Installation view of "Super Pop' at WM Turner Gallery

If you missed the opening for the “Super Pop” show please join us tonight from 7-10 P.M. for an artist talk with the curator Kendrick Daye and artist John Morse. It will fill up quick so plan to get here promptly at 7.

Elyse Defoor at the opening of 'Via Dorso' at Wm Turner gallery 2010.

Elyse Defoor is one of those artists who spent much time in the city of New Orleans, both before and after Katrina, who is exhibiting work that was directly in reaction to the devastation induced by the hurricane and the unforgettable spray painted X’s on the houses and storefronts tallying both survivors and corpses. These iconic X’s are brought into many compositions of Defoor’s “X.U.ME” project as her contribution to the “Five Years of Reflection” show at the Spruill Gallery. The group show is running through September 11th, Wednesday through Saturday from 11-5. Creative Loafing included this show in an article about three shows in Atlanta all commemorating the 5th anniversary of the disaster.

"Harrow" 2006, foreground, and "Saltire" 2006, background

Click to view video

Kendrick Daye has curated a pop art group show entitled “Super Pop” at the WM Turner Gallery where he recruited a number of national artists to get together for the sake of pop culture. Artists include Kendrick Daye, Corinne Stevie, John Morse, Jeffrey Pena, Sasha Tugolukova, Barachan, Nikita Gale, Paper Frank, Mister Collins, Chris Pop, Faatimah Stevens, Sean Fahie, Craig Flux Singleton & The Super Pop Collective.

“Super Pop! was curated by Art Nouveau editor Kendrick Daye. Dedicated to creating a visual experience that is as much a personal homage to the pop art genre as it is a stark critique, Kendrick hand selected these 15 artists from around the world to take part in this special exhibition celebrating the release of Art Nouveau’s eponymous Summer Issue which features pop art legend Ron English’s work on the cover. What has been assembled is a cohesive and diverse collection of art, from some of today’s most daring artists.” - from Art Nouveau Magazine.

The show will run from August 5th to August 12th with an opening reception on the 5th from 7-10 P.M.

Digital Art

Wolf Lieser, pioneer in the digital arts world, has written a new book titled Digital Art telling the history of the medium from its very early days until the present. Included in this publication are interviews, conversations, and essays from numerous figures in the digital art world. Wolf mentions Joseph Nechvatal in his text along with his imagery as a relative and considerable character in the field. The 276 page texts covers 3-D animations, video games, movies, the internet and more as valuable platforms for digital media as art. The book is available through Amazon.com.

With a successful event held last year, “Gather Atlanta” plans round two for their annual conference of new and developing creative organizations. Participating groups include emerging galleries, creative collectives, and non-profit organizations who will be meeting on July 31st from 6:30-8 p.m. at the Trees Atlanta building in East Atlanta. Those in attendance will have an opportunity to network and share with the like-minded creatives from around the city who are interested in a growing creative and artistic community and interact with the public for publicity and exposure. Interested parties can contact the organization at Gather@GatherAtlanta.com for more information, an opportunity to participate in the conference, or to volunteer.

The busy Matthew Rose has yet another opening to mark on your calendar, this time in London, England. “Sweet Smoke” at the Orange Dot Gallery opens October 6th and runs until October 31st, with the opening reception on the 6th from 6-8. Included will be collages, mixed-media, and paintings.

Painting and Digital Video

Art collecting moguls Dorothy and Hebert Vogel personally amassed an extensive collection of contemporary art together as a couple starting with their first Picasso vase when they got engaged and have since added some 4,000 pieces to their estate. Without a venue to display the entire personal collection they have decided to disperse works of art to be exhibited in every state with the “Fifty Works for Fifty States” project, selecting a contemporarily relevant gallery or museum to temporarily house 50 selected works of art by various artists, including work from Joseph Nechvatal. Joseph’s work can be found at the group show “Herb and Dorothy: A Glimpse into Their Extraordinary Collection” at the Mississippi Museum of Art through September 12, 2010, open from 10-5 Tuesday-Saturday and noon-5 on Sunday.

Joseph is also having a solo exhibition entitled “Retinal Art Revisited: Story of the Eye” at Galerie Jean-Luc and Takako Richard in Paris. The show will hang September 4^th-29^th with gallery hours posted Tuesday-Saturday 11-7. The show will include paintings accompanied with digital video regarding the relationship between audio and visual during the creative process.

Caterina Verde aims to bring a number of global artists together in one place via live streaming video to broadcast performances as they unfold in a number of countries all simultaneously with the Strange Positioning System. The project is currently searching for funding and support to officially establish itself. The “SPS” is a play on the ever incessant reliance on Global Positioning Systems, allowing for various performances to be experienced no matter where on Earth you currently reside.  The entire project is deemed temporary as it relies on the actions and reactions of artists and their audience participating in real time, without video capture being rebroadcasted later.

The SPS “looks at the aesthetic, cultural and psychological peculiarities of positioning the self and collective enterprises in a fluid, electronically - dislocated environment”, according to the project’s fundraising page on Kickstarter. Patrons can make donations in varying amounts to help fund the projects. A $10 donation gets you in the door as a minimum donation and the levels go up from there; $25 gets a link on the site; $50 gets a signed card and a mention at the event; $75 a signed print; $100-$600 various signed prints and 3D objects; and $1500 gets you in the action to participate in one of the live broadcast events.

The next performance event will be the “Enigma of a Cultural Litmus Test” by Caterina Verde. It will be staged at the Hope Sandrow’s open air studio in Shinnecock Hills, Long Island, NY. with the date to be released soon, planned within the next two weeks.

WM. Turner Gallery will play host to another performance by Caterina, the curator of the entire SPS project, later in the Fall since the gallery could not participate in this current display.

The project currently includes artists such as ALEXANDER VISCIO, PASHA RADETZKI, ANDREA WOLLENSAK,HOPE SANDROW, MATTHEW ROSE, ELISE MARTENS, EBON FISHER, and ZOHREH ESKANDARI.

www.strangepositioningsystems.org

SPS on Kickstarter

"Red Son"

A contributing writer to the Arts Critic ATL blog, Jerry Cullum, wrote a warm and ardent review of the “Red Dawn” exhibition currently hanging at WM. Turner Gallery citing Brandon Sadler as a great artist blending diverse cultures readily and skillfully. Jerry mentioned a recent delving into Asian culture on a yearlong stint in Korea where Brandon undoubtably picked up some sensitivity to traditional Asian artworks to seamlessly render in his own graffiti-influenced style.

His newest work, at Wm. Turner Gallery through July 31, is hard to divide tidily. The quickly but very skillfully executed drawings (in media ranging from ink and colored pencil to oil and acrylic) owe a great deal to the graffiti traditions out of which he emerged, and even more to traditional and contemporary Japanese art. A good many of them are overlaid on Japanese newspapers. His signature, written to be viewed sideways, imitates the calligraphic appearance of Japanese kanji characters. -Jerry Cullum for Arts Critic ATL.

The entire review can be read at www.artscriticatl.com

Brandon’s personal website is www.risingredlotus.com