In Tradition/Innovation, you’ll
experience works made by 58 of the South’s practicing
master artists from the Southern Arts Federation’s
nine partner states – Alabama, Florida, Georgia,
Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South
Carolina and Tennessee. The artwork in the exhibit was
selected by the artists in consultation with curators
Jean McLaughlin and Kathleen Mundell. These pieces represent
what the artists deem as their living masterpieces. Though
no exhibit could include every master artist or masterwork
of art in the region, we hope that Tradition/Innovation
opens a door for you to a broad range of forms, materials
and content.
The South is home to
many traditional arts that families and communities
continue to practice today. These visual arts, typically
utilitarian, are usually deeply rooted, reflect a community
aesthetic, and have experienced only modest change over
time. Contemporary craft in the South, in comparison,
also possesses its own rich history beginning with the
folk school movement in the early 1900s, and has grown
in range of expression with each individual artist.
Artists have been, and continue to be, drawn to this
region to learn and practice their chosen artforms.
Throughout the exhibit you will find both parallels
and contrasts in the lives and works of contemporary
craftspeople and traditional artists.
The exhibit’s curators present
these artworks to you in four sections: Cultural
Practice, Relationship to Place, Innovation and Evolution,
and Connections. These four sections
are designed to share conversation between the curators
with you; to give voice to the artists; to prompt your
own questions and discoveries; and to illustrate some
of the South’s most intriguing art. |
