Thursday, October 14, 2010
Visual Arts Art Seen: Within State Lines II and Discursive Documents at MOCA GA
Posted by Wyatt Williams @wyatt_williams on Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 3:36 PM
Like most cultural events, the fall arts preview represented a collection of people who knew someone who knew someone who knew someone. Otherwise known as a clique. Given Atlanta's history of segregation, its history of separation enforced by law, custom and geography, it's no wonder that most of the city's cliques are profoundly race-based.
With that statement in mind, it seems more obvious that the ways we determine what a simple phrase like "local artist" means are going to be tied up in the complex intersections between race, class, culture, and geography. (If you're curious about the intersection of race and geography in Atlanta, this map might be a good starting point.)
So, what do the two new exhibitions at MOCA GA have to do with any of this? Within State Lines II redraws the lines of "local artist" at the state border line, bringing together artists from Alpharetta, Athens, Augusta, Savannah, and Atlanta's suburbs. Annette Cone-Skelton, MOCA GA's director, relied on conversations with other curators and art-world folks from around the state rather than just her knowledge when putting the exhibition together, an important detail. The resulting show is a stylistically diverse combination of top-notch talents. Marcus Kenney's collages have the rich texture of paintings without losing the startling clarity of line that collage work can achieve. Stefanie Jackson's surreal paintings are startling and engrossing. Jennifer Onofrio Fornes's photographs are layered with oil to create shadowy, mysterious images.
In short, it's a solid introduction to few artists that Atlantans might not already know. It's also a racially diverse group of artists without at all pandering to the "rote checklist mentality" of "identity politics" that Hicks rightfully derided in that column. Rather, the stylistic and racial diversity seems to be born from the fact that Cone-Skelton extended her work into conversations and geographies outside of the museum's typical reach. It's a helpful reminder that the borders we assign to "local artists" are entirely of our own choosing.
Discursive Documents: Performing the Catalogue does something very different with the idea of a "local artist." John Q, the collective of Andy Ditzler, Joey Orr, and Wesley Chenault, continues to work with the events of Atlanta's queer history. Their pop-up installation and performance earlier this year, Memory Flash, is documented through binaural recordings, photographs, documents, and other ephemera in an installation that makes clever use of the MOCA GA's resource center space. Interestingly, that performance was born from researching archives much like the ones stored in the resource center, and this installation returns their work to the setting of file folders and document boxes. The FBI's investigation into Andy Warhol screenings sits on table stacked with books and photographs and highlighted college course syllabuses. Films from the Joy Lounge are projected on a shelf, as if they're emerging the archive's boxes.
Discursive Documents, much like the work that Chenault, Orr, and Ditzler produce independently, reminds us that we might also define "local artist" to the degree that one produces work that reflects or engages the space around them. The success of Memory Flash depended largely on their engagement with the geographic spaces of Atlanta's queer history. Discursive Documents let's us peek in at that process, the quiet work and conversations that help us better understand where we are and how we got there.
Within State Lines II and Discursive Documents: Performing the Catalogue run until Jan., 8 2011 at MOCA GA.
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