Monumental and ephemeral: Ashanti Chaplin at the Tulsa Artist Fellowship
Ashanti Chaplin: “The Hidden Gospels Of Dust“ Tulsa Artist Fellowship Flagship April 5, 2024
It’s spring in Tulsa and a lot of people are suffering. Often ranked as one of the worst locations for allergies, the city is beautiful but terrible right now for people sensitive to dust, dirt, and particles in the air. But stepping into the Tulsa Artist Fellowship Flagship space for Ashanti Chaplin’s solo exhibition The Hidden Gospels of Dust will transport you into a space adrift and grounded with the beauty of dust — without the need for an antihistamine.
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Brian Slattery
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Apr 12, 2024 10:08 am
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Joy Bush photo
It’s the shape of an ancient Middle Eastern cityscape, verandahs and towers, arched doorways and windows like peeping eyes. But it’s not anywhere near the Middle East; it’s on a rock hilltop in Waterbury, and it’s part of Holy Land USA — to some, a roadside attraction, to others, a place of serious pilgrimage, and for Joy Bush, the subject of an almost 40-year-long series of photographs.
Winter in America: The Speakeasy; Bold, Black & Brilliant — The Baldwin Edition Joyce Gordon Gallery 406 14th St. Oakland April 3, 2024
When I think of James Baldwin, the images that surface in my mind are often in black and white. Photographs, video clips, and even his words on the page appear stark and matter-of-fact. Walking into the Joyce Gordon Gallery and seeing over 40 faces and expressions of Baldwin, my connotation of him was elevated.
The traveling exhibition, “Frontline Prophet: James Baldwin,” features works from Detroit artist Sabrina Nelson. Pop art-style portraits of Baldwin covered the walls, infused with hues of bright red, cobalt blue, greens, and golds. Seeing Baldwin’s face in modern styles brought him out of the past and into the now in a refreshing way.
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Nora Grace-Flood
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Apr 9, 2024 10:17 am
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M Solivan Photo
Art, albeit shitty (but a better photo than I could get) ...
Nora Grace-Flood Photo
... as compared to a permanent sculpture that served as artistic guidance to Monday's show.
Eclipse Viewing The Woodlands April 8, 2024
The Woodlands in West Philly looked picturesque under the half-baked sun Monday afternoon, with picnic blankets, magnolia leaves, and bicycles strewn across the historic lawns as neighbors sought out their personal vision of a rare celestial show: the solar eclipse.
They came expecting a cosmic spectacle. As an arts reviewer, I came looking for an answer to a question: Could an eclipse count as art?
In a temporary gallery space, canvases came to life. On gray felt walls hung one-to-five foot pieces bursting outward, upward, toward the viewer. They begged to be touched, to be held, perhaps. Figurative in some spaces and wildly abstract elsewhere, the pieces breathed in the could-be-sterile space.
The occasion was a pop-up show featuring the works of artists from Nigeria, South Africa, and, closer to home, Chicago, Houston, L.A. Their pieces hung (or stood, as some proudly did) on the second floor of a bank building (Beneficial State Bank, located downtown blocks from BART and the lake), full of lush plants and welcoming hosts. A glass of Moët was offered to visitors entering the space, as was a warm greeting from the gallerists .
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Alicia Chesser
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Mar 31, 2024 12:46 pm
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JOSH NEW PHOTO
Bradford Lovett, "Gaythering at the Fam Farm"
Bradford Lovett: “Myths & Hymns” The Parlour Tulsa March 21, 2024
In Bradford Lovett’s Gaythering at the Fam Farm, a disembodied hand reaches down from the sky with a pink donut in its fingers, almost making contact with jubilant penises rising from little floating Mario clouds. A dude with gold-plated pecs sits next to a man in white shirtsleeves who’s groaning over a cauldron full of bones, with two apocalyptic creatures in shiny red boots poised nearby and a slain Goliath in the foreground. A pair of cows holds space with a ballerina and a giant frosted cupcake as a witch-hatted Boy Scout rolls by on a recumbent wooden bike and a dragon carries a bound figure away over the peak of a falling-down barn.
“When there was there and when it wasn’t or was it.”
As one of Oakland’s many internationally famous artists, Gertrude Stein left an indelible mark on the town. She also moved away at a fairly young age, never to return as a resident. She did, however, touch back down 30 years later to deliver lectures locally, already a well known author.
Lining hallway walls of the second floor of the Oakland Library’s main location, overlooking Lake Merritt, are dozens of black and white photographs, depicting our beloved town as it stood from the 1850s through the 1950s. Together they create a context for Stein’s infamous quote above.
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Mickey Mercier
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Mar 26, 2024 4:32 pm
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Contributed photos
Exquisite Creatures Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Bentonville, Arkansas Through July 29, 2024
Artist and naturalist Christopher Marley pursued rare animals, reptiles and insects to the ends of the earth to create the new exhibit Exquisite Creatures at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
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Libby Weitnauer
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Mar 25, 2024 3:23 pm
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William H. Johnson
Evening.
The Frist Art Museum “Southern/Modern” Exhibition Through April 28
“I always like to tell people it’s the best work of art in the building,” said the man sitting at the guest services desk of The Frist Art Museum. He gestured to the grandeur of the lobby that surrounded him. Built as a post office in 1933, the space was indeed an art deco masterpiece with its stainless steel flourishes. However, it had stiff competition in the Frist’s “Southern/Modern” exhibition that I’d come to see.
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Emma dePaulo Reid
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Mar 21, 2024 4:29 pm
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ONLYTHEYOUNG: EXPERIMENTALARTINKOREA, 1960s – 1970s Hammer Museum Los Angeles Through May 24, 2024.
Inside the collegiate enclave that is the UCLA-adjacent neighborhood of Westwood, art history is being made.
It might come as a surprise that, though Los Angeles boasts vibrant Korean neighborhoods, the Hammer Museum’sOnly the Young: Experimental Art in Korea, 1960s – 1970s marks the first time an exhibit highlighting Korean experimental art has come to the West Coast. On a breezy, sunny Saturday, I rubbed shoulders with carefree undergrads in the light-filled, open-air museum. Their conversations drifted by as I grappled with my ability to discuss an art form whose very purpose is to transcend language. I don’t mind — the reminder that youth continues business as usual in the face of personal semantic challenges is humbling and uplifting.
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Jamil Ragland
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Mar 14, 2024 6:02 pm
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Silphium Cotton Root Bark Giant Boat-Lip Orchard PeacockFlower Red Cedar Rue (2022).
No Bodies: Clothing as Disruptor Real Art Ways Hartford March 11, 2024
The clothes we wear say a lot about who we are. But instead of focusing on culture or identity when I went to the No Bodies: Clothing as Disruptor exhibit at Real Art Ways, I thought about my own memories that the exhibit evoked. We wear different things at different points in our lives, and what others wore at those moments leaves an indelible mark as well.
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Alicia Chesser
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Mar 10, 2024 10:10 am
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ALICIA CHESSER PHOTOS
Fashion church
“Is The Earth Just A Body Too?” Oklahoma Fashion Alliance Artisan Hall Tulsa Feb. 24, 2024
Think you don’t belong in a room full of cool kids? If the room is being run by the Oklahoma Fashion Alliance, go ahead and think again. My anxiety about showing up to a fashion show as what you might call a “scene elder” got obliterated when I read the following in OFA’s welcome email for “Is The Earth Just A Body Too?”: “If you don’t have an outfit already picked out, some inspiration from us is: wear something that tells your story.”
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Jamil Ragland
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Mar 8, 2024 5:13 pm
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Vicki Huffman of the Garmany Visitor Center in Elizabeth Park
Spring Art Exhibit Garmany Visitor Center Elizabeth Park Hartford March 7, 2024
When I go to galleries, I’m usually self-guided and left to contemplate the artwork by myself. That’s what I was expecting when I went to the Garmany Visitor Center in Elizabeth Park to see the Spring Art Exhibit.
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Becky Carman
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Mar 8, 2024 10:10 am
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BECKY CARMAN PHOTO
Dan Lyn Pham's installation at Belafonte.
“I Bear the Fruit of My Ancestors“ Belafonte Tulsa March 1, 2024
A dimly lit space permeated with the smell of burning incense greeted visitors, many of whom waited in line before the doors opened, to Tulsa artist Dan Lyn Pham’s “I Bear the Fruit of My Ancestors.” The three-part show was a journey between the symbolic and the literal, exploring Vietnamese ancestral worship, a cultural custom that has endured generations — beyond any specific religion, beyond colonization, and then across the world into the homes and gathering spaces of Vietnamese immigrants and refugees.
Artwork from Leah Korican's exhibit, Bramble & Bloom, at Mercury 20 Gallery.
Artists Reception: Jessica Cadkin, Leah Korican, Monika Mayer, and Various Artists Mercury 20 Gallery Oakland Feb. 25, 2024
I have a friend who loves touching objects that look like they have interesting or pleasing textures. If we’re at a friend’s house and she sees a furry rug, she’ll make a beeline for it and run her hands over the fabric, cooing with pleasure. I have a history of tactile and sensory intrigue myself. One early evening as spring approached, I smelled the fragrant buds of the magnolia tree on my block, stopping to caress its delicate, pink-hued petals as they hung above me like soft jewels suspended in air. I smiled to myself in delight.
The current exhibitions at Mercury 20 Gallery in Uptown Oakland evoked that same desire for sensory exploration. A large crowd of guests wandered through the main room of the gallery during the opening reception, stopping to gaze at and study the textures and shapes on display. Of course, I didn’t touch anything, but the impulse was there — to figure out through touch, what is this thing, how is it made? There was a code I wanted to crack, trying to understand with my eyes at the puzzle of texture and shape before me.
