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RVA Mag’s First Fridays Picks May 2018

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It finally feels like spring in Richmond–the city went from a clammy winter chill to a dry heat in the span of a week–which means even a simple walk down the block is enough to get you sweating. It would almost be easier to stay inside. But if you, like us, suffer from a crippling case of FOMO, here are six of RVA Mag’s top picks for this month’s First Fridays artwalk worth dragging yourself through the 90-degree stew of a dozen city blocks.

Chris McCaw: New Works & Harrison Walker: Portals, Candela Books + Gallery

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Using tools like long exposure, hand-built cameras, and vintage photographic paper, Chris McCaw brings his second solo exhibition to Candela. The exhibition, featuring work from his Sunburn series and his Tidal series, sets the sun and tide at its center, documenting their movements, and their rise and fall, through a synthesis of traditional photographic staples and new techniques.

Joining McCaw is Harrison Walker in his first solo exhibition at Candela. Using varying texture, surface, color, and form, Walker’s abstract photographic works are an investigation of photographic chemistry, perspective, and duplication. The result is a series of repeated circular forms, intended to explore the different ways the viewer perceives them.

Forest Kelley: Michael, 1708 Gallery

May 4 – June 9, 2018

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Photographer Forest Kelley imagines the life of gay men in rural New England through the history of his uncle, Michael, an artist and gay man who died by presumed suicide in 1985. Using video installations, documentary photography, and found film strips, writing, and interviews, Kelley explores the stigmatization of identity and the subjectivity of individual experience. The work largely concerns itself with the unknowable, with visualizing the memories, dreams, speculation, hopes, and fears that plague the LGBTQ community.The exhibit is a haunting examination of a personal history, and how it fits into the larger framework of survival.

Though the world may seem far removed from the persecution and isolation of the LGBTQ community that defined the late twentieth century, from the Stonewall Uprising to the AIDS Epidemic, Kelley considers the universality of these events and the discord between culture and subjectivity. The opening reception is from 6 – 8 pm and the artist talk is May 5 at 11 am. You can check out a short story we ran on him here. 

Pastimes: Her Present, The Broad

This First Fridays, all-women coworking space, The Broad, opens its gallery doors to the public from 5-9 pm. The exhibit, Pastimes: Her Present, brings female artists together to examine how a return to pastimes became their livelihoods. It acts a revival of certain art forms, like weaving, quilting, and collage. The exhibit features artists Justine McFarland, Nikki Galapon, Kate Koconis, Barbara Skolaut, and Ynes Bouck. This is a great opportunity to get a look inside the brand new space, newly opened in February, and appreciate the work of five talented local women. Make sure you check this exhibit out before May 31. 

Latin Ballet of Virginia, Dominion Energy Center for Performing Arts

Tomorrow, The Richmond Performing Arts Alliance welcomes Richmond to a free performance of Cuban music and dance. Participation is encouraged, and there will be Latin and Caribbean dance demonstrations throughout. The Latin Ballet of Virginia is a non-profit performing arts organization that seeks to connect communities through Latin cultural dance experiences. Tomorrow night they will preview Alternate Routes: A Night in Havana, a gala and public concert that will take place later in the month.

And don’t forget to check out their 17th annual Que Pasa? Festival on Saturday at the Historic Canals of Richmond in partnership with the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. There will be over 20 food vendors from different Latin American countries such as Peru, Venezuela, El Salvador, Mexico and more, see the original Xochimilco boat decorations sent by the Mexican Embassy, attend Michel and Liza Zajur’s first children’s book release “The Piñata Story”, try your dance moves to the sounds of salsa and bachata, and much more. 

Convergence, 9WG Studios

Join Chris Smart (the art of cjs) and opensvrgery at 9WG Studios from 5:30 – 9 pm, featuring free raffle prizes from the artist’s as well as Alqmey Apparel and the Richmond Experience. Visual artist Chris Smart is an expert in the art of the dystopian. His photographs pair digital effects with starkly realistic landscapes, from post-apocalyptic visuals interpretations of humanity, to clean shots of the Richmond cityscape. His work is a meld of reality and visual manipulation, generally running 50/50 on effects via camera settings and edits done in photoshop.  The exhibit promises a look into the world that surrounds us. Check out our interview with Smart on his most recent work here. 

Wildflowers, Gallery5

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This Friday, Gallery5 offers live music–from Gull, Parlor Wall, Serqet, and Basmati–and two gallery exhibitions. The main gallery features Jarred Barr, a 17-year-old artist who has worked in and around Richmond for years. “Wildflowers,” his 5th solo show, focuses primarily on drawing and lettering, alongside one large cardboard sculpture. Barr is largely inspired by the things that often go unnoticed–everyday scenes, song lyrics, and memories. Barr created pieces for the RVA Street Art Festival in 2012. The twist? He was only 11 at the time.  

The rear gallery exhibit, “Esotericae,” is a showcase of occult-inspired surrealist art featuring The Lady Octavia, Jean-Baptiste, Josephine Rusell, Kelly McLeod, and Lauren and Jacob Borchardt.

Manchester Manifest First Fridays Southside

Now, this is a bit of walk from your usual stroll down West Broad Street for First Fridays, but well worth the drive over to Manchester. Brewer’s Cafe is putting on their monthly event series, Manchester Manifest  featuring live musc, DJs, art, an art auction, live painters, food trucks, outdoor bar, vendors and much more.  This month, there will be live music from RVA Mag’s contributor Hip Hop Henry, Zhe Aqueen and the Good Vibe Tribe and more. Free. 4-10 PM.

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For a full rundown of all RVA First Fridays events, check out the First Fridays May map here.

 

Professional Athletes and Art Collide at 1708 Gallery’s Latest Exhibit

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Last weekend, former and current professional athletes ranging from NFL, NBA, MLB, and US World Cup Soccer stars stood by their works of art inside of 1708 Gallery, addressing their pieces in the first exhibit of its kind for Richmond.

No helmets to sign, no signatures carved across spiraled canvas. At this exhibit, sweeping changes are in play; stigma the only opposition. Though many questions far and wide were answered that night, one question remains unattended, stagnant in the air: can one be more than an athlete?

Last Friday, The Abstract Athlete held its self-titled exhibit featuring works from a wide variety of artists, all professional athletes and associated acts rallying for various charitable causes.  The organization works to brings together artists and professional athletes and the exhibit aimed to showcase work centered on the collision of art, sports, and science.

Washington Redskins tight end Vernon Davis, Larry Sanders of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers, U.S. soccer legend Jay DeMerit, and former MLB pitcher Brett Tomko to name a few were all involved in the weekend’s events. Most of these athletes also gave speeches at a symposium held at Washington Redskins Training Center early Friday afternoon, addressing the problems many athletes face outside of the limelight, as well as the stigma attached to sports in its polarizing distinction from art.

“The main thing we are trying to promote here tonight is that we are more than just athletes, the sports world is not as separate as many, I feel, believe it to be,” Davis said.    

Artist: Percy King

The exhibit is the brainchild of Ron Johnson and Chris Clemmer who have working on the exhibit for the last years. Clemmer is a toy designer and co-founder of Sprig toys and Beginagain Toys and Johnson is an Assistant Professor in the Painting and Printmaking Department at VCU.

“We want to break down this barrier of stereotypes where athletes sit on this side and artists sit on this side,” Johnson said. It amazing to hear stories from current athletes in a vulnerable state, something we’re not used to, and talk about these experiences- I mean it humanizes them.”

Artist: Percy King

The Vernon Davis Foundation, Glenn/Gwinn Foundation, and the Mission 22 Foundation encompassed the bulk of the donation list that would benefit from the purchase of the athletes’ works. VCU scholarships were also available upon purchase of some works, hoping to encourage further research into brain injury rehabilitation, a topic Johnson and Clemmer said still haunts the fields of organized sports today.

Johnson said he plans to showcase the exhibit in other locations in the future.

“This was practically the launch, we have several spots in the hopper, Ohio State, Tallahassee, University of Georgia, it’s wild how many athletes are reaching out with ideas for exhibition sites,” he said. 

The Abstract Athlete will be on display through March 16 at 1708 Gallery at 319 W. Broad St.

 

 

Inside InLight 2017: A Look at Several Artists Ahead of Tonight’s Exhibition

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Founded for 1708 Gallery’s 30th anniversary, InLight Richmond was established in 2008 and features a wide array of light-based performances and art. With each year starting off with a community light parade of lanterns, this free-to-attend public exhibition produces an annual selection of sculpture, performances, and video and aims to change the way we view art in a temporal space as InLight art exists outside of traditional gallery walls and space.

Director of 1708, Emily Smith, is especially excited about a few highlighted artists from this year’s lineup. Máximo González is an artist based out of Mexico, born in Argentina, who has been on Smith’s radar for quite some time. His featured work consists of two light-based room installations, one called “Pangea” and the other “Walk Among Worlds.”

“He works with light in regards to globalism and an international culture, or the lack thereof,” Smith said on González’ installations.

González has been making art and installations for decades. His two featured installations within InLight comes from the heritage of older projects he has done. González’ partner, Ivan Buenader, elaborated on the effects these sculptures represent.

“‘Pangea’ is a large wall installation of nails and copper wire of all the United Nations’ capitols,” he said. “Its shape resembles the ancient continent that contained all present land mass and continents.”

As for the “Walk Among Worlds” portion of the installation, it is a watered-down version of its predecessor. When the piece first opened in 2011, the work featured 7,000 inflatable, custom globes that were strewn across the floor. The version premiering at InLight only features 1,000 globes, but that’s only because 7,000 wouldn’t fit.

“One-thousand inflatable beach balls are on the floor and on the wall. They reconfigure themselves; some are attached, some are freeform. It’s reminiscent of something natural.”

Smith also spoke on the importance of performance art in InLight. She reached out to Virginia Commonwealth University Dance & Choreography faculty to see if she could garner interest from small-contained, self-produced performances from senior dancers, and they were more than willing to oblige and accept the opportunity. The two selected VCU Dance seniors are Tay Diggs and Michelle Koppl.

“Dance provides a different texture and dimension to InLight,” Smith said. “The endeavor to provide a platform for students is always very meaningful to us. Also, it gives them an opportunity to perform outside of a traditional theatre space.”

The Virginia Commonwealth University Department of Dance and Choreography presents the first part of its two-part all Senior Project Concert at InLight. Two of the contributing dancers will be performing their numbers within the event’s timeframe, creating an even more layered temporal feeling.

Tay Diggs’s “One Drop” is her site-specific work that was conceived around the notion of colorism, which is the favoritism of lighter skin tones over darker skin tones. Through Digg’s own experience with colorism, being a darker-skinned woman, she has observed the societal treatment that unfolds not only in the black community, but as well as Hispanic and Asian communities.

“It stars an all-black woman cast, ranging from skin tones, and they’re dancing around and painting canvases. They are also painted with a coat nearest to their skin tone,” Diggs said.

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Michelle Koppl’s “Phosphorescence” modernizes the work of Loie Fuller. In her reimagined piece, five dancers dance and mimic energy and life while a projection from Holly Ashton, her collaborator, portrays radioactive particles reaching their half-life over top of them. Koppl let her dancers create their own choreography and she directed the movement like a conductor.

“The images of radioactive particles decaying in their half-life boil and change colors are juxtaposed against the half-life of the dancers’ performance. They both begin to melt at the same time,” Koppl said.

These are only some of the featured artists at this year’s InLight Richmond, so you wouldn’t want to miss out on some spectacular free art. You can see the full list of artists here. InLight kicks off tonight at 7pm. More details here. 

Art Sponsored by Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art 

RVA Mag First Friday Picks November 2017

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With fall quietly approaching and school back in session for many Richmond students, now is the perfect time to gather friends and family for a fun night out. So let’s get out there and wander amongst the many artistic offerings available tomorrow night for First Fridays!

First Fridays is Richmond’s monthly art walk event, which showcases artwork from local artists, food from local vendors, and the various talents from people throughout the community. Here are RVA Mag’s top picks for RVA First Fridays for November:

1708 Gallery: InLight Richmond

1708 Gallery has done it again! The wondrous light-based art and performance festival will celebrate its 10th anniversary this year in the city’s Arts and Cultural District. The InLight festival has grown in magnificence and spectacle over this time, and is assuredly the not-to-miss, interactive art event of the fall season. This year’s festival draws its theme from the 1901 Electric Carnival that took place on Broad Street, notably featuring an enlivened replica of the Eiffel Tower. We cannot wait to see just how InLight 2017 participants will play with this theme, and transform the cityscape into a mercurial, illuminated wonderland.

Initiated on the premise of offering a public art exhibition to the community, InLight has more than succeeded in providing Richmond the chance to experience contemporary art and artists outside of the gallery setting. Major highlights of the event incorporate various light-studded performances, sculpture and video installations, participatory projects for attendees and of course the marvelous Community Lantern Parade, which encourages one and all to make lanterns and join in an artful procession. The event will feature the contributions of over 40 artists and performers in this stellar night of brilliance and festivities.   

 

The Community Lantern Parade is scheduled to gather at 7:00pm at Henry and W. Broad Street, and begins at 7:30pm, running the stretch of West Broad between Belvidere and Foushee Streets. For those who wish to participate, 1708 Gallery will also have a lantern making station starting at 6:00pm at their new Night Lights Interactive Zone (Henry and West Broad Street). An InLight 2017 Food Court with eats and beverages, along with many local restaurants offering InLight specials, will be available to fuel your experience.

[IMAGES: installation from InLight 2014: Woodrow Collective: Joan Biddle, Kristi Tortoritis, Hannah Kirkpatrick, Treehouse, photo by Terry Brown; from Inlight 2016, Andy Diaz Hope and Jon Bernson, photo by Terry Brown]

 

Candela: Kahn & Selsnick, 100 Views of the Drowning World

Candela Gallery offered a sneak peak of Kahn & Selsnick’s 100 Views of the Drowning World at the Current Art Fair this past month, exhibiting one of the large-scale archival pigment prints, as well as showing off the comprehensive publication that accompanies the project. From these teasers alone, one can tell this exhibition is a definite class act, carried by dark, yet whimsical conceptual grounds.

These arch-topped prints follow the narrative of an itinerant acting troupe, the Truppe Fledermaus, as they stage various performances in far-ranging locations from England to Japan. The absurdist style and manner of these performances “are as apt to commemorate the passing of an unusual cloud as they are to be found documenting their own attempts to flee the rising waters of a warming planet, or using black humor to comment upon the extinction of bats or other animals.” The accompanying book is beautifully presented as an unbound publication, inviting readers to consider the text in any order of their choosing—thus, opening minds to the possibilities of non-linear experience and story-building in both fiction and reality.

Artists Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick have worked collaboratively since the 1980’s, and have participated in over 100 solo and group exhibitions worldwide. Their collaborative projects are expansive, comprehensive, and founded with strong conceptual bases, and often include multiple platforms of expression. In its totality, the Truppe Fledermaus narrative includes 100 Views of the Drowning World, a number of posters and banners, installations, and two additional photo series. This exhibit will be on view until Dec. 23rd, 2017.

 

Ada: Jared Lindsay Clark, Builder Bildet

Watch for Ada artist Derek Larson as a participating artist with InLight 2017! A repeat exhibitor at Ada since 2014, the gallery represented Larson at last year’s Untitled Art Fair in Miami Beach, FL. This multi-media artist will show some of his new animations inside the gallery as well.

The main gallery features Jared Lindsay Clark’s solo show, Bilder Bildet. This exhibition includes a number of his ‘kitschbild’ assemblages as well as a debut of his new oil paintings and gouaches. His glossy, conglomerate assemblages blur bounds of painting and sculpture as they teem with various collectibles, found objects and detritus bound in glossy resin coatings. Many of these appear as fantastic split geodes of bright, kitsch culture that has dripped into our pop-social world. Some include found paintings or publications that the sculptures’ fused structures seem to abscond or envelop.

Builder Bidet will be Clark’s first return to painting since receiving his masters from VCU fifteen years ago. These works echo some of the volumetric explorations found in his kitschbild assemblages, looking again into the formal play of mid-twentieth century modernist aesthetics.

Opening is from 7-9pm, this exhibit runs through November 25th.

For more information visit:

www.adagallery.com

 

VALET Gallery: Katya Villano, Blue Litmus Works

Baltimore based artist Katya Villano will be showing new paintings in Blue Litmus Works at VALET Gallery. In many of these recent paintings, Villano masks figures into their environments using the obscuring mid-tones of their surroundings. The representational situations and encounters in each work seem to wash or flow across the canvas, and are yet held by the boldness of Villano’s painterly mark making.

As a trans lesbian artist, Villano’s works explore the fluidity of femininity in the trans body. Each painting offers a “venue of fluidity” where “color, sensation, womanhood and power need no declarations or definitive engagements.” The work focuses on relationships between shame, desire and contradictory truths. Villano’s color palette alone evidences how these compositions “reject myths of purity,” as the show’s title also connotes thoughts of discerning the unknown properties of mixed solutions.

For more information visit:

http://katyavillano.com/

 

SEDIMENT: Chino Amobi, Weak Images

Along with their regular gallery programming, SEDIMENT has also begun to curate storefront feature exhibitions as a new experimental exhibition format. As part of these, Chino Amobi’s Weak Images debuts this Friday. Weak Images is a multimedia installation based off of the Italian philosopher, Giorgio Agamben’s concept of Weak Images, concerning questions of defining an image’s essence and the visibility of concrete images.

Chino Amobi is from born in Tuscaloosa, AL, and currently resides in Richmond. He is a co-founder of the global collective Non Worldwide and is currently pursuing an MFA in Graphic Design at Virginia Commonwealth University. A noted musician as well as visual artist, Chino will also be performing at the Advocates for Youth Benefit Show at Strange Matter this Friday. Weak Images will remain installed at SEDIMENT through Nov. 19th.

For more information visit:

http://www.sedimentarts.org/

https://chinoamobi.bandcamp.com/

 

Studio/Gallery 6: Todd Hale

Studio/Gallery 6 will hold an open studio of works by gallery owner, Todd Hale. A multidisciplinary artist to say the least, Hale will feature a number of colorful new acrylic/paper collages on panel board in resin coating. These compositions are especially bright—some entangle the entire panel, while others seem to float in black space. Their cut-paper, fauvist aesthetic makes for exciting, in your face conglomerate forms and spaces that slip in and out of themselves.

Studio/Gallery 6 will open doors at 6pm

For more information visit:

toddhale.com

Art Sponsored by Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art 

1708 Gallery’s InLight festival comes to West Broad st. this November, opens call for proposals and submissions

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1708 Gallery will return with their amazing night time, public art exhibit this fall, InLight Richmond. After spending last year in Scotts Addition, and taking over Monroe Park Campus the year before that, this year sees the festival of lights, complete with light parade and massive installations, come to West Broad St..

This year’s theme is the Electric Carnival, which harkens back to the famed street festival that enlivened Broad Street in 1901. The Electrical Carnival featured a replica of the Eiffel Tower that was illuminated remotely by President Roosevelt via a telegraph key from the White House.

Check out our video from last year’s festival below:

1708 is also looking for submissions and proposals for pieces for this year’s event. Check out details below and click here to apply and find out more!

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1708 Gallery invites national and international artists working in all media and disciplines, including performance, to submit proposals for our 10th annual InLight Richmond.

InLight 2017 will take place on Friday, November 3, 2017, from 7pm to midnight, in Richmond’s Arts and Culture District. InLight is a public exhibition of light-based artworks—videos and projections, multi-media and interactive projects, sculptures, installations, performances and a Community Lantern Parade.

Proposals for InLight 2017 should involve, be inspired by, investigate, or interpret themes of light, from light as medium to light as concept. While existing work will be considered, 1708 Gallery encourages artists to propose projects that consider themes central to the Electric Carnival— technology, globalism, carnivals.

DEADLINE TO APPLY: Midnight (EST), Monday, July 31, 2017

Potential sites for installations and performances include pathways, façades and other walls, sidewalks, green spaces, trees, and more. In addition, a limited number of interior sites may be available. Artists may propose a specific site for both pre-existing and site-responsive works. Please indicate if your work is site-specific on your entry form. 1708 Gallery reserves the right to make final assignments.

The juror for 2017 is Nat Trotman, Curator of Performance and Media at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Top photo: Medeology Collective: Alessandro Imperato, Jim Gladman, and Kelly McClung, Bridge of Signs, InLight 2013, photo by Terry Brown

1708 Gallery’s ‘3×3’ exhibit highlights social issues to engage the community

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Continuing a tradition of summertime community engagement, 1708 Gallery opened its newest exhibit, 3×3, last Friday as part of its summer sessions series meant to inspire local involvement through socially-engaging art.

The exhibit, featuring three artists who focus both on pressing environmental and social issues within the Richmond community, provides a work space for the artists to continue community projects both inside and outside of the gallery.

Now in its third year, the summer sessions at 1708 Gallery have evolved to feature fewer projects over a longer period of time to ensure the greatest volume of engagement, largest breadth of resources and concrete results.

“We’ve treated the gallery space as a project space or a lab, or a kind of a community engagement space,” 1708 Executive Director Emily Smith said. “Following the last two summers, we wanted to continue that mission, but try something a little bit different, and invited artists that engaged a community or communities outside of the gallery that had a social practice mission.”

By taking traditional art styles and applying contemporary social movements to exhibits, the artists and gallery alike become community leaders in addition to visual artists.

“The artist is functioning like a community organizer, or activist or archivist, with the idea that the artists would spend the summer doing the work of their project with it being kind of completed by August,” Smith said.

Many of the submissions 1708 Gallery received focused on issues that have become more pertinent this year.

“Half of the proposals addressed issues that have a bigger spotlight on them because of the current political climate,” Smith said. “That was inherent in a lot of the work. It’s impossible to avoid that, and we wouldn’t want to avoid it.”

Dig It Up – Rivers without Coal Ash (pictured above) presented by the Virginia River Healers for example, features drawings and plans depicting local rivers as if they were free of all coal ash. As part of their public awareness campaign, the Virginia River Healers will also host public meetings in Richmond, Chesterfield and Chesapeake to further awareness of coal ash river pollution.

Hillary Waters Fayle is the second featured artist, whose project focuses on sustainable living and incorporating green urban areas in the Jackson Ward neighborhood by creating an ethno-botanical map of the neighborhood through collecting and documenting the plant life and specimens.

“Your experience within an urban environment can change so drastically without any sort of permission or warning,” Fayle said. “It got me thinking about this shared space [in Jackson Ward]. All the natural botany here we share. It’s not really ours, it belongs to somebody, but it’s the experience of the whole community.”  

Fayle’s book on the project will be available at the exhibit’s completion.

Sayaka Suzuki’s work, Drifting Dreamers, is the third featured work and stresses the importance of diversity in a world of immigrants as she asks participants to share their stories on traditional Japanese Indigo cloth that will be constructed into the shape of a life-size boat.

1708 Gallery is also conducting a cultural mapping exercise during the exhibit, asking patrons to pinpoint on a map both traditional and nontraditional art they see around Richmond–whether it be a tattoo parlor or a coffee shop–to create a visual representation of all forms of local art in the city.

“It’s important to recognize that these kinds of projects are a significant way that artists are creating art in 2017,” Smith said. “It’s a way for them to connect with communities in a much more immediate way than hanging a painting in a gallery.”

You can visit the exhibit until August 5 at 319 West Broad Street. For more information about artists or ways to become involved with the projects, visit the 1708 Gallery website.