This photo of The Blue Flame highlights its qualities as an exhibition separate from the events programming planned around it. Image courtesy Get This! Gallery.

For Ben Roosevelt’s solo exhibition The Blue Flame at Get This! Gallery, the space has been altered to imitate the look of a dive bar, authenticated with faux-wood paneling, a manned bar, and a small stage. The concept of the Blue Flame came to Roosevelt in a dream that took place inside a bar with the same name, in which seminal figures for the artist’s identity contributed to his ruminations on success, art, and the future. Both in the dream and in the exhibition, references and replications of Iggy Pop, Joseph Bueys, and Dante’s Inferno interconnect as testimonies of lives and careers in crisis. These replications, such as the drawings compiling existing renderings of Beuys’ eyes, Iggy’s lips, and Dante’s noses provide a thread to a question that Roosevelt continues to explore in his artmaking: can you make something new by re-doing something that’s already been created?

When I interviewed Roosevelt last month, he explained that his works are often articulations of his investigation of an idea. Exploring the Blue Flame as a psychologically interior space, he visualizes the facades of its various physical manifestations in the exhibition. As an imaginary place, the various Blue Flame marquees are a mix of references to the artists in his initial dream, disrupting the logic of who and what belongs on the conventional advertising format. In two instances, the artist depicts different glimpses of the Blue Flame from the outside. Standing as a solitary sleepy outpost, the views maintain a distance from what may take place inside.

By contrast, this photo shows The Blue Flame in action during the exhibition's opening. Image courtesy Get This! Gallery.

Ben Roosevelt, The Blue Flame 2, 2012, colored pencil and watercolor on paper. Image courtesy Get This! Gallery and the artist.

Furthering his investigation, Roosevelt has considered the experiential nature of his mythical bar. Beginning with establishing a tone, Roosevelt asked curator and critic Chris Fite-Wassilak to contribute a piece of creative writing for the artist statement, which reads like a bar patron’s unfiltered ramblings on life and art. The exhibition is not intended to function solely as an installation, but as an environment in which to display Roosevelt’s work. The installation-like quality attempts to reproduce the kitsch present in bars that earn reputations as dives, a characteristic that reads as irony when replicated.

This tension between authenticity and simulation is most notable through the show’s use of wood. On the gallery’s promotional postcard, the garish photo of a wood-paneled wall stained and scratched beyond repair associates the exhibition with the rough-and-tumble spirit of a dive. In contrast, the faux-wood paneling in the actual exhibition highlights the space as a construction; its newness reinforces the Blue Flame as a space—based on a bar—that occasionally functions as an actual bar. With the white walls of the gallery still visible, the paneling acts as an allusion that ultimately recognizes itself as an imitation. This self-awareness, Roosevelt stated, is at the basis of his artmaking, which he views as an outlet that allows him to participate in contemporary culture while being transparent about that participation.

Because the works on the wall never give a view of the bar’s interior, the Blue Flame is reinforced as a place that will continue to exist in the imaginary. According to the context of a visit, visitors are prompted to imagine various incarnations of the bar. Even though it’s clearly a wolf in sheep’s clothing, the show’s success relies on visitors’ willingness to make that leap.

The glow from The Blue Flame's neon sign permeated the space during Yo Karaoke hosted by artist Fahamou Pecou and mc'ed by Kimkaze. Image courtesy Brandon English.

As one of several events planned during the exhibition’s run, artist Fahamou Pecou hosted karaoke at the space late last month. The glowing Blue Flame neon sign in the storefront signaled the gallery’s activation. Bodies filled the bar stools, tables, and stage, and as the night wore on, the imitation bar generated the spirit that the promotional postcard sought capture.

Of course, the downside to such a spectacle is that the work in the show becomes secondary to the experience that’s created in its space. But to some conceptual degree, that is probably the point. As the programming continues to generate different kinds of experiences, memories, and images within the space, the myth of the Blue Flame continues.

Ben Roosevelt’s The Blue Flame continues at Get This! Gallery through April 28, 2012, with an artist talk on April 21and additional programming throughout the run of the show.

Sculptures by Michi Meko, Pandra Williams, Mario Petrirena, and Steven Sachs. Photo courtesy Gallery Walk at Terminus.

Located in the heart of Buckhead, the Terminus office towers have designated both of their lobbies as exhibition spaces since the buildings were added to the city skyline in 2007 and 2009. Terminus 200’s second exhibition, The Sculpted Wall, is on view through April. It features work from several Southeastern artists, some of which is on loan from local collections.

Although it is exciting for contemporary art  to greet the broad range of people who visit the high rise, limited space presents a significant problem when displaying sculpture in any context. Unfortunately, the close proximity of the work on display in this urban space forces each piece to become part of a decorative pattern behind a glass vitrine.

Sculptures by Ben Roosevelt, Gregg Hill, Kevin Cole, and Karen Rich Beall. Photo courtesy Gallery Walk at Terminus.

When Properties by Ben Roosevelt was first shown in 2008, hundreds of small steel building façades gathered and dispersed as they surrounded the viewer. At Terminus, however, the work’s overwhelming scale is reduced to a limited selection of the original shapes. A small grouping of orange shadows surrounded by fixed boundaries is a significant change from  Roosevelt’s original suggestion of urban sprawl.

The Sandler Hudson Gallery loaned Mario Petrirena‘s wall-mounted Clay Domes for the exhibition. Petrirena often uses memories of past experiences and a combination of American, Cuban, and personal imagery to understand and translate his mixed identity. Each dome is glazed with nostalgic floral patterns and handwritten text. These small and sensitive details make it difficult to experience the work within such a confined and guarded context.

The Sculpted Wall also includes interesting works by artists including Greely Myatt, Michi Meko, and Chakaia Booker. If you stop by Terminus 200, don’t be discouraged by the distraction of the display—the art is worth a look.

Ben Roosevelt artist talk this Saturday at Get This! Gallery in conjunction with the Westside Arts District Art Walk

Get ready for the second Westside Arts District Art Walk, talks by renowned scholars, and a chance for everyone to channel their inner Picasso.

SATURDAY

Westside Arts District Art Walk
Visit such galleries as the Emily Amy Gallery, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, and SALTWORKS (just to name a few) this Saturday for WAD’s (Westside Arts District) second Art Walk from 11AM-5PM.

At 11AM the Kiang Gallery is hosting a lecture by Garrett B. Stanley, Associate Professor of Biochemical Engineering at Georgia Tech University and Emory University. The title of the talk is “Art and the Brain: How We See.” Stanley will explore how information about the outside visual world is encoded in the visual pathway of the brain, and how that informs the challenges and opportunities an artist has in creating visual experiences.

At 1PM stop by Get This! Gallery to hear artist Ben Roosevelt talk about his current exhibition “Ben Roosevelt: ________ is not always a bad thing.” (Read BurnAway’s review of this exhibit here.)

At 2PM at the Sandler Hudson Gallery, Susan Loftin will discuss her new installation “Pink Seat: An Urban Courtyard” on the gallery’s rooftop balcony.

Painting by Tenzin Norbu

Michael C. Carlos Museum
Tibetian Artists-in-Residence
Emory University was fortunate to get two distinguished artists from the Norbulingka Institute—Tenzin Norbu, master thangka painter and teacher, and Dolmakyap Zorgey, scholar and Deputy Managing Director of the Institute—to be their artists-in-residence for three weeks. During the artists’ stay, they will be discussing and demonstrating traditional Tibetan thangka painting techniques. One of the demonstrations will take place this Saturday from 1-5PM. For more information and events surrounding the Tibetian artists-in-residence, visit the Emory website.

LEAP interactive exhibition at MINT Gallery

MINT Gallery
LEAP
From 8-11PM, the MINT Gallery is hoping for another successful interactive exhibition like they had last year. Blank canvases will line the walls, art supplies will be provided, and music will fill the gallery to get the creative juices flowing.

TUESDAY

Lecture: ART PAPERS Live!
Georgia Tech
College of Architecture Auditorium
Saskia Sassen: Today’s Cities as Frontier Spaces
ART PAPERS welcomes Saskia Sassen, Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia University, who will speak about her newest books: Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages and A Sociology of Globalization. The talk starts at 7PM.

THURSDAY

Funerary Mask of King Tutankhamun

Fox Theatre
Mysteries of Tutankhamun Revealed: A Special Evening with Dr. Zahi Hawass
Having had the privilege to hear Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities for Egypt, speak before, the talk at the Fox Theatre is sure to be informative and highly entertaining. To coincide with the Michael C. Carlos Museum‘s blockbuster King Tut exhibition, Dr. Hawass will discuss the recent revelations of a CT scan of King Tutankhamun, as well as other recent discoveries including newly found pyramids. The talk starts at 7PM, and tickets can be purchased at Ticketmaster.

Ben Roosevelt, Forcefield (center-left) and Legion (wall installation)

The moment of panic. The door’s kicked in and the______has been taken. The vacuum of feeling at the heart of surprise. I am trapped in that space, surrounded by shapes who move in a senseless rhythm. I can’t see their faces, but I think I can tell what they’re doing. One is in the middle of______another administering a______. Let them know, the current threat level is______.
—Ben Roosevelt’s press release^*

Typically I don’t “write” my most thought-provoking ideas at a computer or a typewriter. My body generally creates stories while I’m in motion—walking, doing nothing in particular but moving through an indifferent environment. Art historian Briony Fer makes a similar evaluation when she discusses Marcel Proust’s nocturnal descriptions in Swann’s Way.

In this passage, Fer references the frightening “irreality” that Proust’s protagonist experiences when he wakes up at night:

One is the subject enwrapped, shrouded, maybe entrapped; the other is the subject entranced by the tableau. Proust’s essay lurches between … a heightened sensory awareness of things, space, body, the subject as pure sense-instrument and, on the other hand, a separation or loss of connection, a kind of willful elimination from the scene of fantasy in which one is enmeshed. The tableau cuts the continuity of experience.

As capricious and immaterial as they are, ideas and imagination have the ability to distort, or even define, experience. Philosophers who postulate the contradictions of human thought often mention the paradox of scary movies. Since we know they are fictional, why are we still frightened by them? Furthermore, how does a fictional narrative have the capacity to include us in it?

Ben Roosevelt, Legion (detail)

Part of the explanation lies in what Fer (and most of the art world) calls a tableau. Ben Roosevelt’s exhibition “______is Not Always a Bad Thing” at Get This! Gallery combines the subtler dimensions of fear and entrapment with the nature of tableau. As the exhibit’s title suggests, Roosevelt uses narrative ambiguity to interrupt the continuity of experience and, thereby, allow his audience to write their own story. The strategic omissions in his title and artist statement^* provide gaps into which the viewer can project their feelings. These barriers or willful eliminations also mark the story’s artificiality. This “chicanery in absentia” relies in part on horror vacui, or the aversion of empty space.

Ben Roosevelt, three drawings from "Tidings"

Roosevelt’s exhibition engulfs the viewer: an alarming orange frieze circumscribes the room. In fact, gallery owner Lloyd Benjamin confirms that, according to the paint shop, the paint color’s name is indeed “Alarming Orange.” Within the orange band—on each of the four walls of the gallery—are three ostensibly subsidiary sculptural vignettes: Legion, Properties, and Tidings.

The first two sculpture series, Legion and Properties, demonstrate Roosevelt’s penchant for cutouts. Presented in two horizontal rows that cover three walls of the gallery, Legion is a series of figures in laser-cut, birch wood silhouettes. They seem alive against their orange backdrop, but are simultaneously irritating, iconic, and indifferent. This indifference extends to Properties, a set of small steel sculptures on an adjacent wall. Properties uses the same visual strategy of economy; here the precise silhouettes of the houses nestle stubbornly into and onto their incongruous orange environment. In combination with Tidings—a row of fussy framed drawings that provide another arbitrary but psychologically taut interruption in narration—these sculptures create an orchestrated discontinuity.

Ben Roosevelt, Forcefield

Ben Roosevelt, Forcefield (detail)

The cumulative sense of indifference approaches climax and finds its apogee in Roosevelt’s central sculpture Forcefield, a cross section of a door that has been kicked-in on both sides. The work resides rather monolithically amongst and within its sculptural surroundings. The sculpture’s edges are literally and conceptually indistinct, especially in contrast to the blaring orange band. Forcefield is the embodiment of the potential action and ambiguous narrative horizon that defines tableau (as discussed by Briony Fer and others). The visual residue of this action—the double-crushed door handles—allows the viewer to become part of the scene. The door’s mirror-like reverse side signifies the inscrutability of a narrative already set in motion: We simply cannot escape this open and inviting spectacle.

Ben Roosevelt, drawing from "Tidings"

Roosevelt’s tableau creates drama on several levels. The sculptural elements and the gallery space itself is transformed into an artificial narrative site, where each story element interacts with and interrupts the others. Still, the site specificity of art objects allows us to savor the real-time benefits of standing in an actual (and mental) gallery space, punctuated by real art objects. Despite its “modernistic staleness,” this aesthetic is still effective for me, especially when aided and abetted by the concept of tableau. The exhibition may not be the most submersive gallery experience ever, but somehow the show provides me with enough cues to “write” myself into its story—I can both create my experience and be created by it.

^*[NOTE] The text of Roosevelt’s press release was created by Chris Fite-Wassilak, a London-based curator and writer.

“______is Not Always a Bad Thing” continues at Get This! Gallery through April 18.

John Tindel and Michi open new work in Friday's group show at Art Department, as well as host a Comcast TV special on Sunday.

[UPDATED] Look out for another packed weekend for visual arts around the city. Here’s a preview of what’s coming.

FRIDAY

Art Department Gallery
In Like a Lion

New works by John Tindel, Michi Meko, Dosa Kim, Emmy Dudley, David Huff, Luis Garcia-Nerey, Jeff Lange, Esteban Patino, Melissa Sims, Anke Schofield, and Shaun Thurston. The opening reception (featuring organic vodka, so we’re told) is from 7-10PM at Art Department Gallery, the exhibition space connected to The Bureau pub at 327 Edgewood Ave. The show will run through March.

Aurora Coffee in Little Five Points
Oliver and Friends
Fresh off her recent exhibition at Youngblood Gallery (with Lucha), Oliver has assembled a group of artists and friends for a multimedia exhibition, curated by Beep Beep Gallery. Participants include Alex App, Heather Elder, Christopher Fischer, Molly Horvat, Lucha, and Ashlee Oliver. March 6 – April 2 at Aurora Coffee L5P.

Alcove Gallery
Circus: Cartoon Madness
Alcove is having its 4th annual cartoon madness celebration Friday, boasting “tiltwalkers, jugglers, a great band” and art by Ben Prisk, Daniel Johnston, Yosiell Lorenzo, R. Land, Mr. Hooper, Bart Webb, Benji Williams, Jim Stacy, Rene Arriagada, Ben Boling, Nina Friday, Brian Colin, Emmy Dudley, Matt Sharp, Justin Kauffmann, Jason Snyder, Shaun Thurston, Dan Thompson, Carol Ashley, Miles Davis, Debra Gavant, Erik Hagansen, Sam Parker, Ashley Surber, and H.C. Warner. Opens 7-12PM at Alcove Gallery.

SATURDAY

"Soft sculpture" by Abby Glassenberg

Young Blood Gallery
[NEW] Birds of a Feather:
David Hale &
Abby Glassenberg
David Hale (of Athens, GA) joins Abby Glassenberg (Massachusetts) for an exhibition of recent work. Although each artist differs in interests and relationship to their medium—one works in sculpture and the other in paint—the show will focus on the intersection of their work: bird imagery from falcons, owls, and other birds of prey to the more friendly “backyard” varieties. (See also the recent BurnAway interview with Young Blood’s Maggie White re: the gallery business and optimism in the face of a “tough” economy.) Reception is from 7-10PM. Continues through March 29 at Young Blood Gallery.

Get This! Gallery
Ben Roosevelt: ________ is not always a bad thing.
Ben Roosevelt’s first solo exhibition at Get This! Gallery presents iconography of “suburbanalia.” The exhibition consists of drawings and installationThe exhibition consists of drawings and installation “gathering together the forgotten moments, spurned ________ and unnoticed gestures, extracting from our familiar surroundings a threatening sense of ________.” The reception is from 7-11PM. The exhibition will run through April 18 at Get This! Gallery.

Mudfire Gallery
Kyle Carpenter: Surface
Kyle Carpenter of Asheville, North Carolina, presents a solo exhibition of all-new works of decorated functional pottery. In 2008, Kyle was admitted to the prestigious Southern Highlands Craft Guild, and the Mint Museum in Charlotte acquired one of his works for their permanent collection. The reception os from 5-9PM. Through March 28 at Mudfire Gallery.

NAVO Church
Baggage Un/claimed Group Show
Addressing the themes of constant mobility, control, disappointment, and “assembled identity” through objects, these works explore what it means (as individuals and as a community) to have material or psychological “baggage.” The show includes contemporary 2D and 3D work as well as time-based media by Gyun Hur, Laura Meyers, Johana Moscoso, Shannon Riddle, Tiffany Sinnott, Staci Stone, Jonathan Terranova, Seasant Chen, Tanya Colee, Marcia Dietz, Brenda Jane, Maria Joyner, Laren Keel, Lindy Lane, George Mayer, Benjamin McGehee, Seana Reilly, Callan Ritchie, Hilary Smith, and Sean Twiddy. The reception is from 7-9PM. Through March 15 at NAVO, the mysterious storefront church that recently opened in Oakhurst village.

Katherine Taylor, Windshield Palm

Marcia Wood Gallery
Katherine Taylor Artist Talk
Katherine Taylor discusses the paintings in her exhibition “Oasis,” currently on view at Marcia Wood Gallery. Her work addresses issues related to time and perception. The talk is at noon.

Eyedrum Gallery
Mario Schambon: Another Show About Food and Poop
A new installation by Mario Schambon, aptly titled “Another Show About Food and Poop,” will debut in Eyedrum’s small gallery. Performance by Little Tybee during the reception, which opens from 6-8PM at Eyedrum. (Click here for other Eyedrum events Saturday, including an eclectic art, book, and “dead tech” Thrift Market.) Schambon’s show runs through March 28 at Eyedrum.

Buckhead Branch Library

Buckhead Branch Library
YAF and Docomomo Presentation
Presentation followed by a self-guided tour of Scogin and Elam’s Buckhead Branch Library. Certainly worth checking out, especially to see what all the fuss was about a few months ago when Buckhead developers threatened to demolish the supposed eyesore. The YAF/Docomomo presentation begins at 11:30AM at the Buckhead Library.

SUNDAY

TindelMichi
WE INVITE YOU TO COME OUT AND BE ON TV!!!
TindelMichi and Comcast On Demand will be filming a TV Series “ON THE RISE” in Atlanta on March 8 at The Bureau/Art Department Gallery (see also Friday’s event above). The TV series will take a look at TindelMichi and their artwork. It will be filmed for Comcast Video On Demand. Filming begins at 2PM.

Ben Roosevelt, District, 2007. Silhouettes cut into Kraft bags.

If you haven’t been to MOCA GA in a while, now is the time to pencil them in. With three exciting, simultaneous shows at their space, MOCA is asserting their role as a pillar of Atlanta’s art community.

Karen Tauches, Estancia Basin, New Mexico, 2007. Digital print on archival paper with hand painted disappearance.

The annual “Movers and Shakers” exhibition, featuring influential as well as up and coming Atlanta artists, boasts a range of talent from those who have saturated the galleries over the last couple of years to those who are barely known. Artists Elizabeth D’Angelo and Liana Repass were two newer artists who hold their own in rooms with more established names such as Suellen Parker and Nancy VanDevender. Some of my favorite pieces in the show are Karen Tauches’ Disappeared Houses series and Ben Roosevelt’s District installation. This show includes strong work from each artist and is overall a well-curated exhibit.

Martijn van Wagtendonk, Trickle Into a Lower Chamber installation.

Martijn van Wagtendonk’s installation in the main gallery, Trickle Into a Lower Chamber, requires a first-hand experience. The photos and video of the installation are simply unable to capture the entirety of the installation. The darkened space is lit by a single projected moon at the top of a transplanted house frame, while scattered bulbs cast tiny glowing halos within the great metal frame. A mysterious boat “floats” on the far corner of the house, covered in small wind-up birds. The birds move through sequences of pecking at the boat, creating jolts of movement that break the quiet of the room. The only other sound is the occasional drip of water.

Angus Galloway and Paul Rodecker, Drawing Correspondences installation.

In the Education Center, we find Angus Galloway and Paul Rodecker’s Drawing Correspondences. The series was compiled after they both graduated from the Georgia State MFA program. The two, who had collaborated throughout graduate school, decided to continue after Galloway moved to New York by mailing sketchbooks back and forth. The series features the cut-out sketchbook pages that made the postal journey between Atlanta and New York countless times. Each page exemplifies the intimacy of any artists’ sketchbook, through the usual coffee stains and worn edges, but the quality of the work is very much that of any finished drawing.

All three shows will be on display at MOCA GA through March 21. Martijn van Wagtendonk will be giving an artist talk March 5 at 6:30PM.