“There are no nouns in the universe,” wrote English critic and poet T. E. Hulme, insisting that in all of existence – everything we know and can possibly imagine – there is nothing fixed, nothing stationary. Any impression of stillness is merely an illusion; instead, all things are in a constant state of flux. Nothing can be pinned down long enough to be defined. FLAW, artist Joan Tanner’s site-specific installation on view at Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center (CAC), aligns with Hulme’s aphorism. Containing no proverbial nouns, the galaxy Tanner presents brims with currents of chance, opportunity, and the palpable energy of the uncertain.

Like his pastoral sanctuary, Goodlett’s enigmatic work endures. For all of its fetishization of the body, allusions to its orifices, and sexual conspicuousness, the weight of what Goodlett chose to keep hidden—as well as its glaring beauty—is his work’s lasting resonance, and its magnetism. Asserting that it is appetite, rather than satiation that stimulates the spirit, Marcel Proust wrote: “Desire makes everything blossom. Possession makes everything wither and fade.” Goodlett’s fascination, his fix, was with desire itself, not with what expectedly follows: conquest, consummation, the vaunted act. The source of his ardor was the proverbial hunt, not the kill; that its climax was interrupted by the impermanence of his own flesh makes his fervent pursuit all the more riveting.

We live in a loud world, surrounded by the fizzle and clamor of the seemingly endless noises endemic to twenty-first century life. By its nature, the cloistered white space of a gallery—especially in rooms as splendid as those at parrasch heijnen—separates itself from the din beyond its walls, becoming a sanctuary where we might find respite and contemplation when in the presence of the right work. Siebers’ sublime paintings more than oblige. Denoted by a blithe, surprising and subtly saturated interplay of color and mark making, the works are small in scale yet occupy more visual space than their dimensions might suggest. Reminiscent of a Whistler nocturne, Late June projects deep blues outward, yet its abyssal depths beckon like a portal or a lacuna.

On a cool, gray, drizzly October afternoon, I met painter Salman Toor in his Bushwick studio to discuss art, Queerness, life, and whatever else might emerge from our conversation. Salman and I have been friends for a while; this was my second time visiting his sanctuary. The first was nearly one year prior, when I attended a small party to celebrate his return to New York after a lengthy time in Pakistan. But that was a nighttime affair. In the day, despite the brume, light softly infused Toor’s workspace thanks to perpendicular walls with banks of large windows; a few miles away, the Manhattan skyline rose in sharp relief. Nearer to us, city sounds were constant: train clatter, delivery truck squeal, someone using a circular saw.

The daughter of an eye surgeon, Joan Tanner approaches her studio practice with the vigor, enthusiasm, and inquisitiveness of a scientist. Her extensive body of work—which includes painting, large-scale drawings, sculpture, and installation—demonstrates a ceaseless commitment to material exploration and experimentation. Born in Indianapolis in 1935, Tanner moved to Southern California almost sixty years ago and has been showing her work since 1967. Recent solo exhibitions include the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, Virginia; the Hilliard Art Museum at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette; and a spectacular site-specific installation that responded to Zaha Hadid’s architecture at Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati (CAC) in 2021. donottellmewhereibelong, an exhibition of drawings, has been traveling since late 2015 and is currently on view at the Yeh Gallery at St. John’s University in New York City.

Desire is a force all its own. Some desires, such as those having to do with conquest, dominion, and power, can have dire and destructive consequences, but following the paths kindled by our appetites doesn’t necessarily have to ruin or diminish us. On the contrary, such pursuits can broaden our experiences and connect us to some of the deepest mysteries of what it means to be alive. It is exactly this kind of expansive, experiential desire with which the paintings in Berke Doganoglu’s Longing, Sweat, Roses are concerned.