Fresh Loaf

THE AFTER AFTER PARTY: King Tut goes for the gold in "Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs." Photo © Sandro Vannini

Egypt’s boy king takes on China’s first emperor in a contest to see who’ll rule Atlanta’s historical art scene. It may be a mismatch to compare the lavish touring Tutankhamun show, on view at the Atlanta Civic Center until May 25, with the High Museum’s smaller-scale but still impressive The First Emperor (through April 19). Nevertheless, King Tut and Qin Shihuangdi both established opulent tombs so they could live large in the afterlife. Both succeeded to the extent that they’re now rock stars of historical arts. With joint tickets available, the two exhibits will deservedly raise the city’s cultural profile, as long as you can see past the unfortunate term “Tutlanta.”

FULL TITLE OF SHOW
Tut: Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs
Emperor: The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army

LENGTH OF REIGN
Tut: 1333–1324 B.C., although the exhibit includes pieces from pharaohs spanning 2600-600 B.C.
Emperor: 221-210 B.C., but that just includes unified China; he ruled China’s Qin state starting in 247 B.C.

DISCOVERY OF TOMB
Tut: In 1922 by archeologist Howard Carter, who probably never let his colleagues hear the end of it.
Emperor: In 1974 by local farmers, who were probably pretty surprised to discover an underground chamber full of heavily armed terracotta soldiers. (more…)

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STAR-CROSSED LOVERS: Kyla (left) and Delgo on a date

As the home to the Cartoon Network, Atlanta contributes its own distinctive colors to the art and business of animation. Atlanta’s “house” style has become synonymous with the scruffy, irreverent Adult Swim shows like “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.” This idiosyncratic cartoon attitude seems a far cry from the slick computer-animated features that command the contemporary cinema.

Atlanta animation takes an ambitious step forward with the long-awaited release of Delgo, a home-grown, CGI fantasy adventure produced at Atlanta’s Fathom Studios, a division of Macquarium Intelligent Communications. Delgo’s abundant imagination and lengthy production represent an underdog’s triumph at least as memorable as the film’s battle of good vs. evil. (more…)

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CUTTING IT CLOSE: “Michael”

Given the sheer volume of stuff bursting Flickr’s virtual seams and tumbling out of studios belonging to everyone from fine artists to part-timers at Sears, is there anything new to discover about the overexposed, early 21st-century human form? Self-taught photographer Thomas Dozol wades into this glut of human images in a new solo exhibition at Opal Gallery. And with some aplomb he manages to peel back yet another layer of the onion that is our shared humanity. (more…)

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GUN SHOW: Ray Stevenson as Frank Castle, aka The Punisher, in "Punisher: War Zone"

TITLE: Punisher: War Zone

GENRE: Ultraviolent comic book

THE PITCH: Ruthless anti-gangster vigilante Frank Castle (“Rome’s” Ray Stevenson), a.k.a. “The Punisher,” engages in escalating battles with a hideously scarred mob boss called “Jigsaw” (“The Wire’s” Dominic West).

MONEY SHOTS: The Punisher spins upside down from a chandelier and machine guns lots of bad guys in sort of an NRA version of a Cirque du Soleil act. West’s gangster falls into a recycled glass crusher and gets a new look. When a thief makes a mid-air flip, The Punisher explodes him with a grenade launcher. A bad guy shoots the heads off a little girl’s dolls just for kicks. A kickboxing brawl in a bathroom nods to German director Lexi Alexander’s background as a champion martial artist.

BODY COUNT: I make it close to 50: The Punisher routinely kills goons in bulk. Most of the violence seems unusually head specific, and includes a chair leg to the eye, a machete to the head, an old lady with her head mostly blown off, a fork through the throat, and a scene in which the Punisher pretty much caves in someone’s face with a punch.

(more…)

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Relocated in fresh digs, Saltworks Gallery opened its new Westside space last month with Perfect Distortions, a solo installation show by Atlanta art world fixture Avantika Bawa. Bawa mines the territories of architecture and abstract sculpture. The current exhibit takes on a pair of Atlanta’s Midtown icons: Ikea and Home Depot. Bawa is a professor in SCAD’s School of Fine Arts and is based in both Atlanta and New Delhi, India.

Describe the work that’s at Saltworks right now.

What we have at Saltworks is a combination of installations, drawings [and] sculptures that seem functional but push the boundary of functionality. A lot of this comes from my previous work, which was kind of interested in modular structures, minimalism, and the intersection of architecture, furniture, sculpture and dysfunction. And, being that this new gallery is very close to Ikea . . . I thought it would be interesting to bite the bullet and address Ikea as fodder. And that’s what I did. Ikea and Home Depot play a major role in this. (more…)

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FOR THE BOYS: Sean Penn (center) stars as Harvey Milk in the eponymous drama.

On Nov. 4, same-sex marriage advocates suffered a setback when Californians narrowly passed the Proposition 8 ballot initiative ensuring that the state would only recognize marriages between men and women. The biopic Milk screened in Atlanta three days later, and its portrait of gay activism and California politics feels almost shockingly immediate, despite taking place three decades earlier.

Oscar winner Sean Penn plays Harvey Milk, a pioneering gay rights advocate who challenged hostile attitudes and institutional oppression, most notably Proposition 6, a California ballot initiative designed to fire schoolteachers suspected of being gay. In some ways Milk proves to be a tame, conventional film biography, but the post-Prop 8 climate gives it an urgency and relevance that may have been missing had it opened a month or two ago. (more…)

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Bestselling author and National Public Radio commentator Bailey White speaks in a throaty but quavering drawl that’s so distinctive, you can imagine her spinning leisurely yarns for hours on a front porch in her hometown of Thomasville, Ga. Her voice can be a little misleading, however. White sounds so grandmotherly that a listener may underestimate her as merely quaint, when her writing can reveal unexpected precision and perceptiveness. (more…)

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It’s that time of year again folks – Fiction Contest time! And we know that given the current economic situation (there’s some serious cash at stake here people), there are more starving artists out there than ever.

So, submit a manuscript of no more than 3,000 words either as a hard copy to our offices or online. All works of fiction must in some way incorporate the word “pop” — as a theme, a metaphor, whatever. You can use the word as any way you like; just use it well. Originality is encouraged, and the word count is enforced.

Click on the image below for more details or to submit an entry.

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