Preview: FORM: 2011 release party on Saturday

• Margaret Hiden/Courtesy WE Design
• “Palm Beach” by Margaret Hiden

Every December for the last three years, local non-profit design firm Williams-England has released FORM: artistic independence, a submission-based local art anthology. The glossy hardback is intended to be a visual tour of ATL’s art scene though a selection of emerging and established artists. WE Design will hold a release party for the 2011 volume this Sat., Dec. 17, 8-11 p.m at MINT Gallery.

The 2010 edition highlighted works by Gyun Hur, Nikita Gale and Dorothy O’Connor, among others. It also featured hit-or-miss artist responses to a formulaic q&a. For the 2011 book, which presents 45 artists, the q&a idea appears to have been dropped, or at least heavily edited. The artist chapters instead feature choice quotes about the artists’ bios, processes, inspirations and/or missions. It’s a welcome change, even if they sometimes tend to read like excerpts from a Facebook “About Me” entry.

Highlights include (but aren’t limited to) Danielle Del Rosario’s sweetly nightmarish ink drawings, Jasmine Back’s impetuous, colorwashed dreamscapes, Lance Turner’s origami-ed paintings, Margaret Hiden’s haunting, Sliding Doors-esque composite photography, and Seana Reilly’s whooshing graphite pours.

gloATL is rightfully featured, but the photography (uncredited in our press proof) falls short of doing the company’s work and impact justice. Karley Sullivan’s moody black-and-white images, however, revel in the kinetics of Dance Truck. Sullivan documented PLOT, the company’s summer performance at the Goat Farm, and traveled with the group to Portalnd, Ore., for its appearance at the Time-Based Art festival there.

In FORM’s 2011 hymn-styled intro, Grant Henry, aka Sister Louisa, maestro behind Church, the O4W temple to the holy trinity of ping pong, pipe organs and cheap beer, sorts through the life test of finding one’s “authentic voice”:
The expectations of our families,
of society,
our institutions,
must be identified
and dismantled
in order for one to find
his/her authentic voice.

FORM 2011 presents a semi-curated, uncritical sampling of the people hard at work in Atlanta at uncovering their “authentic voices.”

More photos after the jump.