This title was digitized by the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia (MOCA GA).
About Contemporary art/southeast. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1977-1980 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 1980)
L T T fo' "The Issue <>t Criticism Thu kind of pr. dung digit die u sure to improve the Itst of fivminr in the an »»•> <riu. < \p<. laih at lists Tht piece Is the I -livers in Artist the Scsv ConI- p.ro Mar. ’ r-, Mike Nicholson was almost startling to v.v m pmu This'indictment may seem a little prtMWf rwi rtb'Wjhlil hut naked truth often has that ipiMQh' Hcfw cm a teacher who has moved in a straight Une from hg*h school to undergraduate pro gram to Master of' fine Arts degree and straight into teaching in university studios have the authority to .4 real practicing artist is forged by a dogged eticounter with life in and out of his j her studio, and is n i II me h > develop a tenuous set ofsurvival patterns in order to save his j her art. Yet this practicing artist is often given short shrift by the critic/historian- museum-gallery complex, because he is not as visible as the university artist who has a built in P. R. system. The. real problem lies with altitudes of university artists who would leave the impression that they are at the heart beat of art making. The serious artist, in or out of the university, will continue an honest search for enlightenment and originality through his work, hoping that the art public will have the wisdom to know the real ones. The entire issue was stimulating and thought- provoking. Ruth Laxson Atlanta, Ga. A Salute to an Enlightened Business... Our lead article in this issue deals with the Construct exhibition, which was funded in full by the Gilman Paper Company, known internationally for its corporate art collection and widespread support for the arts. With its regional headquarters in Atlanta and its main plant in St. Mary’s, Georgia, the Gilman Paper Company, by sponsoring this exhibition at the Arts Festival of Atlanta, demonstrates enlightened corporate responsibility to the community. This act also sets a high standard, which other corporations in the area are challenged to match. . . .and a state legislature which boosts the arts 7franks to the efforts of Florida Secretary of State George Firestone, the Florida Legislature has appropriated S2 million to create a Salvador Dali Research Museum in St. Petersburg. The new facility will receive the Reynolds Morse collection of Dali art and manuscripts. This project was supported by the City of St. Petersburg and the State University System. And now the bad news. .. Three recent events in the art world of the Southeast say as much about the status of art in the region as anything. First, in Dallas, city hall officials removed a nude sculpture of Adam and Eve from an exhibit sponsored by the Texas Fine Arts Assn, because the work was “anatomically accurate” and might offend viewers. The table-top work, entitled Early Morning, by Martin Delabano, shows Eve wading in a pool and Adam emerging from a television set. Outraged when he learned his sculpture had been removed from the exhibit, Delabano demanded to know why. “On any show we do, we have the right to reject what’s pertinent in regard to the community standards,” responded Steve Rosen, manager of special events at City Hall. “I personally don’t have any problem with your work. This is not a censorship measure. But it’s pretty graphic. There’s nothing abstract.” In Miami, Burdines department store, which has had a good reputation for supporting the arts, censored a work by local artist Leslie Klein. The drawing, of three pairs of bare feet inside a Kotex dispenser, caught the eye of Burdines president John Burden, who ordered it out of an exhibition in one Dadcland store. When Miami Herald art critic Ellen Edwards tried to ask Mr. Burden what prompted his decision, his office was short: “There will be no comment from Burdines.” (We’ll resist saying more as well.) Finally, in Atlanta, when workers were completing the Richard B. Russell Building, a federally lunded artwork called Three Variances, by Sam Gilliam, narrowly missed being thrown away by workmen who thought the $50,000 multi-colored canvas was a painter’s dropcloth. When the accident was averted by an alert subcontractor who told the workers that it was valuable art, the Atlanta Constitution reported that “Everybody on the floor—maybe 20 or 30 guys—just roared laughing.” Gilliam, who was in the building at the time, was not amused. We are also disturbed by the flip manner in which the press reported the incident. The Constitution's story began: “But is it art?” On photography Have you ever thought about a world without photography? There would be no movies such as “Days of Heaven" to feast the eyes on, or even popular culture TV shows such as “Real People,” much less photo exhibits such as the Henri Cartier- Bresson show currently touring this region. The validity of tills fantasy is silly when you consider that photographs are as common today as trees. Photo graphy has certainly had a lot to do with the contemporary image of human beings. Consider, for instance, in this issue’s special section on photo graphy, how the propagandists images of the Farm Security Administration gave everyone impressions about the South during the depression. Or consider how photographic techniques have altered the way most of us view the world. We accept lens distortion and grainy prints because the camera has become the ultimate creative toy in a technological society and playing with illusion is part of the process of being creative. Also in this issue, we explore the subject of Southern realism and, through the photorealistic works of Davis Cone (on the cover), how the camera is no longer considered a threat to the livelihoods of painters. It’s a case of cooperation, not competition. Mail Art and Performance Art also get editorial coverage in this boffo, big issue, specially designed by CA/SE creative director John Marcum.
