1) Pac Div plays East Atlanta Icehouse.
2) Beep Beep Gallery hosts Artlantis, a locals-only art and music festival.
3) Digital Leather plays 529.
4) Full Radius Dance performs Home at 7 Stages.
5) Diamond Lil performs at Actor’s Express Theatre.
(Photo by Clayton Hauck)
1) Comedian Stephen Lynch performs at the Tabernacle.
2) Out of Hand creates an original play in 24 hours for One Day Play at Horizon Theatre.
3) The Fox Theatre hosts Unwigged & Unplugged: An Evening with Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer.
4) Fight Party presents Revenge’s mix of extreme fighting at the Arena at Gwinnett Center.
5) Southern Hospitality opens at Beep Beep Gallery.
(Photo courtesy www.stephenlynch.com)
1) Over the Top opens at Philips Arena.
2) Winston Audio has a CD release party at Drunken Unicorn.
3) The 13th of Paris opens at Horizon Theatre.
4) All the Saints and the N.E.C. play Star Bar.
5) Inauguration opens at Beep Beep Gallery.
(Photo Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey)
GLUE GUN: "Evereman Wheatpaste" by Evereman
On Tues., Jan. 20, the nation will swear in the president with the catchiest catch phrase since Eisenhower’s “I like Ike.” If ever there was a time for art to explore political language, it’s now.
Beep Beep Gallery’s Popaganda attempts to tackle the visual language of politics without all the messiness of actual politics. Organizers Mark Basehore and James McConnell have brought together work designed to promote itself, promote nothing, or promote promotion with no ties to real campaigns or parties. Unfortunately, this group show is long on promise and short on delivery.
Popaganda squeezes 15 artists’ works into Beep Beep’s intimate, studiously lo-fi space off Ponce. The exhibit consists mostly of small paintings, drawings and mixed-media works by a young stable of gallery regulars including Ben Goldman and Sat Kirpal Khalsa. Themes depicted range from Goldman’s hyperpatriotic portrait of the gallery’s founders to Evereman’s early Soviet-style print of a worker mounting a poster by, who else?, Evereman. The spirit of Shepard Fairey hangs low over all.
What should have been a provocative look at how art shades into marketing shades into manipulation, instead too often degenerates into a series of easy jokes. But irony eats its young. And the down-at-the-heels, hipster aesthetic of snarky irony evinced by most of the show’s works is already starting to feel dated.
A missed opportunity is forgivable, but Popaganda takes a step down from there. (more…)
It’s been a big year for political art. Shepard Fairey’s soviet-styled Obama posters are still all over the place; Sarah Palin has shown up in some great paintings; and the Denver Police Union even designed some political T-shirts. In light of all this recent visual-art politicking, Beep Beep Gallery will show Popaganda, a group exhibit celebrating and criticizing contemporary and traditional propaganda.
Participating artists include Evereman, Rene Arriagada aka Transmit Device, Sat Kirpal Khalsa, Ben Goldman, Travis Dodd aka Machete, Bryan Westberry, Kerri Boles, Kim Feigenbaum,Charstarr, Stenvik Mostrom, Baxter Crane, Bean Summers, J.R. Schulz, Reed Elliot and more.
Popaganda Opens Sat., Jan. 10, 8-11 p.m. Through Feb. 8. Fri.-Sun., noon-6 p.m. 696 Charles Allen Drive. 404-429-3320. www.beepbeepgallery.com.
1) Dosa Kim’s Weight, curated by Beep Beep Gallery, continues at Aurora Coffee in Little Five Points.
2) The Whigs and the Kooks play Variety Playhouse.
3) Read, drink and celebrate childhood literacy with Books, Beer and Bears Oh My! at Sweetwater Brewery.
4) Bob Schieffer discusses his collection of essays, Bob Schieffer’s America, at the Carter Center.
5) Sonia Leigh, Drunk on Crutches and Backrow Baptists play the Earl.
(Image by Dosa Kim)
1) Death Vessel plays the Earl.
2) Rooms Upon Waking continues at Beep Beep Gallery.
3) Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter continues at 7 Stages.
4) Atlanta Arts Festival wraps up at Piedmont Park.
5) Laurie Anderson plays Ferst Center.
(Photo by Lisa Corson)
1) Atlanta Rollergirls compete at Yaarab Shrine Center.
2) Gipsy Kings perform at Chastain Park Amphitheater.
3) Comedian Christopher Titus performs at Funny Farm.
4) Sanjay Gupta, chief medical correspondent for CNN, discusses and signs his new book, Chasing Life, at Decatur Library.
5) Ringling Brothers opens at Beep Beep Gallery.
(Photo by Frank Mullen/Matteblack)
1) Talib Kweli, Nas and Jay Electronica perform at Center Stage.
2) Beep Beep Gallery hosts Another Evening with the Garbageman, a night of supershort stories with CL’s very own Chad Radford.
3) “Flight of the Conchords’” Arj Barker begins a four-day stint at the Funny Farm.
4) James McWilliams signs and discusses American Pests at Wordsmiths Books.
5) Georgia Shakespeare hold its penultimate performance of As You Like It.
(Photo courtesy Bros. Records)
