“By Their Labor: Construction Photographs by Howard Wells”

From the Curator

This exhibition documents the efforts of many people over the past six years to create a new campus for the Art Academy of Cincinnati. Hundreds of individuals have contributed skills and expertise, dollars and in-kind gifts, encouragement and creative problem-solving to make this vision become our reality. “By Their Labor” is an expression of thanks by our college to all those who contributed.

This exhibition is intended primarily as a tribute to the construction workers, an explanation of their hard labor, construction know-how and attention to craft for the benefit of their families and the Art Academy’s constituencies who were not able to see the day-by-day, step-by-step progress of construction over fifty-five weeks.

The photographs are the work of Howard Wells. Howard took hundreds of photos after he accepted my request to capture the feeling and process of the construction site: the Miller-Valentine Group managers, the construction foremen and workers, the materials and tools of their trades, and the dangers of construction work. Most of his photographs are documentary in nature although his eye for fine art photography comes through.

I have organized the images in the following groups:

The Visionaries – the administrators, faculty and Trustees who developed the

concept and vision for the spaces within the new facility;

The Donors – the numerous individuals, corporations, foundations and the City of

Cincinnati, who have together contributed $11.3 million to date;

The Designers – our project managers with Miller-Valentine Group and their team of architects, engineers, and specialists led by Design Collective Inc., with particular emphasis on the Atrium;

Before – the condition of the 112,000 square feet in the two buildings prior to

construction; and

The Builders – the construction workmen and women who converted our

vision and design into our new reality.

Because the concept of such an exhibition came to mind only a few months after construction had begun in June, 2004, some individuals and groups who contributed significantly to this effort in the early stages either are not portrayed or are under-represented. An example is the numerous planning meetings between the architects, project managers and the Art Academy’s administration and faculty.

We have presented the photographs in a manner in keeping with the every-day presentation of art in the Art Academy and in designers’ and architects’ offices, displaying them with the very immediate method of hanging by push pins. This approach was a deliberate decision by Laura Hollis, the installation designer who collaborated on the selection of works, and me in consultation with Howard Wells. It is in no way an attempt to demean either the work captured on film nor the photographs themselves. At the conclusion of this exhibition the photographs will go into the Art Academy’s archives so that, in the years to come, others who follow us as the college’s Trustees, administrators, faculty, and students will have some sense of our efforts from 1999 to 2005 and the place of this significant project in our institution’s long history.

Gregory Allgire Smith

President

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