MetroPulse Stories: Art

The Emporium Keeps Its Standards High With a New Exhibit of Contemporary Polish Prints

Wed, 08 May 2013 13:47:00 -0000

Upon recently rewatching Roman Polanski’s The Pianist as my nod to the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto’s Jewish uprising, I was reminded of how intrigued I am by Poland and its history. But even though I have traveled to other Eastern European countries, I’ve somehow missed Polska. So I’m excited that the Marek Maria Pienkowski Foundation has brought art from Poland to Knoxville. Until June, the Arts and Culture Alliance presents works from the Wroclaw School of Printmaking, produced by professors and teaching assistants at the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design, as part of the larger Wroclaw Faculty of Graphic Arts and Media Art Exhibition.

Artists From Near and Far Herald a New Season with 'Nexus 2013'

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 13:22:00 -0000

Our city’s scraggly but lovely little trees, celebrated in one way or another for almost 60 years each springtime, are about to unfurl their distinctive petals. And with that transformation comes a variety of arts-related events. A relative newcomer on the Dogwood Arts Festival’s roster is the annual Nexus exhibition at the University of Tennessee’s Downtown Gallery, featuring sculpture and other 3D constructions that likely defy past notions of what constitutes the festival’s offerings.

An Insightful Collection of African-American Art at KMA Inspires Admiration

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 14:33:00 -0000

Tradition Redefined does much to bring worthy works collected for almost 40 years to our attention and incorporate them into the panoply of already familiar contemporary art. What’s more, it reminds us of the importance of collectors driven by something beyond financial investment or social status.

Brooklyn-Based Artist William Lamson Finds Wonder in Flux at Downtown Gallery

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:59:00 -0000

William Lamson is no control freak. In fact, he creates installations and ambitious outdoor works that rely on mostly uncontrollable physical forces for their existence. His thematically linked photographs and video, sculpture, and performance pieces often involve tremendous scale and require both time and sweaty exertion to be realized.

McClung Exhibit Celebrates the Grandeur of Turkomen Decorative Art

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 14:51:00 -0000

Mention art and antiquities, and the typical Western mind might picture a Greek statue, stained glass, Egyptian sarcophagi, or the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel—things that are often large or heavy and can break, crack, fade, or lose heads throughout time. But what’s featured in the McClung Museum’s exhibition Splendid Treasures of the Turkomen Tribes From Central Asia, on display through May 12, is entirely portable.

Michael Zansky Aims for the Stars with His Exhibit at UT’s Ewing Gallery

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 15:02:00 -0000

Of Giants and Dwarfs, Zansky’s current exhibition at the Ewing Gallery—on display through Feb. 26, with an opening reception from 7-9 p.m. on Jan. 24—references phases in the life, death, and afterlife of a star.

Doug Waterfield’s 'Doomtown' Exhibition Brings Back the Atomic Age

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 14:47:00 -0000

Doug Waterfield, an artist and art professor at the University of Nebraska Kearney, says he became intrigued by the subject matter of his Doomtown painting series when watching civil defense-oriented educational films about the Nevada Test Site. Apparently, the symbolism of mannequins inhabiting an anonymous suburban landscape, poised for annihilation, was too ripe to pass up.

UT’s Gallery 1010 Presents Thought-Provoking Art by Grad Students Andrew Meriss and Daniel Ogletree

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 15:00:00 -0000

True, articulate, and technically advanced pieces by both Merriss and Ogletree include familiar objects removed from their usual context. And some of those objects take on unexpected importance.

East Tennessee Students Rock the Knoxville Museum of Art Through January

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 15:50:00 -0000

The Seventh Annual East Tennessee Regional Student Art Exhibition is quite a mouthful—but that’s fitting for a show that opened at the Knoxville Museum of Art the day after Thanksgiving. Running through Jan. 13, it is a visual feast, clichés be damned.

The Emporium Center Presents Two Challenging Exhibits by Local Artists Nick DeFord and Jean Hess

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 17:59:00 -0000

Artists Nick DeFord and Jean Hess are truth seekers, not necessarily truth tellers, and that’s a noble calling.

Japanese Art Celebrating Zen Buddhism Arrives at the McClung Museum

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 14:15:00 -0000

Migrating from India to China via the Silk Road, Buddhism did not become widespread in Japan until the 12th century, approximately 1,000 years after its appearance in China. That Chinese calligraphy has greatly influenced Zen art is no surprise, then, although Japanese monks found ways of even further refining the imagery accompanying graceful and apparently spontaneous strokes. Visitors to the McClung can trace that influence in pieces from Japan’s Edo period (1600-1868) and later, into the contemporary world.

TVUUC's 'Visual Travelogues' Pairs the Photography and Collage of Two Sharp-Eyed Explorers

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 16:39:00 -0000

Extracting elements from one’s environment and transforming them into an integrated and meaningful collage is not unlike the effort involved in photography. But photography relies on physical perspective and split-second timing, whereas collage assumes specific sizes and allows a less time-dependent approach. Either way, the extensive and varied selection of art now on display in Visual Travelogues at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church through Nov. 2 (with an opening reception Friday evening from 6-7:30 p.m.) makes for a remarkably cohesive show.

Ewing Gallery's 'Confabulatores Nocturni' Considers Notions of Time and Infinity

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 14:26:00 -0000

In this exhibition, UT design professors Brian and Katherine Ambroziak, architect Andrew McLellan, and artist Annie Stone have created and combined architectural drawings and models, selected literature, sculptural installation, and projected footage into what the artist/designers consider a kind of large-scale collage reflecting their various backgrounds and fascinations.

The Art World's New Clothes: Beverly Semmes Challenges Us to See Textiles as Feminist Sculpture

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 14:37:00 -0000

Seeing the Starcraft exhibition, a presentation of work by Brooklyn-based artist Beverly Semmes, I had to acknowledge an emperor’s-new-clothes perspective rearing its head just a bit. Semmes’ latest show should not in any way be dismissed. But despite its many positives, something about Starcraft feels overwrought; at times its combined themes come across as trying far too hard to be mysterious. And sometimes, they simply don’t come across.

Terra Esoterica: 11 artists from the Culture Laboratory Collective Consider Land and Place

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 21:34:00 -0000

On Location: Land Portrait, an exhibition by members of the Culture Laboratory Collective at the University of Tennessee’s Downtown Gallery on display through July, includes everything from minimalist sculpture to photography and a printed-word piece. Artists within the collective address whatever theme they’ve chosen in many ways, and the works in Land Portrait could be labeled landscape, symbolic imagery, and installation, among other things. As for what’s currently on display, some works relate more or less clearly to the designated topic.

KMA's 'Streetwise' Sheds Light on Social Upheaval and Shifting Perspectives

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 15:41:00 -0000

Streetwise: Masters of ’60s Photography, an exhibition at the Knoxville Museum of Art through Aug. 5, features images of 1960s America that remain as potent today as they undoubtedly were when they initially appeared.

Class Act: UT’s Honors Exhibition Delivers Once Again

Wed, 23 May 2012 18:54:00 -0000

For more than a decade, I’ve been reviewing the art, architecture, and design efforts of graduating University of Tennessee seniors selected for the Ewing Gallery’s annual Honors Exhibition, and not one show has been disappointing. Many pieces and projects this time around—the 22nd year of the exhibition series—are not only exceptionally good, they also seem to indicate a new direction for the annual show.

'Streetwise Knoxville' Explores Our Not-Always-So-Fair City

Wed, 09 May 2012 15:52:00 -0000

Streetwise Knoxville, at 2 Many Pixels Gallery on Jackson Avenue through June, is a striking collection of images being presented in conjunction with those at KMA's Streetwise. Taken between the mid-’60s and now, the works on display are by four photographers who have clearly been influenced by work now featured at the museum.

KMA’s 'Several Silences' Seeks Clarity and Relief From Our Culture of Distraction

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 15:44:00 -0000

John Cage’s “4’33””—the non-performance in which a pianist sits idle before an audience for four minutes and 33 seconds—is directly connected to works by two of the 11 international exhibition participants. Yet the spirit of the now-iconic so-called silent piece introduced by the avant-garde composer in 1952 permeates almost everything in Several Silences.

'Nexus 2012' Challenges Notions About Dogwood Arts Festival Art

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:12:00 -0000

Although sophisticated crafts have long been part of our city’s springtime festivities, unless I’ve overlooked ceramic wind chimes resembling Alexander Calder mobiles on Market Square, I don’t recall fine art from past festivals being particularly modern, let alone cutting edge, so Nexus represents movement in a stimulating new direction.