Photo by Mike Germon.

Another video interview produced by Kombo Ch.

The Plastic Aztecs present Grow at Beep Beep Gallery, opening this Saturday, March 13, from 8-11PM.

See also BURNAWAY’s Plastic Aztecs review from 2008 and these Grow preview photos on ThoughtMarker.

The Plastic Aztecs' latest exhibition opens Saturday at Beep Beep Gallery. Photo by Mike Germon.

See below for visual arts events beginning Thursday, March 11.

THURSDAY, MARCH 11

Abstracted Nature / Group show
Swan Coach Gallery / 6-8PM

David Johnson / Out of the Shadows
Opal Gallery / Noon-7PM regular hours / Artist reception is March 25

FRIDAY, MARCH 12

Art on the Beltline / Deadline for artist proposals
4PM

Castleberry Hill Art Stroll
Castleberry Hill Arts District / various locations / 7-10PM

Photographers Choice 2010 / Group show
Atlanta Photography Group / 7:30-10PM

Serenbe Photography Center's grand opening is Saturday. Above: Instructor image © Jeani Elbaum.

SATURDAY, MARCH 13

Krista Thompson / Toward a Post-Soul Art History / lecture
High Museum of Art, Hill Auditorium / 2PM

Photographers Print Studio / Grand Opening
Serenbe Photography Center / 5-8PM

Plastic Aztecs / Grow
Beep Beep Gallery / 8PM

Three Voices / Group Show
Snapdragon Photography / 7-10PM

MONDAY, MARCH 15

2010 Benefit Art Auction / Deadline for artist proposals
Hammonds House Museum

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17

Tenzin Norbu / Thangka Painting Demonstrations
Michael Carlos Museum, Emory University / 10AM-4PM

David Adamo, Untitled (Music for Strings), 2009 (Installation view, N.O. Gallery, Milan). Wooden stage, harp strings, nylon string, copper and brass fittings, wooden cane, wooden shavings, dimensions variable.

David Adamo’s whittled-down canes, which can be seen on the third floor of this year’s Whitney Biennial, could be taken as a kind of symbol for the exhibition in its entirety: a familiar object that attains a more poignant and poetic form through a process of reduction. With a greatly diminished roster (half as many artists as in 2008), a comparatively modest floor plan, and, most importantly, a greatly reduced sense of self-importance, this year’s Biennial demonstrates that common sense looks good, even on a top-tier New York exhibition.

The take-home message is that the art-world arms race is, for now, officially over. Bigger and faster is no longer better. The recession has finally settled in at the highest levels of the art establishment. If 2006 and 2008 were about the market crash and the anger, confusion, and fear that accompanied it, then 2010 is about what happens next. Curators are starting to note what was being made when the bubble burst, the market collapsed, and the sky came tumbling down. Who was still making art? The people who kept their cool. And that coolness comes through in the work, much of which is moderate in scale, self-reflective, and demonstrates a willingness to continue where the art-historical conversation left off.

I was surprised by how well the Biennial captured what I consider to be the feeling of our particular moment in time. Not quite optimism yet not exactly pessimism, it’s a certain kind (the best kind) of indifference—the spirit of artists and artworks that continue independent of their immediate political, social, or economic circumstances. Curators Francesco Bonami and Gary Carrion-Murayari attribute this directly to the election of President Obama, claiming in the show’s catalog that his “reassuring and inspiring” presence has “allowed people to focus on their intimate concerns again,” and that “traditional forms of protest and resistance were no longer needed as in the years before….”

Alex Hubbard’s Annotated Plans for an Evacuation seems to speak on this level. Calling upon our collective memory of recent natural disasters and our fears of the vague doomsday scenarios climate change and terrorism seem to promise, this 7-1/2-minute video shows a man making a series of bizarre alterations to a Ford Tempo in preparation, we assume, for its use as an escape vehicle. Yet, in this narrative, Hubbard trades in calamity’s standard emotional/political baggage for a simple, even humorous, take on the private politics of survival. Betraying neither anger nor resentment, the protagonist displays only an unflappable willingness to move forward.

Ari Marcopoulos, Detroit (still), 2009. DVD, 7:32 min. loop. Courtesy Ratio 3, San Francisco.

Ari Marcopolous’ Detroit illustrates similar tenacity. In this video, two young men skillfully play noise rock for what the catalog calls “an audience of family and friends.” The show, which takes place in one of the performer’s bedrooms, is shot in a casual, home-movie style. Detroit portrays a kind of art that persists despite difficult conditions. It speaks, in Holland Cotter’s words, “of life beyond the art factory.”

Taking this ethic to heart, the Biennial presents works that could be made in modest studio apartments, filmed in garages or on street corners, or cobbled together from industrial surplus. There are a few spectacular exceptions: big, expensive-looking things that belie significant logistical and temporal means. But these works, despite their individual merits, seem incongruous with the exhibition as a whole, like the last of the dinosaurs hulking about among the emerging mammals. Piotor Uklanski’s Untitled (Monster), for example, is a work that, despite its tremendous material sophistication and appeal, seems overblown in this context and in danger of being overrun by smaller, more mobile, and more adaptable works.

Despite the Biennial’s success in describing the mood of our current historical moment, I would, as an honorary Southerner, be remiss were I not to mention that it comes painfully short of providing a census. The suspicions of regionalism with which many have viewed the art establishment are, in this exhibition, absolutely confirmed. Jerry Saltz’ claim that the show “isn’t New York-centric” is a little surprising since a full 60% of the artists exhibited (33 out of 55) live and work in New York, NY. Artists from Los Angeles and Chicago account for 17 of the remaining 22. In fact, only two of the artists in the exhibition live in the South: Vietnamese-American photographer Tam Tran (Memphis, TN) and Alabama-born painter Verne Dawson who splits his time between Saluda, NC, and … you guessed it, New York, NY.

Of course, criticizing an otherwise successful curatorial effort because it isn’t inclusive enough of a particular geographical zone smacks a little of its own kind of regionalism. I will then, in the spirit of the 2010 Biennial, set aside these kind of macro-political concerns for the time being and get back to enjoying the show.

The 2010 Whitney Biennial will be on view through Sunday, May 30.

Clare Rojas, Final Sun with Poppies. Latex and gouache on panel, 2009. Photo courtesy ACA Gallery of SCAD.

Clare Rojas’ paintings and drawings combine influences of folk art with decorative patterns found in quilts and outdated wallpaper. The initial comforts offered by these traditionally lighthearted and decorative designs make Rojas’ depictions all the more disturbing. Characters and symbols echo through the work, arranged in rows or clusters that resemble collections of family portraits. Young girls skip among flowers while older women stand next to fields, observing and gesturing toward them but remaining separated by painted boundaries. Wilting flowers repeatedly suggest  fading youth.

Installation view. Photo by Staci Stone.

Interactions of indifference and cruelty  appear alongside more gentle encounters. Panels that present a story from one  scene to the next link offerings, gestures, and comparisons. Narratives of decay, cynicism, and solitude emerge alongside humorous and curious behavior.

Rojas also creates folk music that she infuses with the same wry whimsy found in her two-dimensional work. A performance by her alias “Peggy Honeywell” will be held on Thursday, April 1, at the ACA Gallery where her paintings and drawings are on view. Morose lyrics wrapped in light, airy melodies will elicit the same double-take response as the work hanging on the gallery wall.

Clare Rojas’ Through the Woods will be on view at the ACA Gallery of SCAD through Sunday, May 9.

Saturday's bicycle-themed art show at Young Blood Gallery coincides with Sopo Bicycle Coop's 6th annual alley cat race. Photo courtesy SopoBikes.org.

See below for visual arts events beginning Thursday, March 4.

THURSDAY, MARCH 4

Woman’s Image and What Defines a Woman? / Group shows
Hagedorn Foundation Gallery / 6-8PM

John Baines / Who Were Artists in Ancient Egypt? / Lecture
Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory / 7PM

68.57: From Point A to Point A / Group show
MOCA GA Expansion Gallery / 7-9PM

Local artist William Mize opens Thursday night. Above: William Mize, House, Midtown, ATL, Mixed media on panel 36" x 36" WM 1216. Photo courtesy Alan Avery Art Company.

William Mize / New Works
Alan Avery Art Company / 7-10PM

FRIDAY, MARCH 5

From Peplos to Petticoat to Punk / Fashion Symposium
SCAD-Atlanta / 1-6PM

Lee Jones / Push/Pull: Activating Media
2784 Cumberland Blvd, Smyrna / 7-9PM

Harmonics Art Psychedelia / Group show
Aurora Coffee, L5P / 7-10PM

Substitute Teacher / Group show
The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center / 8-10PM

SATURDAY, MARCH 6

Substitute Teacher / Curator and artist talk
The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center / 11AM

Cycle Through / Bicycle-themed art show
Young Blood Gallery and Boutique / 7-10PM

SUNDAY, MARCH 7

David Goldsmith / Photography Workshop
Serenbe / 9:30-4:30PM / $125

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10

ART PAPERS Live! / Laurent Grasso
Georgia Tech, College of Architecture Auditorium / 8PM

Olaf Hajek, Charlotte-Magie, 2008, acrylic on wood, 12.75 x 20.75 inches. Photo courtesy Marcia Wood Gallery.

Need to escape? Try entering the imagination of Olaf Hajek. Hajek’s exhibition at Marcia Wood Gallery, Masquerade, makes the art historian in me want a psychoanalytic reading of his work. But, for the present, I am satisfied with looking at the paintings themselves, observing where the artist’s fingers were used in painting the background, and noticing the resulting contrast with the linear quality of the paintings’ subjects and areas sprinkled with the occasional collage element.

Olaf Hajek, Tattooed Flowerhead, 2007, acrylic on board, 15.75 x 19.75 inches. Photo courtesy Marcia Wood Gallery.

Based in Berlin, Hajek visits for his first show in Atlanta. He is an internationally known illustrator who’s worked for big clients such as the New Yorker and National Geographic. One wall in the gallery displays an advertising series using vivid color completed for the German jewelry company, Charlotte. Canvases of the artist’s personal work surround the advertising series, and seamlessly blend with his commissioned art. With only 11 canvases on display, it was difficult for me to develop a full, clear picture in my head. But with the help of his new monograph, Olaf Hajek: Flowerhead, which compiles 150 examples of his personal art and commercial illustrations, recurring figures and motifs became more apparent.

Hajek’s magic realism juxtaposes the fairytale with disorderly realities, and he has become recognized for the blurring the lines between illustration and fine art. Take a trip into Hajek’s quirky world, and you won’t leave disappointed.

CAA Executive Director, Linda Downs, addressing the crowd at Conference Convocation, February 10, 2010. Photo courtesy the College Art Association.

The College Art Association (CAA) held its Annual Conference at Chicago’s Hyatt Regency Hotel on February 10-13, 2010. Reporter Becky Bivens brings the conference home to you.

This year’s College Art Association Annual Conference made me want to take my panties off in public. Not because it turned me on, but rather because it promoted a kind of professionalism that discourages artists’ and scholars’ capacity to do surprising things. I’d formulated the panty plan within the first few minutes of Dawoud Bey’s convocation address, which contained no surprises whatsoever.

Bey made the following remark early in his speech:

I happen to be one of those who came of age in the late 1960s. And if you are my age, you probably heard a phrase in the 60s that was something of a call to arms, a defining statement. For me, when I first heard it I knew I had been given my marching orders for life. That statement was, ‘You’re either part of the solution or you’re part of the problem.’ I believed it then and I still believe it now. Of course, you don’t get to my age and still see things in absolute terms, but this statement is one that I think can be used as a meaningful compass for all of us, as it suggests that all of us indeed have the ability and the power—the responsibility—to continually reshape the world that we live in. Everyone in this room tonight has the ability to make a difference, to change the world one person at a time.

It’s not that Bey is wrong to urge artsy types to change the world. It’s just that his call should be made in terms that are more challenging. Paradoxically, Bey invoked the spirit of the 60s by using a variant of George W. Bush’s favorite mantra: “You’re either with us or you’re against us.” Of course, Bey’s black-and-white thinking doesn’t work: If the 60s are proof of anything, it’s that sheer commitment to social change is not enough to create and sustain it. Indeed, deciding that you’re “part of the solution” is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one. The crucial task at CAA should be to gauge the appropriateness of different socially committed artistic, curatorial, scholarly, and pedagogical practices by analyzing how they function. That’s the kind investigative work that leads to surprising discoveries.

But Bey’s address was certainly not representative of all of the thinking demonstrated at CAA. Saturday’s session on “(Mis)Remembering the Sixties,” for example, showed that scholars are serious about doing the work that Bey did not—that is, digging through archives and engaging with the historiographies of the 60s. Emory University’s James Meyer was one of those scholars; his paper “Nostalgia and Memory: Kerry James Marshall’s ‘Mementos’” was included in the session. On Thursday, Agnes Scott College professor Katherine Smith presented a paper titled “Redefining the Field: Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen’s Gestural Painting and Architectural Form.” Smith linked Oldenburg and van Bruggen’s sculptural work and architectural projects with urban, vernacular architecture from the 60s. The paper contributed to a growing body of scholarship that elaborates the connections between art and architecture.

There was one other panel that satiated my appetite for surprise. “Contemporary Art History in 2020” made me forget that I was even wearing panties, much less that I could take them off. The panelists and audience members discussed—indeed, debated—what kind of critical stance artists and art historians should take in relation to institutions and the professional standards that they generate. Someone said that art historians should avoid the academy because it’s part of the culture industry; someone else said that the academy is the only place that provides a reprieve from the fast-paced culture outside it. Someone suggested that art historians ought to act more like artists; someone else added that capitalism forces art historians to act like artists. An audience member retorted that drawing easy parallels between artists and art historians diminishes artists’ expertise (“anybody can be an artist”). Another audience member pointed out that artists and art historians are often funded by separate sources and have different institutional experiences. The debate went on, and it provided a rare glimpse of people candidly discussing the costs and benefits of institutional affiliations. After all, CAA is not just a place for people to share their ideas—it’s also a place for people to find a job and harness professional prestige. It goes without saying that professional needs often trump the desire to challenge business-as-usual practices.

During “Contemporary Art History in 2020,” Barbara Nesin was presenting at another session called “Institutionalizing Diversity.” Nesin, the department chair of art foundations at the Art Institute of Atlanta, will assume presidency of CAA’s Board of Directors next May. It is unclear how her leadership will shape CAA’s vision of what it means to be an art professional. What is clear, however, is that Georgians are central to the organization.

One of Dawoud Bey's Class Pictures on view at Emory Visual Arts Gallery. Photo courtesy Emory Visual Arts Gallery.

Dawoud Bey’s traveling show Class Pictures—An Exhibition of Photography features large-scale snapshots of American high school students … and not a lot more. Sentimental and not particularly original, the photographs themselves simply brush the surface of an overdone subject without irony or innovation.

In my opinion, a formal gallery just isn’t the right venue for this work. With heavy emphasis on the texts—stories from each individual student—the content is perhaps best suited to print, web, and mainstream audiences. A radical shift of context, however, might put the artistic edge back into this rote presentation. Why not try the mall, for example, where this kind of enlarged commercial portraiture is commonly seen looming above the youthful products in Urban Outfitter and Gap stores? If removed from the distracting gallery accoutrements—white frame, glossy glass protection—then Bey’s images and texts could become large graphics that double as public art. In a location like this, the expected pimply nerd or the Goth chick with purple eyeshadow might actually raise some questions.

Bey has created an impressive niche, selling these somewhat canned shows and lectures to university galleries nationwide. With a clever business plan, he funds an ongoing personal project. Clearly he enjoys the process. When I asked what others thought of the exhibit, I got that typical Atlanta response: “He’s such a nice guy!”

Class Pictures—An Exhibition of Photography will be on view at Emory Visual Arts Gallery through Thursday, March 4, 2010.

Amandine Drouet, Garden of Last Chances, 2010, mixed-media installation. Photo courtesy the artist and Kibbee Gallery.

White light, white heat: Clusters of pulsating light pods radiated from Kibbee Gallery’s corners and floorboards, and tendril-ous gossamer jellyfish floated down from the ceiling, amid melted and misshapen plastic bottles. I was a vaguely afraid I would step on something and was strangely convinced that, if I didn’t watch my feet, whatever rare, delicate art-beast was lurking there would suddenly shout, “Ow,” and slink away. I was in “their” territory without ever being sure who “they” were. But the ornate environment commanded a gentle respect; it had a heartbeat. Maybe it was that everything was made from recycled and repurposed materials; you could tell there was a historical quality to every detail, equally interesting and mundane. Even the small, dark drawings that punctuated the walls were old and reworked for inclusion in the show.

A nighttime viewing would make Amandine Drouet’s futuristic, psych-swamp cocoon even more pleasantly effulgent. Perhaps I’ll go for a second swim in this sea of repurposed curiosities at the show’s closing reception this Saturday, February 27, from 6-10PM.

'From Beijing to Atlanta,' featuring artwork by Bo, Hong, and Ling Zhang opens Friday at Whitespace. Above: Ling Zhang, Culture and Nature. Photo courtesy Whitespace Gallery.

See below for visual arts events beginning Thursday, February 25.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26

Roots and More: African and American Legacies / Symposium
Georgia State University / Varied times and locations

The Only Subject is Love: Imagining Better Worlds / Symposium
Emory University / 1-3:30

Public Art on the Beltline / Workshop
West End Performing Arts Center / 6PM

Love Nests / Group show
Museum of Design of Atlanta / 6:30-9:30PM

Brett Callero / Living In Dig Nation
Studioplex / 7-10PM

Klimchak / Sticks in Space
Delafield Planetarium, Bradley Observatory / 7-9PM

Jo Peterson / Light Dark Near Far
Sandler Hudson Gallery / 7-9PM

Zhang Sisters / From Beijing to Atlanta
Whitespace / 7-10PM

Tiffany Sinnott and Staci Stone / Self, Contained
The B-Complex / 7-10PM

Matt Haffner, Katherine Taylor, Jason Francisco / ACP Greenhouse Discussion
Emory Visual Arts Building / 7PM

Film Love / Martin Scorsese
Eyedrum Art and Music Gallery / 8PM / $7

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27

Zhang Sisters / From Beijing to Atlanta Artist Talk
Whitespace / 3PM

Joe Tsambiras, Paper Twins, Sam Parker / Here We Hide
MINT Gallery / 8-11PM

Kyle Carpenter / New works
Mudfire Clayworks and Gallery / 5-10PM

Amandine Drouet / The Garden of Lost Chances Closing Reception
Kibbee Gallery / 6-9PM

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28

Russell Cook / New Works
Eyedrum Small Gallery / 5-8PM

Brett Osborn and Michael Brown / Mike’s Drive Flux Projects installation
Lenox Square / Closing Day

Jewelry Market / Group Show
Spruill Center for the Arts / 11-4PM

MONDAY, MARCH 1

We Live in Public / Screening
Eyedrum Art and Music Gallery / 9PM

Working Artist Project Deadline / MOCA GA

TUESDAY, MARCH 2

David Stuart and Fahamu Pecou / BMF: The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and the Black
Eyedrum Art and Music Gallery / 7-10PM

THURSDAY, MARCH 4

William Mize / New Works
Alan Avery Art Company / 7-10PM