In this round up, Burnaway staff revisit some of our favorites from 2023 and what we are looking forward to in the cultural sphere for 2024.
Favorite Pieces from Burnaway 2023
Courtney McClellan, Interim Editor
The writer told the story of Lockett’s work beautifully and succinctly. It’s a potent piece of writing.
How a Hollywood Invasion Turned the South’s Capital into the Neutral American City
The author did that thing great writing does, she addressed something we all knew, but didn’t have the context or language to describe.
Insider by Halle Ballard at Elephant Gallery, Nashville
Joy, play, and whimsy are the stuff of art writing too.
Isabella Marie Garcia, Editorial Assistant
A feature that beautifully converges what it means to live in this hyper-technological age, cope with your own mortality, and attempt to preserve loved ones you lose and don’t want to forget.
Skybox by Harrison Wayne at Eso Tilin Projects, Atlanta
I love an exhibition set in an unconventional space—Kat’s review of Harrison Wayne’s exhibition within an Atlanta church spoke not only to the settings of my religious upbringing but the video games I was obsessed with playing as kid in the early 2000s.
I miss my abuela, a grief I still carry two years after her passing. Ally Christmas’s mood ring on the loss of her own grandmother is haunting and memorializes how I will always feel: I am still your granddaughter even though you’re not here.
Something Bigger Than You: In Conversation with Calida Rawles
Bryn’s candid reflection of a memory that was sparked by looking at a Calida Rawles painting drew me in immediately in this interview with the Los-Angeles based artist, whose work aligns with my own beliefs that water is a therapeutic conduit for healing.
Kat Eaves, Social Media Coordinator
An engaging and fascinating story of Thew Smoak’s performance for one. I really enjoyed going on this ride.
Insider by Halle Ballard at Elephant Gallery, Nashville
Robert Alan Grand’s feature for Current on the crisis facing rivercane canopies and the good work of Revitalization of Traditional Cherokee Artisan Resources was insightful, frustrating, and hopeful.
Brandon Sheats, Executive Director
Having had the chance to see Ronald Lockett’s work in New York, reading Justin’s review took me places I dared not say. I mean. “Other elephants in the room: Blackness (particularly in the South), poverty (particularly rural), morality, and isolation.” Layer upon layer.
How a Hollywood Invasion Turned the South’s Capital into the Neutral American City
Atlanta is a geography wanting to become a place. Claire cut through in describing Atlanta as America’s Vancouver (film people know what I mean). It’s one of the most read pieces on the site this year for a reason.
Tunnel Projects in Miami, Florida
There’s a certain fondness I have for project spaces. Isa’s review of Tunnel made me want to visit.
We tend to forget that the South is not the binary that popular history would want to tell you. Sophia’s piece covering the MengCheng collective is a needed reminder of the diasporas finding connection (as always, over food and art) in places like Memphis.
Favorite Non-Burnaway Pieces of 2023
Courtney
Track Changes: A Handbook for Art Criticism
I loved finding my way through this essential text. Wonderful entry from Burnaway contributors and friends as well as Editor at Large Kristina Kay Robinson.
Isabella
Monica Sorelle Interviewed by Monica Uszerowicz
Monica is a dear friend and an incredible filmmaker. I’m in gratitude to being able to see her first directorial feature, Mountains, at Blackstar Film Festival in Philly this past August. This film is a strike back at those who just want to keep pushing and pushing you out of where you want to call home, where you find your people, where do you go when nothing around you looks like home anymore?
Why Do People Love This Tiny Doll?
They’re so cute and yet consumeristically eerie!
In Ron DeSantis’s Florida, What Can an Art Fair Mean?
A wonderful exploration of the economic and energy disconnect that happens continuously every year during Miami Art Week and what’s being done NOW by local artists and creatives to combat that disparity.
“In that contained space, floating in the digital world, I’m more able to be myself. It’s something about not being physically seen.” I agree—it’s like mini podcast episodes to my besties.
Kat
Scalawag Abolition Week: The Bars We Can’t See
Scalawag’s annual week work of first-hand stories from formerly and currently incarcerated writers and artists. This year’s theme “The Bars We Can’t See” was devoted to sharing stories that “trace the creative and pervasive ways carcerality finds us and traps us in the U.S. and across the globe.”
Brandon
King Krule and his ‘nothingness of possessions’
I like King Krule, and this interview, conducted in his UK flat, makes me like him more.
Are We Asking Too Much of Public Art?
While I don’t entirely agree with Seph Rodney, there is a very essential question being asked. as the public changed over the past two decades, what purpose does public art hold? Are we serving the people, or our imagination of who the people are/should be?
Favorite Exhibition Viewed in 2023
Courtney
The Threads We Follow at SECCA
This show was a stunner. The exhibition deftly showcased provocations in textile from local, regional, and national artists. Can’t wait to see more from SECCA’s new assistant curator, Maya Brooks.
Julian Abraham “Togar”: Too good to be OK at SculptureCenter
I had an emotional reaction to this work. I felt the resonance, in sound and meaning, and I’m still thinking about it.
Paul Pfeiffer, Red Green Blue at Athenaeum
As an admirer of Pfeiffer’s work, it was great to see this piece come to fruition in the place that it was made.
Isabella
A Long Arc: Photography and the American South since 1845 at The High Museum of Art
When visiting Atlanta Art Week 2023, I spent about two hours just wandering around this exhibition. As a photographer myself, it was incredible to see the history of photography within the South and the lineage of artists practicing the medium into the present day.
Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures at the National Museum of African American History and Culture
One of the exhibitions that stood out in terms of exploratory range during my travels to Washington D.C. in the Spring. From Prince to the writings of Octavia Butler, the accompanying exhibition catalog is replete with insightful essays and a deep-dive into everything Afrofuturism.
¡De última hora!: Latinas Report Breaking News at the National Museum of American History
I’m a news baby—both my parents have worked in broadcast news since their early twenties and continue to do so. Traveling to see this exhibition’s official opening with my mama in September and honoring / witnessing the work of Latinas like herself who have dedicated themselves to Spanish news filled my heart so much.
Sasha Gordon: Surrogate Self at ICA Miami
The attention to detail, the ghost hands and figures, the talented portrayals of multifaceted bodies. It’s so good and a must-see!
Kat
Jessica Caldas: Every Stage of Becoming at Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia
The Alchemists at Johnson Lowe Gallery
Correspondences at whitespace
Brandon
Going Dark: The Contemporary Figure at the Edge of Visibility at The Guggenheim Museum
Ashley James and Faith Hunter mounted one of the best exhibitions of the year – there is a near-urgent, prescient reminder of the (projected) liminal nature of the work and the artists including Tomashi Jackson, Charles White, Kerry James Marshall, and Sable Elyse Smith within spaces that demand, but the undercurrent is noticed.
Hasani Sahlehe: You Really Gotta See It Live at the Atlanta Contemporary
It was to see Hasani Sahlehe in conversation with Sam Gilliam, because there was again, a minor urgency to see the Gilliam’s subtle intensity against Sahlehe’s You Will See Me.
Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich: Too Bright to See
It’s a common story – take the very popular artist, and you’ll find there was definitely someone else carrying the weight. In the case of Wifredo Lam and André Breton, it was Suzanne Roussi-Césaire. Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich’s work brings justice to the legacy of Roussi-Césaire with a poetry worthy of a best-of pick.
ICP Love Songs | Photography and Intimacy
Looking Forward to in 2024
Courtney
MURRMUR: BLURS AND SENSES (Feb 16, 2024 – Jun 9, 2024)
I love a good exhibition sequel. This second iteration of Misread Unread Read Re-Read Misread Unread Re-Read (MURRMUR) at the ICA at VCU promises to not disappoint.
In text and performance, Annie Baker teaches me about silence. I look forward to seeing how the playwright turned director wields long pauses in film. This interview with Jeremy O. Harris further stoked my curiosity: Annie Baker is Coming to a Movie Theater Near You.
Isabella
Rose Marie Cromwell: A Geological Survey
Big fan of local artists exhibiting at local museums, and of course, photography on top of it all.
Enough said!
ZONAMACO México Arte Contemporáneo
Mexico City is always a good idea.
There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension By Hanif Abdurraqib
I saw Hanif speak for O, Miami’s opening night of their 2023 Poetry Festival and am excited to read this forthcoming poetic exploration of basketball.
Kat
Anything Eso Tilin Projects has in store.
Spandita Malik: MESHES OF RESISTANCE (April 5, 2024 – July 20, 2024)
Season 2 of The House of the Dragon.
Atlanta Art Week 2024!
Brandon
I honestly couldn’t tell you – I’m taking the break to catch up on the rest of 2023.
