This story was originally published by ArtsATL.
For the 40th anniversary of the ArtsXchange (AXC), curator and longtime AXC studio artist Lisa Tuttle asked 25 women artists who had had studios at the Southside alternative art space to contribute historic images or new work for the exhibition “A Room of Her Own: Women Studio Artists from AXC’s 40-Year History” (through June 22).
From the days when installation artist Jack Sinclair was instrumental in helping to rehabilitate the disused Grant Park school building in which the proposed art center first came into being in 1984, the ArtsXchange has been a multiracial experiment in which primarily but far from exclusively African American practices and what was once known as avant-garde art have commingled seamlessly. Tuttle’s choice of invited artists reflects the history of this not-quite-effortless diversity.
Credit: Courtesy of Lisa Tuttle
Credit: Courtesy of Lisa Tuttle
The 23 artists (two of the 25 invited were unable to participate) work or worked (one celebrated artist, Beverly Buchanan, is deceased) in a variety of media that makes a summary impossible. Although the exhibition is restricted to painting, photography and sculpture, it includes a photograph of Donna Pickens’ ”Prima Mater,” an immense rammed-earth public sculpture that was created adjacent to the AXC’s Grant Park building for the 1990 artist-initiated conference “Rethinking the Sacred Image.” In conjunction with an art exhibition in the gallery and panel discussion in the Paul Robeson Theatre, the amphitheater/Mother Earth sculpture hosted a dance performance within the embracing earthen arms that served as audience seating.
Credit: Courtesy of ArtsXchange
Credit: Courtesy of ArtsXchange
Beginning with founder and present-day executive director Alice Lovelace-Riley’s work in poetry and photography and continuing through successive generations to such genre combinations as N’Dieye Gray Danavall’s (Sista Shaman) photography, beadwork and instructional design, AXC’s multiethnic and multidisciplinary manifestations continue to resist easy description. (The poet Theresa Davis, currently the literary program manager hosting monthly spoken word slams, has been at AXC since its founding and is represented in the exhibition by a visual art work.)
Because it would be invidious to select further among the distinguished artists in this exhibition beyond the few illustrative examples I have given, here is a list as the names are given in the press release, with my own links to additional information for each: Lisa Alembik, Beverly Buchanan, Dana Cibulski, Jaynie Gillman Crimmins, Connie Cross, N’Dieye Gray Danavall, Theresa Davis, Elyse Defoor, Rebecca DesMarais, Mirtha Ferrer, Anna Hamer, Caroline Lathan-Stiefel, Alice Lovelace-Riley, Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier, Theresa “Wise Mecca” Mingo, Charmaine Minniefield, Barbara Nesin “Batya Tamar,” Donna Pickens, Sankofa Selassie, Karley Sullivan, Chris Tholl, Lisa Tuttle, Laura Vela.
EXHIBITION
“A Room of Her Own: Women Studio Artists from AXC’s 40-Year History”
Through June 22 in the Jack Sinclair Gallery at ArtsXchange. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays. Free. 2148 Newnan St,, East Point. 404-624-4211, artsxchange.org
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Jerry Cullum’s reviews and essays have appeared in Art Papers magazine, Raw Vision, Art in America, ARTnews, International Review of African American Art and many other popular and scholarly journals. In 2020, he was awarded the Rabkin Prize for his outstanding contribution to arts journalism.
Credit: ArtsATL
Credit: ArtsATL
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