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Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Architecture An architectural orphan’s wish list for 2010
Posted By Manoj P Kesavan on Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 10:08 AM
What a year has it been! Unofficial/anecdotal figures show that more than 50 percent of all architects in Charlotte are without work (with a similar number probably reflected in the other building-related trades like engineering and construction).
I don’t know if architects have ever felt so forsaken or unloved in recent memory.
So, why don’t we emerge from the fetal position just long enough to wish for a better tomorrow? After all, what is the holiday season but a license to dream big — powered by excessive eating and eggnog — to lose oneself in fantasies about things that otherwise we might be too realistic to hope for?
• I wish, oh I wish, that this stupid recession would end soon, and that people would start building things again. (What wouldn’t we give to get back to doing those things that we used to constantly bitch and whine about for years ...)
• I wish that people would stop hyping “green building” and just start doing it. After all being green is the path, and not the goal of architecture. (Well, what is the goal of architecture — or any art for that matter? Hmmm ...)
• I wish that the media would find some other role model other than Howard Roark when they try to idealize (idolize?) architects. (Maybe architectural achievement can be other than an unsubtle show of manliness and heroism ...?)
• I wish that innocent architectural elements wouldn’t become the victims of cheap political games.
• And finally, I wish my Mom and Dad — Academics and Practice — would get back together again. Then maybe someday, American architectural practice would once again have a sense of purpose and a moral compass, and academic exercises a better grounding in reality. I hear that in many other countries where the families are together, kids like us have a less conflicted/guilt-ridden life — that they actually belong. (Well, they might still wear black, but guess that’s a genetic condition.)
Well, this is my quick, not-too-well-thought-out, highly incomplete list. What is yours? Whether you design livable structures or not, share it with everyone.
All buildings start as shared fantasies.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Visual Art Dark days for Santa
Posted By Barbara Schreiber on Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 11:01 AM
When the art world tucks itself in for its annual holiday nap and there is nary an opening in sight, what better way is there to get your aesthetic fix than to pack the family into the car and head out to look at Christmas lights? No, I don’t mean those coordinated, well-publicized efforts. I mean the big honkin’ stuff, the work of visionaries who festoon their houses with unsynchronized flashing colored lights, build gigantic plywood cards that read “Happy Birthday Jesus” and, when they run out of our space on the front of the house, string lights in the back yard, up utility poles and across the lawn.
This week, I was going to provide a brief list of spectacular holiday displays, but alas, I have little to report. Charlotte’s relentless tastefulness, coupled with a battered economy, has resulted in a muted Christmas. Even the Harris Land Company building on Fairview Road, which normally sports encrustations unbecoming of a business enterprise, is dark this year, with only a small “For Lease” sign on the lawn.
While driving around in search of lights this week I did find two yards in—of all places—Dilworth, that while not totally bewildering and excessive, do merit a mention, perhaps even an honorable one. Despite my distaste for inflatables, I have to admire the incongruous assortment at the house on the corner of Worthington and Euclid, which also includes a decent supply of flashing lights. And over on Magnolia, between Park and West Dilworth, is a house that features nearly 40 illuminated plastic Santas of varying sizes and a walkway lined with eight illuminated plastic nutcrackers; but what really gives this display that extra zing is the disturbing little plastic Santa head hanging from the gutter.
If you know of a worthy display, please reply and make my holiday just a little brighter. Or better yet, drag out those colored lights and start something in your own yard.
Have yourself an arty little Christmas.
Looking for something to do with those holiday guests? Check out the Juan Logan, Radcliffe Bailey and Hewitt Collection exhibitions at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, “Decade” at McColl Center for Visual Art, “On the Edge: Homeless and Working Among Us” at the Levine Museum of the New South, “Group f.64 and the Modernist Vision” at The Light Factory or “Lois Mailou Jones: A Life in Vibrant Color” at the Mint Museum of Art. And start the New Year with a visit to the gorgeous new Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, which opens to the public with on January 2 with a ribbon cutting and free admission all day.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Music Jazz in the Queen City: Dec. 16 — Fast Citizens with Great Architect
Posted By Jeff Jackson on Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 9:45 AM
The shows are booked in various low-key locations by local saxophonist Brent Bagwell. His latest coup is landing the acclaimed Chicago jazz sextet Fast Citizens. The band plays everything from hard swing and lush ballads to high-energy free improvisation and Sun-Ra inspired grooves. For anyone with an interest in high-quality jazz, this show is a must-see.
Fast Citizens plays this Wednesday the new TwentyTwelveTwelve show performance space in Plaza Midwood. The band is promoting Two Cities, their latest album on Delmark. It’s been hailed by critics as "a meeting of highly skilled and individualistic players who channel their hard work into a cogent and coherent whole.” All About Jazz said “they continue to forge its own direction, reaching beyond formulaic conventions to embrace new forms”.
The show will also feature Great Architect, an exciting local band that aggressively mixes jazz improv, rock, and electronics, featuring Bagwell and cellist Ben Kennedy. Their outstanding debut album on Kinnikinnik is now available exclusively at Lunchbox Records.
Show details: Fast Citizens — Great Architect — CJ Boyd; Wednesday, Dec. 16 at 9 p.m. @ TwentyTwelveTwelve show space (1212 10th St. Charlotte 28204). Free admission, but donations are requested for the bands.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Visual Art / Events Inside Gallery 9700F
Posted By Manoj P Kesavan on Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 2:53 PM
A small dimly lit room. Against the wall is a low double bed … and it is made of human hair. Everything is still at first. Then a hand wearing silver rings on two fingers emerges from the bed, slowly feels around, and reaches out towards you …
It is strangely haunting, but no, it is not one of my nightmares — this was the start/setting for an installation and performance piece, "Exploring Touch," by artists Austin Ballard and Paige Cochran, held last Friday at Gallery 9700F.
[caption id="attachment_41" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Scene from installation/performance by Austin Ballard and Paige Cochran. Image courtesy of Gallery 9700F."]
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But then Gallery 9700F is not really a “gallery” — at least not in the conventional sense. It is more of a private venue, at a walking distance from the UNCC campus, where a small series of unique events are held. It also happens to be the apartment where two architecture students, Zac Porter and Aaron Cote, live.
Cote and Porter, along with fellow student Charlotte Whitlock, started this project a few months ago, with guidance from their Professor Nora Wendl. It was conceived as “a series of openings (each pertaining to one — or more — of the five senses) that intersected contemporary art with the Home.”
In essence, installation art inhabits that indefinable realm between architecture and sculpture. Like the former, it responds to, and transforms the space it occupies, but often with the levity and the relative lack of restrictions, like the latter. Then the element of performance brings in a whole another dimension, adding the layers of immediacy, unpredictability, and often interactivity.
But ultimately what makes 9700F unique is the very fact that it all happens in a little apartment: the artists are no longer dealing with the abstract/universal space of a gallery/museum/public square, but are challenged to respond to the mundane personal and private space of day to day use. The result is surprisingly striking yet relatable. And because of that, this series of well conceived and executed works have also been some of the more intriguing experimental creations seen (or well, heard/smelt/felt …) around here recently.
The final installation in this series, by artists Landon Robinson and Josh Padgett focusing on Smell & Taste, will take place this Friday (12/11/09), at 6 pm.
Directions: Go to the Mallard Green Apartments (9800 Mary Alexander Rd. Charlotte, 28262), turn right at the entrance to the complex, and go to the very end of the road to Apt. 9700F. Or go to the UNCC campus, and join the other pilgrims as they start their trek from the front of the Storrs Building (Architecture School) at 5:30pm.
Open up your senses - it promises to be a fulfilling journey. And who knows what dreams may follow afterward …
Also this Friday: Our "Blogger-in-Chief" Barbara Schreiber will have a show of her new work, titled Buyer’s Remorse – and other small tales for rough times, opening at the cool Dialect Gallery in NoDa [6 p.m.-9 pm, 12/11/09 @ 3204-C N Davidson St.]. Check it out!
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Visual Art Smart art in a small town
Posted By Barbara Schreiber on Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 2:55 PM
After a two-week hiatus, (which we’re blaming on the holidays and assorted crises) the Point8 Blog is back with the third installment in our series on local artist collectives.
Salisbury is an underappreciated town offering affordable Victorian houses, a charming and useful downtown, a bookstore with three cats that give you hairy eyeball when you walk through the door, and a shop that has declared itself “Home of the Cheerwine-Banana Smoothie.” I love Salisbury.
This Friday, I’m heading there for the opening of Abundance/Abundance Lost at the Waterworks Visual Arts Center, another one of Salisbury’s treasures. Waterworks is no longer in the building from which it derives its name but is now housed in a former car dealership — a low-slung, airy brick structure that was renovated to include several spacious, inviting galleries.
In addition to responding to community needs by offering classes and exhibiting the work of Rowan county artists and students, Waterworks has become a place where Charlotte’s contemporary artists can exhibit their work in the classic clean, well-lighted space.
Abundance/Abundance Lost is the latest effort of ARPA 10, a group of artists who met in 2005 when they were affiliate artists at the McColl Center for Visual Art. They take their name from the restaurant where they would gather for conversation and where they eventually hatched the idea of showing together. Since leaving McColl, ARPA 10 has mounted four exhibitions and presented at Pecha Kucha Night Vol. 3.
The artists of ARPA 10 are Linda Luise Brown, Alyssa Wood, Paula Smith, Jennifer Parham Gilomen, David Edgar, Michael Simpson, Charles McMurray, Laura McCarthy, Felicia Van Bork and Amy Sanders. About one year ago, these 10 very different artists were moved by the economic collapse to choose the theme of plenty and loss for their Waterworks exhibition. Since then, the theme has evolved into something more nuanced, and much of the work in the exhibition addresses the healing and the lessons learned after loss.
Abundance/Abundance Lost includes luscious abstractions, meditations on domesticity and the environment, minimalism and more in such diverse mediums as painting, printmaking, video, ceramics and recycled plastics. You’d think that such variety would result in cacophony, but ARPA 10’s exhibitions tend toward a unified elegance.
The opening reception for Abundance/Abundance Lost is Dec. 4, 6 p.m.-8 p.m. at Waterworks Visual Arts Center, 123 East Liberty Street in downtown Salisbury. The exhibition runs through Feb. 13. For further information, contact Waterworks at 704-636-1882.
