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The Southern Gallery, which has been open at 2 Carlson Court, in Charleston, for just over a year, is my kind of gallery.
Erin and Justin Nathanson have found a generous, infinitely flexible space between Meeting and King Streets, near the intersection between I-26 and US-17, and created a gallery they describe as a "contemporary art gallery dealing in recent works by artists connected to the American South."
Here is more about The Southern Gallery from Charleston's City Paper, celebrating the gallery's opening last January.
Displaying Southern photography been part of the Southern Gallery's mission since that opening show, which included work by Charleston-based photographer Gately Williams.
Now, they've really gotten into it, opening two photography shows this past weekend, Paradise Road and Paradise Out-Front.
Go here for a review of these shows from Scott Ellingburg, in the Post and Courier, the local Charleston newspaper.
One is a solo show dedicated to the work of Eliot Dudik (see images above and below), featuring work from his new portfolio Paradise Road.
This is a concept project. Dudik says he wanted to “drive to
paradise and see what was there."
Dudik got the idea that he could "take the temperature of the country” by photographing along roads to paradise in the USA, that is, roads named Paradise Road.
Dudik has found 196 of these; to date, he has photographed over 90, and is still working on the project.
His show at The Southern Gallery includes 12 of theses images, and you can see them all if you go here.
The other show is a group show of work by folks chosen by Dudik to complement the work in his solo show.
This show is called Paradise Out Front, and includes work by the following photographers from the South:
Durham, NC-based Ben Alper (see image above), Charlottesville-based Matt Eich (see image below), Birmingham-based Jared Ragland, Richmond, VA-based Justin James Reed (see image three images down), Houston-based Bryan Schutmaat, Honorary Southern Photographer Aline Smithson, Austin, TX-based Katherine Squier,
and Richmond, VA-based Susan Worsham (see image two down).
(And apologies to everyone whose work I haven't included. Some of your work was easier to find in reproducible files than others.)
There is also work in this show by Ian van Coller, Mark Dorf, Thalassa Raasch, and Anastasia Samoylova, but they are Not From Around Here, so to see their work in the show, and to learn more about them, please go here.
In fact, to see ALL the work in this show, please go here.
All these photographs are up at The Southern until February 26th, 2017.
My advice is to rush right to Charleston and check out The Southern, and this fine show.
Congratulations to the Nathansons for their vision, energy, and creativity in establishing The Southern Gallery and for including photography among their definitions of Southern art.
This is a great show, a great chapter in the history of photography exhibitions at The Southern, and, I hope, a great sign of more to come.
And, thanks, too, for welcoming me to The Southern very late on a Saturday afternoon.
Distinguished American Photographer Lucinda Devlin (see image above) has become a Distinguished Southern Photographer in recent years, moving first to Hattesburg, MS, and now to Greensboro, NC.
We can get to know our new colleague's work at Sightlines, a major retrospective exhibition of her work, opening at Greensboro's Weatherspoon Art Museum, on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
This show opens on January 28th, 2017 and up through April 23rd, 2017, in the The Bob + Lissa Shelley McDowell Gallery.
The folks at the Weatherspoon Museum say this of Devlin and her work:
"Lucinda Devlin's photographs serve as social commentaries on timely and
socially relevant issues such as personal rights, the death penalty, and
agribusiness.
"An internationally recognized American photographer who
now lives in Greensboro, Devlin began her career in the 1970s during the
genesis of color photography in America.
"At the time, she took up not
only color photography, but also the artistic approach that she
continues to this day, one that emphasizes an objective or neutral point
of view.
"Devlin also discovered her preferred subject matter:
psychologically charged spaces absent of any human figures yet
nonetheless signaling contemporary public and private life.
"Her earliest
series, Pleasure Ground, featured droll images of thematic hotel rooms.
"Subsequent series (Habitats, Subterranea, Corporal Arenas, Field Culture, and Lake Pictures)
have continued to probe the meaning of place at such sites as zoos and
amusement parks, tanning salons and health spas, hospitals and funeral
homes, agricultural facilities and open fields, and lastly, Lake Huron's
shoreline.
"Her most provocative and best known series, The Omega Suites
(so named after the final letter of the Greek alphabet), proffered
emotive images of sterile execution chambers and the apparatuses
associated with them."
Devlin has exhibited widely and published widely, and has images in the collections of museums and private collectors across Europe and the United States.
You can learn more about her work if you go here and watch the video of an interview with her.
We welcome her to the
ranks of Southern Photographers and look forward to seeing her work at
the Weatherspoon in Greensboro later this month.
In the words of Paul Simon, "I have reason to believe we all shall be received in Graceland."
Best
wishes for a joyous Holiday season to Southern photographers and Southern photography fans
everywhere.
The
Southern Photographer will now take a short break from chronicling Fine
Art Photography in the American South while your humble blogger attends
to other professional and personal responsibilities.
Thank you for your interest in The Southern Photographer, and especially for your kind words of support for this blog during the past year.
We look forward to resuming our chronicle after the 1st of January 2017.
In the meanwhile, remember that Christmas is a season, not just a day, and the season of Christmas is 12 days long. So its Christmas from December 25th of 2016 all the way through until Twelfth Night, January 5th, 2017.
In the meantime, we wish you all the joy that the holiday season can bring, and a Happy New Year, too.
JNW
Photographers featured since mid-October in Jeff Rich's ongoing feature Eyes on the South, for the Oxford American, include the following:
Savannah-based photographer Carson Sanders (see image above), with work from his Ghost Coast portfolio.
I have finally gotten to the Southern Accent: Seeking the American South in Contemporary Art show at Duke University's Nasher Museum, up now through January 8th, 2017.
Yes, it has been just that kind of fall, so far, for me. But this show is definitely worth visiting if you are in Durham over the holidays.
The show is an effort through art to "question and explore the complex and contested space of the American
South," according to the folks at the Nasher.
In the process, they want to document "the South’s profound influence on American culture,
and consequently much of the world." And also to "address and complicate the many realities, fantasies and myths that
have long captured the public’s imagination about the American South." And also to create "a composite portrait of southern
identity through the work of 60 artists." And also to "reflect upon and pull apart the dynamic nature of the South’s social, political and cultural
landscape."
Well, that's a lot, and all of it is important, even some of those goals sound contradictory to me.
But the art is strong, including the photographs, and there is much here to contemplate.
The show includes a large and very diverse sampling of art in a number of media, including a strong gathering of photography, made chiefly since World War II.
The photographers on offer include, of course, Eggleston, Christenberry, and Mann, as well as Jeff Whetstone, Mark Steinmetz, Tom Rankin, Burk Uzzle, and some other folks familiar to readers of the The Southern Photographer.
Here are some folks in the show we weren't so familiar with whose work is compelling.
Cumberland Gap, Tennessee-based photographer Rachel Boillot (see image above) is included, with work from her Post Script portfolio.
New York-based photographer Xaveria Simmons (see image above) is also in the show, with images that constitute self-portraits, with the photographer posed against iconic Southern landscapes.
Tennessee-born photographer Jessica Ingram (see image above) has work in the show from her Road Through Midnight portfolio of images made at sites in the South important for the Civil Rights Movement.
Diego Camposeco is in the show with work that helps us include the experience of the growing Hispanic community in the American South, from his Diego Saves the World portfolio.
Richard Misrach is also in this show, with images he made in New Orleans after Katrina, from his Destroy this Memory portfolio.
Destroy this Memory has also been published in book form, go here.
Misrach has now done enough work in the South to be considered an Honorary Southern Photographer.
So, strong photography forming an essential component of a major show documenting how the American South is currently being explored, and made meaning of, in the work of contemporary artists.
Definitely worth your time and consideration if you are in Durham before the show closes on January 8th, 2017.
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