Art Gallery Write Ups

Warhol Live at The Frist

“The Pioneer of Pop Art” has arrived at The Frist complete with music, movies and an explosion of multimedia pieces throughout the exhibit. This collection shows Andy Warhol’s life from childhood interests, such as classical music and dance, all the way through to his famous marketing career in magazine and television. Warhol’s obsession with Hollywood is shown through his prints of icons such as Elvis and Marilyn Monroe. It’s later shown in his photos of celebrities and himself hanging out in nightclubs. Touring the exhibit will give you a who’s who of Warhol’s time. His love for music is shown by his record designs and close work with The Velvet Underground. His ideas of sexual ambiguity are shown in his prints of transvestites. Warhol Live shows Andy Warhol’s fame and the cultural impact he has made on the nation. Touring the exhibit you will see how his ideas of everything being commercialized has seeped into society so largely that many do not realize this is a product of Warhol’s work. This includes the famous Campbell’s Soup Cans. Even if you don’t find pop art appealing this exhibit is a history lesson worth learning.

Visit The Frist’s website: http://www.fristcenter.org/site/visit/ for hours and specials. I did and I loved it. The Frist is located at 919 Broadway in Nashville, Tenn.

Exploration and Discovery in Nashville Public Square

Nashville’s Public Square has added three bronze sculptures to its publicly viewable art. This collection shows the quest for knowledge and the desire for exploration. Ken Rowe, a former Belmont and Watkins professor, created the sculptures. He has now relocated back to San Antonio where he sculpts the many different forms of wildlife of the Southwest such as bears, owls and deer. “Exploration and Discovery” was paid for with The Percent for the Arts Program. Within the collection there is a sculpture of a girl standing on a pile of books looking at the moon, a man sitting in a circle of telescopes looking towards The Ryman and a group of children blowing something out of their hand. They are titled “To the Moon”, “The Scholar” and “The Spark of Discovery”. Rowe wants the viewer to be able to discover what the sculpture is exploring, whether this is through literal points from the art or the viewer creating an entirely new idea all to themselves.

To see this art at any time of day visit Nashville Public Square in front of Davidson County Courthouse, right off of 3^rd Avenue. While you’re there you can also check out Thomas Sayre’s “Citizen” sculpture.

Sub Urban Legends at Zeitgeist Gallery

Jessica Wohl, one of the two artists participating in Sub Urban Legends, says perfectly what this gallery in Zeitgeist shows, "These works explore the relationship between what we reveal and what we conceal, and what the symptoms and consequences may be of doing so." Within this exhibit Jessica has prints incorporating thread, photography and drawing and Justin Plakas creates movies with film and video. Plakas uses the camera to get up close and personal with his subjects to give the viewer an opportunity to see things you might not at the first glance. He got his start in creating videos as art when his brother bought a camera from a guy on the street for $40 and gave it to him. Wohl, a visiting professor at The University of the South in Sewanee, focuses on suburbia in much of her work, possibly because of growing up in two homes simultaneously. She uses repetition in her work to show the actual and representative decay of the Sub Urban life.

Zeitgeist Gallery is located in Hillsboro Village, 1819 21^st Avenue South. It acts as an art gallery and architecture and design studio. This exhibit only goes through July 30^th so hurry up and see it!

A Brief History of Swimming Pool Design (2500 B.C.) at Nashville’s Smallest Art Gallery

As soon as you find out why Lain York titled his exhibit what he did it all makes sense. He focuses on architecture as an artifact. By finding photographs in museum and auction catalogues as well as architecture itself York has created objects that may look like nothing, but also could be whatever you want them to be. He uses mixed media such as sharpie marker and white correction tape, on birch laminate panels to add and subtract, creating layers of history in each picture. As you view York wants you to ask yourself how art allows you to see society.

And, perhaps where this exhibit is located will also allow you to interpret society differently. Nashville’s Smallest Art Gallery might not be the smallest just in Nashville, but possibly the world. At least this is what they boast. It is quite tiny, 27x37 INCHES. It’s basically a shadowbox on a wall, in the middle of Hillsboro Village, right in between The Cosmetic Market and Peabody Shoe Repair. The actual address is 1802 ½ 21^st Avenue South. There is nothing else to it, just the box that happens to also be completely solar powered. You can view York’s art 24/7, 365, at least until August 2^nd.

John Guider and Stacey Irvin

Photography is one my favorite types of art, so getting to go to John and Stacey's gallery was super fun for me.

I got to the field trip sort of early. During that time John asked me what I wanted to learn today. I knew that he used a platinum printing process and found it very interesting. I've taken a manual photography class before. I had to work with the chemicals, but what John does is so much more involved! Right off the bat when you look at his photos you can see just how much more crisp they are. There was one picture of a field. It must have been taken from the ground, because these leaves or plants were so large and full and detailed. I was mesmerized. John said platinum printing is so much more expensive than silver printing so not as many people do it. Plus, it's a harder process. He has to be so careful when working with these chemicals.

An interesting story John talked about was how during the war platinum couldn't be used as much because it was incorporated into bombing sites. He said something about it being a protectant to the areas. Because there was so much silver, which was much cheaper, Kodak capitalized on it, controlled the price and began to take the market. It's so interesting to me that these small details have such large stories behind them.

The value scale is very much at work in John's photos because they're in black and white. Of course, the sky is sometimes pure white, sometimes a different value of it. The water or buildings are in the black side. John said black and white silver has 10 values. But, with platinum you get 100 values. That's why when John uses platinum you can see that one tiny cloud in front of all the others in his photograph. It's so magical.

Being a journalist, I love Stacey's work as well. She and John both pointed out that she doesn't like to mess with the situation very much. She's a photo journalist in a way. I often feel this way when taking photos, so I connected with it. Stacey's photos are truthful. All of the pictures she showed us seemed to capture the people and what they did, where they lived and how they feel in some way.

My favorite photograph at the gallery was of the large tree in the middle of the water. This was one of John's photographs. The tree is so full and large. It just takes up the paper. The way the white values of the sky and the black values of the water frame it makes the focal point pop that much more. I love how he decided to frame it perfectly in the middle. My eyes just like to look at symmetry. It's pleasing. We even talked about this in class with the Greek paintings and sculptures. Balance was looked highly upon. I can see why. It's where my eye is always drawn to.

Collage of My Life

I had a blast creating this collage! It's not often I get to sit down, snip pictures out of magazines and create on a poster board. I chose the theme of a home because it's where my heart is. I love being there. I love decorating there. I love cooking there. I love the people within it. Everything shown in the home is either directly representative of what I love or a metaphor for something even deeper within the home itself.

Color & Light - I used the color palette I did because brown is my favorite color. I wanted to create the dark effect of hard wood floors. I think it brings warmth to a room. The lighter colored furniture brings a softness that contrasts nicely to the dark brown. I used complimentary colors on the door, orange and blue. I then dulled it with some gold and green. The green was originally a little too saturated, or I would have just stuck with that. There are a lot of different hues and tints of whites and browns in this picture. I just let them work together as easily as possible.

Texture - I used a stamp pad to create the texture of the hardwood floors. I used cut out thank you cards to create the area rug in the middle of the room.

Volume - I rounded the edges of some of the pictures of people I love and layered them up with the furniture in the room, as if they were actually inhabiting it.

Line - The front door is supposed to be the main draw of the collage, because of its size. I used straight lines to focus the viewers eyes here. The hardwood floors have strong lines, all horizontal. The main area rug also echoes this. I used three small green rugs to create a diagonal line pointing towards my husband because I also wanted people to notice him because he means so much to me.

Space - I wanted the illusion of the front door standing up and then from there the hardwood floors to be the background and the rest of the furniture to be foreground.

Scale - On the island in the kitchen I have a large coffee cup, a coffee holder and a chocolate cake, because I love all of these things. I wanted the pictures of friends and family to be large as well to show their importance. The door is the biggest because I always want to invite people in and share life with them.

Symbolism - The door as the entrance to my heart. The large lamp, because I want my life to be a light. The number on the top of the door because it's my husband and I's anniversary. The finger pointing next to the green rugs to show I have a direction for my life.

Subject Matter:

Me: I love my friends, family, cooking and my home.

Friends and Family: Shown in pictures

Town, Community, School: I have books on the bookshelf for school. My community is shown through my friends. Nashville is shown by the style of decorating in the home. I feel this is representative of my view of Nashville.

Your Country: The items in the kitchen show my country most. Different from European countries, there are a lot more things on the shelves, such as china.

The World Today: This collage represents my world in my mind.

Art: The colors I matched together, the patterns I chose to use, all show my view of art.

History: Growing up in the north and moving to the south has given me a mish-mosh of what art I enjoy. I don't always like the traditional southern style of furniture, but more rustic. I associate modern style things with the north and I like those in my life just as much as rustic.

The Parthenon and LeQuire Art Gallery Experience

I really enjoyed our field trip to The Parthenon and LeQuire Art Gallery. I saw beautiful artwork and enjoyed a hot summer day.

I learned the Parthenon functioned originally as a temple to celebrate Athena, the Greek goddess of war. It also functioned as a treasury. There are pediments on the east and west side of the building. The east side shows the story of Athena being born. The west pediment is the contest for Athens between Athena and Neptune. The exterior has doric style columns. It was interesting to find out Nashville had a World's Fair at one point. During it many replicas of famous structures were built, The Parthenon being one of them. Nashville created an actual replica afterwards because it was known as The Athens of the South, because of the universities.

It's a beautiful building that brings character to Nashville, but I'm not struck with a sense of awe when I look at it. I wonder if it would be different if I saw the 160 foot statue of Athena inside. I understand why people think we should keep this monument, because we continue to be the Athens of the South, but I don't agree with the spiritual connotations it has. It replicating a place of worship to a goddess does not sit well with me. I think more people would feel different about the relevance of this monument as well if they knew the details of what happened in the original place.

LeQuire was an enjoyable experience! I did think it changed my perspective to speak with the artist. I always want to know what a person was thinking when they created something. The chance to actually have that answered in full was great. I wasn't very fond of Greg Decker's paintings. I much more liked Allen LeQuire's sculptures. They were gorgeous! Decker's paintings weren't structured enough for me. I understand the significance of the colors for him, but they didn't do anything for me.

I could see how once the exhibit was installed it might be easier to experience a work of art. I got this sense even in LeQuire's studio with the forest of statues next to each other. I knew those were supposed to be experienced together. Im sure it would be magical. But, my favorite piece I saw wasn't even complete. It was in LeQuire's studio on the left side of the room. There was a statue of a lifesize woman. She was nude and had her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Whatever she was made out of was pure white. My eyes were continuously drawn to her and the shape of her stomach. It looked so realistic and absolutely beautiful. She looked peaceful and confident, yet still soft. I would have loved to spend more time observing her.