CAN Triennial: YOU ARE HERE Awards Ceremony
@ Beachland Ballroom

Thursday, August 18
6:00 pm
  9:00 pm

Curators

Listed Alphabetically by First Name

Darius Steward

Darius Steward

Darius Steward (he/him) is an artist and educator currently living in Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated from the University of Delaware obtaining a Master of Fine Art degree in May 2010. His undergraduate work was completed at the Cleveland Institute of Art where he had a concentration in Drawing and Painting. Darius has shown artwork in a number of Museums and galleries across the United States. Some of his most notable exhibitions include solo shows at the Swope Museum in Indiana, and Canton Art Museum in Ohio. Darius has completed murals with Inter-Urban Art Project, Cuyahoga Community College, Midtown Cleveland. He was the subject of recent feature stories in Canvas Cleveland, the Plain Dealer, Scene Magazine and Hyperallergic. His work is in the collections of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, the Cleveland Clinic,  Progressive insurance, The University of Delaware, and many Museums around the U.S. including the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Swope Museum, Flint Institute of Arts, University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Darius worked as a master teacher for the Cleveland Museum of Art arts mastery program called Currently Under Curation, and is currently a teacher at Laurel School. 

Kristin Rogers

Kristin Rogers

Kristin Rogers (he/him) is an artist, writer, and curator based in the Cleveland area. His work in these three disciplines has touchpoints in a variety of venues and contexts and his outputs intentionally seek to overlap and blur their characteristics. Treating all three as, effectively, forms of invention and making, Rogers specifically uses content as a point of departure and applies tactical approaches to create the discipline intermingling. Whether it’s studying language in visual art, using pictorialism in written compositions, or curating exhibitions in the vein of speculative essays, his work(s) push and pull interdisciplinary agendas and produce—in surprising ways—unlikely mash-ups of subject matter expertise. 

His independent curatorial endeavors have appeared in several area institutions both large and small and, through his 17-year employment at The Progressive Art Collection, he has developed an extensive array of  exhibitions and curricular engagements intended to tie accessibility and openness to the rigors of thought provocation.

Michael Gutierrez headshot

Michael Gutiérrez

Michael Gutiérrez (he/him) is an artist, promoter, writer, production and event coordinator with over two decades in organizing artistic events ranging from gallery shows to live music performances. An event producer and coordinator, Michael was responsible for helping to bring some of the largest electronic music acts to Cleveland throughout the late 1990’s. As a production manager, he coordinated and facilitated public speaking events and concerts, working directly with vendors as well as audio and visual equipment contractors, at events such as The Sundance Film Festival in Utah, Independent Spirit Awards in Los Angeles, Promax Marketing Convention in New York City, and The People’s Choice Awards in Beverly Hills. As an artist, Michael owned and curated 2020 W.Schaaf Gallery+Studio in Cleveland’s Old Brooklyn neighborhood were he coordinated dozens of showings and curated works from some of the regions top artists dealing in all mediums. His gallery and eye for detail gained public recognition, as the gallery itself was nominated within The Cleveland Scene routinely as one of the area’s best. During The Pandemic, Michael was responsible for coordinating a series of Front Lawn Classical Music Concerts throughout Cleveland featuring and supporting musicians from Opus 216. Currently, Michael is a member of The Hildebrandt Artist Collective located within Cleveland’s Clark-Fulton Neighborhood where he continues to work in studio pushing his own boundaries in non-representational art.

Thea Spittle

Thea Spittle

Thea Spittle (she/her) is an independent curator and arts worker based in Chagrin Falls, OH. Core to her curatorial practice is an unwavering support for artists in the presentation of exhibitions that reflect the nuanced and historically overlooked elements of an artist’s practice. She is currently working on an experimental exhibition in the form of a pop-up shop, as well as producing a small posthumous publication of poetry by Courtney Gibbons, a Detroit writer. Other curatorial projects include the sunroom (2014-2018), a project space she founded in a Cleveland Heights home; PING (2019) a solo video exhibition and publication of creative writing by interdisciplinary artist Autumn Knight; and co-organized projects and performances at moCa Cleveland, the Hessel Museum of Art, New York, the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC), New York and SOMA Summer, Mexico City. Thea received her MA in Curatorial Studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.

Sabine Kretzschmar

Sabine Kretzschmar

Sabine Kretzschmar (she/her) is an art historian and educator at The Cleveland Museum of Art. She co-facilitates Currently Under Curation (CUC), a teen curation program, and manages the Education Art Collection. Sabine earned her MA in Art History and Museum Studies from Case Western Reserve University, after majoring in Art History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. During her career, she has worked as a curator, educator, and director for organizations including the University of Akron, the Akron Art Museum, the Shaker Historical Society, and the CMA. Adopting Cleveland as her adult home, she has a passion for exploring NE Ohio’s built and natural environments, especially its quirky museums/historical sites, birding hot-spots, and stands of old-growth trees.

Currently Under Curation

Currently Under Curation (CUC) is a competitive arts mastery program facilitated by The Cleveland Museum of Art and offered in partnership with the Cleveland Foundation. The CUC team consists of six high school students who meet weekly to talk with artists and arts professionals, visit galleries, and museums, and actively explore the local arts scene. They were selected for their experience with the visual arts, communication skills, and professional responsibility. The CUC team is facilitated by Sabine Kretzschmar (she/her), an art historian and educator at The Cleveland Museum of Art.

Curating the CAN Triennial, CUC used two primary lenses. One was visceral, selecting artists that communicated a larger story, sparked conversations, explored new modes of expression, and were relatable. The other was based on what they observed and interpreted from the submissions, which shaped the CUC’s take on YOU ARE HERE.

Shree Ghosh
Abby Hope
Jamal Ledonté
Arica McKinney
Sarah Voss
Jacklyn Walker