4-16-2025 4:05am

When It Comes To Art, What Is Appropriate?

Beth Callahan Editor

Glass artist Darren Goodman with one of his exhibits at the MAC

WARREN COUNTY, OH -- Warren County’s Darren Goodman is currently receiving wonderful reviews and appreciation for his art exhibit Glass Through the Lens of an Artist at the MAC — Middletown Art Center in Butler County. Goodman, who apprenticed under glass master Leon Applebaum in Corning, New York, has traveled the world making art through glass for 25 years.

“I’ve taken this little furnace all over. I’ve been to Paris at the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame, Hawaii and to The Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington to the Corning Glassfest in New York numerous times... and a bunch of places in between,” he said.

A graduate of Bowling Green State University, Goodman explained that “in college, I never thought I could make a living and find myself a success in this profession… I’ve been very fortunate that I have been able to make my living in doing something I like.”

The MAC exhibit, which runs until May 15, is divided into six floor-to-ceiling installations. The installations takes the viewer into a ..."winding journey bringing together a broad range of mediums connecting paintings, photography, poetry, musical instruments and video through glass... showcasing how glass has shaped our world for the past 2,500 plus years,” Goodman said.

According to Goodman, this exhibit is much larger than the exhibit he had at the Harmon Museum in Lebanon last fall that he was asked to remove after the opening.

Living the majority of his life in Warren County, growing up in Landen and now living in Waynesville, he was excited to be doing an exhibition at the Harmon Museum in Downton Lebanon.

“They (Harmon Museum directors) came to me two different times wanting me to do an exhibit,” Goodman explained, adding that last fall timing had worked out. “I set up all week, and I didn’t hear any opposition on what I was doing,” Goodman said.

Even after the opening, Goodman said he was greeted with very positive remarks from both the Director Michael Coyan and one of the assistant directors.

“It was 8:30, after the show. I pulled out my camera/my phone… and I got a one minute video clip asking, ‘what did you think of the exhibit .. the opening?’”

Goodman shared that both Coyan, as well as one of the assistant directors, gave him very positive responses.

"If you read the transcript, this is what you would hear.. ‘We’ve never seen glass in that way ... It was a great success ... Even with the storm, people came out. It was really good.' Every word was positive. Not a hint in the transcript that said, ‘We have a problem.’”

However, while there wasn't a hint, there was a problem. Goodman said he received an email 24-hours later that was just 2 sentences long reading ...

Mr. Goodman,

After a review from the board members of the Harmon Museum this morning of your art exhibit, the Board has unanimously agreed that the exhibit be closed as they have deemed it inappropriate for our visitors. Please remove your exhibit by the close of the business day - 4:00pm - on Tuesday October 1, 2024.

Goodman said he removed his work as asked, but it did take two days to get all out.

"And to this day, I was never told what was inappropriate," he said, adding that it took about 5 weeks for his attorney to get them jut to respond.

"But they never answered the question 'what was deemed inappropriate.' They said I didn’t bring my work on time, and I didn’t bring an inventory list, and that I modified my exhibit after it was up... that’s not grounds to kick somebody out, in my opinion,” Goodman said.

When Goodman was asked if he had any idea of what he thought might have been considered inappropriate, he said there were only two things he could think of: he had spray painted over some of his work the title of the show Glass Through the Lens of an Artist, which is one of his pieces at the MAC that greets visitors when they enter the gallery or his lighting rods and nuggets display.

Goodman explained the lightning rods look like toilet plungers and the nuggets, some covered in 24 carat gold, are pieces of blown glass that represent “forms that we all know very intimately.”

World renowned artist Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamp play a very important role in Goodman's art, espeically the "conceptual art theory."

“What is art? What can be considered art? Art is to make us think … sometimes that can be very uncomfortable,” he said, adding, "I think that’s probably what Harmon was struggling with, but honestly, I really thought they were a legitimate art museum. But, I realize they are not really there for art. They are more there to keep pretty things on the wall, and I think they were looking more for just pretty objects as opposed to objects that make you question, 'What is this?' and 'How does this make you feel?'"

Goodman went on to explain as an artist, "Art doesn’t always make you feel good. It is also there to help make you question and to think and to expand yourself. Every art museum in the world will acknowledge that. As in Warhol’s paintings, some will be as unconventinal as a toilet or a bathtub... and Marcel Duchamp threw the art world into a storm with his work the Fountain —an urinal placed on its side and has been labeled as a major landmark in 20th-century art."

The WarrenCountyPost.com did send the Harmon Museum's Director Michael Coyan an email asking him if he could share what the board felt was inapproprirate, but we did not get a response.

"I think I do deserve an explanation," Goodman said.

Goodman's Glass Through the Lens of an Artist is funded in part by the America 250-Ohio Commission and is part of the Annual Reunion Exhibit seris in Memory of Gordon + Betty Hughes. It will be on display at the MAC until May 15 and has free admission. Hours are:

Monday: 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Tuesday: 9:00 a.m. - 8:30 p.m.
Wednesday: 9:00 a.m. - 8:30 p.m.
Thursday: 9:00 a.m. - 8:30 p.m.

To hear Goodman explain the impact glass has played through the centuries watch the video below...

While the exhibition is part of he OhioRelfections250 Project, any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this exhibition do not necessarily represent those of the America250 - Ohio Commission.