Good art day -

Tune into WRAS Atlanta Album 88 (88.5 FM) on Saturday morning hours... they play sweet music that would make you wanna hum and take a nice walk.

This morning, I went to the Piedmont Park to do my second week of performance. It was a beautiful day, and Piedmont Park was lively with people jogging, walking, playing football and Frisbee...  I was laying down on my yellow blanket, staring at sky. Some people actually called - one person left me a message saying, "this is a beautiful piece. Thank you for doing this." and I answered one call - we kindly exchanged greetings and told one another to "have a good Saturday."

This Momentary Performance has been a great thing for me to do... I am getting to understand the power of art that permeates in people's daily lives. Without a pressure having to understand what you are seeing, you just encounter that moment of beautiful happening as a 'living picture.' And perhaps, you have a little 'ah-hah' or 'that's cool' moment. I think, art sometimes should not require too much out of audience. A simple response to a piece and a cracking moment of shifting way of seeing and thinking would be just good enough at times.



After the performance, I went to two artist talks at Get This! Gallery and Saltworks.

If you haven't seen Get This! Gallery's current exhibition Free People of Colour (and other pictures), go out there and see it. It is an incredible photography show (it is in conjunction with Atlanta Celebrates Photography). Curator Santiago Mostyn gave an informative talk that helped me to understand the context of the photos further.  I only wish I were a better writer to share with you what I heard and how I felt ... well, I am going to try.

The show is a collection of photographic images by four emerging artists whose interests are in the strong tradition of vernacular photography and "the cultural miasma of the contemporary American south." Images are nostalgic, tender, yet somewhat provocative. And there are certainly historical references of New Orleans black heritage (from Haiti) and a very specific cultural / geographical consciousness of the South (the South that is rather perverse and exotic).

Photographers approach these interesting subject matters with curiosity and empathy. In contrast to contemporary trends of photography in "digital manipulation and constructed abstraction," photographs you will encounter at the exhibit gives a subtle homage to a traditional practice of photographic practice. Seeing these images as non-photographer, I found them inviting and thought-provoking, not distracted by high-definition (HD) manipulation of images which I have grown accustomed to in contemporary photography.

Curator Santiago Mostyn talked about his personal background and where he comes from as a photographer and a curator. His childhood of moving 'so many times' and 'never having home,' he always saw himself as an outsider. Therefore, he gained this curiosity of wanting to understanding other people groups and cultures he encounters... and explores to see if, perhaps, he could find 'home' or a sense of belonging for himself.

I nodded many times during his talk. I especially appreciated his empathetic curiosity of Others and his ability to express them with much respect, which I believe are communicated through his particular aesthetics and concepts.

I just wished... I had enough money to buy one of photographs at the show.

Then I went over to the Saltworks gallery for Iona Rozeal Brown's talk for her current show, Mythologies and Mashups. She had a great energy and openly talked about references and influences of her work. Her paintings were truly the mashups of cultural signifiers of the East and the West (mainly Japan and United States)... and you see these mythological characters who are somewhat familiar.

Did you know about Japanese Blackface culture? Iona Rozeal Brown talked about her experiences with that particular phenomenon in Japan (Japanese darkening their faces and totally obsessed with 'coolness' of blackness and Hip Hop culture - aka Blackfacers). How fascinating - and there are groups of West Africans moving to Japan selling American - Brooklyn - Hip Hop culture to Japanese kids... As an African-American woman artist Brooklyn-based, Iona shouted it out - "that ain't Brooklyn accent! I am from Brooklyn, not them!"


Hah!


Then Jiha Moon engaged with a dialogue... talking about how these twisted fusions of cultures take place in the States as well. You go to a Chinese or Japanese restaurant to find the most authentic food of that culture, but you often find out that the owners are Koreans. Yes yes... I nodded my head again.

And that perhaps is why it is an exciting time for artists... this fluctuation of cultural identity and demographics in globalized, media-based world (OK, that sounded... really corny, forgive me.), we artists are permitted (or do we need a permission?) to create mythologies of our own. What artist Iona did with her paintings is to crack up that space in between two distinctive cultures or conceptions of 'things,' and created her own fantasy and mythology. Yes, in between two lands... it's no man's land, and that is where you can just explore and dare to create the horrendous and beautiful.



Ahh... today was a good art day.

Santiago Mostyn at Get This! Gallery

Iona Rozeal Brown at Saltworks