Nashville Visual Arts Events August 2009

Twist Gallery is celebrating its 3^rd anniversary this month with what should be a good show by Angela Burks, a figurative painter on the faculty at MTSU. Francis Bacon comes to mind—in aspects of the compositions, not the painter’s personal behavior, which I can’t vouch for either way. Twist has also been asking people to send in postcards as a campaign to save the Arcade Post Office.

And we’ve also got a new space opening, Open Lot, in East Nashville. They are starting out with a solid group show and have great plans for shows in the coming months—next month it’s exhibit of video related to string theory.

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, send me an email at dcmaddox@comcast.net. To get taken off the list, email to that effect at the same address.

July 31

Open Lot Project Space, Art.Edu. Open Lot is a new space opening up this month at 1307 Jewell Street. The inaugural show, curated with Lain York, is a group show by a lot of the really good young artists in town right now: Kelly Bonadies, Alex Crawford, Courtney Anne Greenlee, Natalie Harrison, Erin Plew, Randy Purcell, Nick Stolle, Mandy Stoller, Kendra Schirmer, Myrna Talbot. Open Lot has space in St. Louis as well and is promising interesting shows in the future. The location, in East Nashville, is near Ellington Parkway, in the neighborhood between Cleveland Street and Trinity Lane—you may want to check Google maps on this one.

August 1

Twist, Angela Burks and Love Letters to the Post Office. I’ll probably have more to say about this show later. Burks is an MTSU grad, she went away for an MFA, and she back teaching there. She is doing portraits where the faces are obscured by a mess of blood-red colors, making them something like forensic pictures. The gallery is also selling commemorative posters that are quite nice, and Eastern Block is playing downstairs.

Sera Davis, Admir Jahics and Comenius Röthlisbergers. Two Swiss artists known as The Invisible Heros have done drawings taken from freeze frames on YouTube. At this point, YouTube is one of the most pervasive and influential sources of visual content in our society, but at best it indiscriminately gathers in trivia and profound material, and at worst may impoverish our visual world. These artists give over an old art form drawing, to this new world.

Blend, Wasted Thread. Tiffany Denton is leading a collaborative project in which the gallery has asked people to send in used clothing and textiles which will be sewn together into a big installation piece. After the installation, the cloth will be reworked into items to be sold in shops around town to support Kiva, a micro-lending program.

Rymer, Drew Galloway and Gordon Chandler. These two artists both work with and on metal. Galloway paints on tin sheets that he has burned and otherwise manipulated. Chandler is a sculptor who sounds like he works with reused materials like oil drums.

The Arts Company, Avant-Garage Sale. In addition to their annual sale of gallery work, this year the Arts Company is holding an Art Exchange that will feature pieces from collections and estates.

Tinney Contemporary. The My Magic Cape show, featuring Don Evans’ drawings, continues. I’ve got a review of this in the Scene that comes out tomorrow.

Downtown Presbyterian Church, SNAP. The Society of Nashville's Artistic Photographers steps out again, this time at DPC. Participating photographers include Laura Carpenter, Denny Adcock, Kay Ramming, Eric Denton, Martha Smith, and Nicholas Dantona.

Plowhaus at the Arcade.

Studio 83.

MIR Gallery.

Open Lot, Tiny Tornadoes, Gracious Calamity and Buffalo Clover. Part of their opening weekend events, Open Lot is having 3 bands playing on the night of the gallery crawl—3 bands, starts at 9, $10 cover.

August 6

Art After Hours. The Nashville Association of Art Dealers has started a program in which members stay open from 5 until 8 on the first Thursday of the month. For a list of participating galleries go to the NAAD website. Food seem to be an important part of this—LeQuire is going to have Las Paletas popsicles.

Zeitgeist, Oblique Strategies: Dr. Roy Elam. Dr. Elam is director of the Center for Integrative Health at Vanderbilt and will talk about wellness as a part of Zeitgeist’s series of speakers from fields other than art leading talks in the gallery.

Cumberland, Parks and Greenways Foundation benefit. Cumberland has several artists who have made works that about the environment as a fundraiser—participants include Andrew Saftel, Ann Wells, Billy Renkl, Carrie McGee, Don Gilbert, Jeff Danley, Jeff Green, Johan Hagaman, Xin Lu, Ron Porter, Kit Reuther, Max Shuster and Dane Carder.

August 22

Gallery One, David Douglas and Tracey Lane. Douglas is a photographer who starts with black and white images taken with all sorts of equipment, including Polaroids and pinhole cameras. He antiques and roughs up the images in sometimes extreme ways. Lane is a painter who does things similar to Douglas in her medium, scarping and scratching the surface

Nashville Visual Arts Events July 2009

It’s utter chaos. The first Saturday falls on the 4^th of July! What will we do? Will people come to openings before checking out the fireworks? Can we have openings on the second Saturday? What about that first Thursday thing, positioned as a warmup to the downtown openings? Don’t worry kids, it’ll be OK.

Here’s the deal. The first Thursday—Art After Hours—is still the first Thursday. But the first Saturday falls on the second Saturday.

Next month we’ll explain time zones in Arizona.

As for art, good looking group show at Tinney mid-way through the month—from Don Evans to Brandon Donahue. Also, I don’t think I mentioned the new Frist shows last month, Chuck Close prints and Dean Byington paintings. The Close show is very good, leaves you with a good appreciation of this guy’s mind and craft, if exhausted by the explanations of a plethora of printmaking techniques that bewilder the non-printmaker. Byington’s monochromatic paintings in the CAP Gallery perform nice bits of visual trickery.

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, send me an email at dcmaddox@comcast.net. To get taken off the list, email to that effect at the same address.

July 2

Art After Hours. The Nashville Association of Art Dealers has started a program in which members stay open from 5 until 8 on the first Thursday of the month. For a list of participating galleries go to the NAAD website. LeQuire is inaugurating an expansion of their gallery space. http://www.nashvilleartdealers.net/news/2009/05/02/art-after-hours.10057

Zeitgeist, Oblique Strategies: Rene Copeland on acting. Zeitgeist’s discussion series this year brings people from outside the visual arts into the gallery to talk about what they do and about visual art. This month the speaker is Producing Artistic Director for the Tennessee Rep

Cumberland, Summer Showcase. Cumberland is continuing their show of three new artists—Patrick LoCicero, Jim Phelan and Valerie Stuart—and work by gallery artists like Billy Renkl, Kell Black, Bob Durham, Andrew Saftel, Carrie McGee, and James Lavadour. And for the Art After Hours event, they’ll have Heavenly Dog hot dogs for sale.

The Arts Company, The Art of Flags. Flag-themed art by Brother Mel, Jorge Arrieta, Myles Maillie, Norris Hall, and Bob McGill.

Gallery One, Summer Soup. This show features two new artists to the gallery, Mike Moran and Deloss McGraw, and a selection from gallery regulars. McGraw has done a lot of work in collaboration with poets, like W.D. Snodgrass. McGraw is also featured right now at the Main Library in an exhibit of works he made in response to James Agee to commemorate the 100^th anniversary of Agee’s birth.

July 9

Clarksville Customs House Museum, Alan LeQuire Dream Forest. The latest big work—magnum opus, literally—by LeQuire is an installation of large torso-like forms.

July 11

Plowhaus at the Arcade. Yes, the Plowhaus is joining the community at the Arcade. This is a very good news. They are inaugurating their new space with their annual Vlaue Menu Show, everything priced under $50.

Twist, Five + 5 and Nick Stolle. In the original Twist space, a traveling group show organized by Gallery [5] art in West Tampa, Florida. It consists of unframed works on paper by 5 gallery artists and five others: Ariel Baron-Robbins, Cameron Brian, Joe Griffith, Robbie Land, Diran Lyons, Tracy Midulla Reller, Kurt Piazza, Ruth Santee, Jasmine Schurrer, and Atsushi Tameda. Down the hall at Twist 58, recent Watkins grad Nick Stolle has come up with the best exhibit title of the month, We Are Going To Spend the Night at Meemaw and Pop-Pop’s. He also promises material on themes of shame, longing, and hope.

Cheekwood, Easton Selby and From Washington to Warhol: American Redefined. In Temporary Contemporary, photography-based work by Easton Selby takes up themes of traditional Southern belief systems, magic, and healing. In the main house, a selection from the museum’s permanent collection.

Gallery F, Scarritt-Bennett, Me, My Cat and My House. The new show at Scarritt-Bennett brings together five artists with disabilities and gets into the question of what their work says about the idea of Outsider Art. Outsider Art got identified as a genre through the work of people with disabilities which gave their work a sense of immediacy that has become integrated into the vocabulary of contemporary art. The artists in this show are Bill Guion, Lisa Manus, Tracy L. Martin, Paul Miktarian and Mike Rewis.

Tinney Contemporary, Donny Smutz and Craig Dongoski. This show is closing on the 11^th, so we can assume that it’ll be sort of a closing reception. Don’t know if the rent-a-cop will be there. Be sure to check out Dongoski’s delicate work.

Rymer, SCAD-N. Clsoing reception for their show of artists with ties to the Savannah College of Art and Design.

Studio 83. Not sure if they are opening a new show or continuing what they had.

Tennessee Art League, In.FORM.ALL, Ana1yze This. This group show doubles as a high security password with its mix of alpha and numeric characters. I hope I got it right, or the machine will eat my card. It’s also a group show featuring Arlene Bates, Betsy Clapsaddle, Charla Steele, Matthew DeBardelaben, Judy Klich, Merry Beth Myrick, Shonna Sexton, and Toni Hooper

Downtown Presbyterian Church, Concert. No Art Luck exhibit this month, but there will be another concert in the chapel and an open house for the studios. This month’s musicians will be Luke Skidmore, Natalie Prass, James Wallace, and the band Cheer Up Charlie Daniels.

July 13

Fringe Night at the Basement. Every other month, guitarist Charlie Rauh programs a night of bands that work through permutations of psych, free jazz, noise, punk, and general sonic assault. July’s installment features Sic Semper Tyrannus, Lylas, Dead Snake and Cavalcade (the last a Dave Cloud project with Joseph Hudson).

Twist, Experimental Music Jam. Music-making sponsored, inspired, or incited by Ben and Amy Marcantel in their Forest Bride mode.

July 14

Gallery 121, Leu Center, Belmont, Stacey Irwin. Photographs taken in the village of San Bernardo, Ecuador

July 17

Twist, Geoff Little book signing. OK, I don’t know if I’ve ever sullied myself by listing a book signing, but Geoff is a good friend, so he is covered by the provision that allows me to mention things outside of visual arts when they involve my friends. Geoff has put together a book of short stories which is hitting the streets.

July 18

Tinney Contemporary, My Magic Cape. A group show organized by Andee Rudloff with Don Evans, Myles Maillie, Ellen Stevens, Brandon Donahue and Keith Harmon. The thing that looks great about this show is that it includes Don Evans, retired from the Vandy art faculty and a man who has influenced half the people to come through this town, and Brandon Donahue, a recent TSU graduate who has had some notable pieces up at the Frist and Scarritt-Bennett. The age gap would be notable if Evans didn’t seem like a perpetual kid in the best sense.