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.

Art Crush Ladies (from left to right): Laura Hennighausen, Susannah Darrow, and Sandy Hooper. Image courtesy Sandy Hooper.

Two years ago, Susannah Darrow, Laura Hennighausen, and I were (most likely) sitting in a bar when we came up with a way to revive Art Crush. Susannah had done a few articles under the name, but the pictures weren’t very exciting and the interviews were a bit haphazard. We started our list of “crushes” that we would feature, who were local artists making art that we happened to really like. (And yeah, we thought they were pretty good looking too).

Susannah Darrow and Laura Hennighausen in the midst of an interview with Art Crush Mike Germon. Photo by Sandy Hooper.

Our first crush was Fahamu Pecou. We had an idea about the type of questions we wanted to ask: style, inspiration, spirit animal—the latter being a question we ask all of our crushes. The answers are typically pretty amusing. My favorite spirit animal is still  Cooper Sanchez’s: “A hawk. Beer. A hawk drinking beer.”

When it came to our first photo session, we kind of just winged it. When we were setting up the interview with Fahamu, we asked if he had any interesting props to bring, and he mentioned a large collection of stuffed animals that belonged to his daughter. He brought them, and we used them in a shot that involved Fahamu in a bathtub. It gets steamy here folks.

Fahamu Pecou lounges in the tub for one of our first Art Crush interviews. Photo by Sandy Hooper.

My style of photography is primarily photojournalism. I can do portraiture, but it pushes me out of my comfort zone. The Art Crush column gave me an opportunity to expand that part of my portfolio.

An Art Crush article typically has around three to four different photos. One is usually done during the interview, and it’s typically a candid shot lit by window or natural light, such as this one of Anne Dennington.

Anne Dennington of Flux Projects. Photo by Sandy Hooper.

The others are a bit more stylized and are taken in the artist’s studio/home/environment. My set-up is pretty simple: a Canon 5D MKII with a 24-105mm lens and a Canon 580EXII flash that is used off-shoe (Susannah or Laura are typically my movable light stand).

Below are some of my favorite Art Crush shots from the last two years.

Jason Travis, or "J Trav." Photo by Sandy Hooper.

Lucha Rodriguez. Photo by Sandy Hooper.

Bland Hack: Julian Modungo and Jamie Hawkins-Gaar. Photo by Sandy Hooper.

Beep Beep Gallery's James McConnell and Mark Baseshore goad us to jump off the roof. Photo by Sandy Hooper.

BURNAWAY is hosting its Art Crush Bash 2012 on Saturday, February 25 at 7 Stages from 7 to 10PM. Between top-notch cocktails, a fake tattoo booth featuring designs by Sam Parker, and a chance to win some quality time with that special, tiger-eyed creative, you won’t want to miss out. This is also a great way to support BURNAWAY as it works to meet its challenge grant. We hope to see you there!

Dodge & Burn is a series of photo essays documenting local culture with a focus on artful imagery, movement, and light. Check BURNAWAY’s homepage for new photography every week, and watch our Flickr account for regular updates!

FEBRUARY 25! BURNAWAY is hosting its Art Crush Bash 2012 from 7 to 10PM at 7 Stages!

As February arrives, something (instinct? nature? Cupid? well-timed marketing campaigns?) inspires us to reveal to those we’re crushing on our hidden fervor. It’s the month during which those who inspire us, romantically or otherwise, are lavished with our attention and praise. In that spirit, BURNAWAY presents the Art Crush Bash 2012, an event that will include the auctioning of ‘experiences’ with Atlanta-area creatives—a chance for you, the reader, to bid on quality time with that certain Atlanta art leader that you simply adore. The idea for the event (and the Art Crush column itself) is that of BURNAWAY co-founder Susannah Darrow:

“The Art Crush Auction came about last year originally. All of the people we’ve profiled for the interview series has really diverse and amazing projects that they work on, and we had the discussion that it would be really fantastic to show them off outside of the column,” says Darrow. “When Laura Hennighausen and Sandy Hooper started working with me on the column, we also started getting really fantastic original photographs, which led to a somewhat joking conversation about the fact that it would be funny to have posters or calendars to show off all of the crushes, Tiger Beat style.”

Chris Appleton is auctioning off a trip to a Braves Game and a vegan lunch that he'll prepare for you himself . Photo by Ben Grad.

The Art Crush Bash itself will take place on Saturday, February 25th at 7 Stages and is scheduled to begin at 7PM. Aside from the local celebrity-bartender-designed cocktails, a fake tattoo booth featuring Sam Parker, and a generally festive environment, the occasion will focus on the auction itself. The Art Crush’s ‘experiences’ are each unique to the individuals sharing them, ranging from trips to the farmer’s market and a Buddhist Temple to having your portrait done then catching a cup of coffee to viewing a private screening and getting a limited edition framed still.

Then there are the sporting events.

While looking over the list of experiences on the auction block, we couldn’t help but notice that many include some manner of athletic event. We have a trip to a Braves game, Michael Jordan cosmic bowling, a session of FitWit boot camp, and even a round of golf. This inclusion of sports into an art event, especially one so geared towards a playfully romantic vibe, struck some as odd and prompted us at BURNAWAY to explore the age-old stereotype that art and sports don’t mix.

After all, the swaggering, self-confident sportsman is entirely removed from the bookish intellectuals of gallery shows and charity art auctions, right? To compare one to the other slanders both, no? Certainly the years of conventional wisdom on this subject can’t be purely fabricated, can it? We asked some of the Art Crushes their thoughts on the subject.

Explore the intersection of art and aesthetics during a round of golf with heart-throb Michael David Murphy.

WonderRoot founder and former long-time baseball shortstop Chris Appleton allotted the seeming disparity of the two cultures to a simple matter of time allocation:

“I know a lot of people that are sports fans that are also involved in the arts community. I think the reason that they seem separate at times is that sports fans, or fanatics, are just that, fanatical. They’re incredibly passionate. And the same is true of art fans. Typically people aren’t fanatical about lots of things at once. You can only check so many websites a day. People simply have a limited space in their lives for passion. So it’s rare, or at least a bit less common, that someone is passionate about both things.”

Appleton makes a good point, to be sure, but a question remained: There are many types of passions, each of which can possess the bulk of a person’s time, but why are these two specific areas of interest so often painted as polar opposites?

Photographer, videographer, and writer, Michael David Murphy offered a different take on the subject.

“But it all goes back to high school, right?” points out the multi-talented Murphy, whose auctioned experience includes a round of golf. “Jocks on one side, geeks and artists on the other? That attitude, like many formed when we were sixteen, may have unfortunately carried over into the wider cultural landscape, but I’ve never met an artist worth their salt who perpetuates the arbitrary nature of that divide.”

Winners of Fahamu Pecou's 'experience' will get to share a beer and a match of Michael Jordan cosmic bowling. Photo by Sandy Hooper.

Fair enough. The attitude is perhaps simply that, a holdover from the less mature days of our youth. Does that mean that this long-held idea is simply without merit? Artist Fahamu Pecou, whose experience includes Michael Jordan cosmic bowling, thinks just that.

“I think the spirit of competition coupled with fire and drive actually makes art and sport more synonymous than our culture is ready to admit. Personally I am not a huge fan of commercialized sports. I don’t have a favorite NFL, NBA, MLB, or NHL team for example. But I do have a great deal of reverence for the athlete, as an artist, and artists as athletes navigating the field of the art world. It is possible to be a fan of both worlds, because they are one in the same.”

It seems that the imagined stigma supposedly held by the cloistered arts community against sports and athleticism (and, of course, vice verse) simply proves counterfeit when held against the back-light of lived reality and its more nuanced, entangled personal interests. And this is a good thing. On Saturday the 25th, a person can enjoy an Art Crush Bash steeped in bookish creativity (and perhaps a bit of romance) while allowing that your bids might land you on the 5th tee of a golf course or jeering against whichever team is unlucky enough to play our Atlanta Braves.

BURNAWAY is hosting its Art Crush Bash 2012 on Saturday, February 25 at 7 Stages from 7 to 10PM. Between top-notch cocktails, a fake tattoo booth featuring designs by Sam Parker, and a chance to win some quality time with that special, tiger-eyed creative, you won’t want to miss out. This is also a great way to support BURNAWAY as it works to meet its challenge grant. We hope to see you there!

Image courtesy the National Black Arts Festival.

When I moved to Atlanta from North Carolina in 2006, I was more excited about getting to know a city that gave birth to OutKast and Goodie Mob than studying for my MFA in photography, the reason I came here in the first place. At first I only paid half-ass attention to the professors because I couldn’t get past the feeling of being disconnected as the only black person in the class. It was like high school all over again. It wasn’t until the following summer that I learned about the National Black Arts Festival. Four years later, I’ve gained a bit of perspective, so I decided to speak with three local artists, Fahamu Pecou, Masud Olufani, and Larry Walker, and write this article as a way of sorting through what I’ve learned.

When the National Black Arts Festival (NBAF) kicks off its summer celebrations for one bloody-hot week every year, Atlanta’s galleries are flooded with black artists that I’ve read about in textbooks, periodicals, magazines, and blogs. This year’s theme, Unexpected Encounters, includes exhibitions featuring works from Thornton Dial, Trenton Doyle Hancock, and Radcliffe Bailey to name a few. (Click here to read BURNAWAY’s review of Radcliffe Bailey’s exhibition at the High Museum of Art.)

Cosmo Whyte, CP Time Machine, 1/24 die-cast model. Image courtesy cosmowhyte.com.

Artist Fahamu Pecou, an ATL favorite, curated an exhibition at Chastain Arts Center called Home featuring Georgia-based artists Kombo Chapfika, Terra Coles, Stephen Hayes, and Cosmo Whyte. Pecou is a peculiar man because he has been behind the scenes changing the NBAF’s visual identity while continuing to produce bodies of work that investigate the psychology and representation of black masculinity in popular media.

“This disconnect happens for people when they can’t separate the ‘me’ from the ‘concept,’” said Pecou. “I always argue [that my] works are not self-portraits. It is done to force a different conversation out of people. When you are confronted with the issues my work is dealing with, you have to reassess what you think you know as opposed to me using someone from the street. It’s easy for someone to disassociate themselves from someone on the street versus the artist. It automatically takes you out of your comfort zone of prejudices and forces you to level the playing field of what you’re thinking.”

Radcliffe Bailey’s ongoing exhibition at the High Museum, Memory as Medicine, presents itself as a reminder to his audience of the global African diaspora and provides an interpretation of how he connects with his family roots. Many do not have that ability to connect to their roots, and many will not understand the bold yet subtle nature of his works. It is hard for me to read a review or listen to lectures by people who do not understand the strong symbolism embedded into works by African and African American artists. Something is clearly missing: an active knowledge of the expansive history of the African Diaspora.

Larry Walker—the Atlanta-based artist, father of renowned artist Kara Walker, and retired Georgia State University professor—explained how he defines African American art in the twenty-first century: “The term ‘African American art’ or ‘black art’ was generated because of a need to give some sort of recognition to African American artists in world. Somewhere along the way, questions developed as to what that meant. And when you think about all the various categories people have given art such as African, African American, Asian, or outsider art, we keep giving terms that create a certain characterization of our work. Looking at African American artists, the variations state that one approach doesn’t hold up.” Walker’s mixed-media paintings draw inspiration from his interests in how we “interface, connect, or disconnect with fellow humans” and his exploration of urban spaces.

Radcliffe Bailey, Windward Coast, 2009-2011, piano keys, plaster bust, and glitter, dimensions vary. Photo courtesy the High Museum of Art.

The NBAF celebrates blackness and the global diaspora that I’ve come to learn more about on my own and through attending a historically black college. Meeting living legends such as Dr. Cornel West, Jessica Care Moore, Carrie Mae Weems, and Thornton Dial are important when filling in the holes that Western history has left behind for the African. It is hard for me to accept the concept post-racism and post-black art since racism was created in order to keep a group of ethnic people in a constant state of second-class citizenship.

My voice often gets pulled into the ABW group—Angry Black Women—but I am not angry. I’m just irritated from always being lumped into that category. When the Rialto Center premieres Funk Jazz Kafe: Diary of a Decade—a documentary about one of Atlanta’s coldest parties that featured guests like Cee Lo, George Clinton, Erykah Badu, Andre 3000, and Joi—maybe then I’ll be less irritated. If you’re a transplant to Atlanta and you’ve never heard about Funk Jazz Kafe, you really haven’t experienced Atlanta.

Our movie culture has taught us to believe that, if you are black and interested in black history, then you are an Angry Black Man or Woman. The NBAF showcases challenging films such as The Inheritance, an exploration of a family’s legacy in which the cousins collecting the inheritance must respect the traditions of their elders before they receive their prize.

Films like The Inheritance compliment artists like Masud Olufani who tries the bridge the gaps within his family history. “For me it’s really about family dynamics and how relationships within families help to define how we develop,” said Olufani. “They give you a set of structures and beliefs to help you navigate through the world or make it more difficult. I’m interested in family structures, and my work is rooted there. Unhealthy relationships can hinder healthy development. Within the black community, this is something we haven’t been able to discuss from our own perspective without feeling shame about it.”

Yanique Norman, The Undergarments of the Jezebel, graphite and charcoal on paper, 40 x 30 inches. Image courtesy sandlerhudson.com.

Even in 2011, there is still a disconnection between what the art world knows as black art and black artists who are actually producing work. As the twentieth century started coming to a close, the black experience has shifted and changed. A generational gap grew out of educational desegregation, increased employment opportunities, American pop culture going global, and hip-hop becoming a mainstream voice for the oppressed. Thelma Golden was too early in coining the term “post-black” in 2001 for the Freestyle exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Many young artists that I’ve met worldwide are still exploring the fabrics of their own black experience and what it means to them.

Our identity is something that we barely understand due to the biased nature of American history. With the ability to access large volumes of information on the Internet and utilize them for our needs, we now have the ability to dig deeper into our historical backgrounds and craft a new identity for ourselves—one that includes the folklore of ancient African kingdoms, breaking the psychological effects of the transatlantic slave trade and the traumatic stress of being labeled a minority, while celebrating our distinct and diverse individuality.

“Up until the late 1990s to the early 2000s,” Olufani continued, “it became about identity politics and affirming who we are in a society that has defined us for us. We now have more freedom to tell our own personal stories because the dialogue will be about not having to make grand theoretical gestures about black identity. We are free to speak about who we are personally.”

Larry Walker’s insight takes things a little further: “There’s no one definition that sticks when you look at the works of Romare Bearden and contrast it to Richard Hunt—even Radcliffe Bailey or Martin Puryear. I hope that in the future, ‘African American art’ as a term will become more universal as it should. It will be more commonly associated with quality as opposed to ethnic characteristics.”

In the end, many black artists wish for all audiences to enjoy the power of their work, whether it is through music or art. Every year, the NBAF finds ways to produce exhibitions that educate and entertain audiences. In a city like Atlanta, which is 54 percent African American according to the 2010 census, there are many voices that are shaping the history of the black experience by producing art that forces audiences to engage with our country’s grotesque past. Obama may be president, but America ain’t post-racial yet.

Mike Schreiber shares the story behind this portrait of Voletta Wallace, the mother of the late Notorious B.I.G. Photographed after her son died in a drive-by shooting, the picture frame on the table shows the rapper as a young boy. Image courtesy Hagedorn Foundation Gallery.

Mike Schreiber has photographed some big names in hip-hop music, but he doesn’t get caught up in the glitz and glam. His latest exhibition opens at Hagedorn Foundation Gallery on Saturday, July 9, 2011, as part of the National Black Arts Festival (NBAF). Since publishing his book, Schreiber has received a lot of attention from both the art and music worlds, but the name of Schreiber’s exhibition and book, True Hip-Hop, has more to do with his belief that photography should be honest, rather than any specific statement about hip-hop culture. Over the phone, Schreiber made sure to stress that, at the heart of his work, he’s a documentary photographer who finds inspiration from people with big personalities—hip-hop artist or not.

Schreiber studied anthropology at the University of Connecticut. There is no doubt that his background in anthropology influenced his documentary style. During our interview, Schreiber explained that anthropology was just a way to look critically at the world. Through his lens, Schreiber attempts to make his photographs as real as possible. Of course, the irony is that most of these images were shot for magazine spreads—the most unnatural settings. Schreiber began photographing hip-hop musicians because their shows were the easiest to gain access to in the 1990s. The subculture became his project for twelve years, and his photographs graced the pages of magazines such as VIBE, The Source, and Rolling Stone.

Schreiber captures Maino's vulnerable side. Image courtesy Hagedorn Foundation Gallery.

According to Brenda Massie, director of Hagedorn Foundation Gallery, what’s compelling about Schreiber’s work is both the softness and hardness of his images. Hip-hop performers have an edginess and toughness about them. Look at Maino as an example. He was convicted of drug-related kidnapping and served ten years in prison. The large portrait of Maino on display in the gallery, however, shows a softer side, vulnerability even, not often found in music videos and glossy magazines.

This is Hagedorn’s third year working with the National Black Arts Festival. In years past, they have brought such artists as Malick Sidibe, Dawoud Bey, Demetrius Oliver, J.D. Okhai Ojeikere, and LaToya Ruby Frazier to Atlanta. Massie said the partnership between Hagedorn and NBAF is important because “artists and the arts are fundamental to change in this country.” “The arts provide an attitude adjustment … over time,” she added. “We are all ready for everyone to work together to make this a better nation. We can only do it by recognizing and celebrating everyone’s contribution to our world.” These are lofty statements to make in Atlanta considering its checkered past in racial relations, a history that continues today with the immigration bill, HB 87, that Governor Deal signed into law this year.

The theme of this year’s NBAF is “Unexpected Encounters,” and Massie explains that Schreiber’s gift is capturing his subjects, not in the glamour of a performance, but “in their own personal moments.” In the celebrity culture we all live in today, it’s easy to get caught up in the hype. But Schreiber captures intimate moments that we wouldn’t expect from famous hip-hop artists who usually present themselves as jaded and tough. Schreiber gives us a different view of people we read about in the press and hear on the radio. Although I’m not sure his images will change attitudes (perhaps I’m too pessimistic), I know his images document a softer side of a culture with a lot of anger towards its history of oppression and racism.

Schreiber's patience gave him the opportunity to shoot this iconic portrait of Mos Def. Image courtesy Hagedorn Foundation Gallery.

Photography, not hip-hop, is Schreiber’s true interest. Both subjects have one thing in common: hustling. In the book, Schreiber describes a photo shoot for The Source. He was assigned to shoot Mos Def and Talib Kweli at Nkiru Books, their recently purchased bookstore in Brooklyn that now operates as the Nkiru Center for Education and Culture. He took some pictures of the building, and waited hours and hours for the two to show up. Had his ego or impatience gotten the best of him, he never would have taken one of his most famous images of Mos Def. Individual portraits were not part of the assignment, but as Schreiber wrote in his book, “Nobody was really giving me assignments to shoot portraits at the time, so I really needed to take what was in front of me and get the most out of every opportunity.” This attitude is part of why he’s succeeded in getting to this point in his career.

The exhibition at Hagedorn includes a majority of 16-x-20-inch portraits and a few eye-catching 40-x-50-inch prints. After becoming familiar with Schreiber’s images first through his book, seeing the images printed so large leaves a lasting impression. They are simply striking. The book, on the other hand, shines because of the stories that accompany the images. The idea for the book came about from a show at Mighty Tanaka in Brooklyn, where the gallerists enjoyed hearing tales from Schreiber’s career. Humorous and personal, they often give a greater glimpse into the world of the artist than his subjects. The combination of the sizes of prints on display and the intimacy of the book allow for different levels of exploring Schreiber’s work.

In staying true to his self, Schreiber rarely shoots with a digital camera. He doesn’t believe that technology should dictate the process, asking, “You can paint on the computer, but does that mean you shouldn’t paint with oils anymore?” He’s watched great photographers switch to the digital realm and second-guess themselves, always looking down at the result on the screen. He doesn’t want to be like that, adding that there is still something fun about getting back the contact sheets.

The image of Voletta Wallace is one of Schreiber’s favorites, and it is an example of his work at its best. In the image, Wallace is sitting at a table staring directly into the lens. In front of her is a framed picture of her son, the Notorious B.I.G., as a teenager. The rapper was killed in a drive-by shooting in 1997 in Los Angeles, and Schreiber was sent by XXL magazine to shoot her portrait. The Notorious B.I.G. still is a big name in rap music, and he has been placed on a pedestal by his fans, perhaps even more since his death. It struck Schreiber that “she diapered him.” In his book, Schreiber says, “It made me sad that the only reason I was taking her picture was because her son had been murdered.” To Voletta Wallace, this famous rapper was her son who was killed in a tragedy. At the end of the day, everyone is someone’s son or daughter regardless of the albums they’ve sold or the awards they’ve won. What strikes me most about this photo is the image of the rapper: a young, smiling boy. The honesty of this photograph, and others like it, are what makes Schreiber great.

Superstar M.I.A. casts a delicate profile through Schreiber's lens. Image courtesy Hagedorn Foundation Gallery.

In talking with him, I can see why he has the ability to capture these intimate portraits. He’s humble and doesn’t take himself too seriously. He has a wonderful sense of humor that also translates to his photographs. He said he admired the work of Elliott Erwitt, because it showed him that photography can be fun and lighthearted. Massie described Schreiber as a “chameleon,” getting close to his subjects and gaining their admiration and respect. These are all qualities that good documentary photographers share.

Since the release of the book, Schreiber has had exhibitions all over the world. What’s next? Schreiber has images from a trip to Ghana in 2009 that he hasn’t released yet, and he wants to do something special with them. After the show at Hagedorn, Schreiber plans to pick up the camera again, take a trip, and do something fun. Creative types have to keep moving, and evolving, which is exactly what he plans to do.

The exhibition, True Hip-Hop, opens at Hagedorn Foundation Gallery on Saturday, July 9, 2011, with a panel discussion at 5:00 p.m. featuring Mike Schreiber, Dr. Joyce Wilson of Morehouse College, Atlanta-based artist Fahamu Pecou, and Rodney Carmichael of Creative Loafing newspaper, followed by a book signing and reception.

ATLANTA: Tristan Al-Haddad, PATTERNS + PROFILES, 2005, PETG, steel, 92 x 8 x 10 feet. Image courtesy Artadia.

Just what is it that makes Atlanta’s art so different, so appealing? Or, for that matter, what about Houston’s or Boston’s? Various incarnations of this question are posed in the essays that introduce each chapter of 5 Cities 41 Artists: Artadia 08/09. The book is the first in what will be a biannual publication produced by Artadia: The Fund for Art and Dialogue showcasing artist-awardees selected by a jury of internationally-recognized panelists. While current and former cultural producers of Atlanta passionately debate the benefits and drawbacks of place, this book offers a glimpse into the commonalities, as well as the regional specifics, of current artistic practice in Boston, Chicago, Houston, and the San Francisco Bay Area, in addition our own Southeastern urb.

5 Cities 41 Artists: Artadia 08/09, book cover image courtesy Artadia.

Since 1999, Artadia has successfully invigorated specific communities in the United States by granting visual artists unrestricted awards and providing them with a national network of support. Artadia aims to foster artistic innovation and expand the creative dialogue between artists across the country. You may notice that the Artadia lineup includes neither New York nor Los Angeles. This is by design.

The cultural inferiority complex that plagues nearly every American metropolis when it discovers, much to its horror, that it is neither New York nor Los Angeles deserves a long-overdue challenge. It’s a specialized sort of neurosis that may sound familiar to anyone living on the periphery. Even so, artists who perceive themselves as second- and third-city residents, fretting over their relegation to the shadows, succumb to a recognizably American anxiety: Exhibition organizers in the 19th-century U.S. were constantly looking over their shoulders — to Europe. Artists working stateside were pegged below their European counterparts much like the way landscapes were placed beneath history paintings in the salons of the 18th century.

New York has so thoroughly established itself as the ne plus ultra of the art world that it can seem as though it has always been that way, yet not so long ago icons like the Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art were struggling to shake off their American inferiority complexes. We are still a comparatively young nation, but that’s easy to forget when viewing the landscape through the microscope of contemporary art. Temporally zooming out, however, can deliver a perspective-shifting poultice to counter excessive hand-wringing.  The reports from Artadia’s five cities enact a similar feat by enlarging the art world’s geographic viewfinder.

ATLANTA: Fahamu Pecou, Unamerican Idol, 2009, acrylic and gold leaf on canvas, 65 1/2 x 49 inches. Image courtesy the artist and Lyons Wier Gallery, New York.

The book contains introductory essays by curators working in each urban center that brim with civic enthusiasm for not being New York. Despite some Chamber of Commerce-style boosterism, the authors exercise an important act of cultural critique by focusing not only on what is wrong, but also identifying hopeful movements and moments when things go right. While no author was keen to trumpet the state of the economy as purely beneficial (some featured artists were chosen at the nadir of the nation’s subprime crisis), there are a few hints suggesting that fiscal instability has permitted freedom for artists who have little stake in the share of an ever-shrinking pie. Practices such as collaboration, cross-pollination, institutional hierarchy-hopping, and trans-disciplinary alternatives are all emergent phenomena profiled in 5 Cities.

The first chapter begins in our own backyard, where Atlanta’s arts community is lauded as “vibrant” by Andrea Barnwell Brownlee of the Spelman College Museum of Art. However, she admits that national perception of the city’s art scene remains nebulous, if it is considered at all. In her essay, she sees the Atlanta BeltLine “uniquely poised to contribute significantly to advancing contemporary art in the city and altering the above perceptions.” (20)

BOSTON: Ambreen Butt, Untitled (from the series “Dirty Pretty”), 2008, water-based pigments, white gouache, thread and gold leaf on layers of Mylar and tea-stained paper, 28 x 20 inches. Image courtesy the collection of Jenette Kahn.

Moving northward, Jen Mergel of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, reports that her city’s old-guard institutions are looking beyond the usual hierarchies to the activities of their less-established neighbors. Mergel defines the city’s historically pragmatic bent as key to those who occupy it, reaffirming artist and critic Dushko Petrovich’s call for a “practical avant-garde” in 2007.

CHICAGO: Jim Duignan, LEFT: Musical Chairs (Faiz Razi), 2009-2010, correctional-bus seats, random band generator, headphones with original musical composiitions, RIGHT: Pedagogigal Factory (with Area Chicago), 2007, photograph of "How We Learn" program, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago. Book preview image courtesy Artadia.

Stephanie Smith of the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art muses thoughtfully on factors that provide fertile ground for flourishing arts practice in peripheral cities. Smith embraces the term “provincial,” encouraging artists to recognize places that offer regionally unique support that is sometimes difficult to find in more established art capitals.

HOUSTON: Stephanie Toppin, Self Portrait (No. 1-5), 2007, acrylic MDF, 10 x 4 feet. Book preview image courtesy Artadia.

Meanwhile, Michelle White of the Menil Collection describes Houston as marked by internationally renowned institutions, enormous cockroaches that fly about, “…and a strange, dark iridescent bird called the Grackle.” White’s descriptions present a Houston that is defiantly determined to avoid suffering from an uncertain identity. Rather, it is a visceral city whose sense of place is bound to rodeos and the Old West of Texas lore, one defined by a duality of “Picasso paintings and Brahman bulls.” (86)

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA: James Gobel, Nature Make A Man of Me, 2008, Felt, yarn, and acrylic on canvas, 48 x 40 inches. Image courtesy the artist and Steve Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles.

Reading these essays creates the impression that, while some cities have turned their backs on “(badly) imitating New York,” the movement towards a viable alternative still has its challenges. As Chicago’s Smith dryly quips, “it’s not all roses and collaboration.” (62) Her statement is echoed in a confession by René de Guzman of the Oakland Museum of California that “the local art market is just not big enough to support the creative activity in the region, and the money available to buy and support contemporary art is spent elsewhere or concentrated within a limited number of the biggest museums.” Adding that the issue is hardly confined to the Bay Area, Guzman champions artists who adapt by repositioning themselves as entrepreneurs, but he also dismisses fledgling arts nonprofits as impractical ventures in light of the current economy.

More problematically, Guzman suggests an analogy that San Francisco is to Manhattan as Oakland is to Brooklyn, going on to posit that Oakland can be thought of “… as a Williamsburg (New York) West or Chinatown (Los Angeles) North in the making.” (112) Scruffy Oakland may be the haven for artists outside San Francisco’s polished downtown — but do we really need another Williamsburg or Chinatown? The majority of 5 Cities presents overwhelming evidence that this sort of thinking is precisely the least productive. Artadia’s financial support and networking opportunities give artists a concrete defense for drowning out the tired ballad of such second-city angst.

ATLANTA: Don Cooper, LEFT: This Moment As It Is, 2008, oil on canvas, 56 x 66 inches, courtesy the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, RIGHT: Bindu, 2006, oil on canvas, 40 x 40 inches, courtesy Charlie Simmons. Book preview image courtesy Artadia.

While it’s undeniable that New York and Los Angeles continue to draw artists who equate ties to these cities as a measure of accomplishment, there are myriad alternatives for defining success. Buying into the Gotham ideal of either coast is a limited point of view. White notes in her essay, “Houston artists, of course, know what is going on outside of their peripheral post, but they don’t have to necessarily be there to matter.” Current technology lessens the importance of place and its associated psychological freight, allowing artists to connect with global audiences. This increasing virtual “placelessness” stands to escalate the value of regional quirks.

Outside Atlanta, the metropolises depicted in 5 Cities bear distinct identities that inform regional artistic practice. But Atlanta’s lack of distinction may be less a drawback than one might guess. Rather than mourning over what we haven’t achieved, we might instead imagine our city, as Barnwell Brownlee does, in terms of what it is becoming — not quite Tara, but hopefully not a “Williamsburg South” in the making, either.

After all, Atlanta does not need to adopt someone else’s history; it has a problematic plenitude all its own. Atlanta is Waffle House and So So Def and John Portman and fractious traffic jams. It is the Tibetan monk’s chant flowing across Emory’s green-mown quad and the rumble-crush of NASCAR. It is marble-crumbling cemeteries where time and air hang perfectly still until it reaches cicada hour. It is MLK and CNN and fried-this and nouveau-that, always propelling itself ever toward what is new, newer, newest. What stage could be riper for the act of creation than a place that is constantly becoming?

And if we should, understandably, find ourselves coveting our neighbor’s city, we may do well to know that we are hardly alone in our shortcomings. At one point in her essay on Chicago, Smith lays out a hauntingly familiar litany: “There’s no shortage of laziness or cliquey-ness or blind spots, and nowhere near enough cross-pollination across diverse communities — of taste, of race, of class. The second-city mentality may never be entirely eradicated. The city still loses talent to the old coastal centers. People go. But they also come. And more and more often, it seems, they stay.” (62)

Click here for more information on 5 Artists 41 Cities: Artadia 08/09 (USD $40.00). Copies are currently available at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, who will present its second exhibition of Artadia artists from the San Francisco Bay Area in Material Deposits, on view from July 15 through September 18, 2011.

Falyon is interrupted by the ego of Montell the Merciless, professionally known as Charly Palmer at the second WWAF battle, Paint, Draw, and Sketch Blood! 2010. Photo by Carla Aaron-Lopez.

Coming up this Saturday, January 29, at Stuart McClean Gallery is the next installation of the World Wide Art Federation, titled The Art of War of Art, a rebellious attempt at fighting the Man from banning art in public schools by using skills, kung fu, and smack-talking from the Blaxploitation era. I’m sure this year will be filled with as much ego tripping and self-diagnosed cause célèbre to make any of the artists become instant favorites amongst the crowd. The lineup is brimming with many unknown names balanced by the notoriety of such participating artists as Fahamu Pecou, Charly Palmer, and John Tindel.

Back in the late 80s when I was a child, it drove me insane when my great-grandmother would turn off my cartoons and watch wrestling. I would often wait until she nodded off and switch the channel back to Nickelodeon, only to hear her wake instantly and yell “Change that back!” It scared the pants off me, and for a long time afterward I had a small distaste for wrestling. Fast forward to the present: My great grandmother has long transitioned to the ether, and, in her honor, I’ve fallen in love with wrestling entertainment. Characteristics such as costumes, talent, and talking smack have created a worldwide global culture surrounding the industry.

Now let’s mix all of those traits with a range of starving to established artists, and we have the ingredients for Fabian Williams’s World Wide Art Federation, an art battle based upon skills and quick tongue lashings. Williams hails from Fayetteville, North Carolina and has been a part of commercial arts for a long time before he switched gears to conquer Atlanta’s fine arts community. Since late 2009, the WWAF has been an exciting event amongst many of Atlanta’s underground artists. Its inception started over an “art beef” between Williams and an unknown artist on an Internet blog. Once BURNAWAY’s Art Crush Fahamu Pecou jumped in, Williams began to formulate plans for an event where local artists could compete on a platform that provided entertainment for the audience and exposure for local artists.

“To make the history brief, it came from an online beef with another artist,” Williams explained. “The exchange happened in two different places, an Ebony Jet blog that was written by Fahamu Pecou and an unrelated email string on Facebook. At first, when she insulted me, she spoke as if I didn’t have enough academic credentials to speak to her about creativity. I told her that I wanted to battle her and she could choose the subject matter and medium. That’s how confident I am about my abilities. It was like being on the basketball court when another player was talking too much; it just kicked in. ‘Don’t talk me to death. Play me one on one!’” stated Williams.

“After I noticed that people were commenting and following the exchange between she and I, I decided not to pursue the real conflict and create a fake beef with the artists that I actually admired as a way to gather attention. It just made sense to bring in other artists and their work.”

Another scene where you would hear and see a battle is in the hip-hop community. DJs and rappers will come together at times and battle one another’s skills for a top prize or bragging rights. A battle consists of a set of rounds where a predetermined number of artists compete until all are eliminated but one champion. It’s similar to contemporary wrestling games. Both competitions have performance qualities that add to the audience’s experience of the event. Audiences are often invited to cheer on their favorite rappers, DJs, wrestlers, and now artists.

“From what I noticed, the artists enjoy the exposure and excitement from the audience. There’s also the thrill of performance. It really is like theater, and once you finish it, there’s an odd sense of completion. It takes quite a bit of work to get into character, make the pieces, and just figure out what side of yourself you want to portray. Once you go through all that and do a battle, it’s a sort of relief, like, ‘I survived that!’” said Williams.

Host Sean Falyon, an Atlanta hip-hopper, confronts Jessica Scott Felder, aka Lady Luxe, about her performance in the second WWAF battle, Paint, Draw, and Sketch Blood! 2010. Photo by Carla Aaron-Lopez.

“Most of the crowd is surprised by what happens at each battle. I try to bring something different every time. The comment I hear most is, ‘I’ve never seen anything like that. It was refreshing!’ I only believe that’s because they’ve never been to an art battle from The WWAF.”

The WWAF is based on the Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment model. The difference between this and Williams’ venture, however, is that he is choosing to showcase artists.

“The artists benefit from the exposure and they sell work. I would love it for every artist to sell pieces at these shows but I figure the only way that is possible is if this becomes part of art history. I’m just waiting for the contemporary scene to catch up. This is the future, most definite,” explained Williams.

“The WWAF is leaving Atlanta and going on the road to challenge artists in other cities. I really want it to be similar to Dragon*Con where the audience comes dressed up and people are just excited to be creatives. I want cities to have their own art battles. I would love for Atlanta to battle NY; NY to battle LA; LA to battle Paris; Paris to battle London; London to battle Cairo; etc. You know, World Wide Art Federation!”

These are big dreams coming from a man that explained he wanted to “bum rush” the contemporary art scene. Years of being an illustrator for companies like Coke, Nike, and American Express made Williams want to spend more time making works for himself rather than for someone else. His artistic style boldly reminds me of this commercial influence as he revives the classic Black Arts painting style with the campy humor of a modern cynic.

Michi Meko, local artist, paints his interpretation of the lady referee at the second WWAF battle, Paint, Draw, and Sketch Blood! 2010. Photo by Carla Aaron-Lopez.

“Being a hired gun forces me to find the financial balance in any creative move I make,” says Williams. “Whatever the art battle was going to be, I knew it would have to be something I could potentially make a living off of. Advertising was eroding my soul so I knew I had to create a format that allowed me to move art work for me and whoever did the events with me.”

I can understand. It seems that, for artists, applying any kind of business model to oneself for exposure becomes a smarter choice in the long run. No longer can one just paint for the sake of painting. Most people have lives to live and bills to pay, as well as supplies to purchase. Though, being able to market oneself in the art scene today requires innovation, quite a bit of collaboration, and heavy planning. In Williams’ case, he chooses to market his skills in a format that is entertaining. At its very best, the WWAF is a great way to begin mixing all the different art crowds that exist in Atlanta. Indeed, sometimes we make our art experiences rather stuffy by following the same exhibition format over and over again. Remember when David Byrne held Happenings? Those were moments of collaboration by artists for the entertainment of friends, curators, and writers.

“I find that I have to get certain people from certain art cliques or circles to get others involved. I’m not particularly mad at that because it’s a new concept and all. Though pitching over and over again is a drain. Plus, not being rooted in the contemporary community means I have to prove that I’m not some local underling wasting their time. Once they experience it, they get it, but you have to get them there, and that is the challenge. I do way more promotion than any other art show that I know of, but it’s kind of an art form in itself. We shoot videos of trash talk, but it’s actually performance art, just a more aggressive kind. It’s a lot of fun,” explained Williams.

Atlanta native Brandon Sadler interrupts a battle round while joking with an audience member at the second WWAF battle, Paint, Draw and Sketch Blood! 2010. Photo by Carla Aaron-Lopez.

There’s nothing wrong with the merging of the arts every now and then. On a platform like the WWAF, it’s a way to begin bridging the divide between Atlanta’s local arts community and many of the city’s underground artists: “It introduces new works to new crowds. It’s cross pollination. Contemporary patrons are introduced to traditional black art; Traditional black art collectors are introduced to contemporary artists; They’re introduced to underground artists and hip-hop art,” said Williams.

“I would like to involve some people that are behind the scenes in making the art scene function. I would like to get Michael Rooks, Kai Lin, Bill Lowe, Jason Orr, and Caesar Mitchell involved. Jason Orr helps me behind the scenes. He has been a big player in the development of the soul underground and popular music scene here in Atlanta over the last decade, influencing music locally and around the world. I recently had the chance to pitch it to both of them [Rooks and Orr] while co-hosting Fahamu Pecou’s 15 Project in front of a live audience.”

Artists that participate in the event have a chance to showcase more than just their skills. If they get it right, talking smack to the crowd is a fiery way to brag about one’s unknown accomplishments.

“Charly Palmer who is an established artist, who just recently did a show at the Smithsonian, always goes big with his costumes and character detail. He has two characters: Artus The Great and Montrell The Merciless. His Artus the Great character is one who always believes that he’s this great innovator who seems to always do these new things in art but never gets his credit. I know several older artists who talk about their great achievements and the little respect that they get from other artists and the creative community. It’s quite hilarious to see him talk in character. He brings props, always speaks with a crazy dialect, and has stunts in his shows. If you speak to him out of character, he’s very laid back and low key. The transformation is a trip. Charly really is one of the best examples of what The WWAF is about.”

“I have heard a plethora of comments and plenty of suggestions from artists, which I always listen to. The crowd generally is pleased with the show. I am always open to improvements. When I get it to look the way it does in my mind, it will be a spectacle,” ended Williams.

The World Wide Art Federation’s next event, The Art of War of Art, will take place at Stuart McClean Gallery on Saturday, January 29, 2011. The doors open at 7:30PM and the battle begins at 9:30PM. Tickets are $15 online and $20 at the door.

Sheila Pree Bright, Untitled No. 10. Photo courtesy Sandler Hudson Gallery.

In an unfinished, unpublished draft for an article dated January 4, after stumbling through several false starts attempting to sum up the previous 12 months, I finally concocted an appropriate phrase to describe 2009. I called it The Year of the Ninja.

Last year we saw a steadily rising number of ephemeral performances and rogue one-night exhibitions—shows that strike unexpectedly before vanishing without a trace. From Lauri Stallings’s production of Rapt at the Woodruff Arts Center, to AXIOM’s Showtime at Edgewood and Boulevard, to John Otte’s weekend curation of Summer Falls at Whitespace, nontraditional projects were becoming so popular that the practice of showing normal exhibitions in normal galleries seemed to be going out of style.

My perspective has changed since January, however. The evidence I found during the Westside Art Walk this weekend at Kiang and Sandler Hudson and Get This! galleries, specifically, supports my suspicion that our galleries aren’t dead, but are as relevant as ever.

Pandra Williams, Radicis, 2010, installation view. Photo courtesy Kiang Gallery.

Rewards for visiting in person

Pandra Williams’s installation at Kiang Gallery is fresh, conceptual, and physically beautiful. Its scale is proportioned to fill the entire room. The piece is titled Radicis and is meant to resemble an impossibly large microorganism. During her talk on Saturday, Williams referred to it as a plant, but explaining it as the neuron cells of a cosmic giant would seem just a plausible. Its synapses fire in syncopated rhythm, like tiny controlled electrical storms.

Of course, we could have surmised that much by attending the opening reception, or by reading Jerry Cullum’s review or his essay on the work. But attending the talk reemphasized the fact that Williams’s sculpture is connected to solar panels installed on the gallery’s roof—this is art powered by the sun and nothing else. The sun!

Williams allowed us to peer inside the sculpture’s exoskeleton to see how its paper “skin” is bonded together, how the lighting and wiring is fixed inside, and how the work is hinged to the wall. Artwork should never be touched by strangers; this was an opportunity only the artist could provide.

Williams’s talk succeeded in demystifying her work in a way that was healthy and didn’t compromise its magic. We see that artists are human beings much like ourselves and, further, are professionals who are doing relevant work in the community.

Mystery special guests

When Sandler Hudson Gallery announced its programming last week, all we knew was that photographer Sheila Pree Bright would lead a panel discussion featuring “special guests.”

Would these individuals be fellow artists who would comment on Bright’s work? Or would they be sociology professors who could explain the cultural underpinnings behind gold teeth?

The suggestion called to mind the various guest speakers assembled by Fahamu Pecou for installments of his 15 Project at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center and for his one-night show at Get This! Gallery earlier this year. Those each included guests as far-ranging as poets, hip-hop artists, journalists, critics, and even social workers and community organizers.

But Bright surprised us this Saturday by turning the discussion over to three students, two currently in high school and one precocious young lady from Harlem who recently graduated from Clark Atlanta University. They were kids—yes—but they had sophisticated things to say about the communities where they grew up. The talk was primarily about guns.

Conversations inspired by artwork should never supersede or replace the aesthetic value of the art itself. Still, the discussion added human value to the experience and situated Bright’s photography within a properly activist worldview.

Gyun Hur's performance included nearly seven continuous hours of standing, sitting, and walking while cutting fabric with scissors. Photo courtesy Get This! Gallery.

Gallery space as a garden of ideas

Many performance artists excel through sheer audacity. During Shana Robbins’s talk at the Contemporary (another event on Saturday’s art-stroll agenda), powerful personalities such as Carolee Schneemann and Matthew Barney were cited as pioneers in the field.

Gyun Hur‘s performance of Thousand Kisses, In My Living Room at Get This! Gallery, however, is refreshingly low on drama. Instead of confrontation, Hur treats us to a quiet moment that is touching, even a little sweet, pushing the envelope of public-versus-private to the point of turning the envelope inside-out. The gallery environment simulates an evening the artist spent with her parents at their home.

This performance could easily have been done at night, or possibly outdoors. However, hosting it during the day removes the experience from that all-too-familiar party scene. Does artwork always have to be so epic? We don’t expect Hollywood-scale pyrotechnics when we visit the botanical gardens, do we? Hur’s exhibition is calculated for atmospheric reflection, like a garden of ideas.

Whitney and Micah Stansell, Past. Present. Continuous. Image courtesy of Whitespace.

See below for visual arts events beginning Thursday, April 8.

THURSDAY, APRIL 8

Pregnant Men Then and Now: How Transgenderism is Changing the Debate
Emory Visual Arts Building / 4:30-6:30PM

FRIDAY, APRIL 9

Whitney and Micah Stansell / Past. Perfect. Continuous
Whitespace / 7-10PM

Castleberry Hill ArtStroll
Castleberry Arts Distric / 7-10PM

Kenn Kotara / the in between is mine
Sandler Hudson Gallery / 7-9PM

Brett Smith, 15 seconds. Painting. Image courtesy of Sandler Hudson Gallery.

Brett Smith / 15 seconds
Sandler Hudson Gallery / 7-9PM

Collective Conscious: Dodekapus / Launch Party
Raw Space Gallery / 8PM-4AM

Fahamu Pecou / Talk Show: The 15 Project
The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center / 7:30-9PM

SATURDAY, APRIL 10

The Lunchbox Show Cartoon Madness / Group Show
Alcove Gallery / 7-12PM / $5 after 8PM

Edward T. Welburn / Designing America’s Favorite Cars / Lecture
High Museum of Art / 2PM

Kelly McKernan / Fight or Flight
Beep Beep Gallery / 8PM

Book Sale / Fundraiser
Eyedrum Art and Music Gallery / 8AM-3PM

Heidi Aishman / Artist Talk
Hagedorn Foundation Gallery / 12Noon

Films from the Arab World / Dunia: Kiss Me Not on the Eyes
Rich Theatre, Woodruff Arts Center / 8PM / $7

MOCA GA / Benefit GALA
Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia / 6:30-10PM / $125

Kelly McKernan. Untitled, 2010. Watercolor, Gouache, Gold Leaf on Van Dyke Print. Courtesy of artist.

SUNDAY, APRIL 11

Obscura / Dance performance
Eyedrum Art and Music Gallery / 5-6PM

Book Sale / Fundraiser
Eyedrum Art and Music Gallery / 8AM-3PM

TUESDAY, APRIL 13

Johnny Waggener / New Works
Carroll Street Cafe / 8PM

Kathy Yancey, The Family Tree (Veronica, Patrick, and Victoria Winkeljohn). Courtesy of the artist.

The aim of portraiture has always been directed at capturing the inner essence of the portrayed. As stated by Charles Dickens, portraits often take the form of either “the serious or a smirk.” Marianne Lambert uses this to her advantage in Unconventional Portraiture. The exhibition currently on view at the Gallery Walk at Terminus presents a humorous and insightful look at contemporary portraiture through the work of 15 Atlanta artists.

Brett Osborn, Past Time (self-portrait). Courtesy of the artist.

Lambert’s artists seem to largely lean towards the smirk, however not always in the traditional sense. Fahamu Pecou and Brett Osborn use elements of formal portraiture combined with competent hand-eye precision to bend the rules in subtle ways. One of Osborn’s paintings, for example, begins from the figure’s head up, while the rest of the body is submerged in leaves. Meanwhile, Susan Loeb and Susan Cofer blatantly ignore convention to create utterly contemporary portraits.

Susan Seydel Cofer, The Complete Jerry Cullum (artwork on wall by Frank Hunter, Maurice Clifford, and E.K. Huckaby). Courtesy of the artist.

The humor in Lambert’s curating becomes evident in her pairing of works. The show begins with Bruce Hafley and Cofer’s incredibly disparate portraits. Hafley’s Rawson & Environs, which mimics portraiture of late 15th century Italian Renaissance, directly contrasts with Cofer’s The Complete Jerry Cullum, the exhibition’s only sculpture and arguably the most progressive work in the show. Cofer’s entry is a papier-mâché diorama modeled after Atlanta’s art criticism darling, Jerry Cullum. Cullum’s figure is clad in a suit of newspaper clippings and looks quite at home in a hardwood gallery surrounded by sculpture and two-dimensional works by Cofer’s Atlantan contemporaries, Frank Hunter, Maurice Clifford, and E.K. Huckaby. Hafley and Cofer’s works directly correlate to one another and provide a striking showcase of the progression of the portrait.

Kathy Yancey and Linda Anderson follow a less formal, more illustrative and folk-art sensibility in their collaged paintings of both figure and ephemera. Yancey’s work almost shares the intention of an Egyptian tomb, depicting a family—enshrined in their family tree—surrounded by all the worldly possessions that they shall always be remembered by.

Silas Durant, Untitled. Courtesy of the artist.

Silas Durant contributes the most traditional portrait in the lot. His oil painting, Untitled, depicts a young man seated in front of a large window. Next to the man rests an easel which holds an exquisitely rendered version of Vermeer’s Young Woman with a Water Jug from 1660. Situated with Hafley and Cofer’s work, this is a humorous reminder of centuries’ worth of portrait sitters, and further hammers home the theme of past versus present. It is this kind of synergy that makes Unconventional Portraiture so relevant and intriguing.

Susannah Starr's Not So Domestic opens this Thursday at Marcia Wood Gallery.

Note: We are now publishing our weekly To Do Lists every Thursday. Now you have an extra day to plan ahead!

See below for visual arts events for the week of Thursday, January 7, through Wednesday, January 13. Please feel free to contact us about any corrections, updates, and new events to include in our lists!

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7

Guest lecture: Courtney J. Martin
Atlanta Contemporary Art Center / 6:30-7:30PM

Daniel Kariko Storm Season
Snapdragon Photography / 6-9PM, talk at 7:30PM

Susannah Starr Not So Domestic
Marcia Wood Gallery / 7-9PM

Julia Venske and Gregor Spänle Inside
Marcia Wood Gallery / 7-9PM

Todd Shroeder Kung Fu
Gallery Stokes / 7-9PM

Daniel Kariko's Storm Season opens Friday at Snapdragon Photography.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 8

Micah Stansell Presynaptic Potential (one week only)
Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia / 6:30-8:30PM

Castleberry Hill 2nd Friday Art Stroll
Castleberry Arts District / 7-10PM

New Decade Group Show
Krause Gallery / 6-10PM

Chung Chak's The Boxes Project opens Saturday at Eyedrum.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 9

Transitions: Contemporary South African Works on Paper
High Museum of Art / 10AM-5PM

Harbingers: Fresh Doom for 2010 (group show)
Beep Beep Gallery / 8PM

Chung Chak The Boxes Project
Eyedrum Art and Music Gallery / talk at 5PM, reception 6-9PM

Fahamu Pecou Whirl Trade (closing reception)
Get This! Gallery / 7-10PM

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13

Artist talk: Micah Stansell Presynaptic Potential
Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia / 6:30-8:30PM

Fahamu Pecou, American Dream'n. Photo courtesy Get This! Gallery.

With all the buzz I heard about the show, I really wanted to like Fahamu Pecou’s Whirl Trade at Get This! Gallery. His persona is fun and energetic, and he even sells t-shirts in bright colors that proclaim, “Fahamu Pecou is the Shit,” which makes me chuckle. As much as I wanted to like it, I left disappointed.

Fahamu Pecou's Whirl Trade, installation view. Photo courtesy Get This! Gallery.

Whirl Trade consists of five large-scale, largely monochromatic paintings that hang on the walls of Get This! Gallery. In his artist statement, Pecou references the photography of Malick Sidibé. Sidibé is known for his documentary portraits of youth culture in his native country of Mali. He was honored in 2007 with the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale, making him the first photographer and African artist ever to win the award. Sidibé was able to capture a moment in time at the beginning of West Africa’s post-colonial period (from the late 1950s through the mid 1970s), and his photography conveyed the exuberance and sense of hope that surrounded the period. In the painting American Dream’n, Pecou’s imagery is certainly influenced by Sidibé’s photographic style. These canvases by Pecou reference the documentary nature of Sidibé’s work, combined with Pecou’s own use of text and material from contemporary hip-hop culture.

Fahamu Pecou, Whirl Ni**a Laws/Lost. Photo courtesy Get This! Gallery.

The references to hip-hop culture are obvious, such as gold microphones. Pecou became critical of the way hip-hop culture has been appropriated in other parts of the world, particularly in Africa, after he spent some time in South Africa. Hip-hop artists have achieved such incredible international success, but what message are they trying to send? In Whirl Ni**a Laws/Lost, Pecou paints himself seated with microphone in hand: The empty thought bubble at the end of the microphone is perhaps the clearest and best visual representation of Pecou’s skepticism. However, I feel as though the message is lost. It seems less critical when Pecou merely inserts himself into a stereotypical role of “blackness” without some irony or detachment. While the ideas are solid, the visual representation needs to reflect them more clearly.

SATURDAY: The empty business front at 479 Edgewood Ave. will host a one-night show by the Cheap Paper collective in the sequel to the popular Showtime art stroll. Photo courtesy Public Acts of Art.

This weekend promises a jam-packed agenda including three art strolls and the Indie Craft Experience (ICE) holiday market. Keep checking previous To Do Lists for recent ongoing shows, and feel free to add more events for November 20 through 26 in the comments box below.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20

Studioplex Art Walk
Studioplex Lofts / 6-9PM

MINT group show
Decatur Music Center (116 E Howard Ave, Decatur) / 6:30PM

Harry Shearer Silent Echo Chamber
High Museum of Art / 7PM (sold out!)

Tweet Design 2D Tweet
Eyedrum Art & Music Gallery / 7-11PM

Drive By Press Live Printmaking Demo
Young Blood Gallery & Boutique / 6-9PM

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21

Indie Craft Experience (ICE) Holiday Shopping Spectacular
Ambient Plus Studios (585 Wells St) / 11AM-6PM

Westside Arts District Third Saturday Art Walk
Various locations / 11AM-5PM

Gary Hughes Audubon Centennial Edition video presentation
Bobbe Gillis Gallery / 11:30-12:30

Family Day
Atlanta Contemporary Art Center / 1-4PM

Fahamu Pecou Whirl Trade artist talk
Get This! Gallery / 1-2PM

Public Acts of Art AXIOM: Baby Proof art walk
Corner of Edgewood and Boulevard / 5PM-?

Group show Progression
Kibbee Gallery / 7-10PM

SATURDAY: Fahamu Pecou's Whirl Trade exhibit will debut a new series of "NEOPOP paintings inspired by his travels abroad and specifically in Africa" alongside musical guest DJ Sol Messiah. Photo courtesy Get This! Gallery.

[UPDATED] Between a series of drawings at Saltworks Gallery loosely themed after Kung Fu training manuals and the Avant Garden discussion panel on journalism and blogging at the Contemporary, there’s plenty of variety in the week ahead. Atlanta Celebrates Photography may be winding to a close, but life continues for the visual arts in Atlanta.

FRIDAY: The Southern Photographers juried show, one of the last events in this year's ACP festival. Above: Lee Whittle, Untitled No. 1; photo courtesy Atlanta Photography Group.

FRIDAY: The historic Rail Yard spotlights a local graffiti writer. Click flyer to enlarge.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13

Second Friday Art Stroll
Castleberry Hill Arts District / 7-10PM

Reverse Collecting: Collectors Make More Room for Art
Krause Gallery / 7-10PM

Ani Dillon Birds, Butts, and other Blessings
Niche (256 Walker Street) / 7-10PM

John Tindel, Michi, and Alex Feliciano The Consent to Dreams
Art Department Gallery / 7-11PM

HENSE Surface Strength
The Rail Yard (448 Ralph David Abernathy Blvd) / 7PM-Midnight

Southern Photographers juried show
Atlanta Photography Group Gallery / 7:30-10PM

SATURDAY: Alex Kvares' mysterious new works imagine "cautionary memorials" of "collapsed ideals, dilapidated utopias, and various ruined promises." Flyer courtesy Beep Beep Gallery.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14

Annual Atlanta Artists Holiday Studio Tour
The Mattress Factory Loft Studios / 10AM-5PM

West End Remembers public art mural dedication
1070 White Street / 1-2:30PM

See Through Souls Window Art Show
Picaflor Studios / 3PM-late / $2 donation before 9PM

Fehamu Pecou Whirl Trade
Get This! Gallery / 7-11PM

Dawolu Jabari Anderson Ten Tigers of Kwangtung
Saltworks Gallery / 7-10PM

Alex Kvares Oh So Fail
Beep Beep Gallery / 8PM

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15

Annual Atlanta Artists Holiday Studio Tour
Little Five Points Community Center, Studio 106 / 10AM-5PM

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18

[CORRECTION] Annual Holiday Artist Market preview night
Spruill Gallery / 6-9PM

Reading the Water film screening
Dalton Gallery, Agnes Scott University / 7PM

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19

[NEW] Sarah Hobbs Emotional Management
Solomon Projects / 6-8PM

Little Things Mean a Lot (over 100 Georgia artists)
Swan Coach House Gallery / 6-8PM

Avant Garden monthly art & film mixer
Atlanta Contemporary Art Center / discussion panel at 6PM

Oraien Catledge Cabbagetown
Opal Gallery / 7-9PM