FRONT International presents the capstone exhibition of FRONT 2022 Art Futures Fellowship program. The exhibition is made possible with the generous support of The George Gund Foundation and The Cleveland Foundation.
FRONT Fellows Show
Transformer Station
Thursday, October 2–Saturday, December 27, 2025
The Cleveland Museum of Art’s 2025 Transformer Station exhibition schedule includes the capstone exhibition of work by the FRONT Art Futures Fellows. The program allows fellows to develop their artistic practice, build their network, and gain exposure to the contemporary art world with substantial financial and professional support.
This exhibition culminates a three-year fellowship program that provides professional development opportunities for emerging artists in Northeast Ohio. The exhibition features work by Amanda D. King, Charmaine Spencer, Erykah Townsend, and Antwoine Washington. Launched in 2022, the FRONT Art Futures Fellows were chosen by a national advisory board of curators and artists. The fellowship includes a $25,000 stipend, travel, and financial support for full participation in the planned 2025 FRONT Triennial. The exhibition showcases the work of the four fellows from the years of the fellowship, an adaptation of the originally scheduled four-part program. The fellows’ work represents a wide range of media, including painting, sculpture, photography, video, and installation. The exhibition explores themes of identity, place, and community.
The Transformer Station is a vibrant center for the visual and performing arts, where the Cleveland Museum of Art presents the work of emerging artists, time-based media, live music, and dynamic social experiences in Ohio City’s Hingetown neighborhood. Located at 1460 West 29th Street Cleveland, Ohio 44113
Contemporary Arts Center
Ohio Now: State of Nature May 2 - September 7, 2025
Ohio Now: State of Nature brings together artists across Ohio who focus on sustainability, agriculture, food justice, and natural ecologies. Through diverse materials and perspectives, these artists reflect on humanity’s relationship with the environment. Some incorporate found elements like waterway pollutants, plant-based dyes, and grass clippings, while others investigate topics ranging from climate change conspiracies to natural history and arthropods. Many draw directly from personal experiences as farmers, grocery workers, or environmental observers. Spanning painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, installation, and community-based practice, the works in this exhibition highlight the urgency of environmental issues while inviting dialogue and response.
Ohio Now is a new, ongoing exhibition series showcasing newly commissioned and recent work by contemporary artists. This collaboration between CAC and moCa Cleveland connects outstanding artists living and working across the state and engages audiences with the evolving landscape of creative practices in their communities. Following its presentation in Cincinnati, Ohio Now: State of Nature will be on display at moCa Cleveland January 30–May 31, 2026.
Participating artists are Catherine Clements (Bowling Green), Avery Mags Duff (Akron), Myles Dunigan (Oberlin), Tina Gutierrez (Cincinnati), Brian Harnetty (Columbus), Desert Kitchen Collective: Glenna Jennings, Jalisa Robinson & Friends (Dayton), Keith Lemley (Ravenna), Celeste Malvar-Stewart (Columbus), Lori Nix & Kathleen Gerber (Cleveland), Elena Osterwalder (Columbus), Praxis Fiber Workshop (Cleveland), John Sabraw (Athens), Charmaine Spencer (Cleveland), Supermrin (Cincinnati), and Amy Youngs (Columbus).
Amendment, 2018 Charmaine Spencer (American)
Driftwood, clay, soil, jute
12 ft. x 22 ft. x 9 ft.
The Art Institute of Chicago
Project a Black Planet:
The Art and Culture of Panafric
December 15, 2024 -March 30, 2025
Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica is the first exhibition expressly devoted to modern and contemporary cultural activity through a pan-Africanist lens. Pan-Africanism, a term first circulated around 1900, is widely understood as a political movement claiming solidarity and freedom for African and African diasporic peoples around the world. The cultural dimensions of that drive for political emancipation are readily accepted but have not been comprehensively examined. In this era of heightened attention to racial strife and hopefully lasting commitments to equity and inclusion for people of color across Western institutions, a major survey of Pan-Africanism in the arts seems especially timely.
This international exhibition will travel from Chicago to Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona. After the exhibition will travel to the Barbican Center, London and then to the KANAL-Centre Pompidou, Brussels where the exhibition will conclude in 2027.
Air 2024, 9 ft. x 8 ft. x 3 ft. Charmaine Spencer (American)
Acquired: by the Art Institute of Chicago for the DuSable Black History Museum's permanent collection.
Materials: Thesis, art and artist statements, poems, music, art images and written letters to the ancestors (shredded).
African lost-wax filigree brass trade beads, vintage African lost-wax brass bell beads, brass wire, faux leather cord and gold paper.