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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Denis Gaston. Little Boxes. Mixed media on masonite, 20″ x 16”. Pictured below: Denis Gaston. Ground Control To Major Tom (Grab ‘n Go Art Collection). Ink on paper, 7″ x 5″. Images courtesy of the artist.
If it’s summer, it must be time for the Cool Art Show. Any other time of year, the region would [...]

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Bruce Marsh, Riverwall (detail). Photo by Megan Voeller.
Downtown Tampa’s Riverwalk gained a public art cornerstone recently with the installation of Bruce Marsh’s Riverwall– a 40-foot long mural composed of photographic images of the Hillsborough River. Fired into porcelain enamel on steel plates, the images show the river– a 54-mile long waterway integral to the region’s [...]

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Jeremy Chandler. Couple at the Fair. Image courtesy of the artist.
First there was Beth Reynolds’ documentation of Tampa life in heterogeneous form—from the flamenco dancer to the crab fisherman. Then came Suzanne Camp Crosby’s more surreal take on the city’s character—think headless mannequins in period costume arranged on the veranda of Plant Hall. Next, [...]

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Ruud Van Empel. World #1. 2005, cibachrome/dibond/plexiglass. Copyright Ruud Van Empel, courtesy George Eastman House.
Given the breezy brightness of this spring’s weather, you could be forgiven for imagining that west central Florida constitutes a little slice of paradise — especially in the manicured gardens outside the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in [...]

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Image courtesy Isabel Czerwenka-Wenkstetten and Leslie Fry
Tuesday evening marks the public debut of a collaborative project between St. Petersburg-based artist Leslie Fry and Austrian artist Isabel Czerwenka-Wenkstetten at the Studio@620. The pair met via email and Skype earlier this year then teamed up for an intense, ten-day collaboration in St. Petersburg. During Tuesday’s opening reception [...]

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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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Pan Yue. Time Transfixed. 2008, digital print. Image courtesy Eli Klein Fine Art, New York.
[This is a great little show that I could visit again and again (and probably will before it closes in early May). -MV]
Though the recent frenzy to acquire Chinese contemporary art has cooled with the global recession, the 21st century [...]

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Sensory Overload 4.0 has come and gone, but you can watch video of the event on YouTube (above) and check out pictures on Flickr (click on the image of artist Valerie George below). Congratulations to the judges’ choice winner of the student competition, Thomas Pregiato, Ringling College of Art and Design, and the audience favorite [...]

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Us I abús (Use and abuse, 1990) by Pere Noguera with texts by Carles Hac Mor. Tin box containing two glass bottles with stoppers and an instruction manual.
When does a “book” consist of a pair of vials in a metal tin, a triptych of glass “pages” or a cardboard box filled with pamphlets, drawings [...]

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The University of Tampa’s digital art biennial Electronics Alive closes Mar. 24. Check out the exhibit– and a screening of award-winning 3D animations that takes place at UT’s Reeves Theater tomorrow night.

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The seventh annual Ybor Festival of the Moving Image (what the hell– let’s call it FoMI) has released its schedule of events.

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