blame it on the chickens

by madeleine peck

cummer museum of art and gardens
829 Riverside Avenue Jacksonville, 356-6857
This exhibition was organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Showing through April 12.
  The Cummer Museum’s current show: Georgia O’Keeffe and Her Times: American Modernism from the Lane Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, places O’Keeffe in the context of her contemporaries. Seeing the artists’ works in proximity to one-another offers a kind of snapshot into the ethos of a small group of artists. However, of the selected group, O’Keeffe is not only the most famous, but also possibly the most enigmatic.
  In the book O’Keeffe and Steiglitz, Benita Eisler quotes O’Keeffe, “I always have a curious sort of feeling about my things—I hate to show them, I’m afraid people won’t understand, and I hope they won’t—and I’m afraid they will.”
  The duality found in that quote is a thread running through much of O’Keeffe’s life. And though her work has a sort of gleaming, organic precision, this is diametrically opposed to her personal life. Fiercely ambitious, O’Keeffe leads her life with a rigorous self-interest that almost seems Ayn Rand-ian. Seeing her work in the context of her contemporaries will surely lessen the seemingly solitary nature of her work and place her within a contemporaneous aesthetic, and by extension, ideology.

moca jacksonville
33 North Laura St., 399-6911
Why Look at Animals? was organized by George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, NY.  Showing through April 5.
MOCA Jacksonville, which is currently in talks with UNF to be acquired by that institution, has the show, Why Look at Animals? Photographs from George Eastman House on view. The photography show is an examination of the relationship between humans and animals. Marshal Adams, the museum’s former education director said that it is often through these relationships that our humanity is revealed. He wrote: “We look at animals because their presence allows us to tell ourselves who we are. They are both like and unlike us, and it is by what we do and do not share that defines us as human.”
  Indeed, one need look no further than the show Dogtown, which dramatically chronicles the rehabilitation processes of abused and neglected dogs is a hit for the National Geographic Channel. As hard as the show is to watch, it is harder to turn away. Frida Kahlo, an artist of legendary fragility and strength, makes an appearance in Why Look. Crouched next to a fawn, her hand resting on its neck, Kahlo, looking exactly like herself—which is to say, completely unlike anyone else in the art historical pantheon—coolly appraises the camera as she smokes a cigarette. It is an uncanny image because the fawn, in its shyness is an apt metaphor for the twin of Kahlo’s inner self. While she is (uncharacteristically, one imagines), utterly composed.

j. johnson gallery
March 6-April 24
Javier Marin, the artist who created the dramatic bronze woman’s head that greets visitors on their way to the airport, will be showing new works at J. Johnson Gallery. The works, studies of horses and riders, are monumental in feeling and Baroque in execution. In these pieces, the riders take on a secondary role–the real focus is the equine figures. Restrained, elegant and dramatic, the bronzes owe a debt of aesthetics to traditional mounted military statues, and notions of heroism.

cultural center at ponte vedra
50 Executive Way, Ponte Vedra, February 27-April 11
Painter Jim Draper has taken a lot of flack through the years, but he once said something that still resonates: “The most subversive thing an artist can do is make money.” Though he’s recently downsized his studio in response to economic realities, he still hasn’t lost that thing that makes him endlessly intriguing: his own fascination with the absurd and sublime.
  Draper has a show of new works at the Cultural Center at Ponte Vedra. In the drawings/paintings Draper says, “My thought was that we all need to develop a new way to look at things, at art, at the world, at money, at food, at government, at education, at every system and every element of our existence. That all being said, my chickens have helped me understand a lot about the way the world works. And it makes total sense. Input…output.”
He then goes on to say, “New works? Not really, but I am changed. Not because of anything other than the chickens.”

the library
200 Ocean St. www.thelibraryjax.com. March 4
ArtWalk Downtown has become a hub of activity, and the surprise, come-from-behind space that seems to be emerging is the basement of the (former) Hayden Burns Library. While the main floor of the space still is something of an art bazaar (bizarre?), the basement has come under the auspice of Clay Doran who also goes by the name Squid Dust. Doran and several collaborators, in time for every ArtWalk, use the space to showcase various projects, often designed on site as semi-installations.
  The February show was a collaborative effort between selected artists and the general pubic. People walked away euphoric and elated…not at the whole of what they’d done…but with the act of participation. So chances are, whatever he comes up with for March will be fun, and off the wall.
On the second floor of the old library Trinity Baker is hosting what has only been revealed as, the “super fantastic funhouse extraordinaire event, Surrealville.” Also upstairs and in the theater will be Ernest Jackson’s Sonnet Rock Impromptu (a fusion of rock music and poetry).
Finally, the main floor will host two events, a book signing by former Jacksonville Jaguars player Tom McManus. The book? We Will Always Be Pals, a memoir of his relationship with his Korean War veteran father. The second event is the Open Gallery artists’ event curated by Gray C. Solomon.

jane gray gallery
643 Edison Ave. 762-8826. www.janegraygallery.com. April 3-30
Looking forward into the beginning of April, Jane Gray Gallery hosts the 2009 iteration of Bright Young Things, a group show designed to showcase some of Jacksonville’s emerging artists. Curated by Missy Hagar, she attempts to keep one eye on the future, while occasionally checking in with artists she has known in the past. The result is a mixture of artists who are returning to making art after a hiatus, and those who are finding their voice. Full disclosure, this writer is in the show, and is of the former category.