Obscura, the current offering at Eyedrum Art and Music Gallery, is an exhibition organized around what you might call a formal coincidence: All the works in the show can be seen in the dark. The walls and ceiling are painted black, and all the overhead lights are off. Once inside, it’s just you and the [...]
Archive Content from Mar 2010
03/30/10 Troy Dugas' Centered at Barbara Archer Gallery
Assembling the leftovers of a hyper-consumerist world and reconstructing them into forms in no way reminiscent of their buy-and-sell origins rouses a fond serenity. In his solo exhibition Centered at Barbara Archer Gallery, Troy Dugas accomplishes this in perhaps the most fulfilling way possible. After all, what opposes consumerism, marketing, and labels more than mandalas [...]
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03/29/10 Saturday: John Q's Memory Flash sets the record (not so) straight
In the midst of Atlanta’s at times awkward but occasionally earnest efforts to carve out its identity as a city, a new artist collective has emerged with a mission of its own. The collective, dubbed John Q in reference to “John Q. Public,” is composed of Wesley Chenault, Andy Ditzler, and Joey Orr. Their mission: [...]
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03/26/10 Interview with new High Museum curator Michael Rooks
Stepping into the role of Modern and Contemporary Curator for the High Museum is no small task. Michael Rooks comes to Atlanta with an extensive career in the museum world and a huge amount of enthusiasm for the task at hand. Rooks’ background includes a long line of impressive curatorial gigs: The Museum of Contemporary [...]
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03/24/10 Plastic Aztecs build a cave at Beep Beep, but will they Grow?
Caves and crystals are in vogue; Lee Bul, Roger Hiorns, and even Atlanta’s Plastic Aztecs number among countless other artists—working in both high- and low-brow styles—that have joined the bandwagon. Why, in such a high-technology age, are we now so attracted to the mysterious mythology of unplugged darkness and geometric magic? The Plastic Aztecs are [...]
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03/23/10 Penny Arcade's Bad Reputation makes for tantalizing art
Who is Penny Arcade? Andy Warhol fans may recognize the name of the starlet from his 1971 film Women in Revolt. But Arcade transcended the Factory scene to become a New York legend and infamous performance artist. A new book published last October by Semiotext(e), Bad Reputation: Performances, Essays, Interviews marks the first time her [...]
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03/22/10 The Allure of the Automobile at the High Museum of Art
In 1909, Filippo Marinetti made his famous declaration in the Futurist Manifesto that a roaring motor car was more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace. Forty-some years later, Arthur Drexler declared at the Museum of Modern Art that automobiles were “hollow rolling sculptures,” an opposite spin on Marinetti’s opinion. The High Museum’s The Allure of [...]
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03/22/10 Dust-to-Digital: Re-packaging the world’s most overlooked musics
The past requires continuous re-invention. Given a few decades of inattention, history slides over the horizon, and it is as if it had never been. Texts that spoke to whole generations turn into proverbially dusty tomes, and songs that once excited record buyers disappear into attics. So acts of passionate rediscovery such as Atlanta’s Dust-to-Digital [...]
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03/19/10 From Beijing to Atlanta at Whitespace Gallery
Over its long history, China has absorbed the influences of myriad cultures, from Central Asia, India and the Himalayas, Mongolia, and from the many nomadic races which have made periodic incursions. These influences have been incorporated into Chinese cultural quite fluidly, with later historians (seeking to preserve the idea of “The Middle Kingdom”) coming to [...]
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03/18/10 Interview: Dashboard Co-op to host launch party this Saturday
The last few years in Atlanta have seen an influx of the under-30 crowd starting galleries, organizations, collectives, and journals. It’s time to add another one to the bunch: Dashboard Co-op. Dashboard is a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to a list of jobs that includes virtual gallery, promotion site, and cheerleader for artists. So far, [...]
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03/17/10 VD at the CDC Odyssey Museum
In 1905, German scientists discovered the corkscrew-shaped bacteria Treponema pallidum, the spirochete that causes syphilis. The following year, August Wasserman developed a diagnostic test for syphilis (known as the Wasserman Test), and gonorrhea diagnostics were being developed contemporaneously. But the bright, enlightening light of science does not chase away the moral boogeyman from the site [...]
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03/16/10 Substitute Teacher at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center
As stand-ins for the real deal, substitute teachers often breed mischief: Kids can sleep through class, wear headphones, swear a little louder than usual, and, if reprimanded, give a false name. As an outdated video drones along in the background, students gladly ignore the intended lesson to begin their own study of authority and subversion.
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karley: nice!
Jared: Excited for the Bowman collection. She is someone to keep an eye on
ruth: What do you do with difficult lines of memory? Fold them into a san
Beth Lilly: I know! That's exactly the type of work I had in mind with the call f
Jason Francisco: Davis' bulletin boards seem to me actually to be photographs themselve