The Present Tense exhibit opened at
the Dixon today, and began with a discussion about art with a panel of Memphis arts people. It was led by
John Weeden, the curator of the exhibit, and was a varied group:
Melissa Dunn,
Derrick Dent, Anthony Lee, NJ Woods, George Hunt, David McCarthy,
Frederic Koeppel,
Carissa Hussong and
Hamlett Dobbins. I tried sketching them all, but I was pretty far in the back, so mostly we have the heads of audience members.
(click the images for more detail)
Present Tense is a survey of art in Memphis over the last ten years, and I'm thrilled to be in it. I made a lot of art in Memphis over the last ten years, and I helped a lot of other people make a lot of art. I even bought some art! My
Tiny Outfits series is featured in the show.
It's a really good show. It looks great, and organizing it chronologically (and I love chronological order!) just adds to the fun of it without detracting from the flow.
The show has been approached with a bit of
negativity? skeptisicm?, but that's fine - that's Memphis, that's what we do here, and not having it questioned this way would be weird. I'm all for having a discussion and not just taking the whole thing at face value. I'm actually really curious about how some of the decisions were made, because it seems like it would be a bunch of REALLY HARD DECISIONS. I guess that's why John Weeden originally wanted this show to be about 10 times bigger. For now, this is the show we have and it's really fun so go see it!
