... & more June Stuff

Alcove Gallery
“Broadstrokes: A Showcase of Four Female Painters”
Jenna Colby, Emmy Dudley, Laurel Hausler, & LiShinault
Opens Friday, May 25 7-11pm with music by Cinetrope
Show runs through June 22.

Beep Beep Gallery
“Crawl Space” Bryan Westberry - through June 10.

Lenny’s Bar
Youngblood Fundraiser - June 2nd.

Youngblood Gallery
MINT “Take Flight” - June 7-11, Opens June 9.

Flex Space
“History of the Future Show” - Opens June 8th.

Foundation One Gallery
Groundwork - through June 23.
- and
Derek Hess and BASK “Double Vision” - July 7-11
Opens July 14.

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Love-struck Robots

Anniversary

For folks willing try something off the beaten path, Brenda Norbeck and Josh Ford’s high energy performance piece, “Anniversary,” is a guaranteed good time. Described by the artists as a “sci-fi comedy,” the performance is a playful investigation of 21st century married life. Mixing political satire with a pleasantly bizarre brand of humor, “Anniversary” follows a backwards narrative structure similar to the film, Memento.

The piece dramatizes the adrenaline highs and disillusioned lows of marriage against the backdrop of an absurdly high-tech American landscape. The country, rocked by a mysterious terrorist attack, elects its first robot president, and the snack food franchise, Frito Lay, becomes the holy symbol of an emotionless commercial dystopia.

The performance is the couple’s inaugural piece as Session 2, a brand new Atlanta theatre group. Be prepared: the show can be a little disorienting, and like many grassroots-variety performance acts, “Anniversary” runs on a *low* production budget. Keeping that in mind, “Anniversary” is as personal as it is hysterical. Session 2 succeeds in creating an emotionally stimulating, laugh-out-loud experience.

“Anniversary” runs Fridays at 8 and Sundays at 7 from May 11 - June 4 at Blank Stage Theatre, located in the Artisan Resource Center in Marietta. Tickets are $8 at the door. Don’t miss the final weekend performances on June 1 and June 3. Definitely worth the drive.

http://www.myspace.com/session_2

Artisan Resource Center

The Artisan space is worth its own mention. Featuring an eclectic handful of Atlanta artists and hosting a number of workshops, performances, and film screenings, Artisan is a venue with a lot of promise. The gallery’s head guy, Brent Brooks, just finished a screening of his original film, Art of Suicide. Filmed primarily in Athens, GA, the movie explores the lives of four struggling art school graduates. Brooks interrogates a number of familiar themes related to death, the “art market,” and “suffering for one’s art.” If the movie could be summarized as a question, it would be something like this one:

“Does a great artist like Van Gogh have to commit suicide just to sell a few paintings?”

Brooks plans to take Art of Suicide to film festivals later this year.

http://www.blankstageproductions.com/

http://www.artisanresourcecenter.net/

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Wow ...

Damien Hirst is fairly new to me. He's done an intense variety of projects, including stuff with formaldehyde and dead sharks...

His Superstition series (one pictured above) is pretty amazing. It's mixed media on canvas using mostly preserved - that is, real - butterflies to make cathedral window designs. Try to pull up the Flash viewer on the linked site.

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TindelMichi: Southern "Folk Graffiti"

Standing in front of a collaborative studio space on DeKalb Avenue, I tossed painter John Tindel a minefield-of-a-question, “What is it about your work that represents the South?” The artist, who was walking with a cane due to an injury last month, returned with a varied response.

“Visually, so much of what we do is experiment,” he answered, “we call it a kind of ‘folk graffiti.’” John Tindel and fellow artist Michi call their collaboration TindelMichi, adding the affectionate tagline, “Two Fat Southern Boys that Paint.” Their work combines regional humor with a flare for commercial design and Pop as well as a healthy taste for old Cadillac convertibles, fried chicken, and Pabst Blue Ribbon. Tindel and Michi’s paintings are as flashy and cosmopolitan as their images are infused with a delicate sensitivity for Southern culture.

For examples, check out the artists’ work on the web. Go to TheCreativeLife.com and click on the thumbnails at left.

The deceptively simple image, CottonMouth Kin, offers the careful viewer a handful of interpretive options. A cow wearing a rather gloomy expression stands with its back to a horizon suggestive of anxieties about the past juxtaposed with the product logos of the commercialized present. The viewer is invited to enter the painting through the cow, whose pink star-shaped mark links it to a silhouette of a Confederate-era steamer in the background. By chance, the symbolism is strangely similar to the star-marked sheep of the novel, A Wild Sheep Chase, by Haruki Murakami.

In Tindel and Michi’s painting, the cow wears its pink star and somewhat droopy angel wings with little mirth. The smoky plume of the ship, which vaguely resembles the historical C.S. City of Vicksburg is inscribed with the crossed-out letters “C-O-N.” Like several of the collaborators’ other works, the piece contains stylistic shout-outs to artists like Basquiat, and in the sky overhead, an eyeball reminiscent of Guernica judges the landscape below. Just as in Picasso’s painting, the innocence of rural livestock - here set off by lime and baby blue - contrasts with the grit of history, held prisoner by that ominous, patriarchal gaze.

“We want so much to create this unique Atlanta art experience,” Tindel elaborates, “we want to take you in, give you food and cornbread, and talk with you and tell stories.” This story-telling process is an important part of the artists’ collaboration. Tindel describes his painting sessions with Michi as “less so much a duel and more of a dialog.” The dialog has a discernable effect on their paintings. Visually impressive, the images also contain dialect puns such as “can’t never could” and “Jackson-Potluck.”

The two artists designed a recent show that centered on the real life story of a mid 20th century Alabama bootlegger. Tindel explains, “We staged this show as if [the bootlegger] was actually the one throwing a party for all of our guests.” Tindel and Michi invited the living descendents of the bootlegger to join the celebration. This dialectic between narrative and art is part of what makes the TindelMichi project unique. The artists have made an effort to use these Southern narratives to energize their openings and events without crossing the line into gimmick.

“There’s a balance between the art and the marketing,” Tindel continues. Still, the two artists like to have a good time. In the past, TindelMichi shows have at various times featured a 1920 Rolls-Royce parked on site, authentic mint juleps (and, of course, PBR), and a buffet complete with 150 pounds of fried chicken.

Tindel, who became a father recently, is looking out for the next change in his style. “I was painting like 18 hours at a time,” he explains, “now I either do tons of little drawings or I paint something over a long period, with very little work each time I sit down.” Having a child, though, does promise to expand Tindel’s repertoire of images. He says laughingly, “One day I’m drawing a helicopter, and the kid says ‘helicopter!’ It’s great.”

Also published at:
http://artfaceoff.com/blogs/leaders/?p=89

For more info:
http://www.thecreativelife.com/MAIN/index.html
http://www.johntindel.com/2005/artwork.htm

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Markham / Millet

... I just remembered this other painting/poem combo:

What gulfs between him and the seraphim!
Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades?

The painting is called L'homme à la houe by Millet. He was a realist - which during his time probably meant you were a socialist. (which certainly comes through in Markham's poem)

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28 w$$k$ later?

Spiderman, etc. So many sequels...
I just know the next thing will be something like

"28 lEAP yEARS lATER:
a post-post apocalyptic thriller."

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Jeezus, man.

H. C. Warner

Painter and gallery owner H. C. Warner describes his vision for Alcove Gallery in readily understandable terms. “I’d like it to be like Wonka,” he stated in an interview earlier this year, “we could even sell chocolate - I wouldn’t mind.” Pleasantly unpretentious and alive with childlike exuberance, the works displayed at Warner’s art space deliver a refreshingly delicious visual experience. The gallery’s website has thumbnails of featured artists as well as a link to Warner’s own work.

Warner explains that Alcove’s name was chosen for its suggestive double meaning. “Alcove” is a synonym for “recess,” which could designate an enclosed space as well as that period of time when school kids run wild. Located near the heart of Atlanta’s heavily commercialized Buckhead district, Alcove is a welcome diversion from the mainstream. Wandering into Alcove is like discovering one of Wonka’s golden tickets. Compared to its Bennett Street neighbors, this gallery glimmers like gold.

Alcove artists are an eclectic group, reflecting a variety of influences such as folk art, graffiti, comic books, and anime. The vibrant, optimistic yet sometimes hauntingly disturbing works compliment each other with a similarly youthful energy. Warner says his management philosophy is to “treat everyone who walks in the door as a brother or sister.”

Although Warner typically reserves the space for Alcove artists, he made an exception this spring for an exhibition of his own work entitled “Circles.” The collection revolves around the theme of the circus, addressing both the innocent folly of youth and the cyclical mania of adult life. “We all have these visions based on childhood fantasy,” he elaborates, “we don’t see the darkness but its all there, and it’s all part of cycle.”

Warner’s work continues to evolve, but he follows a consistently eclectic style of his own. Clouds of nebulae bubble and boil the color of blueberry and orange sherbet. Comic book renderings of hornets and crocodiles emerge from the nocturnal swirl, joining a dance with Ben Franklin and other icons of Americana.

Warner remains optimistic about art and about Alcove’s future. “You don’t get into it for the money,” he comments, “I’m a beans and rice kind of guy, and I probably will be for years to come.” An owner who describes gallery operation as the hardest job he has ever done, Warner has been developing his business for over 20 years. He states simply, “This planet is beautiful - as hard as that is to believe sometimes - and so are the people in it.”

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Nextwave-Zombies !

Warren Ellis' parody hero creations, the Nextwave Squad, make a cameo appearance in Marvel Zombies vs Army of Darkness #3. I've never heard of the book, but it sounds appropriately absurd.

Kudos to Benjamin, aka Stephen Hero, for the timely info.

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Francis Bacon's Trash

Francis Bacon's trash sold for almost 1 million pounds. Sketches, mutilated paintings, and old check stubs (as in checks for the gas bill, etc.) that some fellow pulled from Bacon's garbage went on auction this week.

Another article by Charlotte Higgins opens with the title, "Artists' ephemera is a load of old rubbish." She continues:

Ulysses is not going to be cracked wide open because one has beheld a pair of James Joyce's spectacles. And yet that did not stop Sotheby's from auctioning them off a few years back, along with a medal he once won in a singing competition

You've gotta love those Guardian writers and their deliciously scathing honesty.

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"Unmodern" Architecture

The Helicon Building, The Hague

Soeters of Amsterdam challenges boring architecture with aggressive ziggurat-inpsired designs. He calls it "unmodern" architecture.

Worth 100

Tracking Neo-populism

On a lark, my history major buddies have been throwing around a number of absurd arguments about "neo-populism" for the past two weeks. We were all still jazzed-up by the spectacular televised exchanges between Bill O'Reilly and Stephen Colbert. At the time, neo-populism was just another made-up term that described the type of "thinking from the gut" anti-intellectualism espoused by media pundits.

The thing is, neo-populism turned out to be a *real* movement in Latin America and possibly even in the United States. South American leaders Alberto Fujimori and Carlos Menem are cited by scholars as neo-populists, and the Midwest Populist Party has used the same term to describe Montana Democratic Senator Jon Tester. Their website is kind of scary.

Naturally, Wikipedia had to be updated.

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Ceci n'est pas une jello shot

this is not a jello shot

it is an allusion made in bad taste.

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See you later, Ben.
Au revoir, bon voyage, and all that shit.

On Blogging

Guardian ran these two articles on the art of criticism and the new role of bloggers in the journalistic process. Food for thought:

Getting down and dirty in the blogosphere brawl by Dorian Lynskey

"This is just one front in a wide-ranging battle between the blogosphere and so-called old media. In an ideal world, there should be room for both print critics and online ones, with plenty of overlap between them. Good writing is good writing, wherever it appears. But the campaign is in its early days and there are several years' worth of grievances to thrash out before a peace treaty can be agreed."

Getting down and dirty in the blogosphere brawl - part 2 by Peter Bradshaw

"Part of what's happening is that newspapers have, for hundreds of years, been a one-party state, and the net has brought that state to an end. Before the web, there was no serious opposition to the press in the press. Newspapers might express the most virulent opposition to every other institution in British public life: to the Church of England, political parties, the monarchy - anything but the press. Our media sections have nothing like the full-throttle, uncensored criticism of the press routinely expressed in blogs."

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Secular Conspiracy part I: Plans for Saving the World

It's educational

like Sesame Street, even.

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Chávez / Chomsky: Hugo Chávez is wacky

Goofy story:

Hugo Chávez boosted Amazon.com sales back in September by plugging Noam Chomsky's book, Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance at the United Nations in New York. After publically calling out President Bush as an "ex-alchohlic," a "John Wayne" impersonator, and "the Devil," the Venezuelan president applauded Chomsky for his sustained criticism of American foreign policy since Vietnam. The book instantaneously rose to the top ten after Chávez expressed regret for not having met the scholar before he died.

Chávez, however, was mistaken - Chomsky is not dead. He was alive enough, at least, to submit to an interview later that same week. Although Chomsky may have enjoyed the boosted book sales, he was not flattered.

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May '68

I've been taking some time as of late to read about history and politics, i.e. - "useful" knowledge of interest to people besides myself. The French seem to like a good riot. I particularly enjoyed these slogans from the May '68 protests:

L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire.

Boredom is counterrevolutionary.

Je t'aime ! Oh ! dites-le avec des pavés !

I love you! Oh, say it with paving stones!

Je suis marxiste tendance Groucho.

I am a Marxist of the Groucho tendency.

That's right - Groucho Marx was a political genius. New Years: we should do wild ghost dances 'till dawn in hopes that he'll return from the grave.

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Sagittarius

So it's my birthday in Mississippi and my anthropologist buddy, Jacob, is talking to me about linguistics and digging up human bones as a life-long profession, and I presently get the sense that the dame we're talking to has secretly decided that we're bad news (since I've openly described myself as a Democrat) and then Jacob sez' to me,

"So, where were we?"

"Oh, we were saying something like 'Human beings don't know Shit from Shinola.'"

"That's right! ...err Hey, watch out with that drink out here. We don't want no trouble from the Boys in Blue."

"...Gotcha': I guess we're looking out for Monsieur Po-po?"

"Yep. At any rate, it looks like we've Agreed to disagree about Disagreeing."

A raucous erupts from the bar as the blues band steps outside for cigarettes. Cars honking. The smell of BBQ and Budweiser. Your typical Oxford nightlife confusion.

"Nope. I'd have to disagree."

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Golden Adele

Time ran this article about the recently purchased Klimt painting, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I. They are calling the painting the "Golden Adele." Though I do like the painting - it is certainly beautiful - I am very suspicious.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1562173,00.html

Let me explain. In June, the painting was purchased by the New York based Neue Galerie for $135 million. It has been since eclipsed by two modernist paintings, one by Jackson Pollock and one by Willem de Kooning, as the most expensive sale in visual arts history. That's right, one early European modernist followed by two giants of the New York School. In New York. Over $400 million in one year alone.

I certainly do not disaprove of the decisively culturally-minded investment of capital. Nor do I completely disagree with the institution of the museum as an idea. I simply hope that the museum does not become such an institution that its financial girth comes to rival that of, say, the defense budget of the United States. We hope for living art spaces, not over-priced hospitals for dying cultural artifacts.

Atleast, at 4 1/2 feet square, we can appreciate that the painting is bigger than the rather tiny (and in my opinion, horribly uninteresting) Mona Lisa. Although I do prefer the Portrait of Adele to the Mona Lisa, it is only a very minor compliment. Is "Too Much Being Made On Nazi Art?" I think so.

List of Most Expensive Paintings

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