Spring 2012

Graduate Student Reception
Monday, January 16 – Friday, February 3, 2012
Reception: Thursday, February 2, 4-6 pm
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Les Christensen & John Salvest, “Quiet Desperation”
Tuesday, February 7 – Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Lecture and Reception: Wednesday, February 29, 2:30 – 6 pm
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NASAD Student Exhibition
Monday, March 5 – Friday, March 16, 2012
Reception: Monday, March 5, 4-6 pm
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BFA Forum
Monday, March 19 – Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Reviews: Tuesday and Wednesday

BFA Thesis Exhibition: Chesley Edwards, Virginia Rundle, Aja Wing
Monday, March 26 – Friday, March 30, 2012
Reception: Thursday, March 29, 4-6 pm
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BFA Thesis Exhibition: Lily Stover, Wi Waffles, Clay Crawford, Chase Neal
Monday, April 2 – Friday, April 6, 2012
Reception: Thursday, April 5, 4-6 pm
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MFA Thesis Exhibition: Michael Satterfield
Monday, April 9 – Friday, April 13, 2012
Reception: Thursday, April 12, 4-6 pm
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MFA Thesis Exhibition: Sara Truman
Monday, April 16 – Friday, April 20, 2012
Reception: Thursday, April 19, 4-6 pm
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MFA Thesis Exhibition: Martin Arnold
Monday, April 23 – Friday, April 27, 2013
Reception: Thursday, April 26, 4-6 pm
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MFA Thesis Exhibition: Hosik Kim
Monday, April 30 – Friday, May 4, 2013
Reception: Thursday, May 3, 4-6 pm
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Fall 2012

Student Summer Exhibition 2012
Monday, May 21 – Friday, August 31, 2012
Juror: Maude Schuyler Clay
Reception: Thursday, August 30, 4-6 pm
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New Faculty Exhibition: Josh Brinlee, Ashley Feagin, Ernest Forward, Eunika Rogers, Andrew Smith and Ross Turner
Lectures: September 11-13, 11:30 – 12:30 pm in the Student Union, Room 405
Reception: Thursday, September 27, 4-6 pm
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Doug and Char Norman, “Close Observation”
Monday, October 1 – Thursday, November 1, 2012
Lecture and Reception: Monday, October 1, 2:30-6 pm
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BFA Forum
Tuesday, November 6 – Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Reviews: Tuesday and Wednesday

BFA Thesis Exhibition: Landon Brewer, Sara Lowrey, Amber Williams
Monday, November 12 – November 16, 2012
Reception: Thursday, November 15, 4-6 pm
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BFA Thesis Exhibition: Irene Matthew-Parker, Reeves Smith, Reagan Thames
Monday, November 26 – Friday, November 30, 2012
Reception: Thursday, November 29, 2012
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BFA Thesis Exhibition: Bailey Blu, Katherine Freeman
Monday, December 3 – Friday, December 7, 2012
Reception: Thursday, December 6, 4-6 pm
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By FredricKoeppel

Original article can be found here.

Imagine an exhibition that features 100 pieces by more than 80 artists working in Memphis from 2001 to the present. Imagine that this show touches many contemporary genres, including painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, photography and video and installation art.

Then imagine that this exhibition fills the neoclassical galleries of Dixon Gallery and Gardens, including the refined rooms of The Residence, as the stately mansion of the late museum benefactors, Hugo and Margaret Dixon is called.

That show, “Present Tense: The Art of Memphis from 2001-Now,” opens Sunday, with a panel discussion, “The Anti-Lecture: A Conversation about an Art Community,” at 2 p.m. The exhibition will be displayed through April 14.

The idea for “Present Tense” began with an absence, that is, with the prospect that the Dixon’s permanent collection would be touring for the first eight months of 2013, thus freeing the museum’s labyrinth of galleries for an ambitious project.

“I’m intensely interested in Memphis,” said Kevin Sharp, director of the Dixon since 2007. “I know something about the art … of the city, but I wanted to dig deeper for the context. You could say that the exhibition was born out of my interest in this time and place.”

Sharp hired local arts advocate John Weeden to be the show’s curator. Weeden’s credentials include his stints as founding director of the old Lantana Projects, assistant director of Rhodes College’s Center for Outreach in the Development of the Visual Arts (CODA) and executive director of UrbanArt Commission. He is now the principal of Vita Brevis Art Bureau.

“Kevin and I had been discussing an exhibition like this for several years,” Weeden said, “and we came to understand that we both had a love of contemporary art, especially by living artists. Around that time I made the transition from UrbanArt, and Kevin met John Meeks, and we all started talking.” Meeks is the managing partner of Northwestern Mutual Financial Network, the show’s sponsor.

“The point was to feature work made in the city from 2001 to the present,” Weeden said. “Not just emerging artists, not just established artists, but to show the complexity and depth that’s here.”

Developing the exhibition called for a great deal of what Weeden called “doing the research, asking the questions, sleuthing, library work” to come up with artists who were not only active in Memphis but who had some influence on the art community. The intention was to be inclusive, but as Weeden said, “I was astonished at the range and volume of work that existed in Memphis.” And even though it would be impossible to mount an encyclopedic show, Weeden’s first submission to Sharp consisted of over 1,000 works by 300 artists.

“I understood that,” said Sharp, “that’s the way I work. I have a tendency to throw everything in the pot and then subtract.”

And subtract they did, down to more than 100 pieces by 81 artists.

Still, “it’s a big story we’re telling,” said the museum’s assistant curator Julie Pierotti. That big story includes the many networks of teachers and students that derive from the city’s institutions of higher learning — University of Memphis, Rhodes College, Memphis College of Art — and even extending back to Central High School and the enormously influential teacher Bill Hicks.

“Tracking all that down,” said Pierotti, “who taught when and who was the student of whom, that was really something different for us.”

The process of winnowing, which Weeden called “painful, especially letting a piece go after all the work of hunting it down,” produced a show that probably anyone familiar with the local visual art community will regard with pleasure yet find some quibbles with. People who have watched the development of emerging artists or the success of mid-career artists or who know the old school figures among the college and university faculties will certainly be able to number artists who they think should have been included or excluded.

“That’s very true,” said Weeden, “but the exhibition is about as extensive now as it could be. And many pieces just turned out to be impossible. A piece may have been too large or was in a private collection that didn’t want to lend or was no longer extant. ”

“Present Tense” is arranged in chronological order, so all the works from a particular year, 2001 through 2012, are, when appropriate, displayed in proximity. That means that artists who have more than one piece in the show will see those works hung in different galleries or areas if they were created in different years.

‘Present Tense: The Art of Memphis from 2001 – Now’

At Dixon Gallery and Gardens, 4339 Park, today through April 14.

Call 901-761-5250, or visit dixon.org.

There will be a panel discussion, “The Anti-Lecture: A Conversation about an Art Community,” at 2 p.m. Sunday. Panel members include John Weeden, guest curator of the exhibition; David McCarthy, professor of art history, Rhodes College; Carissa Hussong, executive director, National Ornamental metal Museum; Fredric Koeppel, art writer, The Commercial Appeal; and artists Hamlett Dobbins, NJ Woods and Melissa Dunn. Regular Dixon admission applies.

Thursday night brought a packed crowd to Spoke Art where the gallery hosted the second annual Supersonic Electronic Invitational. For this show, 32 young artists were chosen bysupersonicelectronic.com founder Zach Tutor, who sees them as the leaders of a new generation of artists. The space was packed with high-quality work, almost strictly limited to painting, and a small room in the back sold prints and gave drinks away to those who dared to enter the swarm. The space was so crammed that there was a line to get in, and the work seemed to be selling quickly and early, so the show seemed to be a great success in exposing these young artists to new audiences. It will definitely be worth a second look, where I may get the space to view each piece as it deserves.

Audrey Kawasaki

Allan Innman At the Drive In, Oil on canvas

Dan Christofferson

Jon Todd

Ken Garduno

Michael C Hsuing

Tatiana Suarez

Tessar Lo

On Thursday, August 9, 2012, Tupelo unveiled a larger-than-life statue to commemorate the life and legacy of Elvis Presley.  Hundreds of fans gathered in the Tupelo Fairpark District, former site of the Tupelo fairgrounds where Elvis performed the famous homecoming concert in September of 1956, to see the statue unveiled.

The statue was sculpted by Mississippian William Beckwith based on  the Roger Marshutz’s 1956 photograph of Elvis reaching into the crowd in Tupelo. It is known by fans as “the hands.”

The unveiling was held as part of Tupelo’s free summer music concert series titled “Down on Main” and was part of a celebration of Mississippi artists.  Mississippians Eden Brent and Marty Stuart headlined the show for the night. The Tupelo Unity Choir opened the night with the gospel music Elvis loved and joined Eden Brent on the stage for a couple of songs.

The statue was met with thunderous applause with many fans breaking into tears.  The remainder of the night was spent in line waiting to get their picture made holding the hand of Elvis. Traffic at the statue has been steady since the unveiling and is anticipated to remain that way through the Elvis Week activities.

Of the statue, Neal McCoy, executive director of the Tupelo CVB commented, “The statue is more than just a piece of bronze erected in Elvis’ honor. It’s a constant reminder of how important Tupelo’s cultural influence was to him and how important he still is to Tupelo .”

Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, Miss. on Jan. 8, 1935, where he grew up around his extended family.  In the thirteen years that Elvis spent in Tupelo, he was exposed to many different kinds of music that played an important role throughout his career. He was exposed to gospel music in his childhood church, discovered the blues in the Shake Rag community and on “the Hill” where his family lived for a while and he listened to country shows on the radio with his family during this time.

For more information on Tupelo, visit www.tupelo.net.