Flocas 2008 opens tonight in Tampa, and I’ll tell you—my reaction to this project (the consortium of Florida university masters degree programs) is like, why didn’t someone think of this sooner? Best. Idea. Ever.
We have some really talented graduate students in the state, and it breaks my heart when they leave after graduation. We need [...]

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Jamey Grimes. Merge IV, 2007. Mylar, acetate, transparency film, thread. Courtesy DFAC.
This week in Creative Loafing:
These days, it’s hardly an exaggeration to call the evening news the stuff of nightmares. Between the implosion of Wall Street and the prospect of the other guy winning the election, the current state of national affairs might be enough [...]

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The folks at Flight 19 have announced a closing reception date for Bob Wysocki’s Post-Metal: Sat., Nov. 8, 7-11 p.m. If you haven’t seen this installation yet, it’s one of the most exciting projects to take place in Tampa this fall (or year…perhaps even in recent memory). Check out the video above to see my [...]

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On Friday, artists Yoko Nogami and Maria Saraceno appeared on JoEllen Schilke’s WMNF program, Art In Your Ear. Here’s a link to the MP3 online. (The interview with Nogami and Saraceno begins just past the half-way point in the program.)
On Friday, the Dunedin Fine Art Center opened Dreams, a group of five exhibits that includes [...]

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Jade Dellinger, curator of MashUp at USF CAM, sent me a link to this highly amusing video earlier today. My only disappointment: the reporter didn’t rock out (which everyone else who participates in the project does) before smashing the guitar. I was there on Friday night for the opening and additional guitar smashings - most [...]

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Jeppe Hein
Smoking Bench, 2003
Fog machine, bench (stainless steel and leather), mirror
Courtesy Johann König, Berlin
For most folks, Sarasota’s John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art is synonymous with Old Master style: ginormous Rubens tapestries, Italian canvases in dramatic chiaroscuro, twisting Baroque columns. In comparison, the Ringling’s current exhibit of modern art from the mid- to late-20th [...]

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Alex Espalter-Torres in his studio at the West Tampa Center for the Arts. Photo: MV

Over Memorial Day weekend, the West Tampa Center for the Arts held an opening reception for the last exhibit of their inaugural season. (Click here to read the article I wrote in September about the organization’s transformation from Gallery 1906 into [...]

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Neil Bender. Borders. Mixed media on paper, 2007, 30 x 22 in. Courtesy Bleu Acier.
Neil Bender is Randy.
Check out his opening tomorrow night at Tampa gallery Bleu Acier.
Click here to read the feature in Creative Loafing.

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Alan Moore has combined two of my favorite things—art books and Airstream trailers—into the Moving Thought Bookmobile. Click here to visit his blog, where you can see photos of the books and read about the project’s development.
The bookmobile is merely one among many attractions beckoning art lovers tonight to Seminole Heights for Neighborhood Watch: Projection [...]

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A detail of the installation of Rediviva by Tampa artists’ collective Experimental Skeleton last year at Miami’s Locust Projects. On Friday, the same project opens at Flight 19. Sculptures, clockwise from bottom right, by: Bob Dorsey, April Childers, Gregory Greene, Jeremichael Bonds, Brian Taylor, Joe Griffith and Paul Pisoni. Image courtesy Experimental Skeleton. [...]

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This week, Downtown Live After Five moves north to a new location and adds an urban revitalization component. Look for a temporary contemporary art gallery set up in a storefront owned (and generously donated) by architect Stephanie Ferrell at The Arlington. Fresh from the press release:

Visit downtown’s one-of-a-kind happy hour this Friday for an [...]

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Artist Kim Radatz with a piece from her exhibit at Salt Creek Artworks. Photo: Marina Williams/Creative Loafing
An exhibition of sculpture and installations by Kim Radatz, titled Talking Out Loud, opens Fri., Mar. 14, 6-9 p.m. at the Galleries at Salt Creek. Creative Loafing photographer Marina Williams shot a whole mess of fabulous photographs of Radatz’s [...]

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