For Art’s Sake - Product placement
Product as art; art as product
Who hasn’t at one time or another felt like one of capitalism’s pack mules, weighed down with the burden of buy, buy, buy?
Product: Comments on Consumer Culture curated by Lizzie Zucker Saltz at the Athens Institute for Contemporary Art (www.athica.org) through June 28 shines fresh light on that old-timey feeling of living in a dollar sign’s shadows.
The soullessness of working within the machine is imaginatively detailed in Jen Drummond’s hilarious rotoscope animation short video “F.E.D.S.,” which documents the tribulations of the women who give out free samples in supermarkets and must smile politely as customers gorge on their Lilliputian offerings. And Atlantans will experience a shudder of recognition at Bobby Abrahamson’s spot-on depressing photographs of that carnivalesque parade of corporate culture known as the 1996 Olympics. But there are also exceptions to the notion that “product” can only be bad. For instance, Ben Reynolds’ luscious color photographs of mom-and-pop brand pork rinds and yellow squash packages, along with other indigenous Southern treats, show how certain down-home brands can be as familiar and comforting as a well-traveled road.
“Product” may connote the dark side of consumer culture, but there are also plenty of opportunities for commerce to coexist with art. An increasing number of retail spots in Atlanta feature space for exhibiting artists — a necessary movement of the visual arts out of their preaching-to-the-converted gallery ghetto. Some galleries can be intimidating, foreign settings and the inclusion of artworks into the “daily life” of shops, restaurants, bars and hair salons can make the work more accessible and approachable. Mixing “high” art and “low” commerce also encourages a healthy, democratizing dialogue between creative worlds too often segregated. The only downside is the cruel cultural truth this practice sometimes highlights — that people will drop $300 on a pair of pants and balk at a similarly priced piece of art. Atlanta-based photographer and jewelry designer Angela West can attest to that. She sells both her original jewelry designs and photographs at the boutique Scout, but her jewelry far outsells her photographs.
Cortex Midtown Spa Salon is just one of the hair salons in town that periodically transforms its space from a temple of cutting and buffing into a temporary gallery. The 14-year-old salon at 1177 Virginia Ave. becomes a gallery twice a year when the chairs and mirrors are pushed out to make way for artwork, which currently includes work by Gustavo Solis and David Belmonte. Owner Marion Ventulett, who mostly features photography, shows work out of support for a community of fellow creatives. There’s just one stipulation. She says “the artwork cannot be too emotional” because the element of touch and vulnerability involved in her business could complicate a reaction to troubling artwork.
Monika Sullivan’s salon, Studio Biba (290 MLK Drive, beside the Mattress Factory Lofts), also hosts a shifting roster of artists every month or so. Sullivan has featured a broad range of media at the salon, including drawing, photography and the paintings currently on view by Alli Royce Soble and Holly Painter.
Shalini Vora and Elaine Gardner, owners of the 1198 Howell Mill Road shop Scout, feature local artists on their walls, including New York fashion photographer Jody Fausett and current Atlanta resident Angela West, whose vivid color photographs of gangly prom-goers will be on view at the store until fall. The shop, which sells contemporary sportswear by emerging designers, also carries work by local clothing and accessories designers’ including Amy Wright, Michele Marcombe and West.
City Issue (2825 Peachtree Road, Buckhead) owners Lee Cuthbert and Jennifer Sams have been showing photography by local artists since they opened in January 2001. Sams says they try to choose work that coordinates aesthetically with their store’s mid-century style merchandise. For that reason they primarily feature photography by artists such as Katherine Kolb, Yvonne Boyd and Craig Bromley (whose work is currently up). They regularly review portfolios brought into the shop by local photographers.
Aurora Coffee’s (www.auroracoffee.com) three locations, which feature a staff of musicians, artists and DJs as eclectic as the art on the walls, have been in Atlanta for 11 years and currently feature artwork by Shana Wood, Jose Pablo Larrea and Katie Nard at their Little Five, Virginia-Highland and Ansley locations. “We started doing it because so many people that work here and our customers are artists and expressed an interest in showing. It’s something that evolved organically,” says owner Betsy Buckley. “It’s really about the community that we create.”
The City of Atlanta Bureau of Cultural Affairs has named experimental filmmaker Franklin Lopez the recipient of its fourth Emerging Artist Award. Franklin has shown his work at the Contemporary, PushPush Theater and Eyedrum. Lopez will exhibit a video installation at the City Gallery at Chastain in late September 2003 on the subject of love.