Wednesday, December 12, 2007
News from David Lipscomb- way early
April 21, 2008 the Ezell Center, Room 301, Lipscomb will host the Presidential Lectures on Art and Art History featuring Donald Kuspit.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Success!
Thanks to everyone who came to experience the Storm Stories last night. And also a big thanks to the artists, Karen and Mary, whose generosity of mind and heart has left us with a broader perspective on the world--exactly what the Front Porch Conversations are missioned to do.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Storm Stories artists speak! Friday November 9, 6pm
"Storm Stories"
Artist Talk: Nov 9, 6pm
Avon Williams Campus Auditorium
330 10th Avenue North, Nashville, Tennessee 37203
parking available
Tennesseean Sunday 11.4.07
The Hiram Van Gordon Gallery atTennessee State University is currently displaying "Storms Stories,"an art exhibit about the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita by artists Karen Edmunds and Mary Perrin.
Now the artists will share their experiences on Friday, November 9, at 6 p.m. in the auditorium of the Avon Williams Campus as they lecture about their fears, frustration, grief and their ultimate triumph over the hurricane disaster. The lecture will be accompanied by a performance and slide-show presentation of the artists' hurricane-related artwork and original photographs taken in the aftermath of the storms.
"Edmunds' and Perrin's art is a visual narrative, taking us up to the present struggles of rebuilding New Orleans and surrounding areas,"said gallery director Jodi Hays. "Not only is their artwork in the Hiram Van Gordon Gallery capable and compelling, but we all grow from hearing of their experiences and lessons learned through the storms."
For more information call 615-963-1599
Artist Talk: Nov 9, 6pm
Avon Williams Campus Auditorium
330 10th Avenue North, Nashville, Tennessee 37203
parking available
Tennesseean Sunday 11.4.07
The Hiram Van Gordon Gallery atTennessee State University is currently displaying "Storms Stories,"an art exhibit about the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita by artists Karen Edmunds and Mary Perrin.
Now the artists will share their experiences on Friday, November 9, at 6 p.m. in the auditorium of the Avon Williams Campus as they lecture about their fears, frustration, grief and their ultimate triumph over the hurricane disaster. The lecture will be accompanied by a performance and slide-show presentation of the artists' hurricane-related artwork and original photographs taken in the aftermath of the storms.
"Edmunds' and Perrin's art is a visual narrative, taking us up to the present struggles of rebuilding New Orleans and surrounding areas,"said gallery director Jodi Hays. "Not only is their artwork in the Hiram Van Gordon Gallery capable and compelling, but we all grow from hearing of their experiences and lessons learned through the storms."
For more information call 615-963-1599
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Speaking from the Porch I.
In an effort to stay true to the Front Porch's mission to promote critical dialogue, discussion and conversation (see first post), we asked Rocky Horton to throw his hat into the ring on the "state of Nashville visual arts". Welcome Rocky...
As an artist and an art professor at a local university, I often find myself embroiled in a conversation, really, “The Conversation” about the state of visual art in Nashville. It begins positively enough, usually about recent shows occurring around town. It then moves into discussions about the lack of critical discernment here. Then some statements are inserted that could be placed under the heading “city envy”, concerning New York (of course), Chicago (certainly), Atlanta (hmm…) and, Memphis (Gulp!). Afterward, it quickly degenerates into an anxious and bitter tirade that can be summed up in the following statement: The Nashville Art Scene Sucks.
Given the frequency and fervor of “the conversation” one has to give it a certain amount of credibility. After all, it is occurring amongst a large portion of the artists, curators, professors, students and gallery owners of the Nashville art community. All of who are critiquing it from within. These voices join together denouncing what has for too long been a feeble, fledging art community demanding, selling, and disseminating mediocre art work while the best of Nashville goes unappreciated or, worse, ignored.
Admittedly, The Nashville art scene, like all others, is complex. It is a reflection and manifestation of the community of gallery owners, collectors, artists, and educators that create it. Therefore, it is impossible to offer a concise and thorough examination of all of its intricacies. So here, with deference to generalizations and the occasional over simplification, goes an attempt to elucidate the quagmire of problems that are the Nashville art scene.
To begin, an art scene primarily consists of artists (who make the art), gallery directors (who curate and show the art), writers (who critique and educate the public about the art), and collectors (who spend hard earned dollars to purchase the objects that have been created, curated, exhibited, critiqued and explained). It operates like an organism with all parts functioning to create a healthy whole. If any of these parts fail, it isn’t long before the entire organism is in trouble.
Somewhat shockingly, Nashville is rife with contemporary artists of merit. This is due in large part to the profusion of academic art programs (notably Vanderbilt, Watkins, and MTSU) that infuse the Nashville area with artists of academic credibility. Also, outside of the academy, there are a great number of practicing artists of excellence. These artists practice in a variety of media and methodologies. However, with very few exceptions, these artists are forced to look outside of their hometown to find a market for their wares. In fact, only a handful of the aforementioned artists are able to work and live entirely within the Nashville community. Several consider other cities, near and far, to be the home base for their practice.
A recent show by a local artist (who shall remain nameless) at a local contemporary art gallery (that shall remain nameless) had an unprecedented opening reception. Now, this event was not extraordinary because the work was great (though it was) or because the reception was well attended (though it was). What made this show extraordinary was because that particular artist sold a few pieces of artwork. This work was perhaps the most palatable of any contemporary work being done in Nashville. Meaning, that this is exactly the kind of work that one could hang in their house and still be participating in something credible and critically sound. Yet, only a few pieces sold.
After this reception, it was widely discussed amongst artists in a quietly hopeful manner reminiscent of children’s bedtime stories.
The moral of the story: If there is a problem with contemporary art in Nashville, it is not in the work being done, but how that work is being responded to. To date, Nashville’s participation in a critical conversation about art and art practice has been relegated to the academic community. There is, simply, little being done to involve the public in the art community or the art community in the public. If such a thing were to occur, it would have to begin at the gallery level.
This is a very generalized statement, so, before continuing, some nods to the current avant-garde of Nashville’s artistic public relations is in order. First, for quite some time there have been a few local galleries that have made showcasing contemporary art their main agenda. TAG, Zeitgeist, and Cumberland are perhaps the most prominent still in business. And, let’s take a moment to remember the fallen…like the Fugitive art Center. The group is still active, but nothing has risen to take the place of the now abandoned exhibition space. However, in the last few years there has been a wellspring of galleries cropping up around town. The budding scene in the arcade downtown has been a boon to the fledging art community. Unfortunately, there has been no sense of “having arrived”. Instead, most the Nashville community treats the surge in gallery going with a collective southern apologetic surprise, a combined “aw shucks”.
In fact, at present, there are no voices rising amid the din to discuss the current art scene in a manner that is both critically sound and culturally viable. There have been sporadic attempts at creating such a conversation. For instance, until recently the art writing in the Scene had a solid chance. At least a better chance than the article about local artists that was produced by another local rag- that now infamous article that explored such important issues in contemporary art like “hotness” and whether or not the interviewee was in his skivvies. Regrettably, while it may have been a mockery of serious art making, that article has resonated in the mind of the public. Now, what does that say about the public and it’s thoughts (if any) on art?
It is the burden of the writers to take what is being shown in the galleries and direct the conversation about that work. The masses, or as sculptor, David Smith, said “them asses” do not have access to “art speak” outside of critical writing. It is often the first introduction to a body of work (in critic’s picks, gallery reviews, etc.) and certainly the most helpful in acquiring some formative inside information about the work.
The importance of the public in Nashville’s art scene has led some editors (you know who you are) to ask their very capable staff to essentially “dumb down” their articles in favor of a warmed over, polite, and “OMG!”, “totally awesome!”, “wicked cool”, laden common rhetoric. Thus, most articles at present, read like a fifteen-year-old’s text message rather than a critical review of the work being presented. Unless one expects the masses to spontaneously generate a learned interest (which, according to scientist Francesco Redi in 1668, cannot happen) writers, critics, and gallerists are best serving their public by not “dumbing it down”, but raising the level of critical discourse to help educate and excite the mind of the otherwise bemused, but disengaged public. And, yes, this agenda may not sell a ton of papers…but the paper is free anyway. So, why not be part of a slightly smaller, but more committed public concerned with art writing? “Them Asses” will surely keep picking it up for the music listings, right?
Perhaps, the issue lies in the public. After all, Nashville is a town that accepts a pea gravel copy of the Parthenon as a symbol of the city’s cultural status as “Athens of the South”. It is a public that forces the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, its only venue for major art collections, to constantly regurgitate the Impressionists to keep attendance from falling. It is a town in which its main art industries, Contemporary Christian and Contemporary Country music (sometimes a hard distinction to make), almost intrinsically eschew esthetic awareness (consider the Billy Graham statue and Toby Keith’s whole career as evidence).
It is an attractive argument with a litany of affirmations. However, the burden of creating and sustaining an art community has never been on the public. It falls, however unfairly, on the same artists, galleries, and writers who are currently keeping it alive. The truth is, an art community shapes its own destiny. Again, this is accomplished by creating sound, viable artworks, getting galleries to show legitimate, courageous, and sometimes controversial works, from both local artists and artists outside the Nashville area. And, it must include allowing writers to do their job by critically discussing and examining the work.
This is crux of “the conversation”. Nashville needs critique. It needs conversation. It is an art community where anyone can, and does, exhibit work alongside anyone else. Teachers show with students, non-professionals with professionals, and artists with hobbyists. This creates confusion among the viewing public who are incapable of discerning the good from the bad without some assistance. Critics, curators, and gallery owners act as kind of artistic triage for the art world. They make quality distinctions of artwork and locate them in their proper arena: museum, gallery, frame shop, craft store, mall, trash bin, etc. If this sounds elitist it is because art is, like all cultural endeavors, somewhat elitist. There is a good and bad, a better and worse, and the sooner the Nashville community recognizes it’s best, the community as a whole will have something to strive for.
As an artist and an art professor at a local university, I often find myself embroiled in a conversation, really, “The Conversation” about the state of visual art in Nashville. It begins positively enough, usually about recent shows occurring around town. It then moves into discussions about the lack of critical discernment here. Then some statements are inserted that could be placed under the heading “city envy”, concerning New York (of course), Chicago (certainly), Atlanta (hmm…) and, Memphis (Gulp!). Afterward, it quickly degenerates into an anxious and bitter tirade that can be summed up in the following statement: The Nashville Art Scene Sucks.
Given the frequency and fervor of “the conversation” one has to give it a certain amount of credibility. After all, it is occurring amongst a large portion of the artists, curators, professors, students and gallery owners of the Nashville art community. All of who are critiquing it from within. These voices join together denouncing what has for too long been a feeble, fledging art community demanding, selling, and disseminating mediocre art work while the best of Nashville goes unappreciated or, worse, ignored.
Admittedly, The Nashville art scene, like all others, is complex. It is a reflection and manifestation of the community of gallery owners, collectors, artists, and educators that create it. Therefore, it is impossible to offer a concise and thorough examination of all of its intricacies. So here, with deference to generalizations and the occasional over simplification, goes an attempt to elucidate the quagmire of problems that are the Nashville art scene.
To begin, an art scene primarily consists of artists (who make the art), gallery directors (who curate and show the art), writers (who critique and educate the public about the art), and collectors (who spend hard earned dollars to purchase the objects that have been created, curated, exhibited, critiqued and explained). It operates like an organism with all parts functioning to create a healthy whole. If any of these parts fail, it isn’t long before the entire organism is in trouble.
Somewhat shockingly, Nashville is rife with contemporary artists of merit. This is due in large part to the profusion of academic art programs (notably Vanderbilt, Watkins, and MTSU) that infuse the Nashville area with artists of academic credibility. Also, outside of the academy, there are a great number of practicing artists of excellence. These artists practice in a variety of media and methodologies. However, with very few exceptions, these artists are forced to look outside of their hometown to find a market for their wares. In fact, only a handful of the aforementioned artists are able to work and live entirely within the Nashville community. Several consider other cities, near and far, to be the home base for their practice.
A recent show by a local artist (who shall remain nameless) at a local contemporary art gallery (that shall remain nameless) had an unprecedented opening reception. Now, this event was not extraordinary because the work was great (though it was) or because the reception was well attended (though it was). What made this show extraordinary was because that particular artist sold a few pieces of artwork. This work was perhaps the most palatable of any contemporary work being done in Nashville. Meaning, that this is exactly the kind of work that one could hang in their house and still be participating in something credible and critically sound. Yet, only a few pieces sold.
After this reception, it was widely discussed amongst artists in a quietly hopeful manner reminiscent of children’s bedtime stories.
The moral of the story: If there is a problem with contemporary art in Nashville, it is not in the work being done, but how that work is being responded to. To date, Nashville’s participation in a critical conversation about art and art practice has been relegated to the academic community. There is, simply, little being done to involve the public in the art community or the art community in the public. If such a thing were to occur, it would have to begin at the gallery level.
This is a very generalized statement, so, before continuing, some nods to the current avant-garde of Nashville’s artistic public relations is in order. First, for quite some time there have been a few local galleries that have made showcasing contemporary art their main agenda. TAG, Zeitgeist, and Cumberland are perhaps the most prominent still in business. And, let’s take a moment to remember the fallen…like the Fugitive art Center. The group is still active, but nothing has risen to take the place of the now abandoned exhibition space. However, in the last few years there has been a wellspring of galleries cropping up around town. The budding scene in the arcade downtown has been a boon to the fledging art community. Unfortunately, there has been no sense of “having arrived”. Instead, most the Nashville community treats the surge in gallery going with a collective southern apologetic surprise, a combined “aw shucks”.
In fact, at present, there are no voices rising amid the din to discuss the current art scene in a manner that is both critically sound and culturally viable. There have been sporadic attempts at creating such a conversation. For instance, until recently the art writing in the Scene had a solid chance. At least a better chance than the article about local artists that was produced by another local rag- that now infamous article that explored such important issues in contemporary art like “hotness” and whether or not the interviewee was in his skivvies. Regrettably, while it may have been a mockery of serious art making, that article has resonated in the mind of the public. Now, what does that say about the public and it’s thoughts (if any) on art?
It is the burden of the writers to take what is being shown in the galleries and direct the conversation about that work. The masses, or as sculptor, David Smith, said “them asses” do not have access to “art speak” outside of critical writing. It is often the first introduction to a body of work (in critic’s picks, gallery reviews, etc.) and certainly the most helpful in acquiring some formative inside information about the work.
The importance of the public in Nashville’s art scene has led some editors (you know who you are) to ask their very capable staff to essentially “dumb down” their articles in favor of a warmed over, polite, and “OMG!”, “totally awesome!”, “wicked cool”, laden common rhetoric. Thus, most articles at present, read like a fifteen-year-old’s text message rather than a critical review of the work being presented. Unless one expects the masses to spontaneously generate a learned interest (which, according to scientist Francesco Redi in 1668, cannot happen) writers, critics, and gallerists are best serving their public by not “dumbing it down”, but raising the level of critical discourse to help educate and excite the mind of the otherwise bemused, but disengaged public. And, yes, this agenda may not sell a ton of papers…but the paper is free anyway. So, why not be part of a slightly smaller, but more committed public concerned with art writing? “Them Asses” will surely keep picking it up for the music listings, right?
Perhaps, the issue lies in the public. After all, Nashville is a town that accepts a pea gravel copy of the Parthenon as a symbol of the city’s cultural status as “Athens of the South”. It is a public that forces the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, its only venue for major art collections, to constantly regurgitate the Impressionists to keep attendance from falling. It is a town in which its main art industries, Contemporary Christian and Contemporary Country music (sometimes a hard distinction to make), almost intrinsically eschew esthetic awareness (consider the Billy Graham statue and Toby Keith’s whole career as evidence).
It is an attractive argument with a litany of affirmations. However, the burden of creating and sustaining an art community has never been on the public. It falls, however unfairly, on the same artists, galleries, and writers who are currently keeping it alive. The truth is, an art community shapes its own destiny. Again, this is accomplished by creating sound, viable artworks, getting galleries to show legitimate, courageous, and sometimes controversial works, from both local artists and artists outside the Nashville area. And, it must include allowing writers to do their job by critically discussing and examining the work.
This is crux of “the conversation”. Nashville needs critique. It needs conversation. It is an art community where anyone can, and does, exhibit work alongside anyone else. Teachers show with students, non-professionals with professionals, and artists with hobbyists. This creates confusion among the viewing public who are incapable of discerning the good from the bad without some assistance. Critics, curators, and gallery owners act as kind of artistic triage for the art world. They make quality distinctions of artwork and locate them in their proper arena: museum, gallery, frame shop, craft store, mall, trash bin, etc. If this sounds elitist it is because art is, like all cultural endeavors, somewhat elitist. There is a good and bad, a better and worse, and the sooner the Nashville community recognizes it’s best, the community as a whole will have something to strive for.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Monday, August 27, 2007
Storm Stories talk and Exhibition coming to the Front Porch
Exhibition: Oct 1-Nov 9
Opening Reception: Oct 1, 5-7pm
Department of Art, Elliot Hall Space
http://www.tnstate.edu/ContactUs/CampusMap.htm
Artist Talk: Nov 9, 6pm!!!
Avon Williams Campus Auditorium
330 10th Avenue North, Nashville, Tennessee 37203
parking available
Karen Edmunds (New Orleans, LA) and Mary Perrin (Lafayette, LA), artists affected by the Hurricanes in 2005, have collaborated on a multi-media story/performance on their experiences after Katrina and Rita. They will perform their “Storm Stories” for Nashville and surrounding communities.
Storm Stories is a dialogue between Edmunds and Perrin who share their experiences of the hurricane season of 2005 in south Louisiana. Karen Edmunds, from New Orleans, did not evacuate immediately from the onslaught of Hurricane Katrina, nor did Mary Perrin, from Lafayette, LA, evacuate from Hurricane Rita a month later.
Sometimes silly, sometimes sad, they tell their stories of fear, frustration, grief but which end ultimately in triumph. It is the hope that this exhibition inspires healing. Approached with respect and reverence, TSU treats the topics of the Hurricanes of 2005 with care. The artwork that artist make is but only a small, however not unimportant part of the larger story that these events tell.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Nashville, Welcome to Art's Front Porch
The Front Porch, particularly in the south, is a space of dialogue and conversation. It is the architectural, liminal space between the inside and outside, connecting private and public.
Front Porch Conversations (FPC) is a program with a mission to encourage and support artistic (visual) excellence in Nashville. The conversations are designed to initiate and sustain high-level artistic dialogue in the community of Nashville and its surrounding cities--using the idea of the front porch as a metaphor for exchange and dialogue.
The Front Porch Conversations are a series of lectures and workshops (sponsors are in the works, but will be announced at a later date) designed to create dialogue between the growing, “inside” Nashville arts community and the “outside” artists living in other regions of the United States. Community involvement and further partnership is strongly encouraged. Topics include but are not limited to Working in a Collective, Why Paint?, How Disaster Effects Artists, and the Marriage of Art and Business. The Conversations are intended to be forums in which students, professional and independent artists, academics and community leaders can take part.
Inaugural events include public lectures with top US artists, coupled with a “private” conversation with said artist on an undisclosed East Nashville porch. The porch conversation will be recorded (since we can't fit a whole community on our front porch), made into a pod cast and housed on Front Porch Conversations’s web site. The idea is that some of the best conversations are born out of friendship and familiarity. Front Porch Conversations utilize new media to allow for a democratic use of formerly privileged information, providing access to more community members.
More to come...
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