Nashville Visual Arts Events September 14-22

So, what do think—if it’s about art, it couldn’t possibly be spam, right? I’ll be testing that contention at the rate I’m going with these supposed-to-be-twice-a-month missives that seem to come out every week. Additions this time around are Jeff Hand, the latest at Gallery One in Belle Meade, Off the Wall, Untitled, and photography at Belmont.

As always, if you have an email list of your own, feel free to forward this.

If someone wants to get added directly to my list for the email version of this listing, send me an email at dcmaddox@comcast.net. To get taken off the list, email to that effect at the same address.

September 13

Transfer of Light, Belmont Leu Gallery OK, I missed the opening for this (earlier tonight), but the show is going to be up through October 25. Photographs by Gina Binkley, Bob Delevante, and David McClister. Each claims a different aesthetic spot: still life for Binkley, some sort of narrative for Delevante, mid-America realism for McClister. If somehow cyberspace sends this email back in time a few hours to get to you, the reception is from 4 to 6 today.

September 14

Sri Ganesha Temple, T. N. Seshagopalan No, this is not visual arts. It is a first rate Carnatic vocalist from India performing at Sri Ganesha Temple in Bellevue. I’m not sure I’ve experience any other music with the level of technical rigor, sonic qualities, and the spirit ual intensity and engagement of the better Carnatic vocalist I’ve heard, thanks to the program at Sri Ganesha. I have not heard Mr. Seshagopalan, but based on the description it sounds like this will be one of the very good ones. He is an experienced, fully established musician. Jonathan Marx gave nice coverage to this concert and the arts program in the Tennessean: The concert starts at 7:00 on Friday the 14^th.

Untitled, “Sweet Tea,” Bar Twenty3 This quarter’s show is in one of the Gulch’s nightspots. I assume you know all about Untitled—open to any artist who wants to get involved, quarterly shows with work by lots of artists, and they have lots of friends, so it’s always a nice, big crowd. The show is 6-10 Friday night.

September 15

Jeff Hand, “Plush Panacea,” Tennessee Arts Commission Jeff’s material of choice is fake fur, garish and fuzzy, which he assembles into framed images or uses in sculptures and figures. He’s used the blatantly artificial quality of the stuff to memorialize pop culture icons, or to disarm potentially incendiary images. This time it looks like he’s got a series of oversized reproductions of pills like Zoloft and Paxil, all the stuff meant to take the edge off the world, contentment by chemistry. The induced state of mind is one more example of the kinds of broad, culture-scale manipulations of experience Jeff works with. It seems like the perfect subject mater for him. This show at the Tennessee Arts Commission has its opening from 5-7 on Saturday.

Gallery One, Brian Tull Tull is a painter whose work moves between pop art and photorealist styles. He has a nostalgia for post-war 20^th Century scenes, often featuring female figures and classic 50s/60s cars. From the PR material it looks like he favors odd angles and abrupt cropping of the images, like a glimpse of something caught quickly in passing. The most interesting thing to me is that it seems like some of the images could be pretty sexy, a hint of the erotic in them along with the furtive quality of the angles. Not really buttoned down realism. The opening is this Saturday from 6 to 8.

Plowhaus, SNAP, “Pushpin” The Society of Nashville’s Artistic Photographers is a diverse group of local photographers who have banded together to exhibit work together, and they also meet regularly for critiques of each other’s work and discussions of photography. Generally supporting each other in developing their work. Their show at Plowhaus gives each of 20 photographers a dedicated piece of wall space to display unmounted photographs. The opening reception is from 7-10 on Saturday the 15^th.

September 22

Off the Wall, “Underwater Chemistry,” The Art House This group of women, Jenny Baggs, Quinn Dukes, Janet Heilbronn, Mahlea Jones, Jaime Raybin, and Iwonka Waskowski, have been exhibiting work together for a while. Every one of them does stuff that’ll catch your eye. Iwonka’s made some great paintings and drawings over the last year, Janet Heilbronn also had strong drawings in a show at Kristi Hargrove’s studio last year, Quinn does fascinating performance pieces, and Jaime’s paintings about the Milk Shelf space out at the Renaissance Center are really nice – cool, very composed geometries, but also filled with an earnest idealism. And so on. The group exhibits in borrowed space, although I think this might be a return visit to the Art House. The opening is from 6-9 on Saturday, the 22^nd. By the way, Off the Wall has done a lot of one-night shows, but this is going to be up at the Art House for a month or so.

Neuhoff Center, Jorge Arrieta, “Standing on a Whale” This looks like an ambitious project, a film with animation and songs performed by local musicians like the Gypsy Hombres and KS Rhoads, and a series of paintings. I haven’t had much time to dig deeper on what to expect with this, but like I said, it looks like something that should be worth paying attention to so I’d figured I’d give the list a heads up. There are two scheduled screenings of the film: 8:00 on Saturday the 22^nd, and 8:00 on Saturday the 29^th.