Art news and notes: MOCA GA names grant recipients, Jason Parker leaves SCAD and more

• Courtesy Saltworks and the artist
• “The March of Democracy, 2010” by Brian Dettmer

This weekend, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia announced the 2011-12 recipients of its annual Working Artists Project awards. Awardees include book surgeon Brian Dettmer, the cartographically inspired Gregor Turk, and site-specific sculptor Martha Whittington, and were chosen with the help of guest juror Michael Rooks, the High Museum’s curator of modern and contemporary art.

The awards program, which is sponsored in large part by the Charles Loridans Foundation and is open to artists who live in the Atlanta metro area, provides artists “with an exhibition, promotion, a studio assistant, and a major stipend to create work over the course of the year.” Past recipients of the 3-year-old program include Micah Stansell, Matt Haffner, and Danielle Roney among others.

Speaking of MOCA GA and the High Museum, the two are joining forces on an exhibition this fall. The exhibit will showcase about 40 highlights from MOCA GA’s treasure trove of a private collection, and “featured artists will include Larry Jens Anderson, Don Cooper, Herbert Creecy, Kojo Griffin, Medford Johnson, Katherine Mitchell, Larry Walker and Rocio Rodriguez.” The show, which opens Sept. 2, is a collaboration between MOCA GA president and co-founder Annette Cone-Skelton, and Rooks from the High. It’s also a second major step in a fresh partnership between the two museums that began last fall with MOCA GA’s acquisition of more than 700 duplicate publications as well as 21 works by 14 Georgia artists from the High for its new reference library.

Finally, Jason Parker, the man behind the social networking curtain at SCAD and local arts blog Art Relish is leaving his post as social media manager at the design school and will be starting a new job with Public Broadcasting Atlanta as the community outreach manager. You’ve probably seen Parker around town perched behind his camera recording local arts goings on for SCAD and Art Relish. If you’re digging the videos and coverage, don’t fret, Parker says he plans to keep it up and even anticipates a potential partnership with PBA’s events calendar Atlanta PlanIt.