Transformer Station

07/05/2023

07/03/2023

03/01/2023

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After ten years and 40 shows, this month saw the end of the Bidwell-era for the Transformer Station.

The Bidwells gifted the gallery to the Cleveland Museum of Art earlier this year. While looking with anticipation to future exhibitions from the museum, we also take a look back at the Bidwells as catalytic figures in the revival of Hingetown and champions of art on the west side.

In 2015, Cleveland Magazine captured the Bidwells’ extraordinary journey from the advertising industry to art collectors. In 2010, the couple sought a space to house their more-than-800-piece art collection. 🖼️

Back then, Hingetown looked very different. Rising Star Coffee Roasters was an abandoned fire station. The Striebinger Block housed three gay bars, a head shop and a rarely open barbecue restaurant. Drugs and prostitutes were the marquee attractions. 🏚️

But the Bidwells bought into the vision of Graham Veysey and his then-fiancée, Marika Shioiri-Clark. Where a storefront was being used for storage, Veysey and Clark saw the Kutya Rev Ohio City Dog Haven. Where one window housed a bail bondsman sign, they envisioned Cleveland Tea Revival.

Where a 1920s power station sat, the Bidwells saw an art gallery.

👨‍💻For more about the Bidwells, Hingetown and the Transformer Station, click on the link in our bio.

🖊️Sheehan Hannan
📸

02/25/2023

Did you catch 'SHOCKWAVES' when it was on view for one weekend in 2015 (January 31–February 1, 2015) at Transformer Station?

The darkly comic 'SHOCKWAVES' is about a man whose traumatic memories of childhood send him on a hallucinogenic carnival ride of self-destruction and murder. Through a Möbius strip of alternate realities, shifting times and multiple dimensions, Shockwaves weaves a kaleidoscopic nightmare tapestry of abuse and revenge.

Media artist Kasumi deploys an astonishing 25,000 public domain film samples, rotoscoped and live action film clips, dance choreography, animation and “stunning” sound design to produce a “brilliant,” “darkly madcap,” “grotesque, beautiful and transcendent” exploration of the nature of memory and our collective consciousness.

Images: Stills from the Kasumi "SHOCKWAVE" by the Cleveland-based artist and filmmaker, Kasumi.

02/24/2023

Acclaimed conceptual artist Ann Hamilton presented a new installation of work from an ongoing project titled 'O N E E V E R Y O N E' for Transformer Station's 2014 exhibition, 'UNKNOWN: Pictures of Strangers' which was on view from June 27–September 27, 2014. Did you visit Transformer Station for this exhibition?

Image: 'Installation view of UNKNOWN: Pictures of Strangers'. June 27, 2014 – September 27, 2014. Image courtesy of Transformer Station.

02/23/2023

Thank you Fred and Laura and Cleveland Magazine! ❤️❤️❤️

“On Feb. 5, closed its doors on Fred and Laura Bidwell’s final show. The Bidwells gifted the Hingetown gallery to the after 10 years of use, during which the local collectors and museum alternated exhibitions. 🖼️

Fred Bidwell cites his involvement with , Cleveland’s triennial contemporary art festival, as a reason to refocus. But the couple isn't going far — they plan to build a house next door.

“You’ll be able to practically reach out and touch it,” says Fred, 70. “We’ve had such a successful run and it’s felt so satisfying. The museum will do an amazing job, and this will give us a little extra time to breathe.” 🏠

We asked the Bidwells to reflect on their catalytic project, as it propelled Hingetown and introduced Clevelanders to one of the top 100 private collections in the country, with more than 1,300 pieces of work curated since the Bidwells' first acquisitions in 1991.”

👨‍💻Head over to the link in our bio to read the Bidwells’ greatest hits.

🖊️
📸 Courtesy Fred Bidwell; Kevin Kopanski

02/21/2023

'Christian Patterson: Redheaded Peckerwood' was on view at Transformer Station from
March 28–June 14, 2014. Comment below if you caught this exhibition in person ⇩

“Redheaded Peckerwood, which unerringly walks the fine line between fiction and nonfiction, is a disturbingly beautiful narrative about unfathomable violence and its place on the land”
–Luc Sante

“Complexity, evidence and mystery lies waiting for our journey to explore, to dive in.”
–Jimmy Kuenhle, ArtHOPPER

Read more about this past exhibition here: https://transformerstation.org/exhibition/christian-patterson-redheaded-peckerwood/

Images: Christian Patterson: Redheaded Peckerwood. Installation view at Transformer Station. March 28, 2014–June 14, 2014. Image courtesy of Transformer Station

02/18/2023

Hope to see you today at Transformer Station's tag sale from 10am–4pm!

02/17/2023

Preview of items available at Transformer Station's tag sale tomorrow, Saturday, February 18 from 10am–4pm. See you there!

02/17/2023

Prints from the exhibition, 'Esther Teichmann: Heavy The Sea' available at tomorrow's tag sale (first image)!

'Esther Teichmann: Heavy The Sea' was on view at Transformer Station from January 14–April 30, 2017. 'Heavy the Sea' took us into an alternate orphic world, moving from beds to swamps and caves, from mother to lover, in search of a primordial return. Here, the photographic was loosened from its referent, slipping in and out of darkness, cloaked in dripping inks, bathed in subtle hues, evoking a liquid space of night.

Learn more about Teichmann here: https://transformerstation.org/exhibition/esther-teichmann-heavy-the-sea/

Transformer Station
1460 W 29th St., Cleveland, OH 44113
Tag Sale: Saturday, February 18 from 10am–4pm

02/16/2023

Vaughn Wascovich prints avaiable for puchase at Transformer Station's tag sale on Saturday, February 18 from 10am–4pm!

These dramatic, panoramic images of landmark Cleveland bridges by Vaughn Wascovich were commissioned by Bidwell Projects for the inaugural exhibition of Transformer Station.

Photo-intaglio print with relief roll, limited edition of 50. Signed and numbered by the artist. Dimensions: Paper Size, approximately 22" x 30". Image size, 7" x 17" Wascovich collaborated with printmakers Michael Loderstedt and Christi Birchfield at Zygote Press to create this print based on Wascovich’s photograph of Detroit-Superior Bridge, featured in the show "Bridging Cleveland" one of the inaugural shows at the Transformer Station. Loderstedt experimented with several different kinds of printmaking processes before settling on a combination of photo etching with relief roll. In his photographic work, Wascovich scans an image produced from a handmade pinhole camera and manipulated by hand in the darkroom. Loderstedt’s interpretation of Wascovich’s work, while respectful of its source, fundamentally changes the work by reintroducing traces of an artist’s hand.

02/16/2023

"SUPERBLACK: New Work by Jordan Tate" was on view at Transformer Station from March 28–June 14, 2014.

We have 'SUPERBLACK' catalogs available for purchase during our tag sale this Saturday, February 18 from 10am–4pm. Read more about 'SUPERBLACK' here: https://transformerstation.org/exhibition/superblack-new-work-by-jordan-tate/

“SUPERBLACK gives a nice peek into the limits. As science pushes forward, it reaches small breaks and plateaus allowing for contemplation. While art may help us ponder the void and the void in SUPERBLACK is the deepest and darkest you will most likely ever see… …It pushes forward to find and probe the void.”

–Jimmy Kuehnle, ArtHopper

Transformer Station
1460 W 29th St, Cleveland OH 44113

02/14/2023

'Excerpts from Silver Meadows' by Todd Hido was on view from May 24, 2013 – August 24, 2013 at Transformer Station. We have sets of Silver Meadows poster prints (some signed!) available at our tag sale this Saturday, February 18, 2023 from 10am–4pm!

Although Hido lives and works in California, he was born and raised in Kent, Ohio. Silver Meadows is the name of the neighborhood that Hido grew up in and this work has a strong auto-biographical undercurrent. This show was not a collection of individual photographs, but rather a world created through a sequence of images that are almost cinematic in scope and is inspired by both by Film Noir and breaking news. A story told through brooding landscapes, dangerous but vulnerable women, and lonely homes, Silver Meadows is a mixture of dark memory and hard truth.

Watch an interview with Hido: https://transformerstation.org/exhibition/excerpts-from-silver-meadows/

02/10/2023

Check the link below for a virtual tour of ‘In Concert: Photography and the Violin’ at the Art Museum of West Virginia University!

'In Concert: Photography and the Violin' was on view at Transformer Station from January 22, 2022–April 3, 2022. Transformer Station exhibited the first-ever iteration of 'In Concert: Photography and the Violin', which presented the instrument in dramatically different contexts across the history of photography. The 250 works are from the collection of Evan Mirapaul, an Ohio native and former concert violinist. The exhibition was organized by Dan Leers, Curator of Photography at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.

'In Concert: Photography and the Violin' is currently on view from January 21–May 14, 2023 at the Art Museum of West Virginia University.

https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=wWYYy6xmi8R

02/10/2023

“The legacy of Cleveland as one of the great industrial cities of the United States can be felt in the vast interior of the Transformer Station. The building once functioned, quite literally, as a power transformer station for the Cleveland Railway Company, which, in the early part of the twentieth century, provided public transport for the population of one of the country’s most dynamic urban economies. More on Transformer Station on our website. Link in bio.”

Esther Teichmann, "Heavy the Sea", 2017 (exhibition view at Transformer Station, Cleveland)

02/09/2023

Throwing it back ten years to the first exhibition at Transformer Station: 'Bridging Cleveland: Photographs by Vaughn Wascovich' and 'Light of Day', both exhibitions ran concurrently from February 2, 2013 – May 4, 2013.

Dramatic, large-scale panoramic images of landmark Cleveland bridges by Vaughn Wascovich, were commissioned by Bidwell Projects for the inaugural exhibition of the Transformer Station. Light of Day was curated from the collection of Fred and Laura Ruth Bidwell.

Images:
1. Vaughn Wascovich, Detroit-Superior Bridge. Image courtesy of Transformer Station.
2. Vaughn Wascovich, Innerbelt Bridge. Image courtesy of Transformer Station.
3. Light of Day Installation view. Matt Siber, Billboard Vinyl #2, 2012, Site-specific installation. Image courtesy of Transformer Station.

02/08/2023

🏷️ Transformer Station will be hosting a tag sale – keep an eye out for more details coming soon!

🏷️ Items for sale will include: furniture, kitchen items, office supplies, books, and more!

02/06/2023

Thank you to all who visited 'Gregory Halpern: 19 Winters / 7 Springs'! Transformer Station is now temporarily closed, please stay tuned for exciting updates!

02/05/2023

We're open today until 5pm for the last day to view 'Gregory Halpern: 19 Winters / 7 Springs'!

Halpern encourages viewers to construct their own narratives and invites us to be active readers. In that sense, it can be said that this work is less about documentation than it is a study of small enigmas.

Organized by the photographer with Lisa Kurzner and Fred and Laura Ruth Bidwell.

'Gregory Halpern: 19 Winters / 7 Springs'
November 4, 2022 – February 5, 2023

Transformer Station
1460 W 29th Street, Cleveland, OH 44113

Visiting Hours:
Wednesday – Sunday:
11am – 5pm

Installation view, 'Gregory Halpern: 19 Winters / 7 Springs'. Installation photography by Gregory Halpern.

02/04/2023

Open today from 11am to 5pm – Don't miss out on this exhibition, there's only a couple days left!
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Gregory Halpern: 19 Winters / 7 Springs
November 4, 2022 – February 5, 2023

Transformer Station
1460 W 29th Street, Cleveland, OH 44113

Visiting Hours:
Wednesday – Sunday:
11am – 5pm

Installation image by Gregory Halpern.

02/03/2023

Final weekend to view 'Gregory Halpern: 19 Winters / 7 Springs' at Transformer Station!

In addition to his photographs, Halpern has made a series of sculptures of modest houses inspired by the Buffalo landscape. Viewers can circle them and thus experience the landscape from various points of view, much as Halpern has over the years. The interiors of these houses contain abstract, sublime images of natural phenomena. For Halpern, these works are as much about architecture as they are about the interiority of life and the ultimate unknowability of others.

Organized by the photographer with Lisa Kurzner and Fred and Laura Ruth Bidwell.

'Gregory Halpern: 19 Winters / 7 Springs'
November 4, 2022 – February 5, 2023

Transformer Station
1460 W 29th Street, Cleveland, OH 44113

Visiting Hours:
Wednesday – Sunday:
11am – 5pm

Installation view, 'Gregory Halpern: 19 Winters / 7 Springs'. Installation photography by Gregory Halpern.

02/02/2023

We're open today from 11am–5pm and admission is always free!

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Gregory Halpern: 19 Winters / 7 Springs
November 4, 2022 – February 5, 2023

Transformer Station
1460 W 29th Street, Cleveland, OH 44113

Visiting Hours:
Wednesday – Sunday:
11am – 5pm

Installation images by Gregory Halpern.

02/01/2023

We're open today 11am–5pm!

Installation view, 'Gregory Halpern: 19 Winters / 7 Springs'. Installation photography by Gregory Halpern.

01/31/2023

Don't miss out on the final week for 'Gregory Halpern: 19 Winters / 7 Springs' at Transformer Station!

These pictures are also about an interior world. Although rooted in the “lyrical documentary” tradition, Halpern’s work reaches beyond realism, into the poetic and the tangential. They are the intuitive observations of a particular sensibility and mood, and a celebration of a strange kind of splendor in the everyday. In a sense, they create a space of their own, a realm Halpern describes as “documentary surrealism.”

Organized by the photographer with Lisa Kurzner and Fred and Laura Ruth Bidwell.

'Gregory Halpern: 19 Winters / 7 Springs'
November 4, 2022 – February 5, 2023

Transformer Station
1460 W 29th Street, Cleveland, OH 44113

Visiting Hours:
Wednesday – Sunday:
11am – 5pm

Image: Installation view, 'Gregory Halpern: 19 Winters / 7 Springs'. Installation photography by Gregory Halpern.

01/25/2023

Final two weeks to view 'Gregory Halpern: 19 Winters / 7 Springs' at Transformer Station!

For the past twenty years, Gregory Halpern has been photographing in and around his hometown of Buffalo, New York. In the simplest sense, these pictures represent Halpern’s observations of the exterior world—the results of looking closely at his surroundings over many years.

Organized by the photographer with Lisa Kurzner and Fred and Laura Ruth Bidwell.

'Gregory Halpern: 19 Winters / 7 Springs'
November 4, 2022 – February 5, 2023

Transformer Station
1460 W 29th Street, Cleveland, OH 44113

Visiting Hours:
Wednesday – Sunday:
11am – 5pm

Installation view, 'Gregory Halpern: 19 Winters / 7 Springs'. Installation photography by Gregory Halpern.