Drawers: Provocative Drawings
The Nashville Scene is pleased to partner with OZ Arts to present Drawers: Provocative Drawings, a broad survey of contemporary drawings organized around sexual ideas. The installation is arranged into four salon-style clusters of drawings from a diverse range of artists, as well as two spotlit works — a large-scale charcoal sketch by Thornton Dial and a triptych of “Fuck Grid” drawings by Betty Tompkins.
The fourth installment of the Adult Contemporary series, Drawers explores the close relationship between drawing and intimacy. There’s a personal, secretive element to many of the drawings — several of the works come directly from artists’ sketchbooks, and others feel like they’re capturing a private idea. There’s also an immediacy to a drawing that can tap into something primal about art-making. A handful of the Drawers artists work with live models, and the tension between the artist and subject translates into the work they’ve created together. Finally, there’s an approachable, attainable quality to drawing — it’s practically the girl next door of artistic mediums. Even the most skillfully rendered work can seem within reach simply because you’ve likely held the same type of pen in your own hand, smudged the same line, or smelled the same pencil shavings. And in keeping with that line of thinking, maybe you’ve also had the same thoughts.
Drawers artists are: Jeremy Biles, Annie Brito Hodgin, John Brooks, Sai Clayton, Paul Collins, Thornton Dial, William Downs, Fetish, Kevin Guthrie, Brady Haston, Clarity Haynes, Brett Douglas Hunter, Perrin R. Ireland, Lee Isaacson, Kimia Ferdowsi Kline, Julia Martin, Rebecca Morgan, Elisheba Israel Mrozik, Ozu, Ryan M. Pfeiffer + Rebecca Walz, Katarina Riesing, Lindsey Rome, Sal Salandra, Louis M. Schmidt, Willie Stewart, Betty Tompkins, XPayne, Caleb Yono
Exhibition photos and more information is available on the Adult Contemporary website.
Futurephilia: Sex and Science Fiction in Contemporary Art
Futurephilia is the third installment of the Scene’s Adult Contemporary series of art exhibitions curated by Laura Hutson Hunter. The concept for this show came out of the pull toward sci-fi and future-gazing that generally accompanies major devastation. The idea that we might actually make it — that we might live to see the future — is such a massive turn-on that it might theoretically create a new sexuality. Hence, futurephilia.
Futurephilia artists are: David Onri Anderson, Siena Barnes, Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Liz Collins, Anton van Dalen, Samuel Dunson, James Gallagher, Judith Linhares, Dutes Miller, Carlos Rodriguez, Benjy Russell, Rafael Santiago and Frances Waite.
Exhibition photos and more information is available on the Adult Contemporary website.
Shag: Provocative Textiles
Shag brings together artists whose work examines eroticism and sexuality through textile-based media. Textiles have long been marginalized in the world of fine art, dodging the academic lens that’s dominated so much of it since the rise of modernism. For that reason, textile art often flies under the radar of the fine-art industry, allowing it to evolve more organically, with limited visibility and criticism. The result is a kind of subculture within the contemporary art world. In that subculture, broadly speaking, textile’s ephemeral nature and association with craft traditions gives it an easily irreverent quality — a sweater that’s knit from pornographic images, for example, can seem much more deviant than an actual photograph, just based on its associations.
For the same reason, textiles are an unusually effective medium for subverting sexual norms. The Shag artists use familiar, underappreciated materials — yarn, thread, canvas drop cloths — to create images that express sexuality and desire on their own terms.
The art in Shag ranges from strongly provocative to subtly suggestive, and includes a variety of mediums — from knit objects and woven tapestries to photographs, mixed-media sculpture and embroidery.
More information is available on the Adult Contemporary website.
Nerve: The Female Body in Women’s Art
Nerve is the first installment in the Adult Contemporary series of art exhibitions curated by Nashville Scene arts editor Laura Hutson Hunter.
“Nashville is an uncommonly creative town, full of deeply talented and diverse artists — not just musicians, but also writers, performers, filmmakers, visual artists and much more. Considering all that creativity, it’s sad that we so often see institutions playing it safe when it comes to the arts: private universities shutting down on-campus productions of plays with challenging themes; long-entrenched local galleries opting not to take a chance on art that is risqué or confrontational. The Scene’s own critic and arts editor Laura Hutson Hunter noticed as much, and that’s why she decided to launch Adult Contemporary, an exhibition series sponsored by the Scene, curated by Hunter and designed with the intention of exploring bold themes.” —D. Patrick Rodgers, Nashville Scene editor-in-chief
Nerve artists are: Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Elizabeth Glaessner, Shannon Cartier Lucy, Ceres Moberg, Skye Parrott, Karen Seapker, Jenna Westra, and WIFE. As part of this exhibit, Shannon Lucy will have a limited run of prints of her painting “Morning Prayer” available. All work is available for purchase through Wilder.
Elizabeth Glaessner’s work appears courtesy of P.P.O.W. Gallery, Karen Seapker’s work appears courtesy of Zeitgeist Gallery, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons’ work appears courtesy of Gallery Wendi Norris.
Sleep Eazy at The Iris Motel
There's an episode of The Simpsons where Marge brings the kids to stay at a motel called Sleep Eazy. She looks up, the neon sign flickers, and now it just says “Sl-e-azy.” It's an old joke, but it gets at the dichotomy between expectation and reality that seem tailor-made for a motel— you might think you're in for a night of staid convenience, but turn out a few of the lights and it's party city.
That easy disruption is the focus of Sleep Eazy, a one-night exhibit inside a Nashville motel. In whatever medium they choose — whether painting, sculpture, photography, or video — each of these 10 artists make work that pushes boundaries without making a big fuss about it.
Artists included Noah Jashinsky, Jodi Hays, Stacy Kranitz, Elise Drake, Amelia Briggs, Karen Seapker, Benjy Russell, Josh Elrod, Rocky Horton and Alex Lockwood.
Exhibition photos courtesy of Patrick Sheehan. Work from Sleep Eazy is available through Wilder.
Triple Fantasy at Third Man Records
This exhibit combines the work of three artists whose work deals with some facet of sex magick. If, as Freud thought, sex and magical thinking are the twin pillars of the subconscious, sex magick is its logical manifestation into consciousness. Sex and the occult have always been entwined — both are intimate, often forbidden acts that are kept secret and mysterious.
Triple Fantasy featured drawings and prints by Elijah Burgher, photographs by Benjy Russell and a painting made exclusively for the exhibit by Tracy Nakayama.
Opening reception photos courtesy of Heather LeRoy.
Selvage at Tennessee State University
I co-curated this exhibit of 11 artists with Jodi Hays at Tennessee State University. We found inspiration in textiles — mainly quilts and quilt patterns — and the work spanned a variety of disciplines from drawing to sculpture. Artists included Gabriel Pionkowski, Shannon Lucy, Jovencio de la Paz, Brandon Donahue, Alex Blau, Jodi Hays, Courtney Adair Johnson, Maggie Haas, Aimee Miller and Louis Schmidt.
Opening reception photos courtesy of Courtney Adair Johnson.