Feb 29 from 7-9
2409 2nd Ave N, Birmingham, AL 35203

One night only performance of YETI AND FIREBUSH at the opening night of Justin Cooper’s solo show “thin lines” at beta pictoris gallery:
https://www.facebook.com/events/383804704965682/

New York based artists Justin Cooper and Ross Moreno bring their unique brand of comedic deconstruction to beta pictoris gallery.
Elements of stand-up, parlor magic, and slapstick comedy are juxtaposed with highly choreographed monologues and wildly unhinged improv creating an experience that is funny, strange, and ultimately thought provoking.

Friday, March 16, 2012 (6-9pm)

A review from Brooklyn, NY based L Magazine of a recent performance:

“[This] all then culminated in a performance of comedic awkwardiana by Ross Moreno and Justin Cooper, who both delighted and confounded their audience with a mash-up of deeply self-aware and self-effacing comedy with quasi-magical tom-trickery, hilariously tragic soliloquies and a rather astonishingly bare-laying finale.”
-Paul D’Agostino

facebook event

March 16 – April 14, 2012

opening Friday, March 16 (6-9pm)

“Thin Lines” is an exhibition by New York based artist Justin Cooper that explores lines from multiple perspectives. Through drawings, performance and sculptural objects, lines are deconstructed, dissected, tossed around, laughed at, and playfully abstracted. His work is very fluid, moving between mediums and emphasizing their connections by blurring the ‘thin lines’ that separate seemingly disparate practices.

Cooper says of his work:
My work is located in these liminal spaces and positions, dangling precariously between the hinged and unhinged. A relentless cross-pollination of media within my practice marks a restless search for these lines in both formal and conceptual manifestations. Whether drawn, spoken, or objectified, the lines contain an energy that is both earnest and utterly deadpan.

New York based artist/magician/comedian Ross Moreno will be joining Cooper for a performance entitled YETI AND FIREBUSH at the opening reception:
https://www.facebook.com/events/176280859153112/

facebook event

Join us on Friday, March 2nd at Art Folk Gallery for the opening of “Silent Majority”, a exhibition of new works by Birmingham’s own Paul Cordes Wilm. The opening will begin at 5:30 and run until 10pm. The show will run through March 31st.

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In Derek’s own words:

Space Between is an exploration of contemporary relationships filtered through fairy tales and folklore.  The two largest works each explore the emotional spaces that exist between couples.  They are grounded in the theory of the “Distancer and the Pursuer”.  This theory suggests that, in any given relationship, the emotional space between couples is always the same. One person takes on the role of the distancer, meaning that they pull away from the other, and the other pursues.  At times the roles switch, leaving the emotional distance between the two exactly two the same, and thereby never allowing their emotional states to meet. The path through the woods is a reference to this never ending journey. These works are constructed with ink jet prints and model train landscapes, creating images that oscillate between a flat, two dimensional surface and the three dimensional hills and valleys created from the landscape miniatures.

"Winter Wonderland" by Derek Cracco - Image Courtesy of Derek Cracco

"Out Of the Woods" by Derek Cracco - Image Courtesy of Derek Cracco

Derek Cracco is Assistant Professor of printmaking and computer graphics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. View more works online at derekcracco.com

Friday, February 17, 2012
5:00pm until 9:00pm

“I have a secret wish…” is an exciting group exhibition featuring 10 acclaimed artist from various parts of the US.

On a fundamental level, the exhibition features female artists who create works dealing with the body, but its scope moves far beyond a single theme. Through painting, video, sculpture and photography, the works explore ideas of identity, sexual objectification, physiology, gender roles, etc.

The show runs February 13 – March 9 with an opening reception Friday, February 17th. 5-9pm. Several of the exhibiting artists will be attending so don’t miss this opportunity to rub elbows with some very talented artists!

Featured artists:
Valerie Corradetti
Sharon Louden
Grace Mikell
Karen Ann Myers
Marlo Pascual
Gina Phillips
Babs Reingold
Nina Schwanse
Carolyn Sherer
Susanna Starr

facebook invite

UAB Visual Arts Gallery: http://uabvisualartsgallery.wordpress.com/

opening Friday, February 10 (6-9pm)

Derek CRACCO, Chelsea CULPEPPER, John FIELDS, Amber HOY, Aaron LOCKHART

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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/