Four Critical MASS winners' SOLO Exhibitions
TWO YEARS OF CRITICS’ CHOICE AWARD ARTISTS OPEN ARTSPACE SOLO SHOWS
Los Angeles Critic Robert Pincus Hosts, “Ask The Critic—Anything and Everything”
(Shreveport, LA) A quadruple whammy of CRITICAL MASS’ 9 AND 10 SOLO SHOWS is the perfect way to boost the Northwest Louisiana Art Community after Covid-19 cancelled the 2020 Solo Show exhibition of the Critical Mass 9 Critic’s Choices. Join us Friday, September 16 at 5:00 p.m. at artspace at 708 Texas St. in downtown Shreveport to see and hear the spectacular creativity of visual and literary artists Eric Francis, Julie Kane, Debra Roberson and Genaro Ky Ly Smith, and to “Ask a Critic—Ask Them Anything and Everything,” at 11:30 a.m. (also on September 16) as SRAC Curator of Critics, Los Angeles award-winning journalist Robert Pincus, brings together a panel of renowned Critics at Central ArtStation, 801 Crockett St., to answer artists’ and art patrons’ questions.
In 2012, the Shreveport Regional Arts Council (SRAC) launched one of the most high energy, vibrant reflections of the passion and talent of local visual, literary and performance artists with CRITICAL MASS, an annual showcase of Northwest Louisiana Art and Artists and critical review by renowned Critics from across the United States including Robert Pincus, Lauren Smart, Gabriel Shaffer, Greg Bownderville, Emily Wilkerson and Leigh Camacho Rourks. Those whom the critics select as “Best of Show” visual and literary Artists each receive a $2,000 commission to plan and execute a solo show exhibited in artspace in downtown Shreveport. The solo shows are then reviewed by nationally known Critics. In 2020, Covid-19 sent a shock wave through the SRAC’s tradition of exhibiting the solo shows of the top Artists of Northwest Louisiana and cancelled the Critical Mass 9 Solo exhibition. On September 16th, two years of Critical Mass Critics’ Choice Awards Solo Shows will open at artspace in an incredible exhibition of regional visual and literary talent.
Critical Mass 9 Visual Artist Eric Francis’ visual solo exhibition, “Into the Imagination,” invites the viewer to journey into the mind of an artist to see the images that exist in his imagination. Professional Critic and New Orleans Artist Gabriel Shaffer described Francis’ winning piece, “Song of Songs 1:5” as a total joy. “Francis’ rendering of his subject emits power, pride, self-awareness and a regal aura. The balance of gold and black abstractions with attention to subtle touches in the portrait, demonstrates a broad range of sensitivity,” says Shaffer. Francis says he is honored to have been named Critical Mass 9 Visual Artist Critic’s Choice. “The solo exhibition represents a milestone I've been working towards for many years now. I'm looking forward to seeing my artwork hung in the same space I've seen so many great exhibitions,” says Francis.
Critical Mass 9 Literary Artist Julie Kane’s solo exhibition, “I Will Not Write A Pandemic Poem,” (the same name as her winning piece) is a 19-minute-long video based on twenty of her pandemic duplex poems. Kane says, “Visual images from my poems will dance across the screen as my voice can be heard reading the poems in the background. I am eager to see how people will react.” Professional Critic, Poet, and SMU Professor Greg Brownderville chose Kane’s work as Best of Show and quickly recognized her use of the duplex form of poetry popularized by 2020 Pulitzer Prize-winning Jericho Brown (also from Shreveport) Brownderville appreciated her delightful wit with lines like, “Cruising the aisles of the Piggly Wiggly is the new unsafe sex, versus curbside pickup.” The Critic says, “The blend of humor, grief, and terror that Kane uses brings out the blues-like resonances of the duplex form. I can’t help thinking Brown would be delighted to see a form of his making handled so beautifully by a Northwest Louisiana poet.” Kane says, “It meant a great deal to me to have my work selected by Greg Brownderville, a poet and journal editor whom I respect greatly. I was also happy to join the company of fine writers who have won this award in the past.”
Critical Mass 10 Visual Artist Debra Roberson’s solo exhibition, “Cane River Chronicles: Unveiled,” asks viewers to join her on a journey around Cane River of Natchitoches to explore and compare life as a sharecropper on a plantation in the 1900s with life today in the 21st century for Black, Indigenous and people of color. Roberson says, “This exhibition is my stamp on the history of my ancestors. Being named Critical mass 10’s Critic’s Choice Visual Artist gives validation to my art. I love landscape photography and telling stories through my photography. My favorites photographers were Dorothea Lange and Gordon Parks. They captured important times in history and that’s what I aim to do.“ New Orleans Professional Critic and Author, Emily Wilkerson, said that Roberson’s entry of the Highland Hospital hallway to the cancer wing “beckoned her back numerous times, bringing to mind Clyde Connell’s approach to capturing the human condition. ‘A Votré Santé’ was the most captivating work in Critical Mass 10, from its alluring composition to the sobering subject matter. Whether you approach this black and white photograph with curiosity or caution, the rhythm of the columns flanking the hallway captured in this work is likely to ignite deep emotion, be they feelings of joy, suffering, or wonder,” said Wilkerson.
Critical Mass 10 Literary Artist Genaro Ky Ly Smith’s solo exhibition, “A Napalm Lullaby” will be a study in paradoxes. Large canvas photos showing his family’s life in Vietnam from 1967-1971 depict happiness and love as a stark contrast to the words on his pages telling the horrific, terrible aspects of war through poetry and fiction. Cuban American author, professor and St. Lawrence Book Award recipient, Leigh Camacho Rourks, reviewed the first chapter of Smith’s work, “The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born,” from his novel in progress, Napalm Lullaby. “Smith’s work gnawed at me, forcing me to return to it repeatedly,” said Rourks. “Smith leaves no movement unrealized and no sentence unchiseled. Every narrative moment shows care and craft. I truly believe the novel which emerges from this piece is destined to be snapped up, destined to make Critical Mass proud.” Rourks went on to say that she was thrilled that SRAC nurtured such creative bravery. Smith says, “Being named Critical Mass 10’s Literary Best of Show is a validation of the dream I have had of being a writer since I was eight years old. Critical Mass is giving many, many artists in Northwest Louisiana exposure and recognition and displaying the impressive quality of the Arts in this region. I am hopeful that my daughters will be inspired by the art on display and realize that they are not limited by their race (White, Black. and Asian) but can aspire to be anything they choose.”
San Diego Critic and Chemical Bank Award-Winning journalist Robert L. Pincus, Ph.D., has served as SRAC’s Curator of Critics and overseen an innovative visiting critics program for Critical Mass since 2012. This program includes individual critique of local artists’ work and stresses the importance of professional critique to the local artists. Pincus thinks this year’s double-sized exhibition of “Best of Show” art is the perfect time to build upon the Artists’ understanding of the importance of critique with a unique, open-forum workshop for artists and art patrons to “Ask the Critic – Ask Them Anything and Everything.”
Pincus goes on to say, “CRITICAL MASS has become a remarkable ongoing commitment to creating a dialogue about art in Northwest Louisiana. When I tell people outside of Shreveport about this program, they marvel at its success, at the level of commitment of SRAC to the regional community of artists from every discipline. What if this year, we took it to another level, and invited the artists to hear the critics/writers (Lauren Smart, Gabriel Shaffer, Greg Bownderville, Emily Wilkerson, Leigh Camacho Rourks, and me) talk about what they would most like to convey about the value of critical writing and critiquing. Then we could turn it around and ask the audience to ask the critics those things they have never had the opportunity ask or simply had never gotten around to asking the critics.” “Ask the Critic—Ask Them Anything and Everything” will take place Friday, September 16 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at artspace at 708 Texas Street in downtown Shreveport and is FREE to the public and all Northwest Louisiana artists.
Don’t miss two years of the “Best of Show” 2020 and 2021 Critical mass visual and literary artists display their Solo Exhibitions and Robert Pincus’ “Ask The Critic” workshop Friday, September 16 at 5:00 p.m. at artspace at 708 Texas St., FREE and open to the public. “Ask the Critic” is 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The exhibition remains up until October 29, 2022. For more information, visit www.artspaceshreveport.com or call artspace at 318-673-6535.
Critical Mass Critics
Robert L. Pincus, Ph.D. is a regular contributor to Art News, Art in America, and The Wall Street Journal. He has garnered many journalism prizes for his art reviews and commentary, including the Chemical Bank award for distinguished newspaper art criticism. He has a combined Ph.D. in English and Art History from the University of Southern California and is the author of a seminal book on the artists Edward Kienholz and Nancy Redding Kienholz, entitled On a Scale That Competes With The World. Pincus is currently a visiting professor at the University of San Diego, where he teaches art history, and at California State University Long Beach, where he is teaching a graduate level course for MFA student entitled Writing for Artists.
Lauren Smart is a journalist and critic. She is on the faculty of the journalism division at Southern Methodist University. Her work as a writer has appeared in The Dallas Morning News, Arts + Culture Texas, CultureMap Dallas, Where Traveler, Cowboys & Indians, and American Theatre magazine, among others. Smart recently worked as the arts and culture editor for the Dallas Observer newspaper. She developed and oversees Storytellers Without Borders, a collaborative initiative between Dallas Public Library and Dallas Morning News that transforms high school students into community journalists. The initiative is funded by the Knight Foundation. She holds a master’s in arts journalism from Syracuse University and bachelor’s degrees in journalism and English from Southern Methodist University.
Gabriel Shaffer lives and works in New Orleans. He is part owner and curator of Mortal Machine Gallery, located in the French Quarter. He is also the son of renowned folk/visionary artist Cher Shaffer and learned from a number of pioneering artists in this genre as a youth. Since a sellout premier at the 2005 Outsider Art Fair, in NYC, Gabriel has exhibited his work across the country and sold works of art to collectors, rock stars, celebrities, politicians, bestselling authors, galleries and museums throughout various major cities nationally and internationally. He has appeared in dozens of magazines, newspapers and blogs such as Raw Vision, Art Papers, Boing Boing, Traditional Home, Architectural Digest, The Huffington Post and Juxtapoz. Gabriel has also had extensive experience with producing murals, installations and illustrations for various corporations, restaurants and museums including Facebook, BMW, Pandora Music, Sierra Nevada, PBR, Branded Arts, Mellow Mushroom, SECCA, The North Carolina Museum of Art and The Asheville Museum of Art. He Is a contributing writer for Juxtapoz magazine. He also teaches art making to students ages 7 to adult via Zoom and private instruction.
Greg Bownderville is the writer, showrunner, and creator of Fire Bones (2021), the world’s first go-show. Brownderville is also the author of three books of poetry. In 2011 he published Gust (Northwestern University Press/TriQuarterly), which made the Poetry Foundation’s Best-Seller List and was included among “Top Picks” by Library Journal. In 2012 he published Deep Down in the Delta (Butler Center Books), a collection of poems based on folktales he gathered in and around his home community of Pumpkin Bend, Arkansas. Brownderville’s third book, A Horse with Holes in It, was released by LSU Press in November 2016. Collaborating with composer Jacob Cooper, Brownderville wrote the words to “Jar” (Silver Threads, Nonesuch Records, 2014) and Ripple the Sky, which premiered with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2016 and was released by New Amsterdam Records in 2020. Brownderville has been awarded prizes and fellowships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, The Missouri Review, Prairie Schooner, New Millennium Writings, and the Porter Fund. He has been a Murphy Visiting Poet at Hendrix College and a writer in residence at the Lemon Tree House in Camporsevoli, Italy. Brownderville currently serves as the editor-in-chief of Southwest Review, the director of creative writing, and an associate professor of English at SMU in Dallas.
Emily Wilkerson is a writer and curator based in New Orleans. Deeply engaged in the concerns and issues of her community in the city of New Orleans, she enjoys writing about contemporary art as a departure point for exploring our shared social and cultural experiences around the globe. She is also a RYT 200 yoga instructor. Wilkerson has contributed to publications including ArtForum.com, Art in America, Pelican Bomb, Art Papers, Burnaway, and the exhibition catalogs for 'Prospect.4: The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp,' 'Prospect.3: Notes for Now,' and 'Out of Easy Reach,' and her ongoing research focuses on socially engaged art practices and the alternative educational strategies of international artist and curatorial residencies, the latter for which she was awarded the 2011-2012 Neely Macomber Travel Prize. She most recently served as Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs at Prospect New Orleans and has worked on exhibitions and projects at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Chinati Foundation, and the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, among others. Wilkerson is currently the Writer and Editor for Tulane University’s School of Liberal Arts and the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South. She completed her Masters at the University of Southern California in Art and Curatorial Practices in the Public Sphere in Los Angeles in 2012 and holds a B.A. from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
Leigh Camacho Rourks is a Cuban American author who lives and works in Central Florida, where she is an Assistant Professor of English and Humanities at Beacon College. She is the recipient of the St. Lawrence Book Award, the Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award, and the Robert Watson Literary Review Prize, and her work has been shortlisted for several other awards. Her fiction, poems, and essays have appeared in a number of journals, including Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, RHINO, TriQuarterly, December Magazine, and Greensboro Review.