Michael Mercil: Some thing(s) and Tolerance Project

Friday, Feb. 24, 2023 | 11 a.m.–12:30 p.m.


Opening reception 5-7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022
Twice weekly, on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m

Some thing(s), Michael Mercil’s exhibition at the Beeler Gallery, highlights his new drawings, enameled metal panels, and needlepoint works of single words formed from simple block letters. The artist considers these two-dimensional pieces to be things; like the other objects included in the exhibition, they are not stand-ins for, or images of, other things.

The exhibit includes one gallery specially designed as an “open classroom” available for scheduled or impromptu community conversations and programming. This open classroom embodies Mercil’s ongoing commitment to public service and education while also engaging the ambition of the Tolerance Project in “reaching people who don’t ordinarily visit galleries or museums.” 

Twice weekly, on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Mercil will use the open classroom space to present a free, public performance of “Reading the Daily News,” during which he reads aloud from each section of the given day’s print edition of The Columbus Dispatch. Scheduling of the open gallery for other activities will be coordinated by CCAD to provide meeting and program space for a variety of community activities and a program of performances.

Some thing(s) will share space in Beeler Gallery with the Tolerance Project, a traveling show of posters by internationally prominent artists and is designed to promote awareness and conversation about local and global conditions of social injustice and racial disparity. 


About Michael Mercil
Michael Mercil lives in Columbus, Ohio, and is known for works exploring realms of “the near, the low, the common” through drawing, painting, sculpture, landscape architecture, film, performance, teaching, and farming.