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Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Visual Arts / Uncategorized Art House Co-op left Atlanta, still wants your sketchbooks
Posted by Jessica Blankenship on Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 5:23 PM
It's such a bummer when one of the good ones gets away. You try to be good to them and give them love and support but in the
end, they leave you for the good-on-paper guy. That's how it feels when any of Atlanta's creative players ditches us for Brooklyn. In January, we got our little art hearts broken when Art House flew the co-op and relocated to New York. But regardless of being a bit jilted, we have to admit, they're doing the damn thing and doin' it well. Example: The Sketchbook Project, the gallery's annual touring exhibition, which has been attracting more artists and attention every year.
The Sketchbook Project is an assignment show open to anyone in the world. For $25, participants are sent a sketchbook and asked to choose a theme for the work they will fill it with. Some of the themes this year include "lights in the distance", "it's raining cats and dogs", "sleepless" and "it will be fun, I swear". Once all the sketchbooks are completed, artists send them to the Art House guys in Brooklyn, where they will become part of a traveling art exhibition starting March 2011.
The Sketchbook Project tour comes to Atlanta in April 2011. At least if Art House Co-op had to leave us, they didn't forget us entirely. (It's okay - don't tell them, but we were only using them for their awesome sketchbooks anyway.)
Sketchbooks are always curious - there's something about the small format, the inherent informality, the protection of being bound by a cover, and the weightlessness of knowing you always have more pages if you fuck up that gives artists the sense of ease to be silly and experimental and present something a little different than other work they do. And since we've all been writing in notebooks since we were kids, there's a subconscious comfort in working within those pages, making it the perfect platform for newer artists for relax and go for it without the canvas-induced stage fright. When you multiply that by thousands of artists (seriously, thousands), the effect is an intimate tidal wave.
Art House Co-op was started in 2006 by then-Atlanta College of Art students Shane Zucker and Steven Peterman. After a few years of experimenting with different communal art space structures at their Decatur location, the guys moved the operation over to Castleberry Hill where their free-for-all art projects had a happy home until this year. Now they're based out of the Brooklyn Art Library.
Listen, Art House, we're happy if you're happy. We want the best for you. But we're not coming up to visit you and the new guy and see the new curtains you guys picked out - it's too soon. Just send us sketchbooks and we'll let you know when we're ready to be friends.
To participate of the Sketchbook Project, sign up here. Registration deadline: Oct. 31, 2010. All completed sketchbooks are due Jan. 15, 2011.
movies & tv / Visual Arts / wtf / DearGodKillMeNow / Uncategorized Haven't you caused enough damage already Sarah Jessica Parker?
Posted by Debbie Michaud on Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 4:12 PM
As if Sex and the City and Sex and the City 2 weren't enough of a sensory abomination, tonight SJP (via Bravo) thrusts the new reality TV competition "Work of Art" upon America.
Will I watch? Of course, with the far-off hope that the show turns out to be as much of a train wreck as the "Real Housewives of New Jersey" and other programming of its ilk. Because really, while outfitted with a respectable judges' table (including New York Magazine Senior Art Critic Jerry Saltz), "Bravo’s latest stroke on the reality canvas" (as the network's website calls it) will most likely be bunch of hooey filled with crying and easel fights. (Yay! Easel fight!) Not necessarily a bad thing in my book.
So why hate on "Work of Art" but not, say, "Project Runway" or "Top Chef?" Fish has to be cooked properly. Fabric must be sewn with precision. There's a similar, broader expectation for quality when it comes to works of art, but the rules by which they're judged are not so black and white. In her Bravo bio, actress/model and host-to-be China Chow says, "art is the purest form of expression, existing without set boundaries." But the inherent nature of all these shows is to establish boundaries (see: weekly challenges) and then force the contestants to conform and perform within specific constraints. It's a fun game to play, and could even be entertaining to watch, but clearly a shortsighted view of what and who (industry elites in this case) determine what makes art "great."
We'll see.
Visual Arts / Uncategorized Matt Relkin makes a Big Bang at Beep Beep
Posted by Wyatt Williams on Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 2:27 PM
Matt Relkin's clean, geometric paintings have been trying to cope with the events of September 11 for years now. For a solo show at Young Blood Gallery last year, Relkin's work reinterpreted the unmistakable image of that long, many-windowed tower into a number of unexpected scenes: bursting rainbows, dripping droplets of blood, and sprouting trees. Since then, the recognizable image of the tower has been replaced by a more ambiguous black obelisk.
"Eventually my buildings became more anonymous, & finally the Black Tower began appearing as a surrogate for all those horrific details that still reside in our collective memory. I very rarely see any calculated references to 9/11 in my paintings now, as the Black Tower & the other black objects I paint have become more symbolic of a general feeling of unease, that something isn't right in the world," he explained in an interview with Fecal Face.
Relkin's latest body of work focuses on a mythos that he's developed around the idea of this Black Tower, though it seems to have taken a somewhat more hopeful angle. In the artist statement for this show, Relkin says, "Some of these new paintings depict changes to our own planet's environment as a direct result of the appearance of the Black Towers. Others offer rare sightings of cosmic phenomena related to the Ancients & their means of travel. The Big Bang depicts the birth of our known universe, exploding in color & shape, meant to be a reminder of the beauty of creation, which stands in complete contrast to everything the Black Towers represent. I paint each new piece with the hope of creating something beautiful, something that can evoke deep feelings of being human, of existing in a world that is perilously endangered, a world that is being swallowed by the lengthening shadow of the Black Tower."
The Big Bang featuring work by Matt Relkin opens at 8 pm on July 12th at Beep Beep Gallery.
Events / 5 things to do / Uncategorized 5 things to do: Wednesday
Posted by Amber Robinson on Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 11:00 AM
1) Passion Pit plays the Tabernacle.
2) Shrew: the Musical opens at Georgia Shakespeare.
3) Neon Indian plays the Earl.
4) Flicks on 5th opens with Sherlock Holmes.
5) Blitzen Trapper performs at Variety Playhouse.
(Photo courtesy French Kiss)
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Visual Arts / Uncategorized Art Seen: Merrilee Challis at Young Blood
Posted by Wyatt Williams on Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 3:57 PM
Many of Atlanta's young, lowbrow galleries are seemingly devoted to the group show, often packing in a bunch of artists (or sometimes just a few) rather than asking a single artist to fill the space. In many ways, it's a good policy. More artists can be exposed to a larger audience and, besides, it gives the opening parties a spirit of collaboration and collective success.
The downside, of course, is that it's easy to miss small details and hard to focus on a particular piece when the room is filled with a mix of styles, mediums, and subject matter. Though filling an entire gallery might be a tall order for a young artist still finding their footing, that can also be the task that pushes one's talents to a new level.
This is all a long winded way of saying - don't miss Merrilee Challis' paintings at Young Blood's latest group show, Interior/Posterior. They're intricately detailed, covered in minuscule patterns and images that might simply disappear into the background if you're not paying close attention. Challis is clearly drawing some influence from Thomas Campbell's style and palette, but her mythical beasts and woodland spirits are part of a world that's clearly her own creation.
Check out a few details from her work after the jump.
theater / Uncategorized Summer theater preview
Posted by Curt Holman on Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 3:00 PM
Atlanta's summer theatrical offerings skew toward the very new and the very old. The distinction between the two isn't always obvious, given that the summer of 2010 features two productions of Shakespeare plays reimagined as lighthearted musicals.
Georgia Shakespeare launches its 25th anniversary season June 9 with Shrew: The Musical, John R. Briggs and Dennis West's 1993 musicalization of the famed battle of the sexes between manly Petruchio (Joe Knezevich) and fiery Kate (Park Krausen). This singing, dancing Shrew takes place in 1930s Palm Beach, justifying the Jazz Age/Cole Porter quality of the songs and period costumes. I greatly enjoyed the company's 1999 yuletide-themed remount, Shrew the Holiday Musical.
Georgia Shakespeare's other summer plays include the lyrical but relatively low-key comedy Love's Labour's Lost (June 24-Aug. 6), featuring Brad Sherrill and Carolyn Cook. A scholarly prince and his courtiers plan to spend a year in quiet reflection free of romantic entanglements — until a group of lovely ladies moves in next door. The company rounds out its three-play repertory with King Lear (July 8-Aug. 7), starring Tim McDonough as the aging English king whose poor parenting tears England apart. Warning: Even among Shakespearean tragedies, King Lear is the depressing one.
Continue Reading "Summer theater preview"
(Photo by Lindsay Elise Lipton)
Events / 5 things to do / Uncategorized 5 things to do: Tuesday
Posted by Amber Robinson on Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 11:00 AM
1) Plaza Theatre screens Hellraiser.
2) Friendo plays Drunken Unicorn.
3) The Lion, the Mouse & Other Aesop's Fables opens at the Center for Puppetry Arts.
4) Carolyn Jessop discusses Triumph: Life After the Cult – A Survivor's Lessons at Decatur Library.
5) Blue Radio plays Smith's Olde Bar.
(Photo courtesy Plaza Theatre)
Monday, June 7, 2010
News / Books / Uncategorized Jonathan Franzen to be 2010 Decatur Book Fest keynote speaker
Posted by Debbie Michaud on Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 10:47 PM
AJC Decatur Bookfest's Tom Bell has announced that National Book Award-winner Jonathan Franzen will be the keynote speaker for the 2010 festival. The Corrections author will publish his first book in nine years, Freedom: A Novel, on Aug. 31— just days before the DBF's fifth annual event kicks off Labor Day weekend.
Again, more than 300 authors will take part in this year's fest, including:
Diana Gabaldon, author of the award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling Outlander novels, [...who hosted] standing-room-only crowds at the 2009 festival. ... Pulitzer Prize winner David Finkle, George Dawes Green, founder of The Moth, a not-for-profit storytelling organization, young adult author Cassandra Clare, adult and young adult author Ridley Pearson, and New York Times bestseller Emily Giffin.
In anticipation of the festival, the DBF and A Cappella Books are bringing Rosanne Cash to Agnes Scott College Aug. 14 to read from her memoir and play a few songs. She'll perform on a custom Martin D40 guitar, which she'll sign and then will be auctioned off to benefit the festival's literacy efforts.
Opinion / Uncategorized Opinion: Graffiti wars
Posted by Cinque Hicks on Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 4:40 PM
Just north of Ponce de Leon Avenue, behind the Spot for Dogs canine day care facility, a low retaining wall runs 90 feet along a disused, cement-covered, urban railroad trough. As of late May, the wall's been painted battleship gray and is now punctuated by a series of small tile mosaics depicting colorful graphic flowers. Some of the flora is native to Georgia. Some is exotic. All of it is cheerily rendered.
The mural is "The Global Garden Project," the work of Atlanta artists/coordinators Megan Dunkelberg and Karen Cleveland and one of 31 new visual art works commissioned by the Beltline as part of its Art on the Beltline initiative. (Full disclosure: I sat on the panel that selected the performing arts components of the Beltline's art initiative.) The mosaics were constructed and installed by young people from Refugee Family Services, a local support organization for refugee women and children. The young artists' names are inscribed to the far left and far right of the mosaic panels in the sort of naively jumbled script that announces "Kids made this."
"The Global Garden Project" is lovely and innocuous. It's the sort of incontestable, therapeutic art that foundations and governments have fallen over themselves to fund in the last few decades: nice, press release-friendly ideas with a mild social service veneer untainted by all the naughty stuff that caused so much trouble in the '80s. That the mural nevertheless finds itself at the center of a minor art-world scuffle has to come as a surprise to the surely well-intentioned artists.
Continue Reading "Opinion: Graffiti wars"
(Photo by Nick Allin)
Uncategorized 5 things to do: Monday
Posted by Amber Robinson on Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 11:00 AM
1) Cobra Starship plays the Tabernacle.
2) Lee Harris discusses The Next American Civil War: The Populist Revolt Against the Liberal Elite at Decatur Library.
3) Jim Lauderdale performs at Eddie's Attic.
4) Twin Thunder plays 529.
5) Foreigner, Styx and Kansas play Chastain Park Amphitheatre.
(Photo by Matthew Salacuse)
