Visual Memphis: April 2012

April 24, 2012 No comments

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April 13, 2012 No comments

April 12, 2012 No comments

Kim Dorland, an artist living and working in Toronto, Canada, recently came to Memphis to give a lecture of his work and do studio visits with the students at the Memphis College of Art. I was able to hang out with him for a couple of days when the fine people at MCA got too tired and no longer had the energy to do it.
I did not take him to Graceland, but he made it there. I did not take him to Sun Studios or the Stax Museum, which is unfortunate really. Nor did I take him to any of the openings/galleries in town. Most of the galleries have some really bad stuff right now and I did not want him to have the impression that all the work in Memphis is bad. Instead, I, along with Tad Lauritzen Wright, took him to the dog track in West Memphis, AR friday night.

You can see more of his work on his website...kdorland.com

Dwayne Butcher: You recently gave an artist lecture on your work at the Memphis College of Art. Was the talk about recent projects or did it include examples from just about everything you have made?

Kim Dorland: I showed work from 2006 - 2012.

DB: Do you find yourself putting together and giving lectures differently to students as opposed to gallery talks?

KD: No not really, except for gallery talks tend to be more concentrated on a specific body of work rather than a review of years worth of material.

DB: It was your first time to Memphis. What thing stood out the most and why?

KD: I always enjoy meeting students and talking about their work. It's an amazing time for them while they are figuring out what they want to do with their art. They also aren't jaded by the art world yet, which is refreshing. I also enjoyed meeting Tad, Hamlett and yourself. Beer in the back yard. The Dog races. The only regret I have is that I left the drawing Tad's daughter Anna gave me on the table in the backyard...I meant to bring it home to show my kids!

DB: You were on a whirlwind tour of the better places to eat in Memphis. Are you surprised that we, the citizens of this great city, do not all have diabetes and are morbidly obese?

KD: I'm still recovering from eating my way through Memphis. Worth every calorie!

DB: So, what did you do with all that cash you won at the dog track?

KD: I bought a house and a Cadillac.

DB: What kind of things are you currently working on in the studio? And will there be any Memphis inspired paintings in the future?

KD: I'm working through lots of stuff right now. I'm trying to figure out still life. I'm working for a solo project in Toronto in the Fall and an exhibition in NY early next year where I'm using a video I took for inspiration. Just trying to keep it real...

One Memphis thing: Tad gave me an idea from something he saw that might end up in a painting... He came up to me and said "I saw a Dorland painting outside just now..." So I have to make it happen.

April 12, 2012 No comments

April 11, 2012 No comments

Thursday, April 12, 7 pm Callicott

Mitra Abbaspour

Art Historian, Associate Curator of Photography, MoMA

In the Studio: Photography, Modernity and the Middle East

Color-print of the technique of photography from 1854, a hand painted color print from the book The History of Photography and Pioneer Photographers in Iran by Yahya Zoka (Tehran, 1997)

Mitra Abbaspour is an Associate Curator in the Department of Photography at The Museum of Modern Art and a PhD candidate in the Department of Art History at The Graduate Center, CUNY. At MoMA, she leads a research initiative centered on the Thomas Walther Collection, which draws together photograph conservators and historians to explore the formation of photographic modernism in the early decades of the twentieth century. Additionally, she is preparing to defend her dissertation, a study of photograph archives dedicated to Armenian, Kurdish, and pan-Arab practices. This study considers the ways in which photograph archives call on the history of the medium to represent the relationship between the Middle East and modernity. She has authored numerous articles on contemporary photographers from Tracey Moffatt to Shirana Shahbazi. Recently, her focused study of a photograph of General Andranik “A Hero and a Homeland for Armenians in America: Photography’s Role in the Diaspora,” appeared in the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. Mitra served as part of a curatorial team for the exhibition Re-Orientations: Islamic Art and the West in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, which was culled from the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has also taught in the art history departments of Hunter College, Brooklyn College, and the University of California, Riverside.

Before arriving in New York, Mitra was Assistant Curator and Museum Writer at UCR/California Museum of Photography. While there she oversaw the program of rotating exhibitions, curating a wide range of thematic and monographic shows fromOne Ground: Four Palestinian and Four Israeli Filmmakers to Lori Nix: Accidentally Kansas. Mitra has been a guest curator at the Sweeney Art Gallery, Riverside and Galleria Metta, Madrid. Mitra received her master’s degree from the University of California, Riverside and completed her bachelor’s degree at Scripps College in Claremont, California.

ArtsMemphis Pop Up ArtsFest Orange Mound

Al Kapone and the Memphis Symphony Orcestra with U Dig Dance Academy!

Plus performances by New Ballet Ensemble, Jazz -a- Fire and and Melrose Marching Band plus hands-on arts activities!

ArtsMemphis sponsors the third in a series of
Free Pop Up ArtsFests
Sunday, April 29 · 1 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Melrose Stadium · Dallas & Park Ave.

MFA Thesis Exhibition: Stripped

Graphic Design Student Show, Friday, April 13, 2012

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