Tes One’s spray-paint-on-wood painting measures 10-ft. by 11-ft.
You know what they say: when the going gets tough, the tough get…bigger?
Despite the ongoing economic malaise—which seems to find Florida in a particularly compromising position—St. Petersburg artist and art party impresario John Vitale isn’t giving up. Though the muralist and owner of Vitale Studio recently downsized [...]

[Read more →]

Andy Warhol. Flowers (1970), screenprint. ©The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/ARS, NY. On Loan from Bank of America’s Art in Our Communities Program.
At the outset of writing anything about Andy Warhol, it seems like a sure bet that nothing new can be said. Nothing, anyway, that hasn’t already been better articulated by scholars, [...]

[Read more →]

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. [...]

[Read more →]

Albrecht Dürer. Adam and Eve (1504). Engraving, collection of the Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt, Germany.
Head on over to the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg today (Sunday, 1-5 p.m.) for a final glimpse of Albrecht Dürer: Art in Transition, Masterpieces from the Graphic Collection of the Hessian State Museum. The exhibition of the Renaissance [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

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.

[Read more →]

Jasper Johns. Flags II, 1970. Lithograph. Courtesy of the Arts Center.
Virtually every artist, no matter how modest, aspires to create a body of work that will serve as a turning point for artists to come. For American art during the second half of the 20th century, Jasper Johns‘ paintings stand out as just such [...]

[Read more →]

Tes One. Change We Made. 45”x60”, 2008.
Artworks by four Tampa Bay artists—Tes One, Bask and Phillip Clark and Chad Mize of Bluelucy—are headed to Washington, DC, where they will be featured in Manifest Hope, an exhibit celebrating the election of Barack Obama.
Shepard Fairey’s now-iconic, red-and-blue portrait of the president elect will serve as the [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

Chris Parks, The Fleet of Doom, digital illustration, 2008
Saturday night marks the return of The Exhibitionists (the TMA young members group formerly known as Avant Garde) to downtown Tampa. Their show, Brand New Day, staged in the ground floor of Skypoint, aims to be an art party with a curatorial premise that actually holds some [...]

[Read more →]

A wall-mounted sculpture made of vynil records by Susan Janvrin of Papergeist.
Sooo… This is just a little recap of some things I saw last night for your reading pleasure.
I stopped by Art After Dark, the third Friday party-exhibit at the Tampa Museum of Art, to check out Sound Effects, an exhibit of music-related art [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]