Eleanor LeBeau
Eleanor talking with photographer Lee Marmon on the occasion of his retrospective at the C.N. Gorman Museum in Davis, California. Photo Credit: Susanne Krug
Eleanor LeBeau is an independent visual arts writer, editor and occasional performance artist. Her feature articles, exhibition reviews and profiles have appeared in a range of print and online publications, including Art Papers, Contemporary, Cleveland Scene, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Northern Ohio Live, OhioAuthority.com, Sacramento News & Review, and Sactown Magazine. Along with fellow CCA alum Stephen Smyth, Eleanor is also the co-founder and editor of Naked Circus, an online journal of Visual Culture that premiers February 14, 2012. Eleanor and Stephen’s collaboration springs from a shared social imperative to liberate the discourse on Visual Culture from the exclusive purview of the Academy in order to engage multiple publics.
Eleanor’s scholarly preoccupations include performance studies and the intersection of cultures expressed in American art, with a special interest in the work of indigenous North American artists. Her CCA master’s thesis, Trickster Plays: James Luna Performs Postindian Survivance, explores how James Luna (Luiseño) uses performance and installation to define contemporary Native American identity. While Eleanor’s current home is Cleveland, Ohio, she’s also lived in California and Arizona. She holds an M.A. in Visual and Critical Studies from CCA, and undergraduate degrees in Art History and Magazine Journalism from Kent State University.
LINKS to Eleanor’s exhibition reviews and articles:
Art, Not Artifact: The Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art
http://ohioauthority.com/articles/arts/the-decoder-art-not-artifact
Native Exposure: Lee Marmon at the C.N. Gorman Museum
http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/native-exposure-lee-marmons-photography/content?oid=880837
Box Car Riley: Duke Riley at MOCA Cleveland
http://ohioauthority.com/articles/arts/box-car-riley
Art Workers Unite! Temporary Services’ “Art Work: A National Discussion on Art. Labor and Economics” at SPACES
http://ohioauthority.com/articles/arts/art-workers-unite
Naked Circus @ www.nakedcircus.us
Arzu Okzal performing in “Love at First Site” at SPACES. Note that Arzu designated Eleanor as the work’s “playwright.”
Eleanor and artist Arzu Ozkal in “Love at First Site,” a performance/installation that was part of the group exhibition Detour at SPACES, one of the nation’s first artist-run exhibition spaces. Arzu was given seven days to create a work of art; Eleanor was charged with documenting its creation. Eleanor inevitably became part of the work.
