Weeden Arts Watch

Exhibitions to Know (A highly selective list)

2013-05-15T10:31:00.000-05:00

Armory Show /The International Exhibition of Modern Art (1913) 69th Infantry Regiment Armory, New York City

Bachelor Machines (1975) Venice Biennial

Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art (1994) Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

China Avant-Garde Exhibition (1989) National Art Gallery, Beijing

Culture in Action (2010) Sculpture Chicago

Cities on the Move (1997-2000) Secession, Vienna

Degenerate Art (1937) Munich

Difference: On Representation and Sexuality (1984) The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York

Documenta 5 (1972) Kassel

Documenta 11 (2002) Kassel

Do It (1997) Hans Ulrich Obrist/e-flux

Earth Art (1969) Andrew Dickson White Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca

Eccentric Abstraction (1966) at the Fischbach Gallery, New York

Ecstatic Resistance (2010) Grand Arts Gallery, Kansas City

elles@centrepompidou (2010) Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

Experimental Geography (2010) Independent Curators International

First Russian Art Exhibition (1922) Galerie van Diemen, Berlin

Formalismus (2004) at Kunstverein, Hamberg

Formlessness: Modernism Against the Grain (1996) Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

The Generational (2009) The New Museum, New York

Global Feminisms (2007) The Brooklyn Museum, New York

Happening und Fluxus (1970) Kölnischer Kunstveiren

Inside the Visible (1996) Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston

International Exhibition of the New Realists (1962) Sidney Janis Gallery, New York

Into the Light: The Projected Image in American Art 1964-1977 (2001) Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Istanbul Biennial (2005)

Istanbul Biennial (2009)

Les Immateriaux (1985) Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

Living As Form (2011) Creative Time

The London International Surrealist Exhibition (1936) New Burlington Galleries, London

The Look of Law (2006) University of California, Irvine

Magiciens de la Terre (1989) Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

Memoire des camps: Photographies des camps de concentration et d’extermination Nazis, 1933-1999 (2001) Hôtel de Sully, Paris

Mixed-Use Manhattan (2010) Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid

Paris-New York, 1908-1968 exhibition series Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

Part Object, Part Sculpture (2005) The Wexner Center for Contemporary Art, Columbus

Partners (2003) Haus der Kunst, Munich

Pictures (1977) Artists Space, New York

Primary Structures (1966) The Jewish Museum, New York

Salon des Refusés (1863) Paris

Sensation (1999) The Brooklyn Museum, New York

Software (Information Technology: Its New Meaning In Art) (1970) The Jewish Museum, New York

Solitaire (2008) The Wexner Center for Contemporary Art, Columbus

Sonderbund (1912) Cologne

Unmonumental (2007) The New Museum, New York

WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution (2007) Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

What Happened To Institutional Critique (1993) American Fine Arts Co., New York

When Attitudes Become Form (Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form (Works, Concepts, Processes, Situations, Information) (1969) Kunsthalle Bern

Whitney Biennial (2012) Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Work Ethic (2003) The Baltimore Museum of Art

Zeitgeist (1982) at Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin

Zeitlos (1988) at Hamberger Bahnhof, Berlin

Guinness is Good for You

2013-05-07T02:28:00.000-05:00

The beer was strange. He’d never seen any of the labels on the taps. He did not know bitters from ales. He ordered a pint of Guinness because it was only thing he’d heard of before, having often held bottles of imported ‘extra stout’ at college parties to impress coeds and underclassmen with his affected worldliness. No matter that it most often made him ill after too many, a burnt metallic bite making his mouth numb and stomach ill induced from all his overreaching. This was an altogether different matter, though. He was mesmerized by the barman’s ritual in the pouring of it. Why was he letting it rest after only half-filling the glass? What was happening with this swirling sediment cascading like velvet curtains to the bottom? How was the head so white atop a volume so black? Why was it so much bigger than the pint glasses at home, grander, even? When its alchemy seemed settled he peered into the side of the glass and could not see through. He smiled. This new intrigue was something that could only be felt in the presence of something very old. He did not understand it, but he was desperate to discover more beyond this glass.

London Day One

2013-05-07T02:24:00.001-05:00

I suppose it must have been a Thursday, the night of the lunar eclipse, when the moonlight made the square adjacent to his hotel shine like a slightly eerie noontime, with shadows pronounced and the sky an odd manner ashen gray. It was his first day in London, and it showed. He’d paid too much for a taxi from Gatwick, because it wasn’t a taxi at all, but a mini-cab, and because it was mid-way into the journey before he’d realized there was no meter. He did not think he’d be required to negotiate, or that there may be anything untoward with the driver’s demeanor, slightly too insistent that the distance was long, and the route convoluted, and that traffic was heavy, and that 70GBP wasn’t at all out of the ordinary. His clothes were not local. His voice was not either. It was his first day in London, and it showed.

Upon his arrival at the narrow hotel in Goodge Street he made his way up the narrow stairs and into a narrow room with a narrow mirror and a narrow sink. Not wanting to waste a minute of this new freedom, he immediately dropped his bags and went out into the street to the gathering crowd looking upward into the air, somehow familiar even so far from home. His eyes could not remove themselves from the assembled crowd, scanning their faces as if expecting to recognize someone known to him, a comrade from school, a relative of unknown lineage, or perhaps a member of the same tribe for which he knew not yet its name, but wished desperately to belong. He was completely alone in this place full of people speaking in new brilliant tongues, and for the first time in his life he felt truly, unconditionally, ecstatically free.

As the novelty of the moon’s escapades wore thin, the lure of the night grew strong, and he meandered around the periphery of the milling throng down a lane lined with plane trees pale and stately, past the brown brick and white stone houses to the first pub he came across and went inside. It was his first day in London, and it showed.

There was something exhilarating about walking into a bar in a foreign country on that first day. It was not some kind of instinctual urge to jump and sing, or shout divine epiphanies. No, this was more of a tingling on the back of the neck as the hairs stood on end, a gnawing pang in deep in the heart, and a sense of pinpoint focus and comprehension of every element being in its rightful place, whether at rest or in motion, within the environs around him. He was alone, exquisitely so. He knew no one, had no preconceived notions of himself meeting him at the door of whatever establishment he might choose to enter. There was no knowledge a priori of whom he was meant to be, no blunt assertion of assumptions as to how he should comport himself or of what subjects he should speak. No, he was not outwardly expressive of the joy racing throughout each and every cell of him, but calm in a manner never felt before. It was an absolute sort of elation, self-contained, channeled, and held fast within the confines of his skin. Who would he be now, with this chance to start over? This was a feeling all his own, the most singular in all his history, and he did not care to loose it upon the world, nor share any part of it with another living soul. No, not quite yet.

Thoughts on the Passing of Sid Selvidge

2013-05-05T02:49:00.000-05:00

This week saw the death of a rare figure in the chorus of Memphis musicians, and we are all the poorer for his passing. Sid Selvidge has already been lauded for his work devoted to cultivating awareness and appreciation for the roots of local music, that is not my purpose here. Nor is it to praise his songwriting, or membership in seminal bands, or his participation in the vivid culture of musicians as a distinguished man of erudition and (I would argue) Apollian elegance amongst an often more Dionysian crowd. He was all these things, true, and so much more that I am not qualified to comment upon. I mourn the loss of his voice, the very sound of it, and that we shall hear no more from it beyond recordings. I mourn the passing of its timbre and tone, and inflection, and accent, and ethereality, and gentility, and suppleness, and power, and elemental force, not as stone, but of water, filling empty vessels of all shapes like rain, then spilling in rivulets into soil and across asphalt, swelling like the big river that keeps on rolling along past the city where he lived carrying all that it encounters far from this place into a vast ocean beyond a hundred horizons as yet unseen and more.

I shall miss his voice, and the sort of South it bespoke.

The sound of Memphis is less so for his absence.

Drinking with Bill

2013-05-04T10:26:00.000-05:00

February 2003

Drinking with Bill

Sonic Reducer’s art correspondent, Mr. John Weeden, recalls how he met lauded Memphis photographer William Eggleston, who rock ‘n’ roll dawgs may know from his pictures on the covers of Big Star’s Radio City, Alex Chilton’s Like Flies On Sherbert and, most inappropriately, Primal Scream’s Give Out But Don’t Give Up.

It was close to around ten o’clock on a Wednesday night, and I’d been at it for near onto four hours already. These kind of art sale gigs were dull as dirt. But I’d volunteered, under pressure from the owner of the garage downtown where I ran the picture gallery, in exchange for the tip jar on opening nights and a place to paint. It was Blinkey Sherbert’s show, a benefit in a bank lobby past the parkway, by the mall where the Barbaras met in the toilets to comb each other’s hair in an unconventional fashion.

They were auctioning off snowglobes for Christmas. Who got the dough, I never did know. I was behind the information desk, now converted into a bar by virtue of the empty bottles and cocktail napkins, shifting sour red wine to the frou-frous, with my intern Cammie alongside. She was making nice with dirty old men who were desperate to outlive their wives just for a chance at her. Cammie was a knockout blonde from Alabama, Montgomery, maybe - a dressed-in-black senior Chi-Omega at Rhodes College whose favored hobbies were bourbon and making nice with dirty old men who were desperate to outlive their old women. More exactly, it was the driving them wild with hopes of consummation that she liked, grinning sweetly wicked when the fur-fringed grand dames finally took notice of their sorry excuses for men and sidled up to the counter, dragging them, startled and stuttering, back to the conversation of their constituents. Little Miss Dixie, meanwhile, positively glistened with pride and waved like a prom queen as they shuffled away, slump-shouldered and very much against their will.

At least the drinks were free. I’d decided, years earlier, that bad poison could be remarkably appealing when you were broke and it was a gratis affair. Everyone else seemed to agree. Although I was fairly certain that the planters and bankers were a far sight better off than me, at that moment, they were too interested in Cammie and her low cut curves to care whether the wine was rank or not. My tongue ached of tannin and sulfite. I was dying for a cigarette. Cammie smiled with purple teeth as I passed her the corkscrew and made for the parking lot past the polished glass doors which were still stinking of Windex.

He was sitting crosslegged on the curb, staring out at the massive mid-century modernist church across the road, which was spotlit for dramatic effect and actually came off as pathetically over-reaching, even for the six lanes of traffic that’d be blurring by, had it been midday. His chin rested in the palm of his right hand while the fingers held a cigarette half burned up, already. Having left his matches inside, he asked for a light. I recognized him from the party, returning for another plastic cup of merlot-cab hybrid every ten minutes for at least two hours, attracting a rotating crowd of back-patting attendants who were only slightly less inebriated than himself and cracking jokes that I couldn’t overhear, but which caused the women to go red in the face.

I lit his next one and put out my hand to shake it, introducing myself as mama had taught me. “Bill,” he said, “how ya doin’?” We shot the breeze for a bit about the lame snowglobes, the idiocy of the Memphis art scene and the free bad wine. His eyes were heavy and weaved a bit, only ever so slightly bloodshot. His voice was low but still steady and only just then beginning to belie an oncoming slur. We made crude remarks about Little Miss Dixie. His teeth weren’t purple. Apart from his stooping posture, Bill was rather distinguished: salt and pepper hair, with a face wrinkled like a man that’d seen too many nights on a barstool and two days without a shave. I liked him immediately. He wore a tan linen jacket and a light cotton shirt, penny loafers and white socks, even in December, long after Labor Day. Bill said he “took pictures.” I drove a courier truck around Memphis delivering body parts for hospitals, so I thought it was a fair enough answer.

We went on like this, swapping stories and bad-mouthing bands, until Blink arrived, pissed off, looking for me. Cammie had run out of wine and accused me of swiping a bottle. After shouting it out, I bid farewell to Bill and retreated inside to sort the situation. Bill and his female companion invited me to dinner at a Chinese place in the strip mall next to the movie theater down Highland Avenue, but were gone before I could clean up. So instead I went on to see Justice Natchez waiting tables in Midtown, to have a few more beers before crashing on the couch until morning, which would see me getting up and answering the CB radio, to make some rent money at the Buena Vista. Cammie left me with a lick of the ear and a pinch of the ass, laughing as she drove to another party in her daddy’s Saab. Such was my first encounter with the photographer William Eggleston, only finding out who he was three days later, when Blink balled me out for giving him too much drink.

Memphis is a dirty old town. Look at Bill’s photo Untitled, Memphis, 2001, of The Lamplighter bar on Madison Avenue, a decidedly dodgy spot if ever there was one. It is still daylight from the shine of the window, something I have rarely witnessed. There’s Olympia on tap for $1.00 a glass and unfiltered Lucky Strikes for $4.00 behind the bar. Elvis fights bulls in black velvet over the jukebox, which only plays country or rhythm & blues. Old school: Jim Reeves, Merle Haggard, Charlie Pride, the Ink Spots, Hank Sr. and Jr.. Shirley will dispense a chili dog and tamales if you ask real sweet, then call you “darlin’.” If you’re lucky, the ‘box will skip and give you 24 songs for a dollar. If Shirley likes you, she’ll put seven credits on for free. There’ll be locals, don’t be too afraid. Most are just neighborhood drunks, truck drivers just off the road, art school dropouts, off duty waiters, punk rockers before the show, and the bobos just afterwards. It’s the Vietnam vets you have to watch out for - mind your manners or you’ll get into a mad conversation about Iraq or holdover Communists. Gulf War guys are even worse off, though, as they fought for far fewer movie credits and a raw deal over the “syndrome” at the VA hospital down the road. Chili dogs and tamales can only soak up so much. The pay phone behind the counter is The Lamplighter’s only concession to the notion of communication with the world outside its rickety swinging door advertising ‘Crackers 80 cents.’

The ceiling tiles are yellow and buckled with water stains. The neon Bud sign in the shape of a guitar is always on and the American flag’s always flying, no matter how faded. The day they stopped selling Pabst Blue Ribbon in bottles was a sad day all around. It’s a snapshot, just another scene Bill comes across from one day to the next. It isn’t composed, so to speak, that’s not his style. He’s fond of old pistols and still aims from the hip. If it comes out, great. If not, fuck it. There’s plenty more film for tomorrow.

William Eggleston made color photography legitimate. Although his first show at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art in the ‘70s was vilified by critics and academics for making a mockery of that institution and the form of photography which, up to that point, was in the vein of Steiglitz or Brassai, photographers growing into the medium ever since, who are more accustomed to Polaroid family birthday parties and the accessibility afforded by cheap 35mm Vivitars and the like, have copied and ripped off the old man any which way they could. Whether it’s because he’s actually brilliant (which sometimes he’s definitely not) or his pictures give a convenient justification for making the most mundane subject suddenly ‘art’, it doesn’t really matter. Wolfgang Tillmans wouldn’t have won the Turner Prize without Eggleston. Thomas Struth would’ve had a hard time, even with his dialectic of the viewer and the viewed, if Bill hadn’t been taking pics of Memphis house parties three decades before. Richard Billingham cited Eggleston as a primary influence in his seminal coffetable book series Ray’s a Laugh.

Eggleston’s Untitled, from 1980, shows an open sliding glass door jamb with the toe of Bill’s shoe on the left and a vintage six cartridge revolver on the right. It’s a dumb picture, static, only marginally less than monochrome in its palette of neutral grays, tans and blacks. But it’s so much more. After you get over the fascination with the lines and contours of the pistol, the cracks in the concrete, the rotting, splintered wood of the jamb and the stains on the floor of the balcony begin to take the fore of attention. Perhaps the most delicate detail is the most resounding. Shadows from the railing of the stoop fall like arrow-pointers upon the pistol again with its own, otherwise ominous echo-shade, made almost ethereal for the stillness of its own mute, object-projecting, steel machine.

Untitled, Jackson, Miss., 1969-70, manages to subtly give witness to the time and place of the region in which Eggleston does his best work. The circumstances of the photograph are left up to conjecture, whether the man with the mustache was a familiar of Bill is a story left up to the viewer to construct. It’s an excerpt, a glance, at what he saw during the day. The man isn’t exactly clean, perhaps working on his car, from which he’s collected the Hinds County license plate. His tattoos aren’t professional, but his trousers are fantastic. Look at the backseat of the car where he sits, fabric bench, loads of headroom, elliptical rear window, vinyl cap to the seat top. The eyes don’t look directly at the camera. As a good guest or model, he’s minding his manners, hands on thighs and sitting up straight. If he’s indeed Southern, as the picture would lead one to presume, his mama would be proud, despite his greasy hair. It’s capturing a simplistic beauty that Eggleston’s best at, allowing the viewer to imagine what’s led up to the present moment of depiction, as well as the conditions of the immediate instant of photography, and the possibility of what happens after Bill puts his camera down.

The overturned car in Untitled, 1972, is about a perfect a ruster as one might ever hope to see. I’m drawn particularly to the chrome label still proclaiming the vehicle’s “Power Glide” capability, despite its obsolescence. Even its wheels have rotted, or have been stolen ages before Bill’s passing nearby. Bits of window glass litter the pavement. Like much of the South, it’s been left to seed and will return to dust, as the Interstate passes-by those backroads. You see this kind of carcass more often than one might expect. In forgotten spots of Memphis, overgrown with weeds, by the railroad tracks where the Southern-Pacific doesn’t come around anymore, they crop up like toadstools. Dilapidated warehouses tumbling down with broken windows and half demolished exterior walls, bricks crumbling - whole chunks at time - into the rubble, where men once worked 12-hour days to bring life to a city which, nowadays, couldn’t give a shit if they ever walked the earth or not, still haunt the parts of town to the south of Crump and North of Chelsea. This isn’t just a picture of an abandoned car on the side of a hardly-used road, it’s an epitaph for a ghost town. Bill chronicles the death of his own era in a town that’s trying to erase everything which made him possible. He documents the slow atrophy of a landscape that wishes it could forget its controversial past, to garner the tourist dollars of the Yankees who are searching for something quaint to recall their ‘authentic’ vacation to the vanquished Southland which they buried the moment they touched ground in the “Home of the Blues”. But I’m biased, so don’t put too much stock in the grudges held by one of the unreconstructed who’s currently living amidst the heathens of New York State. Still, look at Beale Street, and tell me my town isn’t being revamped as a down home Di(x)neyland.

Eggleston’s never been known as a photographic artist with a political bent, but occasionally a picture turns up that cannot be discussed as simply an aesthetic object, no matter how formally the image might be analyzed. Take Untitled, “Troubled Waters,” 1980, which depicts a Rebel flag in red, white and blue neon, flying over some sort of palm tree. It’s a beautiful photograph, the blue-black night illuminated with an evanescent light, no context provided, nor people or premise. It’s an icon, silent and stupid, almost majestic in its monumentality. For that’s what it is, no matter what the art connoisseurs might say, a monument. This damned electric thing stands for the Old Dominion. It stands for both heritage and hate at the same time. Periodocity means very little once it’s in a book for all eternity. By its very presence, the sign proclaims a way of life and concomitant mentality. Simply for its existence, it’s problematic. With its documentation, it’s at once art and propaganda, by virtue of its being chosen for display. Eggleston as an artist isn’t a bit political, though, in the traditional sense. He’s got the same issues as many of those from Memphis and the Delta, namely attempting, in the same breath, to give voice to their origins while trying to overcome them and, most times, failing - wonderously. The result is some kind of poetry of experience in which one is cursed to never reconcile what one hopes one could become, with what one knows for certain you’ll always remain, despite the better advice whispered somewhere from the ghosts keeping house in the back of your head.

The last time I saw Bill Eggleston was at Marshall Arts down the street from Sun Studio on Union Avenue, drinking cheap, art opening red wine. We had a show of new Memphis artists and there were a few photographers in the mix, all black and white. Cammie was passing out beers to the regular crowd, waiting for the Pawtuckets to play and get the party really going. I was happy because the tip jar was full and I’d get groceries in the morning. He asked me for a light, I think, and we b.s.'ed about the Memphis art scene across the bar and made crude jokes with Cammie. Blinkey got on to me for giving him too much drink.

Reception Theory Reading List

2013-05-01T15:14:00.000-05:00

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Once upon a time, I became obsessed with a field of knowledge referred to as Reception Theory.

I am still recuperating to this day...

--> Reception theory is a philosophy about the arts that recognizes the audience as an essential element in the creative process. Originally developed as a method of literary criticism, reception theory posits that meaning does not lie in the work of art itself; rather meaning is part of a process of interaction between the audience and the artwork. Each reader's life experience contextualizes the meaning of each work differently, making complete and total understanding impossible.

Here are a few of my favorite texts, but be careful...this stuff gives you ideas.

Image, Music, Text, Roland Barthes

Simulations, Jean Baudrillard

A Thousand Plateaus, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari

The Order of Things, Michel Foucault

The Post-Modern Condition, Jean-Francois Lyotard

The Mirror Phase, Jacques Lacan

The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Ernst Cassirer

Towards an Aesthetic of Reception, Hans Robert Jauss

Phenomenology of Perception, Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Genesis and Structure, Jacques Derrida

Current Projects in the Works

2013-04-25T15:52:00.002-05:00

Several colleagues have inquired as to what's in the works for me these days.

Well, while working like the dickens to be the best father to my son and husband to my wife as possible, over the past two years I've consulted on urban design, anti-blight, and landscape architecture projects, written a public art program management handbook, consulted with non-profits on marketing and development initiatives, coached artists in principles of career development, assisted in the design of a private art gallery, coordinated public art installations, curated a major museum exhibition, completed an extensive fine art appraisal training program, advised private collectors on art acquisitions, and taught as an adjunct professor courses in Modern and Contemporary Art History as well as Curatorial Studies at both the University of Memphis and Memphis College of Art.

Now, however, things are about to change, and I need to focus my art engagement more precisely.

I would very much appreciate any ideas you may have to give on how to provide the most positive impact for the advancement of our city's cultural ecosystem.

Here are some ideas I've come up with as possibilities, needing to choose one.

1. Provide career development resources to artists in the form of a monthly e-newsletter.

2. Convene a group of people to pool funds for bringing in a noted artist to town to produce a privately funded project once a year.

3. Write exhibition reviews.

4. Compose an online course on public space design for those interested in community development through public art.

5. Host a monthly podcast discussing contemporary art and design with a Memphis-centric focus.

Which would you most like to see?

Or, what are other gaps in the current local art-ecosystem that need addressing for the city's cultural landscape to matriculate to the next level?

Memphis Artists I Wish Would Paint Murals

2013-04-19T14:21:00.000-05:00

Memphis is rife with blighted streetcapes and ugly buildings throughout the urban core of the city. Murals change that in a bright and vibrant way that builds uniqueness and not only 'livability', but 'lovability'. Yes, we as city dwellers should strive to develop walkable, visually interesting, safe, well-lighted, economically viable streets with a great balance of green space, play space, work space, and living space, but there's more to life than cities that simply work. I posit that we should not settle for a city where the potholes are filled and the buses run on time (which is another story entirely), but rather that we should expect to love our city. Murals are one feature in the urban environment that help make that happen.

Here are a very few of the Memphis artists that would be painting murals in my dream city.

1. Hamlett Dobbins

2. Jay Crum

3. Alex Warble

4. Kong Wee Pang

5. George Hunt

6. Matthew Farmer

7. Dwayne Butcher

8. Joel Hilgenberg

9. Veda Reed

10. Frank D. Robinson

I could go on, but I have a life to live and work to do, so will come back to this list later.

Is the future of the commercial art gallery in peril?

2013-04-11T15:43:00.000-05:00

Art advisor Josh Baer talks with gallerist James Cohan about the changing state of the commercial art gallery in the digital age at Art Basel.

'Present Tense' Exhibition Interview (Audio)

2013-04-05T12:49:00.002-05:00

Interview discussing the 'Present Tense' exhibition of art in Memphis 2001-now at the Dixon.

Leo Castelli: I Love You

2013-03-27T22:34:00.002-05:00

Would-be art dealers, gallerists, cultural arbiters, and contemporary curators, this gentleman is Leo Castelli.

Watch and learn.

Art Ideas That Need to Happen in Memphis

2013-03-27T14:09:00.001-05:00

Memphis is seeing a bit of renaissance of visual art activity that's been brewing for the past several years. With dynamic projects such as Crosstown Arts, ArtSpace South Main, and Broad Avenue building steam, small start-up gallery spaces presenting bold and out-of-the-box shows (i.e., Beige, Southfork, Tops, not to mention Material, Marshall Arts, etc., etc., etc....) and innovative visionary dreams like the Memphis Art Park still tantalizing the public with 'what if' possibility dreams, here a few more ideas to throw into the mix that would make Memphis even more amazing.

1. Contemporary Art Institute, structured on the Kunsthalle model, like the ICA.

2. 'New Contemporaries' exhibition of recently graduated university level students work from within the previous 2 years.

3. Sculpture park(s) like: City Garden St. Louis, Olympic Sculpture Park Seattle, Pappajohn Sculpture Park Des Moines, Storm King New York State, Walker Sculpture Garden Minneapolis.

4. International residency program(s) like: Delfina, Grizedale, Bemis, Cove Park, I-Park.

5. Independent art house film cinema, like Indie Memphis used to do at the Power House.

6. Contemporary Art Society.

7. New genre public art production engine, like Artangel.

More Ideas for Art Possibilities is Exactly the Point

2013-03-14T11:04:00.003-05:00

Dwayne Butcher's coordinating a show at Marshall Arts soon as a continuation of the conversation initiated by the 'Present Tense' exhibition. Well done, sir, and thank you.

This is exactly the kind of development we'd hoped would happen as a result of the 'Present Tense' project, provoking ideas about art making in Memphis.

The more shows featuring local artists on a large scale, the better, as far as I'm concerned.
I'm honored that our effort at the Dixon could spark so much meaningful dialog and diversity of opinion.

It's all vital for the growth and development of the local art ecology, and my ideal scenario would be one in which a multiplicity of new visions of what is possible for local art evolves from all the talk.

Good luck Mr. Butcher!

Thoughts on the Memphis Art World as Recounted to an Anonymous Enquirer

2013-02-13T15:17:00.002-06:00

Recently, I was contacted by an 'anonymous cohort' of arts minded individuals hoping to advance the conversation about art in Memphis. I have various suspicions about who these folks may be, but will not try to out them here. As a matter of principle I feel anonymity when it comes to discussing matters that are supposedly important to you is not a very effective means to advance dialogue, but I answered their questions regarding my curatorial work on the Present Tense exhibition at the Dixon anyway. I could have written much, much more, but I have other projects that require my time. Here is what I told them, without edits.

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 10:56 PM, Jessie Garon Presley <commerciallyunappealing@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi John,

We're an anonymous cohort running a blog about art in Memphis. It's called Commercially Unappealing. http://commerciallyunappealing.tumblr.com/

First of all, we would like to say that we truly appreciate the work that you have done on Present Tense and respect how important it is for this community. Thank you for putting this show together. We'd like to build on the work that you've done by using the show as a starting point for some critical conversations about art in Memphis. We want to look at the show from as many angles as possible, and your point of view is, of course, an important one. We're soliciting responses from the exhibition's major players with the hopes that the general arts community will join the conversation. We have some questions that we would love to get your response to, and then publish on our blog next week as we kick off a focused and sustained look at Present Tense. Any response you can offer would be much appreciated - thanks so much in advance!

-CA

Hello,

[*How am I meant to address you, anyway? Surely you realize there is something mildly creepy about taking the name of Elvis's stillborn infant twin as your pen name.]

Here are my responses to your questions, in blue text below.

I enjoyed addressing your queries, so if you wish for further feedback or clarification, just let me know.

I'd be happy to talk more about art and Memphis anytime.

Good luck on your project.

Be well,

John

How involved was the Dixon in the curatorial process? What was it like working with them? Were they very vocal about the content?

The Dixon's curatorial staff was involved in a significant way from the start. As a guest curator for this one exhibition, the museum's permanent personnel served as members of a team of collaborators throughout the process.

They were excellent to work with and are consummate professionals. I would recommend their partnership to other independent curators without hesitation.

As a team of collaborators, we developed the vision and determined the scope of the exhibition over a series of conversations beginning in late summer of 2011. I then went out into the world and did the research, and compiled a 'rough draft' of just over 1,000 works by over 300 artists, then presented them all for the team's discussions and consideration of potential inclusion in the final show. If someone had a new idea, they brought it to the conversation, and it influenced what new pieces or styles, or media, or subject matter, or methods of production I would go scout out next for further discussion.

How involved was the exhibition's patron in this process? We seem to have heard a lot from and about Jim Meeks. Publicizing the patron so heavily is a new development for Memphis, but seems to be on-trend with exhibitions at institutions on a national level. What was the relationship like?

Jim Meeks is an individual who likes engaging with art by living artists and the ideas their works provoke. He had a series of conversations with Kevin Sharp, the director of the Dixon, about what the contemporary visual art landscape was like in Memphis and they decided a major exhibition would be beneficial to advancing the cause.

My experience with Jim was always positive.

He had the ability to support a project he believed in, and so he did.

During the curating process, Kevin Sharp or myself would send him a note every once in a while to say how well we thought the show was shaping up, and he'd send us a note in return saying how excited he was to see it once it was all installed. Besides his patronage enabling the project to happen, that's the extent of his involvement.

Max Biennial, Power House, Memphis Center for Contemporary Art, Jay Etkin Gallery, Live from Memphis, and Lantana are all cited in your essay and are all defunct. Why can't a contemporary-centric institution last in Memphis?

Money, and the lack thereof.

That's a simple overarching answer to what is a very complicated question. All those cases were different types of endeavors, so their funding was structured differently. Plus, they were led by different people that had different skill sets and abilities, and whom were all facing different specific challenges and obstacles at alternate points in time. It's not an 'apples to apples' comparison.

But, the basic answer is that there was no money. That's always the underlying answer. Why there was not enough money is unique to every case.

There may be a way for a 'contemporary-centric' institution to make it, but there are so many various versions of what 'contemporary' art is, that whoever tries to make it happen next would be well served to define their institution, gallery, or organization's focus tightly and start small.

There is a relatively small patronage base in terms of donors and collectors locally, and those that have an interest in the visual arts, tend to support programs tied to education or community development. Because contemporary art often pushes the limits of traditional definitions of what art can or should be, it can be confusing or even alienating to potential supporters that are unaccustomed to new media, techniques, and practices if there is not a great deal of interpretative advocacy provided by the presenting organization itself.

In your essay you mention "critical voices." Do you feel there is a legitimate critical dialogue about the art community in Memphis?

No.

If this show represents the current art climate in Memphis, it would appear that we've ignored global contemporary art trends in favor of traditional media. The show is overwhelmingly 2D with some very traditional sculpture (stone, plaster, bronze), along with a handful of digital pieces and a smattering of nontraditional 3D work. In your WKNO interview, you said that artists "pick up their paintbrush and chisel," a phrase which would also describe what artists did in the 1800's. Why haven't new forms - performance, ephemerality, immersive installation, new media and web art, relational work - taken hold in Memphis?

See previous explanation about money and the lack thereof.

If there were patrons to support artists to make performance art, installations, or other new media works, there would be artists making them here more often. As it is, the limited patronage base present locally likes traditional painting and sculpture, so local artists that choose to stay here tend to make painting and sculpture. Those artists committed to pursuing non-traditional practices usually leave town for bigger cities with more established funding networks and resources (and therefore greater opportunities) for producing such work.

Another facet to this is that local art education is also focused on teaching and training students in methods of making traditional works of art.

Yet another aspect is the miniscule presence of critical engagement with new media and relational works of art like performance and installation.

And still another piece of the puzzle is that organizations that may attempt to produce new media works find grants funding increasingly difficult to develop in the current economy. Private donors locally (and nationally to a large extent as well) have shown a preference for funding art projects and programs that can demonstrate the measurable impact of their work upon the community. Because quantifying the extent to which an interactive laser light display installed in Downtown Memphis (for example) changes the lives of those that encounter it is at best highly impractical, if not virtually impossible, organizations that may wish to provide access to new media works of contemporary art usually don't because funding is sporadic, and normally not entirely sufficient to cover their administrative costs.

It's all connected.

Let's say there's an emerging artist who is looking for a place to launch their career. 30 years old with an MFA. Not a painter. Would you recommend they live in Memphis? Why or why not? If not, what do we need to do in order to become a city of choice for the creative class?

Wow, "What do we need to do in order to become a city of choice for the creative class?" is a dissertation of an answer waiting to happen. That is something I used to write about in various phases beginning in 2007 on my blog 'Weeden Arts Watch.' The past couple of years I got so busy with work I have not had the time for writing as much as I once did, but perhaps now is the time to start again.

In brief, there is not one thing, or even a small handful of things, but a litany elements that would need to be developed in order for Memphis to become the magnet for the creative class as described by Richard Florida.

In terms of the visual arts, specifically, key elements that are currently underdeveloped include:

1. Critical writing about art by contemporary art-educated, well-informed, and articulate writers. There simply aren't enough art writers, and the educational institutions are not training any either. This has been the case since forever, and it's not likely to change any time soon.

[*You, for example, appear to be an art-savvy and articulate person with a desire to effect meaningful change, so why aren't you taking up the mantle and writing about exhibitions?

Take pride in your work and start signing your real name to well written pieces of art criticism that focus on the works of new media artists from the standpoint of an interpretative advocate for the form. That's what I believe is necessary. You'd be more effective as yourself, rather than being anonymous.]

2. Artists that treat their practices like a business, with intentional plans for developing their careers as artists. Again, our art education systems currently in place do not have well developed programs in place for teaching their students how make a living by making art.

3. Visual arts institutions devoted exclusively to contemporary visual arts practices. Those museums we have do an incredible job doing what they do best, but there simply aren't enough of them.

4. Money. There is not a viable patronage base for a dynamic 'creative class' of contemporary new media artists to flourish in the city at present.

That is a very short list, but it is, I believe, the crux of the matter.

As for 30-something MFA's, unless they were a painter or sculptor working in traditional materials I'd say go to a bigger city if you're looking to "launch your career" as an artist creating new media works.

If you want the type of art career that takes the world by storm and gets reviewed in Artforum, you need to be close to the people that have a prior understanding of what it is you're doing, surrounded by a community of supportive fellow creative practitioners.

In Memphis, you'd either have to educate and convert a great deal of potential patrons and project supporters to make a living on your art alone, or get really good at writing and winning grants from foundations that fund new media art projects based in other cities nationally and abroad.

Or, if your idea of "launching your career" means living simply, enjoying a relatively low-cost of living, and working another job related to your field of new media art practice while developing project proposals for opportunities locally and nationally, Memphis is a good place to start.

Hope that helps!

Be well,

John

'Present Tense' at the Dixon starts Sunday

2013-01-30T14:49:00.002-06:00

An exhibition entitled Present Tense that I've been working on is opening at the Dixon Gallery in Memphis on Sunday. Learn more about it via the museum's website Dixon.org.

And, here's the introductory essay I wrote to accompany it.

Here's an article in the Commercial Appeal, and here's another in the Memphis Flyer.

My Focus is Fine Art Appraisals

2012-12-27T11:25:00.000-06:00

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

After leaving the non-profit sector in 2011, I established my own company, the Vita Brevis Arts Bureau, to provide private art consulting services for a variety of clients. These included municipalities producing public art plans, cultural institutions coordinating exhibitions, non-profits developing communications strategies, and corporations building art collections.

While I have greatly enjoyed assisting in the success of these projects, and look forward to future partnerships engaging similar endeavors in the future, I am excited to announce a new focus which I intend to make my primary activity.

Moving forward, I shall be providing fine art appraisal services to the insurance, legal, and financial industries, as well as collectors, corporations, and cultural institutions.

Over the course of the past several months I have completed the Core Curriculum of Appraisal Studies, passed the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice, and have become a Member of the International Society of Appraisers.

While I have the expertise to examine a wide range of fine art and design objects, I shall specialize in appraisals of Modern and Contemporary art, as well as 19th and 20th century paintings, drawings, posters, prints, photographs, and sculptures from North America and Europe. I am based in Memphis, with an international scope, and intend to provide consulting services to clients across the United States and around the world.

If ever your colleagues have need of fine art appraisals or consulting, I would appreciate your letting them know about my practice. I'd be happy to speak with them to determine the most appropriate services to suit their needs.

Or, visit my website and tell me what you think: vitabrevisartsbureau.com.

'The Memphis Mural Movement: Toward an Early History',Guest Post by Jeff Heubner

2012-11-21T16:37:00.001-06:00

I have never even considered posting the article or essay of another writer on this blog before now, but Jeff Huebner's research about the mural art of Memphis seems too important to not to make an exception. Murals are truly an art form for all people, and its practice in Memphis has a rich history that I fear is not appreciated nearly enough. Our city's cultural heritage begs for the kind of narrative visual art making that only public murals can tell. If this city as a whole--its government, its congregations, its non-profits, schools, community activists, artists, and arts patrons -- were to fully embrace the power of mural-making for transforming its streets from blighted deserts into vibrant destinations, Memphis would become one of the world's true cultural capitols. Not for the giants of the past, but for its citizen artists of the now and tomorrow.

Jeff Huebner is a Chicago-based art writer and journalist who writes frequently on public art for numerous publications, including the Chicago Reader, Chicago magazine, Public Art Review, and Sculpture, among many others. His books include Urban Art Chicago: A Guide to Community Murals, Mosaics, and Sculptures (Ivan Dee, 2000), with Olivia Gude.

THE MEMPHIS MURAL MOVEMENT: TOWARD AN EARLY HISTORY

by Jeff Huebner

I visited Memphis twice within the last year to do research for a book on William “Bill” Walker (1927-2011), the renowned Chicago mural artist who, among other achievements, initiated the Wall of Respect, the nation’s first community-based and Black Power mural, on the South Side of Chicago, in 1967. Walker’s outdoor murals of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s are considered the most influential works of the community mural movement, which continues to this day.

Shortly after graduating from what’s now the Columbus College of Art and Design, Ohio, the Birmingham-born Walker traveled to Memphis, where he lived for most of 1954 and painted a series of commercial murals for several Beale Street and Orange Mound clubs, including the Flamingo Room. (Walker was working for impresario Clifford Miller at the Flamingo when Memphis photographer George Hardin snapped his iconic “Flying Calvin” photo, which showed Calvin Newborn playing his guitar while suspended in a mid-air leap. Newborn’s acrobatic feats and guitar moves influenced Elvis Presley, who’d visit the club while in high school.) It was while visiting workers on a West Memphis cotton plantation with Hardin that Walker first had the idea of making “People’s Art.”

“It was in Memphis,” Walker wrote in The Artists’ Statement, the mural movement’s manifesto, in late 1970, “that I first became aware of the fact that Black people had no appreciation for art or artists—they were too busy just struggling to survive. I then decided that a Black artist must dedicate his work to his people. At the same time, he must retain his relevance and integrity as an artist. In questioning myself as to how I could best give my art to Black people, I came to the realization that art must belong to ALL people. That is when I first began to think of public art.”

Walker created the Wall of Respect along with 15 other African-American artists and activists with the Organization for Black American Culture, including Jeff Donaldson, Wadsworth Jarrell, and Sylvia Abernathy. With local community involvement, the wall pictured 50 black heroes from all fields of human endeavor. Walker went on to paint about two dozen socially conscious outdoor and indoor murals in Chicago neighborhoods that mostly focused on the urban African-American experience. The 1960s mural movement was an early pioneer of participatory, socially engaged, and collaborative public art.

In the last several years, Memphis has become home to two monumental community murals by nationally acclaimed muralists—Jeff Zimmerman’s A Note for Hope (2009) near Redbirds Stadium, and Josh Sarantitis’s Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory (2011) at Central High School, both sponsored by Memphis’s UrbanArt Commission. Each of these artists—the Chicago-based Zimmerman and the Minneapolis-based Sarantitis—has painted murals across the nation and has acknowledged Walker’s influence on their work as the “father of the contemporary mural movement.”

Viewing and documenting these stunning works of promise, unity, and healing spurred me to research outdoor murals in Memphis, particularly vintage and more recent African-American street murals. As it turned out, I found that Memphis had some classic pieces, though the city’s care for them seemed to have faded with the paint. I had read in two different sources—Community Murals: The People’s Art, by Alan Barnett (1984) and Walls of Heritage, Walls of Pride: African American Murals, by Robin Dunitz and James Prigoff (2000)—that Memphis’s first community mural was A Tribute to Beale Street, painted in 1980 by Charles Davis, George Hunt, and high school art students, on the side of Lansky Brothers clothing store at Beale and Second Streets. Lansky’s, which moved to the Peabody Hotel in 1981, became known worldwide as the “Clothier for the King,” Elvis Presley, among other entertainers.

The mural showed the continuity of ancient and tribal African music to the soul, blues, and the R&B of more recent times. “On the mural that we did on Beale Street, it was primarily about the history of black music,” Hunt, a celebrated Memphis artist, told me in April 2012. “Bernard Lansky told us we could put the mural on the building, but he had one request—that we include Elvis. We painted Elvis, included him in there, too.” This lively street art masterwork was apparently whitewashed around the time Elvis Presley’s Memphis restaurant left the building in 2003.

So, after visiting Burton Callicott’s 1934 The Coming of De Soto murals in the Pink Palace Museum (formerly the Memphis Museum of Natural History), Ben Shahn’s 1963 peace and brotherhood mosaic in Lemoyne-Owen College’s Price Library (dedicated to artists “who through word, image, and sound point to things of the spirit and man’s nobler aspirations toward goodness, beauty, and truth”), David Mah’s 137-foot-long The Story of Cotton, 2006, in the Cotton Exchange Museum, and Arnold Thompson’s Soulsville Gateway Murals, 2003, on Bellevue Blvd., among others, I went in search of the roots of the mural movement in Memphis.

(I later learned of Reginald Morris, a well-known Memphis portrait painter who studied mural painting in Mexico in 1956 or ’57 and then taught fine arts at the historically black LeMoyne College, now LeMoyne-Owen College, from the late 1950s through the 1960s. During that time, he painted a controversial African-American Jesus mural in the college-affiliated Second Congregational Church, still extant. There was also New Deal-era muralist Vertis Hayes, who worked with Charles Alston and Jean Charlot in New York City, and headed the LeMoyne College art department, 1938-49, and the WPA Memphis Federal Art Center, 1938-39. He later founded the Hayes Academy of Art in Memphis.)

I was surprised to see that Memphis—mainly South Memphis--had a number of old African-American street murals that, while degraded due to time and the elements, were still (somewhat) intact and legible. At the corner of Mississippi Blvd. and Georgia Ave., on the side of the Royal Knights Motorcycle Club building, there’s a faded, time-lapse-like mural of a basketball player dribbling and then shooting. A member I talked with outside said the mural had been there since the 1970s, when he was born, and that it had been based on a basketball star who was from the area. (Likely, Orange Mound native Larry Finch, the iconic player and later coach for the University of Memphis men’s basketball team.) While it was a truly aged wall painting, it may not have been a community mural; sponsored by Adidas, it could’ve been a hybrid commercial street piece.

Driving around, I spotted other great faded, forlorn murals depicting the heritage, struggles, and aspirations of African-Americans. One was on the façade of the former, derelict Good Folks Poetry Gallery, at Danny Thomas Blvd. and Webster Ave. Another was a long, complex narrative work on the side of the King of Discount Food Mart at Vance Ave. and Lauderdale St., across the parking lot from the Crenshaw Branch Library.

These two murals were among a number created by Charles Davis and George Hunt and teams of artistically talented high school youths from 1980 to 1983, through the Shelby State Community College Summer Youth Program. The CETA-funded program had been directed by Bennetta “Bennie” Nelson West, who was then SSCC’s coordinator of community services and is now executive director of the Memphis Black Arts Alliance. Altogether, up to 100 youths painted 15 murals, mostly in the South Memphis and Orange Mound neighborhoods. Only four survive in some form. (There’s a smaller mural on a building behind the Booker T. Washington High School stadium that depicts the life of the notable black educator and author.) West told me she got the idea for the mural program after living and working in New York City for 10 years in the late 1960s and 70s, where she saw many community murals, especially those by African-Americans, Latinos, and other racial and ethnic groups.

George Hunt (1940--) is better known in Memphis—and nationally--for his colorful blues, jazz, civil rights, and folk-themed paintings and prints as well as festival posters. He was born near Lake Charles, Louisiana, and later moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas. He taught art and coaching at George Washington Carver High School in Memphis for over 35 years, before retiring to make art full-time. Charles Davis (1948--) is an artist and retired educator who lived in Clarksdale, Mississippi, where he was born. He’d been an art professor at Shelby State Community College when he co-led the mural program, and had an extensive community-based arts background. He went on to teach art at a number of colleges in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas.

Said West: “The guy who was more principally involved was Charles Davis. I needed somebody who could handle kids, and I hired George Hunt. I don’t know that George had ever done a mural, and Charles was an art professor. He did the drawing to scale. Of course, he and George worked together, but Charles was the principal architect, for lack of a better word, particularly of the Lansky Brothers wall.” (Davis could not be reached.)

Hunt wasn’t aware of Bill Walker, but recalled seeing his murals at the Flamingo Room in 1962, when he moved to Memphis. He was, however, aware of the late Jeff Donaldson, another key figure in the creation of Chicago’s Wall of Respect and founding member of AfriCOBRA, the Afrocentric art collective. Hunt and Donaldson first met in the 1950s at the University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff, where they’d both earned art degrees and studied under John Howard, who’d been a student of the famed black muralist Hale Woodruff. “Jeff was the influence for me to get involved in [mural painting] because of what he did with the Wall of Respect,” says Hunt. “We would meet periodically in Arkansas, and we’d talk sometimes about art.”

The early community murals in Memphis emphasized the importance of African-American history, heritage, and culture through a focus on education, family, work, and the arts. Themes included the continuity from past to present to future, the evolution of African ancestral, slave, and agrarian past to the freedom struggle of the Civil Rights era (many chains being broken!) to notions of achievement and success in the modern urban environment. While these were conventional community-mural characteristics, especially in the increasingly “multicultural” 1980s and 90s, the Memphis artists handled them with heart, verve, and skill.

One of the interesting features of the Davis-Hunt murals is that the arts were often illustrated as a viable career option and path to success. “We tried to get over to young people that art had been a source of not only enjoyment for African-Americans that made a living, but also African-Americans had made a living at doing art,” said Hunt. “You know, it wasn’t till the ‘90s we had a resurgence of African-American art in America. But we were trying at that time [the 1980s] to show the young people who were participants that they could go on and do well and become good at what they were doing.”

“All the murals we did, the subject matter was primarily about the life and times of African-Americans, and music,” recalled Hunt. While the Wall of Respect and other early “black pride” murals influenced community artists and muralists in such cities as New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay area, the mural movement didn’t start making inroads into the South until years later. “There weren’t many people or places in the South that were doing these kinds of things,” asserted Hunt. (It’s widely believed that the first community murals in the South were painted in 1971 in Tremé, New Orleans, by African-American folk artist Bruce Brice, to protest the demolition of a swath of the neighborhood to make way for Louis Armstrong Park. I recently spotted some fragments on a house bordering the park along St. Philip St.)

Taking Care of Business (echoing a favorite Elvis phrase) is another African-heritage-to-American-success piece—although one wonders if the young man depicted in the center may be questioning the pursuit of money at the expense of knowledge, or if both are possible. There’s a subtle gambling theme involved that underscores the notion of taking chances in life. The mural is located on Pontotoc Ave., just east of South Main St., where it has become something of a local landmark.

However, I didn’t realize until later that the artwork wasn’t all there. The 1983 mural had been partially painted over in the fall of 2007 by a business owner until Hank Cole, a founder of the South Main Association, and Bennie West interceded. An injunction from the Memphis Landmarks Commission stopped the project, a mini-saga is recounted in an article in the Oct. 25, 2007 Memphis Flyer.

The future of the mural—the building is owned by the Church of God in Christ organization—is uncertain.

Earlier, I had urged the owner of the King of Discount Food Mart (on Vance and Lauderdale) not to whitewash the mural on his building—he said he was planning to do so—because it was a potentially valuable street piece. (He looked skeptical.) I said he could possibly get funding from the city or local organizations to help restore it—or at least retouch it with up-to-date additions. These murals have barely lost their relevance, and bringing them back to life in their depressed neighborhoods could not only add color, hope, and beauty as well as meaning but also help spur community revitalization.

“I’d love to do it,” said West, mentioning that 2013 would be the 30^th anniversary of the end of the mural program. “That would be ideal, if we can investigate that. I think it’s very important. We’ve got some wonderful young artists...I’d love to see it.”

The following photos are by Jeff Huebner.

Charles Davis & George Hunt _ Shelby State Community College Summer Youth (CETA) Program, w/ high school students, "Taking Care of Business," 1983, South Main St. & Pontotoc Ave.

Charles Davis & George Hunt + Shelby State Community College Summer Youth (CETA) Program, w/ high school students, Vance Ave. & Lauderdale St. (King of Discount Food Mart).

Charles Davis & George Hunt + Shelby State Community College Summer Youth (CETA) Program, w/ high school studentsVance Ave. & Lauderdale St. (King of Discount Food Mart).

Unknown title, artists, & date (c. 1970s)Royal Knights Motorcycle Club, Mississippi Blvd. & Georgia.

Unknown title, artist, & date (c. 1970s) Royal Knights Motorcycle Club, Mississippi Blvd. & Georgia Ave.

Charles Davis & George Hunt + Shelby State Community College Summer Youth (CETA) Program, with high school students, Danny Thomas Blvd. and Webster Ave. (former Good Folks Poetry Gallery), 1980-83.

Charles Davis & George Hunt + Shelby State Community College Summer Youth (CETA) Program, with high school students

Danny Thomas Blvd. and Webster Ave. (former Good Folks Poetry Gallery), 1980-83.

Tops Gallery Opens with Victoria Sambunaris Photographs

2012-10-23T06:43:00.000-05:00

Saturday saw the opening of a new space for contemporary art in Memphis with an exhibition of large format photographs by New York-based artist Victoria Sambunaris. Located in the basement of a former cotton building in the South Main area, Tops Gallery is the dream of Yale minted photographer, former New Yorker, and native Memphian, Matt Ducklo. I was fortunate enough to have been trusted by Matt to contribute numerous morning coffee conversations for brainstorming the ambition and approach of the endeavor. The unusual site for the gallery is intentional, and draws upon the associations of the building's history and current activity in the manner in which it affects viewers' experience. The end result is a small gem of a space where one might least expect it, and lovely shot of serendipity that lingers long after you've left.

Tops Gallery is open for viewing by appointment only: 901.340.0134 / info@topsgallery.com.

Just imagine how amazing Memphis could be if more unused rooms in cluttered buildings were transformed into galleries for experiencing art in distinctive ways. Lord, knows we've got plenty of wasted space to work with!

TOPS Gallery to Provide New Space for Artists' Projects in Memphis

2012-10-10T16:21:00.002-05:00

'Victoria Sambunaris: Between Worlds'

Tops Gallery is pleased to announce its inaugural exhibition of the work of Victoria Sambunaris opening on Saturday, October 20th, 2012 from 3-7 pm and on view

through December 1, 2012.

For the last 12 years, photographer Victoria Sambunaris has traveled extensively by car exploring the transformation of the American landscape. Her work has led her to significant industrial, political, and geological areas of the country including Alaska's North Slope, the Yellowstone hotspot, the Snake River Plain, and the US-Mexican border. Sambunaris has stated that "my process begins with an unmitigated curiosity inspired by research into industry, culture, history, anthropology, geology and ecology. My motivation to traverse the American landscape is an attempt to reveal the layers of a place. I resist approaching a landscape strictly as an expanse of scenery but view it as an anomaly with an abundance of information to be discovered."

For her exhibition with Tops, Sambunaris presents large-scale photographs of southern cavern systems and the Snake River Plain. These photographs were selected for their relationship to the subterranean nature of the Tops gallery space and its close proximity to the Mississippi River. In addition, Sambunaris will exhibit a special installation of ephemera including a 1931 bulletin on the artesian well supply in Memphis, local maps ranging from 1916 to 1970, a selection of minerals, and several books referencing the region. A special 11x14 inch print (pictured above) from Sambunaris' newest series of work engaging the border between the US and Mexico will also be on view and offered exclusively through Tops Gallery in an edition of 20.

Victoria Sambunaris received her MFA from Yale University in 1999. Each year, she structures her life around a photographic journey crossing the American landscape. Her most recent project has been following the US/Mexican border photographing the intersection of geology, politics, and culture along the volatile international boundary. She is a recipient of the 2010 Aaron Siskind Foundation Individual Photographer's Fellowship and the 2010 Anonymous Was a Woman Award. In 2011, a twelve-year survey of her work was exhibited at the Albright Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York and will travel to the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago in January 2013. Her work is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the National Gallery of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and the Lannan Foundation.

Tops Gallery is a collaborative project of photographer Matt Ducklo and curator John Weeden founded in 2012 as an initiative to cultivate a space for contemporary artists.

For details on the exhibition of Victoria Sambunaris photographs, future projects, or Tops' program, please contact: the gallery at info@topsgallery.com.

Tops Gallery is located at 400 South Front Street, Memphis, Tennessee (basement level, entrance on Huling), and is open for viewing by appointment only.

Number Art Quarterly to Provide More Frequent Digital Content

2012-09-30T03:16:00.000-05:00

Call for Submissions to Number:'s New Online Publication of Regional Visual Arts:

Number is updating our website to be able to better serve the visual arts communities of the region (TN, AR, MS). The goal is to offer more timely articles (bridging print editions) about the visual arts. We are seeking Reviews and Regional Updates from 500-1,000 words, with accompanying images. Submissions are currently being accepted and reviewed for the websites rollout in mid-October.

After the initial website release, articles will be updated at least monthly and more frequently depending on submissions. Submissions will be accepted and reviewed for publication on an ongoing basis. Submission does not guarantee publication. At this time, we are not able to compensate writers for works published online but will work to promote them as regional writers.

Reviews would cover a single exhibition from a perspective of critique or interpretation, more than a run down of what is in the show. Regional updates would cover what's happening in the arts in your area (opportunities, developments, plans, upcoming shows, controversies, etc). If you or someone you know might be interested in writing, please be aware of potential conflicts of interest.

If you are planning on submitting a regional update or article, contact Nathaniel Hein <hein.nathaniel@gmail.com> as soon as possible so he knows what to expect and for submission specifics.

Business Skills for Artists

2012-09-07T11:59:00.000-05:00

I just turned down a mural project worth $10,000, and feel it was the best business decision I've made in a long, looooooong time. Knowing when to say "no, thank you" is a key skill in structuring your arts practice. If you or an artist you know could use basic 'business skills for artists' coaching sessions, tell them to get in touch. Vita Brevis is in the processes of formatting a series of micro-arts business sessions for the Fall. If you'd like to join the e-mail list to receive the Vita Brevis Arts Bulletin with full details, send a note to 'john@vitabrevisartsbureau.com', subject line 'Art Business'.

AH 321: Contemporary Art

2012-08-20T20:38:00.002-05:00

AH 321: Contemporary Art

Memphis College of Art, Fall 2012

Myers Auditorium T/TH 4:20-5:45p

John Weeden

jweeden@mca.edu

http://weedenartswatch.blogspot.com

Office Hours: T/Th 3:30-4:00pm in the Library, unless otherwise noted.

Goal: This course will introduce students to major artists making Contemporary Art internationally from the period of 1980 to the present day. Students will come to understand the fundamental tenets of Contemporary Art and the various practices, forces, and institutions, which structure Contemporary Art production, display, critical reception, and commerce.

AH 321 Learning Outcomes: At the conclusion of this course students should be able to:

1) Identify a core group of internationally renowned artists and artworks from 1980-2012.

2) Contextualize these works in their proper historical, artistic, and ideological moments.

3) Answer the following questions: What is Contemporary Art versus art that is simply produced in the contemporary moment—how do we define both terms, what is included, what is excluded?

Art History Learning Outcomes (shared by all Art History classes): At the conclusion of this course students should be able to:

1) Students will be able to identify a select group of artworks that have enduring cultural/social/historical/artistic merit in terms of artists’ names, titles of works of art, art historical periods, locations, and dates.

2) Students will analyze works of art in terms of the formal elements of art.

3) Students will be able to discuss works of art from a variety of contexts and using different art historical methodological viewpoints at an introductory level.

4) Students will learn and use Art Historical terminology.

General Education Learning Outcomes (shared by all Liberal Studies classes): At the conclusion of this course:

1) Students will be able to think critically.

2) Students will be able to write effectively.

3) Students will be able to speak clearly and effectively.

Attendance: Attendance is mandatory and will be monitored. Expecting to pass this course without constant, attentive attendance is not realistic. Missed classes will have a negative effect on your final grade. Upon your fourth absence, you will receive an F grade in the course. Punctuality is likewise expected. For every two late arrivals, you will be assessed one absence.

Communication: I can be contacted by e-mail at jweeden@mca.edu. As part of a larger, college-wide initiative, I insist that you use your MCA e-mail account [last_first@mcastudent.org]. If you are having any problems with your e-mail account, please contact Ian Sterling. Information may be disseminated via MCA e-mail. It is your responsibility to monitor these accounts.

PowerPoints: Class PowerPoints are available on the MCA server. Students should consult these as the class progresses and use them as study aids. These PowerPoints may differ slightly from their in-class format. Students are responsible for those images seen in class. Those images that are not shown in class may be used as supporting information, but will not be mandatory for exams.

Internet Resources: Students should be wary of Internet resources. Art historical research, as is the case in many academic disciplines, is still primarily a paper-based endeavor. There are a number of online journals, but students must be diligent in recognizing the difference between a legitimate, academic journal and other, less rigorously prepared sites. If there is any doubt, please consult me. NEVER USE WIKIPEDIA.

Readings: Robertson, Jean and Craig McDaniel, Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art After 1980 (Oxford University Press, 2009) is the required text (TCA). You are expected to complete ALL assigned readings prior to class and be prepared for discussion on the day they are listed in the course schedule. Readings not assigned in your required text will be available via the MCA server (Dali) or will passed out at least one week prior to the designated date.

Books: Course books are available at efollett.com. It is wise to also consult amazon.com and other Internet sites. DO NOT DELAY IN ACQUIRING THE TEXT BOOK. All texts are available on reserve at the MCA library. ALSO, DO NOT BUY Identity Theft: Cultural Colonisation and Contemporary Art. We will not be using it.

Exams: There will be two exams during the semester. The dates for these exams are October 9, 2012 and December 6, 2012. Both exams are mandatory and must be taken on the date assigned. Exams will consist of a combination of slide identifications, slide discussions, compare/contrasts and essays. The distribution of these segments is at my discretion and may be changed at any point during the semester. Students will be notified of exam formats in advance of the exam. Exams WILL NOT be cumulative. Except in extreme, and documented, cases, there will be no make-up exams. You will be responsible for purchasing and bringing blue books to the exams. These can be bought in the MCA Supply Store.

Papers: In addition to assigned readings, there are four short essays assigned for this course. The first three essays will be critical writing exercises and the last essay will be compare and contrast. For the first three essays, you are expected to find an article from the periodicals listed below and write a critical examination about those readings. Topics can range from exhibition reviews to general art criticism articles, or specific articles about a particular artist. The last essay, which is an exercise in comparing and contrasting, may examine either two (2) specific artworks or the work of two (2), but no more than four (4) artists. This essay should discuss and analyze similarities, differences, your interest in these works/artists, etc. All essays should be no longer than four (4) pages and are due on the days that are noted within this syllabus. They should be typed and double-spaced. Should you use outside sources, please cite them according to the Chicago Manual Style. For citation questions, please consult the following website: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html . Except for the last essay, each assignment must have the article being discussed attached to it. Late submissions will not be accepted.

Periodicals List: Aperture, Art + Auction, Art in America, Art Papers, Art Review, ArtUS, Blind Spot, Bomb Magazine, Cabinet, Flash Art, Frieze, Los Angeles Times, Modern Painters, New York Times, Parkett.

Artist Presentation: Based on the readings from the text and the list of artists below, all students will do an oral presentation (10 minutes maximum) about one artist. Artists not covered in class and that are not on the list, WILL NOT be approved by the instructor. Choose your artist of interest quickly, as no repeat presentations will be allowed.

Magdalena Abakanowicz, Vito Acconci, Doug Aitken, El Anatsui, Chio Aoshima, Edgar Arceneaux, Banksy, Matthew Barney, Vanessa Beecroft, Blu, Chuck Close, Petah Coyne, Adam Dant, Jeremy Deller, Rineke Dijkstra, Mark Dion, Stan Douglas, Olafur Eliasson, Coco Fusco, Ellen Gallagher, Felix Gonzales-Torres, Douglas Gordon, Andreas Gursky, David Hammons, Trent Doyle Hancock, Damien Hirst, Jenny Holzer, Zhang Huan, JR, Kim Soo Ja, Alfredo Jaar, Isaac Julien, Anish Kapoor, Anselm Kiefer, Terrence Koh, Jeff Koons, Jim Lambie, Nicki S. Lee, Kalup Linzy, Christian Marclay, Steve McQueen, Julie Mehretu, Marilyn Minter, Vik Muniz, Takashi Murakami, Wangechi Mutu, Bruce Nauman, Damien Ortega, Gabriel Orozco, Pepón Osorio, Tony Oursler, Cordelia Parker, Roxy Payne, Giuseppe Penone, Raymond Pettibon, Paul Pfieffer, Jaume Plensa, Martin Puryear, Pipilotti Rist, Matthew Ritchie, Gerhard Richter, George Shaw, Yinka Shonibare, David Shrigley, Jessica Stockholder, Do-ho Suh, Swoon, Sarah Sze, Sam Taylor Wood, Bill Viola, Kara Walker, Jeff Wall, Ai Weiwei, Kehinde Wiley, Hank Willis Thomas, Fred Wilson.

Participation: Participation is based on class attendance, involvement in course discussions and the submission of weekly questions/ thoughts, which pertain to the required readings or class conversations. ALL comments or questions must be emailed to me by 3pm on Wednesdays.

Grading: My grading system works as follows. Please consider these numbers indisputable. Refer to the MCA Student Handbook for an understanding of grading policy. MCA policy on plagiarism can be found on page 66 of the Student Handbook.

A 93 and above

A- 90-92

B+ 88-89

B 83-87

B- 80-82

C+ 78-79

C 73-77

C- 70-72

D 65-69

F Below 65

Grade Breakdown:

Participation/Class Discussion: 10%

Artist Presentation: 5%

Essay #1: 10%

Essay #2: 10%

Essay #3: 10%

Essay#4: 10%

Exam #1: 15%

Final Exam: 15%

Major Paper or Project: 15%

*attendance and lateness will be factored into the final grade

CLASS SCHEDULE

8/21 Introduction, Syllabus review

8/23 TCA-chapter 1 (Old Media Thrive, New Media Make Waves, A Spectrum of Voices Emerge)

8/28 TCA-chapter 1 (Globalization and Theory Flexes It’s Muscles)

8/30 TCA-chapter 1 (Art Meets Contemporary Culture);

Showing of Art 21: MICHAEL RAY CHARLES and YINKA SHONIBARE

LAST DAY TO DROP A CLASS WITHOUT “W”

9/4 TCA-chapter 2 (Chapter Introduction to Identity; Identity in Art History and Identity is Communal or Relational) and Claire Bishop Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics pg. 51-65

9/6 TCA-chapter 2 (Identity Politics)

9/11 TCA-chapter 2 (Identity is Constructed; Profile#2)

9/13 TCA-chapter 2 (Post Identity; and Profile#1); Holland Cotter The topic is Race; The Art is Fearless from the New York Times

ESSAY #1 DUE

9/18 TCA-chapter 3 (Introduction to The Body; Past Figurative Art; A New Spin on the Body; The Body Beautiful)

9/20 TCA-chapter 3 (Sexual Bodies; Posthuman bodies, and both profiles)

Showing of Art 21: JANINE ANTONI

9/25 TCA-chapter 4 (Time and Art History and Changing Views of Time)

9/27 TCA-chapter 4 (Exploring the Structure of Time; Revisiting the Past [Recovering History and Reshuffling the Past])

10/2 TCA-chapter 4 (Revisiting the Past [Reframing the Present]; Commemorating the Past and both profiles)

10/4 TCA-chapter 5 (Places Have Meanings; Places Have Value; History’s Influence; Looking at Places)

10/9 TCA-chapter 5 (Looking Out For Places; Real and Simulated Places; Placeless Spaces; What’s Public? What’s Private?)

EXAM #1

10/11 TCA-chapter 5 (In-Between Places; and both profiles)

ESSAY #2 DUE; Showing of Art 21: SALLY MANN and PEPON OSORIO

10/15 and 10/16 FALL BREAK

10/18 TCA-chapter 6 (Words with Art: A History; Art with Words: A History; Reasons for Using Language)

10/23 TCA-chapter 6 (Language Makes Meaning and Language Takes Form [all sections])

10/25 TCA-chapter 6 (Wielding the Power of Language; Confronting the Challenge of Translation; Using Text in the Information Age; and both profiles)

10/30 ARTISTS PRESENTATIONS

11/1 ARTISTS PRESENTATIONS and ESSAY #3 DUE

11/6 ARTISTS PRESENTATIONS

11/8 TCA-chapter 7 (What is Science; Artists as Amateur Scientists; Artists Adopt Scientific Tools and Materials);

Showing of Art 21: MARK DION and MEL CHIN

11/13 TCA-chapter 7 (The Ideology of Science; The Visual Culture of Science; Classifying Humans in the Genomic Age)

11/15 TCA-chapter 7(Is Nature Natural; Marveling at the Universe; and both profiles)

11/20 TCA-chapter 8 (A Short History; A Few Strategies)

Showing of Art 21: BERYL KOROT

11/22 THANKSGIVING

11/27 TCA-chapter 8 (Finding Faith and Harboring Doubt; Expressing Religious Identities; Facing Death, Doom, and Destruction; Mingling the Sacred and the Secular)

ESSAY #4 DUE

11/29 TCA-chapter 8 (Both artists profiles);

Showing of Art 21: SHAHAZIA SIKANDER

12/4 FINAL PROJECTS DUE

12/6 FINAL EXAM

AH227 Modern Art: 1900-1945

2012-08-20T20:29:00.000-05:00

AH227 Modern Art: 1900-1945

Memphis College of Art, Fall 2012

Myers Auditorium M/W 2:40-4:05p

John Weeden

jweeden@mca.edu

http://weedenartswatch.blogspot.com

Office Hours: M/W 2:00-2:30 in the Library, unless otherwise noted.

Goal: Introduction to the major movements and artists of the twentieth century—primarily European—prior to World War II. Emphasis on the fundamental tenets of Modernist art and the various manifestations of the Modernist avant-garde.

AH 227 Learning Outcomes:

At the conclusion of this course students should be able to:

1) Identify a core group of canonical artists and artworks within the history of Modernist art from the period of 1900-1945.

2) Contextualize these works in their proper historical, artistic, and ideological moments.

3) Answer the following questions: What are Modern Art and Modernism—how do we define both terms, what is included, what is excluded?

Art History Learning Outcomes (shared by all Art History classes):

At the conclusion of this course students should be able to:

2) Students will analyze works of art in terms of the formal elements of art.

3) Students will be able to discuss works of art from a variety of contexts and using different art

historical methodological viewpoints at an introductory level.

4) Students will learn and use Art Historical terminology.

General Education Learning Outcomes (shared by all Liberal Studies classes):

At the conclusion of this course:

1) Students will be able to think critically.

2) Students will be able to write effectively.

3) Students will be able to speak clearly and effectively.

Notice: Some of the content of this course may disturb the sensibilities of some students.  If you need to discuss this situation, please contact me.

Notice: Students who are entitled to considerations under ADA guidelines are asked to contact me immediately. Every situation is unique and warrants specific consideration. Thus, notifications made in close proximity to exams and/or other due dates may cause complications. The greater the amount of available time, the more appropriately and successfully these matters can be addressed.

Notice: Electronic recording devices are acceptable tools for preparing class notes. However, no other machines are allowed (no cell phones, computers, tablets, etc.). Note taking with pen and paper are the standard procedure.

PowerPoints: Class PowerPoints are available on the MCA server. Students should consult these as the class progresses and use them as study aids. These PowerPoints may differ slightly from their in-class format. Students are responsible for those images seen in class. Those images that are not shown in class may be used as supporting information, but will not be mandatory for exams.

Internet Resources: Students should be wary of Internet resources. Art historical research, as is the case in many academic disciplines, is still primarily a paper-based endeavor. There are a number of online journals, but students must be diligent in recognizing the difference between a legitimate, academic journal and other, less rigorously prepared sites. Many websites are excellent (Web Gallery of Art, Met Museum of Art), while many are questionable (Wikipedia, blogs). If there is any doubt, please consult me.

Readings: Please complete ALL readings prior to class. They will provide important background and will be directly addressed in class. Some readings will be available only on reserve at the MCA library or through electronic resources. It is your responsibility to obtain these readings.

Books: Course books are available at efollett.com. It is wise to also consult amazon.com and other Internet sites. DO NOT DELAY IN ACQUIRING THESE TEXTS. All texts are available on reserve at the MCA library.

The primary course textbooks are:

1. Steve Edwards and Paul Wood, Art of the Avant Garde (Art of the Twentieth Century), New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. ISBN-10: 0300102305

2. Paul Wood, Varieties of Modernism (Art of the Twentieth Century), New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. ISBN-10: 0300102968

In addition to the readings noted from these textbooks, additional readings shall be assigned throughout the semester. These shall be either put on the server, or distributed prior to the class in which they are to be discussed.

Exams: Exams will consist of a combination of slide identifications, slide discussions, compare/contrasts and essays. The distribution of these segments is at my discretion and may be changed at any point during the semester. Students will be notified of exam formats in advance of the exam. Exams WILL NOT be cumulative. Except in extreme, and documented, cases, there will be no make-up exams. You will be responsible for purchasing and bringing blue books to the exams. These can be bought in the MCA Supply Store.

Paper: Students will write a 6-9 page [double-spaced, 12 pt. font, 1” margins] paper on a topic of their choosing.  This paper should include biographical information on the artist, formal analysis of the work(s) or topic(s) in question, and a discussion of how said work(s) or topic(s) fit into the movements, trajectories, and critical issues discussed in this course.  Properly formatted footnotes and bibliography are expected.  Please follow the format established by the Chicago Manual of Style, which is at the MCA Library.

Due dates are as follows:

·       Monday 17 September: 200 word proposal and preliminary bibliography due for approval.

·       Monday 19 November: final paper due.

This schedule will enable students to search for and find a topic, as well as formulate their thoughts with ample time for consultation and revision.  I am more than happy to discuss papers with you and/or read preliminary drafts, so do not hesitate to ask for assistance.

Students are to be deeply suspicious of Internet resources.  Online databases and full-text journals are, of course, an important exception.  Please speak with Leslie Holland, who will be able to guide you to MCA’s database and online resources.  Wikipedia is not an acceptable source.  Equivalent, and proofed, information can be found in The Dictionary of Art.  If you are concerned about the quality or reliability of online information, please contact me.

Plagiarism is a serious offence.  This class will abide the MCA policy on plagiarism, which can be found in the Student Handbook.  If there are any questions, please ask.

A 93 and above

A- 90-92

B+ 88-89

B 83-87

B- 80-82

C+ 78-79

C 73-77

C- 70-72

D 65-69

F Below 65

Grade Breakdown:

Exam 1: 25%

Exam 2: 25%

Exam 3: 25%

Paper: 25%

n.b.: attendance and lateness will be factored into the final grade

Course Schedule w/ Readings:

Week 1 (Aug 20 & 22)

Day 1: Syllabus

Day 2: Review of 19^th century art and Framing Modernism

o Steve Edwards, ed. Art of the Avant-Gardes [AAG] 1-10

Week 2 (Aug 27 & 29)

Day 1: Expressionism and Die Brücke

o AAG 13-37

Day 2: Fauvism, Der Blaue Reiter, and Critical Responses to Expressionism

o AAG 39-61

Week 3 (Sep 3 & 5)

Day 1: NO CLASS 03 SEP (Labor Day)

Day 2: Cubism, an introduction

AAG 135-155

Week 4 (Sep 10 &12)

Day 1: Cubism continued, the influence of Primitivism

o AAG 157-183

Day 2: Cubism continued, the role of collage

o AAG 185-226

Week 5 (Sep 17 & 19)

Day 1: Abstraction, Modernism, and Symbolism

o AAG 229-249

PAPER PROPOSAL AND BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE

Day 2: Neo-Plasticism and Suprematism

o AAG 249-271

*The last 20 minutes of the class shall be devoted to exam review.

Week 6 (Sep 24 & 26)

Day 1: EXAM #1

Day 2: English Abstraction

o AAG 273-304

Week 7 (Oct 01 &03)

Day 1: The concept of the ‘avant-garde’

o AAG 307-337

Day 2: Dada

o AAG 339-57, 413-22

Week 8 (Oct 08 & 10)

Day 1: Constructivism

AAG 359-93

Day 2: The Bauhaus

Walter Gropius “Reply to Arbeitsrat für Kunst Questionnaire”*
Walter Gropius “The Theory and Organization of the Bauhaus”*

*These readings shall be placed on the server, or distributed prior to class.

Week 9 (Oct 15 & 17)

Day 1: NO CLASS—Fall Break

Day 2: Surrealism

o AAG 427-448

Week 10 (Oct 22 & 24)

Day 1: Paris in the 1930’s

o VoM 11-37

Day 2: Paris in the 1930’s, continued

o VoM 39-51

Week 11 (Oct 29 & 31)

Day 1: Ethnographic Surrealism

o VoM 53-72

*The last 20 minutes of the class shall be devoted to exam review.

Day 2: EXAM #2

Week 12 (Nov 05 & 07)

Modernist Film Week

Week 13 (Nov 12 & 14)

Day 1: America: Realism and Modernism

o VoM 75-97

Day 2: America: Realism and Modernism, continued

o VoM 98-115

Week 14 (Nov 19 & 21)

Day 1: The New York School

o VoM 117-130

o PAPER DUE

Day 2: NO CLASS--THANKSGIVING

Week 15 (Nov 26 & 28)

Day 1: Abstract Expressionism

o VoM 147-164

Day 2: Abstract Expressionism, continued

o VoM 165-186

Week 16 (Dec 03 & 05)

Day 1: Overflow Day

*The last 20 minutes of the class shall be devoted to exam review.

Day 2: EXAM #3

ARTH227: Modern Art 1900-1945

Paper Topics

Please choose ONE of the below as the topic of your paper. You should spend some time reviewing the list and then select which of these best suits your interests and strengths as a researcher and writer. An excellent place to begin is The Dictionary of Art, in MCA’s reference section. A quick Google images search will give you a summary image set for these artists and their work.

As part of your final paper, you will hand in a properly formatted bibliography. Please be wary of Internet sources [.org and .edu sites are generally more reliable than .com, but check with me if you are uncertain]. Though I do not mandate a minimum number of sources, too few will reveal your research to be cursory. I will insist that you use at least as many text (book, journal, exhibition catalog) sources as electronic sources.

Please be considerate of the research needs of others. DO NOT horde materials that you are not going to use immediately. Communicate with your fellow students about any useful material you may find. If you have any questions or concerns, I am more than happy to help.

1. Improvisation in the works Kandinsky and Pollock.

2. The importance of myth and symbol in the work of the Surrealists.

3. The influence of Cubism upon contemporary popular culture.

4. Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ and its impact upon the art of its era and the world at large.

5. Henry Moore.

6. Dada and the purposes of absurdity.

7. The concept and intent of the-avant garde.

8. Purity in regards to the ethos of various Modernist movements.

9. Ben Shahn.

10. The New York School and Abstract Expressionism.

Arts Leadership A-Z: 'T is for Timing'

2012-07-19T10:20:00.001-05:00

Arts leaders' most valuable (yet often most under appreciated) asset is a discerning sense of timing. Judging when to launch that capital campaign, when to mobilize that community volunteer mural painting program, when to schedule that committee presentation, when to hire, when to fire. All these issues and more require a broad view and infinite calculations of the wider spectrum of factors in play within the moment of any action should be carried out for the best possible outcome.

All too often arts leaders are tempted to say yes to too many projects or schedule commitments in too close a succession. This may seem like basic 'multi-tasking', but it is a fools game, a complete time-waster, and will deplete one's mental and physical energy and focus faster than nearly anything else. Learn to be disciplined enough to take a moment and step back from the situation and judge it from as many angles as you know there are to be ascertained before jumping in to several things at once. It may feel flattering to have so many entities courting your partnership, but if not selected with a reasoned approach about how such activities will advance your organization's ability to perform its espoused purpose and fulfill its core mission, then it is probably better to say no when certain opportunities present themselves.

For further insights on the value, purpose, and practice of timing for arts leaders, contact me at john@vitabrevisartsbureau.com, for a conversation. I've been there, and I can help.

Arts Leadership A-Z: 'S is for Support'

2012-07-19T04:40:00.000-05:00

One key to the success of any arts leaders is the level and kind of support they receive from various people they are surrounded by in their daily life. Of course, there are the boards, the constituents, the donors, the patrons, the press, and the cultural influencers whose support are vital to building a successful platform for ensuring the success of one's projects, but I am speaking of the support that comes in more intangible forms. There is the support provided by family, colleagues, and friends that is every bit as instrumental to the leader being able to achieve their organization's objectives in as an effective manner as possible. Arts leaders benefit greatly when they have a life outside of work, which as any arts leader will tell you is somewhat of an oxymoron. For many, there is no such thing as 'work-life balance', or a 9-5 routine in which the mental switch can be turned off. There is no division between 'business' and 'personal', it all bleeds together, making it difficult to distinguish what is considered important beyond the daily grind required to make the arts matter.

This is fundamentally unhealthy, and will derail your progress more than any thing over the long term. If you crack under the constant pressure, your projects will be endangered, as will your work supporters' confidence in your abilities, which will lead to your time in that position not lasting as long it might otherwise. Establish time in each day during which there is nothing else going on, no work done, no thinking about work done, no talking to people with whom you usually talk about work, and hold that time and the space you spend it in as sacred as possible. Then, share time with your family (or, friends if you've no family), and pay attention to their lives, their thoughts, their feelings. Get out of your own head, and go for a run, walk, bike, jumping jacks, whatever makes you realize there's more to you than the job.

You're going to need this support system of space, and time, and good people in order to face the challenges of your work life head on and win the day.

Be well.