craft, and color—can bridge differences between people to bring them together. Finally, the exhibition suggests ways that art-making can speak with power: showing us how to recognize and reimagine the invisible structures that govern contemporary life.
FRONT bannerFRONT International
Oh, Gods of Dust and Rainbows
FRONT 2022 will be on view across partner institutions and exhibition venues in Cleveland, Akron, and Oberlin from July 16–October 2, 2022.
FRONT 2022 'gods'
Designed by The Rodina Design Studio as part of FRONT's graphic identity and way-finding. Each location will be represented by its own unique god.
FRONT Presenting Partner InstitutionsFRONT International
FRONT Presenting Partners:
Akron Art Museum, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland Public Library, Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (moCa), The Sculpture Center, SPACES Gallery, Transformer Station
Mark your calendar for FRONT 2022: July 16–October 2, 2022
Your visit to FRONT will begin at the FRONT PNC Exhibition Hub at Transformer Station!
Please visit www.frontart.org/go to plan your visit this summer!
FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art
