Archive For The “Reviews” Category
By Lisa Williamson The title of a show is our introduction to the artist’s work, the selling point to the end-product, an enticement to tease the imagination prior to entering a space or experience. In the case of Erin Harmon, the title is a loose flap that intermittently reveals hints of a self-generative…
By Chase Westfall Massa Lemu’s The sea hums bearing strange gifts (May 10–24, 2018, Oakwood Arts, Richmond, Va.) brings objects, moving image and language together in a complex meditation on the emotional and psychological experience of displacement. Video footage and materials from Lemu’s native Malawi are carefully blended into the site and history…
By Catherine Rush Yanique Norman’s exhibition, Lessons on How to Be a More Interesting Woman, on display in the South Gallery at the municipally-owned Gallery 72 in downtown Atlanta, draws inspiration from a set of poems by Safiya Sinclair, Notes on the State of Virginia, I-III. In her statement, Norman claims the exhibition…
By Casey Fletcher The fourth incarnation of the Hunter Invitational at the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga was sold to me by a close friend as one of the more engaging exhibits that the museum has run in some time. The collection of eight working artists invited by the Hunter’s contemporary…
By Ash Smith Situated in the shadow of a few shiny high-rises near downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, Lump hangs low key with a gradual gray A-frame and red plastic letters LUMP below its gable—but inconsequential it is not. As a North Carolina born-and-raised artist who went to school in Chapel Hill, this space…
by Clay Palmer For a show with only four pieces, Jefferson Pinder’s Thin Skin/Shock Layer is anything but sparse in terms of content. The layering of social critique, historical references, and multiple mediums lends for a densely-packed exhibition that introduces a jarring amount of information to absorb. Major themes that these works present…
By Bridget Bailey Mild Climate Gallery, Nashville, Tennessee August 4 to September 30, 2018 Dance shows in art galleries are revered by many as unique in their ability to enliven space, to create a special temporality, and bring new life to otherwise mostly bodiless relics of making. One time I said to my cousin,…
By Catherine Rush “It just feels gross,” says Stephanie Loggans, one of the six members of the VERSA team, with a shrug turning to Dylan Pew, another VERSA member. The two sit across the booth from me at San Marcos, a Guatemalan restaurant in Chattanooga. Dylan nods along. “Gross,” is their shared sentiment…
by Jodi Hays Tops Gallery Memphis, Tennessee July 21 – September 9, 2018 Gleaming metal ductwork, glossy white floors and ceilings, dingy cement walls, perfectly appointed lighting — Memphis’s Tops Gallery is a revelation. Screen Door, curated by Hunter Braithwaite, presents four painters: Anne Craven, EJ Hauser, Dana Frankfort, and Margeaux Ogden. Screen doors…
By Mary Phan (Web Article) On January 11, The Collective, a Memphis-based group of black creatives, hosted their inaugural exhibition, Inheritance: A Lineage of Black Art, at their new exhibition space, The CMPLX. Curated by Lawrence Matthews and Grace Stewart, the exhibition is on display until February 1, on which date the artists…