Reading the Love Letter, new work by Rebecca Carter at The Reading Room, opens this Saturday, November 5 from 7 to 9 pm, 3715 Parry Avenue. And if you happen to be an early bird type, drop in around 5:30. The show will continue through November 26.
Contemporary Art
Celia Eberle at Plush Gallery
Ohhhh, I wanted to possess The Furies in a bad way, but was too late. Some lucky individual beat me to it, and as I write this, has probably taken possession of them and is in the process of mounting them in their new home. This makes me unhappy.
I first met Celia Eberle at Karen Weiner’s The Reading Room, but my first encounter with her work was at the Beasts and Bunnies show at The MAC. While The MAC’s show was a collection of her past and some present work along with the works of three other artists, this show at Plush Gallery was her most recent creations.
Wednesday at The Reading Room
First there will be readings from Douglas MacWithey’s notebooks at The MAC, September 21, from 6 to 7 pm by Charles Dee Mitchell, and the novelists David Searcy and Ben Fountain. The evening is a presentation of WordSpace.
Immediately following the reading there will be a reception from 7 to 9 pm at The Reading Room. “How it is the dead man suffers the loss of his loved ones,” MacWithey’s large three panel drawing from which the reading is taken, will be on view. This drawing, dating from the 1980s, has never been shown before.
MacWithey’s practice included drawing, sculpture and performance and almost always incorporated dense, handwritten text. His work was shown in a 1993 Concentrations exhibition with Cady Noland at the Dallas Museum of Art and at Carol Taylor Gallery and Barry Whistler Gallery. Selections from Seals of the Philosophers was shown in 2009 at testsite in Austin and is currently being exhibited at The McKinney Avenue Contemporary.
Happy Endings
Keri Oldham’s exhibition of film related work will open with a reception tomorrow, Saturday, August 13 from 7 to 9 pm at The Reading Room, 3715 Parry Avenue. It will continue through August 28.
The pieces in this exhibition are the fade-out “end scenes” from various films, re-imagined and used to examine endings on a personal level. Oldham is interested in how we are influenced by film and television narratives and incorporate stories about love, success, and morality into our lives both consciously and subconsciously.
Oldham is an artist, curator, writer, and former Dallasite now living in Brooklyn. Her work has been shown at Camel Art Space, Fountain Art Fair, and Dave Bown Projects as well as The McKinney Avenue Contemporary, 500X Gallery, Centraltrak Artist Residency, and Kirk Hopper Fine Art in Dallas. She holds degrees in philosophy from Loyola University and in curatorial studies from San Francisco State University. She is a 2010 BRIC Arts Media Fellow.
Glasstire has also done a writeup about The Reading Room and this upcoming exhibition. If you’re interested in knowing more about visual art here in Texas, Glasstire is definitely worth a read and a bookmark.
UPDATE: Follow the below link for more images of Keri Oldham’s work exhibited at The Reading Room.
A Bloomsday Celebration
The Reading Room will present a Bloomsday celebration on Thursday, June 16 from 6 until 10 pm, with readings from James Joyce’s Ulysses, music and related visual material.
Confession: I have never read Ulysses. Question: Should I go and pretend to know something about something? What Karen has lined up for the evening sounds like it would be fun and interesting, but I’m terribly afraid of saying something stupid. I wonder if Half Price Books will have an old collection of Cliff Notes. Woohoo! I just found an online version of Cliffs Notes. If you’re like me, study up here before attending and also go here for an NPR article by Frank Delaney.
Agenda: Festivities will begin at 6 pm with a screening of Harrell Fletcher’s Blot Out the Sun in which a very condensed version of major themes of Ulysses is staged in a service station. Readings by Jeff Whittington of KERA, Charles Dee Mitchell, and Diane Orr will follow. And to conclude the evening, there will be a bit of Irish music.
Thanks to Conduit Gallery, Jennie Otttinger’s book portrait Ulysses will be on view. It is part of her larger library project which was recently shown at the Volta Art Fair (NYC). Ottinger received her MFA from Mills College in Oakland and lives and works in San Francisco.
The Reading Room is a project space dedicated to the intersection of visual and literary culture and is located at 3715 Parry Avenue. For further information: Karen Weiner, www.thereadingroom-dallas.blogspot.com.
What’s Hanging (part 1)
Scott Calhoun, The furry things, 2005. About four weeks ago I finally had my art collection hung after having lived with all of its pieces leaning against various walls in my newly restored cottage since retrieving them from storage three years ago. If one wants to have this job done right with no fuss or muss, one must call Steve Dennie. He’s very affordable and worth every penny.
At The Reading Room this Coming Friday
A Quiet Root May Know How to Holler. Amy Revier’s digitally manipulated photographs, sculpture, and woven textiles reflecting Iceland’s recent economic, political, and geological upheavals can be seen at The Reading Room. The opening reception is Friday, February 11 from 7pm until 9pm, and on the last day of the show, February 27 at 4pm, Philip Van Keuren will give a reading of collected texts that relate to the work. The Reading Room is located at 3715 Parry Avenue in Dallas.
Art Trolling at The MAC (part 2)
Isabelle Scurry Chapman in the lobby. Birds of Lint adorn a corner of the lobby. Displayed against bright red walls, they have a lot to compete with. But they manage to hold their own as part of the Beasts and Bunnies exhibit at The McKinney Avenue Contemporary (The MAC).
Chapman’s artist statement. These birds are made from recycled materials and things I find in living. This project is about being present… to my life, the birds that I see, the materials that float through my visual field, and my response to them. Birds in my work represent spirit, soul, a part of me that is connected to all living things. “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul” (Emily Dickinson) are words that seem to fit what I am looking for as I weave laundry lint, sticks, seeds, bits of nature, thread, buttons, and other found objects into whimsical birds.
Art Trolling at The MAC (part 1)
Beasts and Bunnies in the main galleries. I couldn’t help but start my visit backwards and clockwise. The suggested path was to start in the large gallery and work my way around counter clockwise. But with all the tick-tocks, whirling, shadows, and landscape features, the collaborative installation in the square gallery was begging me to wander through it first before moving on to the larger gallery. This installation is an indoor winter wonderland, but with spots of bright yellow, and the sound of creature activity, I could feel that spring was being promised. Since it’s impossible for me to capture the complete experience with photos and words, I strongly suggest you visit the show physically at The MAC. But first, read on. I have more to offer about this show.
Beasts and Bunnies
At The MAC (The McKinney Avenue Contemporary)
January 8 through February 12, 2011
Opening Reception with the Artists:
Saturday, January 8, 5:30–7:30 pm
Helen Altman, Frances Bagley, Celia Eberle, and Margaret Meehan in the large and square galleries. This group exhibition brings together these four artists to investigate “the animal” both literally and metaphorically. Helen Altman, Frances Bagley, Celia Eberle, and Margaret Meehan have all worked using animal imagery and share a similar sensibility. Through sculpture, painting, photography, works on paper, and video these artists each push and prod at the boundaries between nature and culture as well as the assumed distance between animal and human behavior. In addition to individual works by each artist, the exhibition will feature a collective installation titled Call and Response.