Matt Wycoff  

VARIATIONS  

 January 27 – March 3, 2012  
opens Friday, January 27  (6-9pm)

beta pictoris is pleased to announce the opening of VARIATIONS, New York based artist Matt Wycoff’s first solo exhibition with the gallery.  Over the past ten years Wycoff’s work has covered a wide range of conceptual, stylistic and material approaches. 

VARIATIONS  brings together four major works from this period, two text pieces from 2006 and 2007, and two large-scale abstract paintings from 2011.  The works on view are drawn from what appear to be two visually and conceptually distinct bodies of work.  The exhibition is less about the differences between the works, however, and more about the experience of the viewer as they find the underlying themes that tie them together.

In classical music the term variation has come to mean the repetition of a musical theme with modifications of melody, rhythm or harmony.  Wycoff offers his variations in a similar spirit.  Wycoff’s main themes of identity and perception appear and reappear throughout the exhibition as they shift and change in relation to ideas such as poetry, beauty, order, abstraction, death, disaster, monumentality, color and time.  These shadings allow for a depth of experiences.  The works question the distance between the personal and the universal, confuse notions of chaos and order and use the art historical meanings of expressionism, minimalism, pop and conceptual art as tools for building a new aesthetic framework.  As an artist, Wycoff is both drawn toward and skeptical of earlier artistic attempts at universalism and deeply informed by discussions that emerged in the 1970s, 80s and 90s such as the blurring of boundaries between painting, sculpture and installation, and dialogues about deconstruction or pluralism.  Wycoff’s VARIATIONS ask the viewer to reconsider their preconceptions about artistic style, and focus on the ways in which form and content build structures of meaning.

 Space Mountain 

new paintings
December 9, 2011 – January 21, 2012
opens Friday, December 9 (6-9pm)

From Beta Pictoris:

Birmingham, Alabama based artist Clayton Colvin has developed a practice of painting that is both challenging and seductive. He uses a hybrid of figurative and abstract approaches to create delicate, fantastic, and concrete spaces. The immediate and intimate nature of drawing infuses his linen panels with an hypnotic mix of familiarity and mystery.

The resulting images are skillfully constructed poems, or Burroughs cut-ups, in which the viewer gets pleasantly lost in language.

This exhibition of new paintings — all from 2011 — is titled Space Mountain, and references Colvin’s interest in pictoral space as a subject, and as a model for exploring the structure of experience.

]]> http://www.thebirminghamartcollective.com/2011/12/friday-beta-pictoris-clayton-colvins-space-mountain/feed/ 0 http://www.thebirminghamartcollective.com/2011/11/tonight-dia-de-los-muertos/ http://www.thebirminghamartcollective.com/2011/11/tonight-dia-de-los-muertos/#comments Wed, 02 Nov 2011 20:17:40 +0000 The Collective http://www.thebirminghamartcollective.com/?p=1647 Continue reading →]]>  

November 2, 2003
5-10pm

2115 1st Avenue South, Birmingham, AL 35233

Dia de los Muertos is a celebration for the dead held once a year in the midst of life. Each autumn, the living invite their dead to join them in a festival of communion-to return home again and, for a few hours, to sit by the hearth and warm their cold bones before returning to the land of the dead.

Birmingham’s annual Day of the Dead Festival is very much a celebration of life and a joyful and beautiful event where we pay homage and respects to our dearly departed by celebrating their lives with music, dance, art, food, spirits, laughter, joy and tears…REMEMBER!

facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dia-de-los-Muertos/

Thursday, November 3 · 6:00pm - 7:30pm
Hulsey Recital Hall, 950 13th Street South

Artlab at the Visual Arts Gallery presents Willie Cole, 2011 Juror for the Student Annual Juried Exhibition. Mr. Cole will present a talk on his works. His visit is a partnership with the UAB Printmaking Program of the Department of Art and Art History and beta pictoris/Maus Contemporary.

The UAB Department of Art and Art History, The Visual Arts Gallery through its artlab editions project, and beta pictoris gallery/Maus Contemporary are pleased to announce a lecture and limited edition print by groundbreaking artist Willie Cole.

Cole will be in residence at the University between October 31 and November 6, working with Professor Derek Cracco and students from the UAB Printmaking program to complete a new, limited edition work, that will be sold to benefit the gallery and the printmaking programs, respectively.

“We are fortunate to have the facilities to undertake such a work, but more importantly we have a dedicated, professional, skilled printmaker in Derek Cracco,” remarked Gallery Director Brett Levine. “Professor Cracco has the ability to work with artists who push printmaking beyond its natural means.”

Cole, based in New Jersey, is visiting Birmingham in part to jury the 36th Annual Student Exhibition at UAB. He will give a free lecture on his works on Thursday, November 3rd, at 6 PM in the Hulsey Recital Hall. “Both Willie Cole and Guido Maus, of beta pictoris gallery, have worked tirelessly to ensure that this project provides opportunities on a variety of levels,” remarked Department Chair Erin Wright.

The Edition will be launched in conjunction with Cole’s exhibition at beta pictoris gallery, which opens Friday, December 9th. “Willie Cole and Bayeté Ross Smith will be exhibiting in raumZWEI, our second gallery,” Guido Maus explains. Information regarding the print will be made available at that time. For now, Cole and Cracco will focus on producing a complex, new, unique work that embodies the innovation and skill of the artist himself, and of the UAB Department of Art and Art History.

For further information about the lecture, please contact (205) 934-0815.
For information about Willie Cole’s works generally, or about his December exhibition, please contact Guido Maus and beta pictoris gallery, (205) 413-2999.

facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=193503297393068

Featuring the darkest artwork of:
Daisy Winfrey
Doug Baulos
Alicia Roden
Paul Cordes Wilm
Jennifer Wallace
Jonathan Purvis
Kara Hall
Sean Pathasema
Byron Sonnier
Merrilee Challis
Olga Mendoza
Veronique Vanblaere
Wes Frazer
Rebecca Davis
Brian Francis
Aaron Lockhart
Sarah Heath
James Edward Williams
Sara Cannon
Bo Hughins
Beth Ragland
and
John Lytle Wilson

Facebook Event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=234573536598000

 opening reception Friday, October 28 (6-9pm)

webs, doilies, dots and grids : patterns of comfort

Peter FOX (NY)
Deborah KARPMAN (AL)
Shana ROBBINS (GA)
Susanna STARR (NY)
Matt WYCOFF (NY)

October 28 – December 3, 2011

facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=148159158615297

MULTI-MEDIA / MULTI-SENSORY PERFORMANCE AND EXHIBITION OPENS FRIDAY OCTOBER 28, 2011 (6:00 P.M. – 9:00 P.M.)

Sound collaboration with ALBERTO ROMAN

Shana Robbins is an Atlanta-based artist whose work integrates concepts of “feminine” power, natural and supernatural phenomena, and experimental body movement into a multi-media / multi-sensory exhibition. One-time performance, Snakesandlace, will debut at the show’s opening, Come In—Out of the Darkness, on Friday October 28, 2011 @ 6:00 P.M. This five-hour endurance driven piece incorporates a 17-foot lace installation for which Robbins collaborated with the Shipibo women of the Peruvian Amazon. During her collaboration, Robbins learned the Shipibo women’s unique stitching and patterns that represent communion with healing forces within their handmade works of art. Elements of body movement are also incorporated in the performance in reaction to the sounds, scents, and patterns of her experience with the native people.

In this exhibition, Robbins includes multimedia pieces — from lace, mirrors, sound, crystals, video, sculptural installation, woven and hand-stitched textiles, to photographs and works on paper. Viewers will encounter mannequins dressed in hand-fabricated costumes for characters known as “Tree Ghost” and “Axis Mundi.”
These garments are worn by Robbins in performances—some for the public, others done for the camera and the natural environment—in Iceland, Mexico, New Mexico, and rural Georgia.
“Ronin”, a painting inspired by her experience in the Amazon jungle with the Shipibo people, portrays the spiritual visions of the “Cosmic Anaconda” as it radiates and forms intricate patterns within Shipibo songs and visions. Snakesandlace performance will debut one-time only at the opening on Friday October 28. The installation will remain until the show ends on December 3, 2011.

Robbins has exhibited her work or performed at Las Vegas Contemporary Arts Center; Monkey Town, Brooklyn; Mobius, Boston; BECA gallery in New Orleans; Rowan University Gallery, New Jersey; and Whitespace Gallery, Atlanta. Robbins exhibited her solo performance/exhibition, Supernatural Conductor, in 2010 at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center and will be included in the forthcoming Biennial publication (book) entitled Noplaceness: Art in a Post-Urban Landscape in 2011.

show goes from Friday Oct 28th at 6:00pm - December 3 at 9:00pm

beta pictoris gallery

facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=125844540852199
al.com write up: http://blog.al.com/mhuebner/2011/10/cultures_healing_rituals_to_me.html

black and white write up: http://www.bwcitypaper.com/Articles-i-2011-10-13-243978.113121-At-the-Galleries.html#123

Rojo Birmingham
2921 Highland Avenue
Birmingham, AL

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exhibiting artists include:

Sara Graden Armstrong, Catherine Cabaniss, Jean Cecil, Amy Crews, Elizabeth Farr, Tia-Simone Gardner, Barbara Hirschowitz, Emily Johnson, Angela Karen, Hunter Prewett, Leah Thornton

21st street studios
109 Richard Arrington Jr. Boulevard
Birmingham, Alabama

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55th Place Arts offers customizable workspace for artists at affordable prices. Main Street Birmingham takes a broad view of the “artist” – from visual and performing artists to architects or designers – anyone who uses their talents to make a living. Located in historic Woodlawn, between studio-rich Avondale and East Lake – which many artists call home – 55th Place Arts is in the center of Birmingham’s emerging creative district.

Flexible layouts
1100-2300 sq. ft.
Some utilities included
Business coaching
Marketing events

55th Place Arts combines affordable workspace with Main Street Birmingham’s Arts Incubation program to include business assistance to include one-on-one coaching, workshops, access to resources and a link to city, state and federal government programs. Contact Main Street Birmingham at 205.595.0562 or by email at leasing@mainstreetbham.org.