Crowded Couches, Shrouded Houses

The Cincinnati Arts Association and the Weston Art Gallery in the Aronoff Center for the Arts presents Crowded Couches, Shrouded Houses, a gallery installation by Robert Brasier and Sandy Rosen. The work of these two artists transforms both levels of the gallery into a multi-faceted installation with a provocative combination of couches and houses in a variety of sizes, mediums, and concepts. The exhibition’s theme deals with the issues of meaning and context in relation to language and perception, as it focuses on images of the couch and the house as familiar, comfortable, and accessible. 

The upstairs collaborative component presents a couch “shrouded” by Rosen and a “crowded house” executed by Brasier, that invites viewer participation through its location and lighting elements, while downstairs both artists diverge into separate works that then come together in a final dramatic collaboration, “that will coalesce the physical and metaphoric significances introduced in the discrete pieces” they have presented individually. 

Sandy Rosen is recognized nationally for her elaborate, thought-provoking-yet-fun-filled installations in New York’s New Museum, Cleveland’s Center for Contemporary Art, Cincinnati’s Taft Museum, and The Contemporary Arts Center, to name but a few. Robert Brasier, an accomplished painter, opened InSitu in 1992, one of the most exciting spaces for contemporary art in the city, and has joined with Rosen in successful collaborations there and at Miami University’s Heistand Galleries. 

Both artists are accomplished art educators, with Brasier currently teaching art history and directing the gallery at Xavier University, and Rosen heading the successful Artists Reaching Classrooms program with the Taft Museum. In addition to their work, they headed ARTventures, a collaborative effort that curated exhibitions, provided educational consulting for museums, and organized special art touring and education experiences for the general public.