Friday, October 5, 2012

All Art Friday

All Art Friday

All Art Friday Spotlights

✦ Recently launched, the nonprofit New Orleans-based art subscription program The Drop aims to connect local artists with local prospective collectors as well as collectors around the country. A project of Pelican Bomb, an online platform dedicated to the Louisiana arts community, The Drop plans to commission three artists every two months, each of whom will create 100 prints, multiples, or unique artworks. Depending on their choice of level (currently $80, $150, and $200), subscribers will receive one, two, or all three works. See FAQs for more information. Currently participating artists and images of their work for The Drop may be seen on the Website.

✦ An Art Advisory service at Joan Hisaoka Art Gallery, Smith Center for Healing and the Arts, Washington, D.C., has been initiated with 20 artists, including several whose collectible work is familiar to me: Pamela ViolaKazaan Viveiros, and Ellyn Weiss. Brief biographical profiles of the artists working with the Art Advisory are available at the link.

✦ In August, the NEA Art Works blog interviewed Eric Firestone, curator of "The Boneyard Project". Read the interview about the "airplane graveyards", then go here to see a video introduction to the fascinating project.


✦ In New York City, bookstores can be art galleries of a sort, too. If, as I do, you delight in browsing art-book establishments, enjoy this article from Randy Kennedy; you'll find a list of haunts, including their Websites, at the end of the post.

Exhibitions Here and There

✭ A show of photographs by award-winning Eirik Johnson is on view through December 9 at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York. The exhibition, "Eirik Johnson: Sawdust Mountain", organized by Aperture Foundation, is the culmination of Johnson's multi-year project to photograph the environmental and economic effects of logging in Northern California, Oregon, and Washington. According to publicity about the project, Johnson, of Seattle, describes his photo essay as a "melancholy love letter of sorts, my own personal ramblings about a region with which I still very much identify", where the decline of the industry has forced mill towns to take stock of their uncertain future.

In the short video below, Johnson talks about his project in the Northwest and how he uses his photographs to tell a story:



Sawdust Mountain Book (Video) and Portfolio (archival pigment ink prints)

✭ In Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian's Arthur M. Sackler Gallery has mounted more than 150 objects dating from the first millennium BCE for its exhibition "Nomads and Networks: The Ancient Art and Culture of Kazakhstan". Continuing through November 12, the show includes a number of significant archaeological discoveries from the last 15 years. The Sackler, which this year is celebrating its 25th anniversary, also is presenting "Shadow Sites: Recent Work by Jananne Al-Ani", which comprises video works inspired by archival archaeological and aerial photographs and contemporary news reportage from the Middle East. The show of work by Al-Ani, an Iraqi-born artist now living in London who was awarded the 2011 Abraaj Capital Art Prize, runs through February 10, 2013.

Information about Al-Ani at LuxOnline

Freer | Sackler Gallery on FaceBook, Twitter, and YouTube

Freer | Sackler Blog 

✭ Ninety works by multi-media artist Mickalene Thomas are on show through January 20, 2013, at the Brooklyn Museum. The exhibition, "Mickalene Thomas: Origin of the Universe", which appeared earlier this year at Santa Monica Museum of Art, is the artist's first solo museum show and highlights recent work; highlights include an entrance-gallery mural, the documentary Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman, about Thomas's mother Sandra Bush, and installations of domestic interiors created for the exhibition. Drawing on art history and popular culture, Thomas is known for her embellished collage-inspired paintings of African-American women.

In this short video, Thomas talks about her artistic influences, inspirations, and dreams:


In this 2011 video, Thomas speaks about art-making with interviewer Richard Goldstein for BOMB Magazine:



Jori Finkel, "MickaleneThomas, Up Close and Very Personal", Los Angeles Times, April 20, 2012

Interview with Mickalene Thomas at MomCulture

Sean Landers, "Mickalene Thomas", Interview, BOMB, Summer 2011

Brooklyn Museum on FaceBook, Twitter, and YouTube

Brooklyn Museum Blog

Save the Date

The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., will open "Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art" October 25, 2013. Approximately 70 works in all media, including pieces by a number of leading contemporary artists in the United States, will be in the show, running through March 2, 2014. Among the highlights: a mixed media installation  by Amalia Mesa-Bains, a 1960 painting by Carmen Herrera, and films by Raphael Montanez Ortiz. Some other featured artists are Ana Mendieta, Sophie Rivera, Enrique Chagoya, and Vik Muniz

Leading up to the exhibition, the Eye Level blog is running a series of occasional posts about featured artists and their works; go here for the first, a look at the art of Freddy Rodriguez.


Notable Exhibitions Abroad

✭ In Tokyo, Japan, the Mori Art Museum is showing through October 28 "Arab Express: The Latest Art from the Arab World". The exhibition commemorates the 40th anniversary of Japan's establishment of diplomatic relations with Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates, and the 50th anniversary of the country's establishment of diplomatic relations with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. A list of 34 artists and images of their work are available here. The show is described as the first exhibition of its kind in Japan.

Mori Art Museum on FaceBook and Twitter

2 comments:

Louise Gallagher said...

How do you find so much wonder? You are amazing.

S. Etole said...

My father was a lumberman and sawyer in the PNW so that holds a special interest for me.