Customers browse at the Tampa Artist Emporium in South Tampa. Pictured below: Boggs stands behind the Emporium’s front desk.
Two years ago, Tampa photographer Shelby Boggs took a gamble. Inspired by the Kress Emporium, an historic building in Asheville, NC, that serves as a marketplace for more than 80 regional artists and craftspeople, she set [...]

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Aqua Wynwood 2007: Rusted wheelbarrows cut with lace-like patterns by Cal Lane at New York’s Foley Gallery. Photo by Megan Voeller.
Since reports (like this one) surfaced that collectors were actually buying earlier this summer at Art Basel in Switzerland, the international art fair circuit has managed at least partially to shake its recent image [...]

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Allen Leepa (American, b. 1919). Homage to Tarpon Springs, 1998. Acrylic on canvas, 5 x 12 feet (2 panels). Courtesy Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art.
Earlier this week, Allen Leepa– abstract painter and founder of the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art at St. Petersburg College– died at age 90. In celebration of his legacy, the museum will [...]

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Rumors of a Sarah Jessica Parker-produced reality TV show – think Project Runway for visual artists – have finally been confirmed, and a round of regional casting calls held over the next two weeks will determine the series’ first round of participants. Aspiring Tampa-based contenders can head to Miami for next Tuesday’s try-outs at Fredric [...]

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Photos by Megan Voeller
The new Tampa Museum of Art, now slated to open to the public in early 2010, inches closer toward completion each day on downtown Tampa’s riverfront. Close observers will note that the building’s distinctive cladding—a double layer of perforated metal sheets offset to create a moiré pattern on the structure’s surface—has begun [...]

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Restrooms at Nova 535, left, and Tampa Theatre.
(Via Tampa Downtown Partnership)
Strange but true: two Tampa Bay area arts venues - downtown Tampa’s iconic Tampa Theatre and downtown St. Petersburg’s Nova 535 - are in the running for Cintas Corporation’s annual America’s Best Restroom contest.

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Seth Pevnick of the J. Paul Getty Museum will oversee the museum’s Greek and Roman art collection.

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The lineup for October’s Ringling International Arts Festival features New York cabaret sensation Meow Meow. Meowmeowrevolution.com.
The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, in partnership with the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York, announces the first Ringling International Arts Festival, scheduled to take place in Sarasota this October. The festival, which runs Oct. 7-11, features [...]

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Artist Brandon Dunlap at REAX Space.
The historic district’s visual arts cred just went up a notch, thanks to the launch of two new art venues: REAX Space, a boutique for artists’ prints, t-shirts and other products that also houses offices for the popular music magazine, and Arts On Ninth, a nacent community arts center. [...]

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Dominique Labauvie, Firecloud, 2009, Steel, 21 X 21 X 5 in. Courtesy Blue Acier.

Bleu Acier announced last night that French sculptor Dominique Labauvie has received a Gottlieb Foundation grant for 2009. Labauvie, who lives in Tampa, will be featured in an exhibit at the gallery opening May 23.

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One of my favorite art critics, the New York Times’ Holland Cotter, has won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for criticism. Click here to read his bio and articles, including this one on the New Museum’s Younger Than Jesus triennial, this one about women artists in China, and this, on Jorge Pardo’s redesign of LACMA display [...]

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Wondering what you can do to keep state funding coming for arts, cultural, humanities and historical grants? The Florida Cultural Alliance has released a handy how-to email with instructions for contacting your state congress members, reprinted below.
—->
Florida Cultural Alliance
Saturday, April 18, 2009
URGENT STATE BUDGET ALERT !!!!!!!!
Help Keep Arts & Culture in the State Budget
Please see [...]

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