Professor Kenyon and MFA Alum Shin in "Common Currents" exhibition at Burchfield Penney, co-curated by MFA Alum Butler

Burn Rate, 2024, Suspended Bitcoin miner, pendulum motion, uncut U.S. currency, thermochromic pigment.

Burn Rate is a sculptural installation that confronts the wastefulness and ideological contradictions of Bitcoin mining. At its center hangs a repurposed miner, whose only purpose now is to expel hot air—a potent metaphor for the empty promises and speculative frenzy that pervade blockchain culture. In this realm, trust—once the bedrock of human exchange—has been supplanted by faith in decentralized digital ledgers.

More info on Matt Kenyon: https://www.swamp.nu/about-1

Common Currents features Shin's work "The World Network Models" series, which visualizes maps of transportation connections to expose the interdependent travel systems as networks of migratory movement.

More info on Mizin Shin: https://www.mizinshin.com/

Selection Process

Initial Entries were be taken by digital submission, with final curation of the exhibition done by Grace Chin, Executive Director of the Sculpture Center in Cleveland and Kyle Butler, Assistant Professor of Fine Art at Villa Maria College in Buffalo. Chin selected initial submissions from the Western New York, and Butler selected initial submissions from the Northeast Ohio. The curators together then decided on final artists and scheduled studio visits in both cites to make a final selection of works for the exhibition.

More info on Kyle Butler: https://kylewilliambutler.com/

[Originally published at:

 https://burchfieldpenney.org/exhibitions/exhibition:common-currents/]

The Artists Archives of the Western Reserve (Cleveland, OH), in partnership with The Burchfield Penney Art Center (Buffalo, NY), is very proud to present Common Currents, a joint exhibition of work by visual artists from Northeast Ohio & Western New York that will be exhibited in Cleveland April 11 – June 21, 2025, and in Buffalo July 11, 2025 – November 2, 2025.

Cleveland and Buffalo have much in common, and not just their addresses on Lake Erie. These two once-thriving industrial cities are both engaged in a 21st-century reboot with the visual arts playing a key role in this renewal. These commonalities, accentuated by their physical proximity, led Cleveland artist, and AAWR board member, John A Sargent III and Buffalo artist Gary Wolfe to sketch out the beginnings of this collaborative exhibition in 2020. “We both recognized the need for artists to be seen outside of our respective cities,” says John Sargent.

Jurors Grace Chin, Executive Director of the Sculpture Center in Cleveland and Kyle Butler, Assistant Professor of Fine Art at Villa Maria College in Buffalo, reviewed hundreds of entries and made multiple in-person studio visits with an eye towards assembling a roster of 23 artists whose work would comprise the final exhibition.

Themes of exploration, transformation, reinvention, and the use and impact of technology infuse the collection, expressing through a variety of mediums the work of both cities to move out of their common Rust Belt pasts while also keeping mindful of how that past informs our perception and experience of the present.

Featuring the work of:

Western New York Artists

Dennis Bertram

Lydia Boddie-Rice

Chantal Calato

Frani Evedon

Bob Fleming

Robert Hirsch

Sun Young Kang

Matt Kenyon

Robert Pitts

Paris Roselli

Mizin Shin

Jeffrey Vincent

Northeast Ohio Artists

Timothy Callaghan

Nicole Condon-Shih

Susan Danko

Jen P. Harris

Chauncey Hay

Michael Hornyak

R Kauff

Mark Keffer

Sarah Paul

Katy Richards

Jean Weigl (Archived Artist)

In Cleveland, this exhibition opens to the public on Friday, April 11, 2025 and is supported by The David Davis Art Foundation, The Galleries at Cleveland State University via an Ohio Arts Council(OAC) grant, Cuyahoga Arts and Culture(CAC),and the George Gund Foundation.

At the Burchfield Penney Art Center, Common Currents is made possible through the generosity of an Anonymous Family Foundation; Cynthia Baird Stark and the Cameron and Jane Baird Foundation; The Margaret L. Wendt Foundation; and Shelley Drake in loving memory of Kenneth Drake.

Common Currents was first displayed at the AAWR gallery, Artist Archives on the Western Reserve, in early 2025. 

Location: 1834 E. 123rd Street Cleveland, OH 44106

Info on AAWR exhibitions and events: https://www.artistsarchives.org/past-exhibitions-events/