Two new art exhibits in town feature the works of nonartists, and strange as it sounds, both sound like they’re worth checking out. First, I’m hoping to make my way out to Pantops for a show that’s opening at Kluge-Ruhe tomorrow. On display will be selections from the Mount Liebig Photography Project 2004, a show by the young people of Amunturrngu in Australia’s Northern Territory. A photographer named Simon Davidson visited the region initially to work with "on a photography project initially devised as a petrol sniffing diversion program." (In America, petrol sniffing is known as huffing gasoline.) Davidson handed out 35mm cameras to a team of young people and instructed them to tell a story with each image.
One image from the Mount Liebig Photography Project, which opens tomorrow at the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Museum.
A brief sidenote: artPark talks about last month’s issue of ARTnews, which features a story called "The Rise of Aboriginal Art." (Unfortunately, it’s not available online.) The article only mentions the Kluge-Ruhe collection in passing—strange, given that our local stash is the largest collection of Aboriginal art outside of Australia, and according to UVA, "only public museum devoted to the exhibition of Australian Aboriginal art in the United States."
The second of these shows that features work by nonartists opened last week, and has been on display in various forms for some time: The 2010 Inmate Show, "work in several mediums produced by inmates from the Charlottesville-Albemarle Regional Jail." The show is the latest in a series of projects from the Beyond the Bars, a series of classes at the jail given by local artists. Read more about the program here.
And of course, who could forget the excellent shows by artists that just opened at galleries across town? Highlights included some nice new work by Dean Dass at the newest gallery in town, New City Arts; works by Lincoln Perry out at Les Yeux du Monde; and another vast offering from the Chroma gallery.
