In Montgomery, the new National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the related Legacy Museum commemorate the dark history of lynching in the U.S. and ongoing systemic racism, and provides a necessary response to the debate around Confederate monuments.
Portrait of ATL Airport: Mark Steinmetz at the High Museum
Athens artist Mark Steinmetz spent a year photographing in and around Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, as part of the High Museum’s “Picturing the South” series.
Al Taylor’s X-ray Vision at the High Museum of Art
Using minimal materials and maximal innuendo, Al Taylor created subtle works full of historical references and tinged with humor. An exhibition at the High Museum is the first comprehensive museum retrospective of his work.
Rediscovering Rosemary Mayer at UGA Dodd Galleries
Rosemary Mayer worked with fabric at a time when the medium was primarily associated with women’s work, but to her it gave her the freedom to be experimental. A recent exhibition at the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia recreated lost fabric works from the 1970s.
Image, Identity & the Exorcist: Q&A with Paul Pfeiffer
Artist Paul Pfeiffer, current Dodd Chair at UGA’s Dodd School of Art, speaks with BURNAWAY about horror movies, living in the South, and his recent work.
Black Angels: Mickalene Thomas at the Spelman Museum of Fine Art
In a departure from her textured paintings, Mickalene Thomas uses video and photography to engage both art history and pop culture.
Outsider Art Site Pasaquan Restored to Artist’s Vision
I slowed down, as if by intuition, and the white letters of the road sign became clear a moment later: “Eddie Martin Road.” I had neglected to look up the address for the West Georgia Outsider art landmark Pasaquan before leaving, and cell phone reception was sluggish. My pilgrimage to see the restored site, unveiled…
In the Garden of Bosch and Cullum at Whitespace
Five hundred years have passed since the Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch died. To mark the occasion, an exhibition was held this year in Bosch’s hometown, ’s-Hertogenbosch. Atlanta curator and writer Jerry Cullum visited the small town’s tiny Het Noordbrabants Museum to see the exhibition. The quincentenary was also the inspiration for Cullum’s ambitious show at…
Picturing the South: Photographs from the Do Good Fund Collection in Athens
Spread across six different venues in Athens, Georgia, “Pictures of Us: Photographs from The Do Good Fund Collection” is a meandering, all-encompassing photographic tour of the South organized by the University of Georgia’s Willson Center for Humanities and Arts. The themes of the exhibition are myriad and overlapping: place, architecture, humor, people, social conventions (both…
Nature Gone Wild: Corrine Colarusso’s Stirred Fictions
Situated at the entrance of the Circle Gallery in the College of Environmental Design building at the University of Georgia in Athens, the small verdant Painting on the Longest Day of the Year acts as a prologue to Corrine Colarusso’s exhibition of nature-based drawings and paintings. Titled “Stirred Fiction,” it is on view through February 26. This…
A Down and “Dirty South” at Mammal Gallery
“Dirty South,” which closes tonight (7-11pm) at Mammal Gallery, brings together the work of 10 Southern artists who explore the South’s seedy underbelly though various lenses, including race, gender, and sexuality. The topic is broad, to be sure, but why impose limits? Just like the South, dirty can have oh-so-many faces. One of the first…
Repetition and Metamorphosis: Ann Stewart at Whitespace
On view at Whitespace Gallery through August 1, Ann Stewart’s “Causa Sui” deals in complex abstraction and hefty concepts without sacrificing accessibility and visual appeal. Borrowed from philosophical discourse, Stewart’s title translates from Latin to “cause of itself.” It’s a concept embedded in each individual work as well as in the exhibition as a whole….
Doom and Bloom: Romy Aura Maloon at Beep Beep Gallery
A living tree growing (yes, growing!) from a planter inset into the mattress of a charred, wooden-framed hospital bed is the first work visitors encounter when entering “Epiphany is Not a Blazing Light,” a show of new works by Romy Aura Maloon, on view through June 20 at Beep Beep Gallery. The displaced tree suggests…
Art Appreciation: It All Started in Kindergarten …
Rebecca Brantley wrote this essay for the fifth session of our Emerging Art Writers Mentorship Program. The session was led by Chuck Reece, co-founder and editor of the Bitter Southerner, and was titled “Where Does Your Work Come From?” He asked the mentees to reflect on what compels them to write, and specifically to write about…
Wifredo Lam’s Mixology, at the High Museum, with José Parlá and Fahamu Pecou
Wifredo Lam’s work from the 1920s through the 1970s is the heart of the High Museum of Art’s “Imagining New Worlds,” organized by Elizabeth T. Goizueta of the McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College. Of Chinese, African, and Spanish heritage, Lam (1902-1982) painted in myriad styles. Most influenced by Cubism and Surrealism, his work falls…