A site-specific sculpture by Atlanta artist Maria Artemis was recently dedicated at the University of Minnesota’s Minneapolis campus. The project, however, was seeded at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia in Buckhead.
Here’s the back-story: In 2008, Artemis was selected as a Working Artist Project winner, an honor that supports three Georgia artists in various ways for a year as they create a special body of work to be shown at MOCA GA.
Sculpture Magazine reviewed the 2009 exhibit, helping spread word of Artemis’ work nationally. Not long thereafter, she was approached to create a project for the plaza of the planned Cancer and Cardiovascular Research Building in Minneapolis.
The resulting commission is titled “Adjacent Possible,” a 40-foot-tall-by-40-foot-wide stainless steel sculpture that appears to play gracefully off the building’s curving and mirrored facade. Massive blocks of granite are sited at its base.
“The building and plaza together are designed to foster collaboration and innovation,” Artemis says on her website. “It is the physical place made ready for the ongoing activity of discovery. ‘Adjacent Possible’ is a poetic response to this invitation.”
That response, what the sculpture depicts exactly, is intentionally open-ended. The Atlanta artist calls the soaring piece an “organic web” that emerges from the ground and rises to define the space above the plaza in an “open-ended dance of curving, linear pipe.”
As for the 23 tons of carved granite at the base, Artemis said she was making an allusion to the “geological fundament of all life and change on the planet.”
Artemis, whose most recent public art in Atlanta includes a fountain and water wall in Historic Fourth Ward Park, borrowed "Adjacent Possible" as the title for the sculpture (with permission) from theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman. He used it in detailing the ever-expanding diversity of the biosphere in his 2000 book "Investigations."
More on Artemis and "Adjacent Possible": www.mariaartemis.com.
VISUAL ARTS
And the winner of $50,000 is …
This shapes up as a big week — huge, let’s say — for one Georgia visual artist.
The second Hudgens Prize, with its $50,000 award, will be announced in a Hudgens Center for the Arts ceremony at 8 p.m. Aug. 10.
The honoree will be one of four artists included in the current Finalists Exhibit (through Sept. 7) at the Duluth arts center: Atlantans Christopher Chambers, Robbie Land and Pam Longobardi, and Statesboro-based Derek Larson.
But before one of the country’s largest cash prizes to an individual artist is given out, the arts center will host a panel discussion with the prize’s jurors at 10 a.m. Aug. 9. “A Conversation on Visual Art & Creative Culture” will feature Doryun Chong of New York’s Museum of Modern Art; Toby Kamps of Houston’s Menil Collection; and Heather Pesanti of AMOA-Arthouse in Austin, Texas. High Museum of Art modern and contemporary art curator Michael Rooks will moderate. Coffee and networking at 9:30 a.m. While the panel is free, seating is limited and RSVP advised: info@thehudgens.org.
On Aug. 10, a pre-award reception will be held at 7 p.m., and galleries will remain open post-ceremony until 9:30 (tickets: $25).
For more information about the artists and links to their personal websites, visit the Hudgens Prize Finalists page at www.thehudgens.org. 6400 Sugarloaf Parkway, Building 300, in Duluth. 770-623-6002.
New space for Madison Artists Guild
The Madison Artists Guild, a grassroots group founded in 1985 and now featuring a 150 members, has a new gallery home.
The MAG Gallery is at 217 W. Jefferson St., across from Town Park in Madison, the picturesque town an hour east of Atlanta. It shows paintings, prints, pottery, fiber works, sculpture, photography and more.
Gallery hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 1-5 p.m. Sundays. 770-367-1203, www.madisonartistsguild.org.
THEATER
New home, new season for Atlanta Lyric
Opening its 34th season this week, Atlanta Lyric Theatre begins a new chapter. After five seasons at the Earl Smith Strand Theatre on the Marietta Square, the troupe will present its 2013-14 season, its 34th, at Cobb Civic Center’s Jennie T. Anderson Theatre.
The opening production, Aug. 9-25, will be Mel Brooks’ “The Producers,” featuring Marietta-raised Meg Gillentine (whose Broadway credits include “Cats,” “Fosse” and “The Frogs”) as secretary and aspiring actress Ulla Inga Hansen; and Lyric associate artistic director Alan Kilpatrick as down-on-his-luck theatrical producer Max Bialystock.
Starting two hours prior to curtain, the Downtown Marietta Development Authority will be provide complimentary shuttle service by the Historic Marietta Trolley Company to and from the Marietta Square, less than two miles away.
548 S. Marietta Pkwy., Marietta. 404-377-9948, www.atlantalyrictheatre.com.
ARTS
Nominate an ‘Impact’ maker
Nominees are being sought for the Emory College Center for Creativity & Arts’ “Community Impact” awards. The two awards will recognize contributions to Atlanta’s arts by artists, administrators, educators, activists or supporters in any artistic discipline. Nominees must have worked or resided in DeKalb or Fulton counties.
The awards presentation will be 6-7:30 p.m. Sept. 6 during the Emory Creativity & Arts Soiree, the university's art season kickoff party, free to the community. To nominate (deadline is 5 p.m. Aug. 16): www.creativity.emory.edu/nominations. Soiree info: www.arts.emory.edu.
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