New blog, new journeys

Link to my new blog here.

Christopher Parrott

In case you missed it ...



Christopher Parrott
A Past Present: Paintings and Drawings, 2006-2009
Spruill Gallery, May 8 - June 6, 2009
ART PAPERS magazine, p. 48, Sept/Oct Issue, 2009

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The beginning of

this article is wonderful:

In mid-August at the Queens Museum, the intrepid artist Duke Riley—once arrested for piloting his makeshift submarine too close to the Queen Mary 2—staged a mock battle between art museums in a Flushing Meadows pool. Employees of various institutions, ensconced in homemade ships, laid siege to each others’ vessels; the crowd was encouraged to get in the water and throw tomatoes. Riley conjured something intoxicating and joyous that had been missing of late: the ambition, competition, and sheer effort it takes to make art and museums great.

Art After Money - The New Boom of Galleries and Artists, by Jerry Saltz, New York Magazine

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ah, Kasim Reed for mayor?

i finally scored enough free time to go back and read CL's endorsement cover story. they picked Kasim Reed for mayor of Atlanta. this passage jumped right out at me, highlighting his work in the state Senate.

... despite being a partisan Democrat, he’s been successful working with — and sometimes around — Republicans to get things done, such as restoring tax allocation district funding and securing the low-interest state loans that allowed Atlanta to launch its sewer fix. It could be said that Reed has capably served as the city’s de facto floor leader.

wow, what a convincing argument.

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i'm registering a new domain; does

JeremyAbernathy.com work better than Jabernathy.com? how about something with my middle initial: E? or something more creative like frontier-critic.com or art-suxxx.com?

or perhaps the old stand-by: Gunslinging-Exorcist [dot] com? not bad for a personal site name ....

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Published: John Paul & Steph Dowda

what. a. couple. of. cuties.


i had to fight a pack of rabid Cabbagetown locals to even get my own copy. the annual Chomp & Stomp chili cook-off is just on the horizon, so everyone was snatching up the neighborhood newsletters to get their precious entry forms in time.

Cabbagetown Neighbor, Sept. 2009, p. 13

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this is almost clever ... NOBAMA tees

a related Google search turned up Banksy. it was the no. 1 hit.

hurm ....


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My first art review for Creative Loafing!

Unfortunately it's only online. Sad face!

Meg Aubrey, Daniel Biddy, Donna Johnson, and Dosa Kim. Click here to read "Ones to Watch shows ATL as a dialog of differences."



(Art by Dosa Kim)

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I just realized that

I missed the Bacon show at the MET. It closed Aug. 16, and, now, my soul feels sad. Some locals here recently told me it was grand, a one-of-a-kind experience, despite the fact they don't consider themselves Francis Bacon fans. I wanted to see it, but a random trip to NY just isn't in the cards for me right now. I think I would've visited multiple times, even though Mr. Critic Contrary lacks my enthusiasm. Actually, I'm certain I would have, in between visiting P.S.1 and the Cloisters, two spots I missed the fist time around.

I've only visited NY one time, and hated it. It made my soul sad. Was I wrong? Did I just miss out? And there are so many other places; they say I should go to Art Basel; they say I should go to Chicago, and San Francisco, and

blurgh.

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[updated] Deanna Sirlin at Whitespace

Review|Deanna Sirlin: Everything is Optional
Whitespace Gallery; April 17—May 16, 2009; ArtVoices, June 2009

Deanna Sirlin compares her work to the lecture style of Salman Rushdie, the current writer-in-residence at Emory University: Her circular brushstrokes are “like” Rushdie’s baffling circles of logic that, through a sublime intellectual sleight-of-hand, achieve clarity at the last possible moment. Of course, Sirlin’s paintings and Salman Rushdie have about as much in common … as horseshoe crabs and swine flu. Still, even if Sirlin’s very (and truly) harmless simile falls short, it raises the more interesting question of interpretation and translation.

Take for instance 33 1/3, a work Sirlin installed at the New Orleans Museum of Art in 2001. 33 1/3 is essentially an abstract painting, produced by hand and then digitally blown up and superimposed on an existing museum window. The product is a semitransparent floor-to-ceiling image; you can’t see through the window per se, but it permits the free passage of sunlight by day, or museum lights by night. 33 1/3’s numerical title refers to the revolutions of a spinning record, an association designed to pay homage to New Orleans’ music. As in her other public art projects, Sirlin attempts to match her “perception of the site buildings’ architecture” and the flavor of “the city in which they are a part.” So … is the work a successful translation of New Orleans culture?

Everything is Optional, Sirlin’s latest exhibition at Whitespace Gallery, is concerned with the process of translation. Less so in her large-scale abstractions (executed in the same style as her public art paintings, but without a digital intermediary), Sirlin’s installations are sculptural translations—from the language of two-dimensional drawing to that of metal. Each work began as a tiny drawing in Sharpie marker that, as before, is then blown up and programmed into a machine. The finished sculptures are irrevocably physical, metallic incarnations of abstract line: circles, ellipses, and, for lack of a better word, squiggles. The works are interesting, insofar as they both evade recognition while still recalling the sinuous strokes of the original Sharpie. But in this case, the virtue is also a vice: Sirlin’s “translations” seem little improved over the breakfast-table exercises they initially were. Further, her use of technology as a transformative medium fails to surpass the ingenuity of local artists half her age (see my comments on Kathryn Refi’s Color Recordings, ArtVoices, October, 2008, p. 44).

Of course, the comparison wouldn’t be necessary if Sirlin didn’t market herself as an artist of “digital media.” Although I’m generally not a fan of primary colors, her large traditional paintings show a confident command of asymmetry, a fact no doubt solidified by her 30 years’ experience in the medium.

And although her New Orleans installation, 33 1/3, is neither an interpretation nor a translation of the city in which it lives, the painting style at least incorporates the host building’s architecture. The work succeeds in signifying a bland and very tame modernism, an apolitical escapism of color, in which vanity exceeds substance.

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[updated] William Boling and Corinne Vionnet

Review|William Boling and Corinne Vionnet: Complete Desire
Opal Gallery; February 12—April 4, 2009; ArtVoices, May 2009

Laughter, forgetting, globalization, alienation — I see many things in Complete Desire, the photographic collaboration by William Boling and Corinne Vionnet. But at first I had difficulty seeing anything that resembled “completion” or “desire.”

The series is organized into triptychs of seemingly unrelated images from geographically distinct locales. The left-hand photo of Panel No. 18, for instance, captures a moment in Vionnet’s home in Vevey, Switzerland, while the right-hand side is a patch of green space near Atlanta’s East Lake transit station. Snapshots taken by Vionnet include Villefontaine, France, Kew Garden in London, and even a “train for Geneva.” By contrast, Boling’s photos were taken within the United States during various daytrips throughout Georgia. Boling and Vionnet met over the internet and, until the exhibition opening, “spoke” almost exclusively though images instead of words.

The “completion/desire” puzzle only deepens when one considers the two-year process used to create Complete Desire: One artist emailed the first image to the other who — without “peeking” — responded with a second image. The images were then revealed, and the second artist completed the triptych by choosing the final image. Each work, then, is not only the product of two creative minds but also a significant degree of chance.

So, desire is metaphorically “completed” through a kind of modified Hegelian dialectic, a fact that makes works such as Panel No. 16 all the more interesting. In the first image, we see a vehicle interior centered on a pair of female legs in stockings. A thumb enters the picture from below; the subtle contrast — between her pale skin and dark nylons (covered v. uncovered flesh) — evokes a sense of vulnerability. The femininity, in turn, contrasts with the genderless icons in the photo on our right, a closeup of a car dashboard. Isolated out of context, each icon “represents” a generic, almost hieroglyphic human being, shown in profile without arms (or even a neck). The air conditioner dial directs our eyes to the little arrow pointing to the passenger’s knees, an almost knowing gesture towards the female knees at left, as well as the man kneeling in the scene at center: a long exterior shot that looks down on an all but deserted neighborhood street.

Is this man locked out of the car? By the same woman who, embarrassed to look him in the eye, is staring at her lap (or at random dials on the dashboard)? Perhaps the central photo — viewed through a building window (evidenced by tell-tale reflections and glares of sunlight) — was taken by a private detective? Of course, domestic betrayal is merely one of many possible interpretations.

The visual themes mentioned above recur throughout the series: human figures visible only in profile, or in partial anatomy; obscured vision, often blurred by motorized travel; or scenes visible only through glass or reflections in a rear view mirror. Complete Desire follows an aesthetic of modern estrangement that, by willfully engaging in alienation, exorcises it by way of catharsis.

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[updated] Drew Conrad: Cowboys, Lovers ...

Review|Drew Conrad: Cowboys, Lovers, Losers & Nobodies
Get This! Gallery; January 24—March 28, 2009


On the cover|Elizabeth Catlett
ArtVoices, April 2009

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Pyrokinesis on the horizon; ArtVoices is available now, near you

On the cover|Eschatology by John Barnes, Jr.

[NOTE] I checked Barnes & Noble at Edgewood yesterday; there are several copies of ArtVoices still available (featuring my review of Deanna Sirlin's recent exhibition at Whitespace)! See also ArtVoices' shiny new website.

The prevailing wisdom tells me that summer is not a great season for arts in Atlanta. It's too hot, they say. There's nothing going on, they say, or at least there's nothing worth sticking around for.

Please allow me to disagree. Yes, the heat is abysmal, and although it exacerbates other commonplace annoyances (the smog gets worse), I consider it essential to the character of the place. I appreciate it, and I'm pleased to admit that though I've planned a short vacation elsewhere it will be even hotter than here.

I've been pleasantly distracted these past few months. GATHER Atlanta was a success that, to be honest, exceeded my expectations brilliantly. But it was exhausting. Subsequently, I've neglected a few things here and there, including my as yet part-time career as a freelance writer.

The three posts below are placeholders. (Scans are on the way.) Ghostmap Microwave is the blog that ties all my projects together; I'll be filling in the blanks below over the coming weeks, so, please, keep checking here for new updates!

The fireworks begin in July.

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ART PAPERS!?! Yeah, Boyyeeeeee!

Published: This is not a clip.
Review|Richard Fleming.
[Whitespace Gallery; January 16 – February 29]
My byline is right there (p.56). As promised.

This could be you|On newsstands now (Barnes & Noble, etc., in major US cities, and select locations in Europe).

On the cover|Bizarro sculptures by Nick Cave.

Special thanks to Joyce Youmans (pictured above), an excellent friend and proofreader, and to k.tauches, who confirmed one of my suspicions, re: photo resolution.

::: )

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Thanks Maggie,

Maggie White posts this photo of yours truly, along with a link to our interview posted to BurnAway.org earlier this month.

TX!!
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Creative Loafing: Culture Surfing blog

Culture Surfing, CL's new arts and entertainment blog, officially "hard launched" this week. Basically, all of the newspaper's online A&E content will move from Fresh Loaf to the new address.

Main page:
Click for Culture Surfing here.

and...

Today:
Dosa Kim + Beep Beep preview

and, for the industrious...

Updates on all my posts:
Author Archive for Jeremy Abernathy

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I now write for Creative Loafing,

as a part-time blogger for Cl's Fresh Loaf. Look out for new posts on ATL visual arts every week.

Exhibit A (today's post):
Beth Lilly ACP Public Art

Exhibit B (linking all my posts for CL):
Author Archive for Jeremy Abernathy

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