Mobile
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Point 8 Blog / News Group Dynamics: Introducing Charlotte Artery
Posted By Barbara Schreiber on Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 12:35 PM
The term “art community” is often an oxymoron — as artists frequently see/define themselves as being outsiders to any kind of community or group. However, it is also common for small groups of artists, who share similar interests/beliefs, to team together. While each one would be doing her/his own work, they learn from, challenge and inspire each other to grow and evolve as artists. The collectives also help the artists get more attention, and reach a broader audience.
In such groups that really click, the sum is always great than the parts. These kind of collaborations have been a recurring theme on our forums, and we have mentioned it before on this blog — because we think that such collectives also have a larger significance, as they could often become the seed-crystals for a city/region to grow culturally, and become noted for certain media/“schools of art”, or just great art in general.
Starting with this one, we will be profiling some of the local art groups with such potential
Charlotte Artery is a group of five artists who recently joined forces with the intention of forming a studio collective and exhibiting their work together. (Photomontage above — Charlotte Artery installing its first exhibition — courtesy of Charlotte Artery)
Right now, the group — consisting of Dan Allegrucci, Julie Benda, Janet Lasher, Ashley Lathe and Bev Nagy — is running a sort of vagabond gallery, which will move to different locations for the next year. In exchange for the use of a space, Charlotte Artery will transform it into a temporary gallery using its own moveable walls, lighting and such.
Finding space in Charlotte has turned out to be more of a challenge than the group anticipated. However, Charlotte Artery pulled off something neat last week, when it opened its first exhibition at the Lesbian and Gay Community Center at the NC Music Factory. The artists went to work on the space and then filled it with appealing, well-executed work. You can view the exhibition this Friday, October 2, 6 p.m.-9 p.m. The place is a little hard to find, but I encourage you to check it out.
Charlotte Artery's ultimate dream is to help expand the infrastructure for Charlotte's creative community by creating opportunities for artists and providing basic services such as print or photo labs. "This is not meant to be about us," says Lathe. "While other artists work to develop their own DIY projects, we would like for the Artery to be a cooperative effort in helping others do so, while they in turn help Artery grow and expand to help others."
While I deeply appreciate the generous nature of this project, it would be great to see these folks display some good old-fashioned self-aggrandizement, too. Their plan this year is to stage five additional group exhibitions that, depending on the size of the venue, could include additional invited artists. However, I'd love to see at least some space within these larger shows given over to solo exhibitions by each of these five founding artists. There's nothing like the impact of a solo exhibition; when an artist's work does not have to compete with the work around it, its message is that much stronger — and, of course, it's a nice addition to the resume.
Speaking of...
Comments
Showing 1-1 of 1
Latest in The CLog
More by Barbara Schreiber
-
The numbers game at CPCC's Ross Gallery
Jul 6, 2012 -
Concurrent Rhythms in a small space
May 25, 2012 -
A nation of Rhythm-A-Ning
Apr 17, 2012 - More »
-
Marilyn Chambers found dead
Porn star Marilyn Chambers found dead at age 56.
-
Question the Queen City: The story of Nellie Freeman, aka 'Razor Girl' 2
She decapitated her husband, was declared innocent, and never hurt another soul.
-
Question the Queen City: The story of Mabel Rea 4
The Charlotte native went Hollywood, returned home and met a tragic demise.
