Weekend Arts Agenda: Backwater Blues August 23 2013
Plus: A two-fer at The High
With its new home on Monroe Drive, Get This! is opening a new exhibit: Drew Conrad’s Backwater Blues, which features no less than what seem “the somber ruins of a once vital place.” Conrad works with raw materials, producing sculptural spaces that are the more fractured for their assemblage - and which include at least one taxidermied ram. Opening Saturday, from 7-10 p.m.
Four more picks for your weekend after the jump.
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FRIDAY
- Courtesy James McMullan/New African Grove
The New African Grove Theatre Company is mounting a production of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, which follows several freed slaves in the early years of the twentieth century, from the playwright’s “Pittsburgh Cycle” of plays, long considered his masterwork. At its premiere in 1988, Frank Rich called Joe Turner maybe “Mr. Wilson’s most profound and theatrically adventurous telling of his story to date.” Premieres at 8 p.m. and runs through Sunday; at the Southwest Arts Center.
SATURDAY
The artist Christopher Hutchinson leads “How You Like Me Now: The Nostalgic Commodification of Black Art in America,” a lecture examining the forces that “marginalize non-white creative expression.” The talk comes amidst a busy season for the Auburn Avenue Research Library, which is also running an exhibition spotlightting the artist R. Gregory Christie. As a companion, consider Paige William’s feature on Southern black artists in The New Yorker. Co-hosted with the Smoke School of Art at 3 p.m.
- MAURITSHUIS, THE ROYAL PICTURE GALLERY, THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS
The High is screening 2003’s Girl With a Pearl Earring at 8 p.m. Peter Webber’s film is lovely and little-seen and stars Scarlett Johansson on the cusp of her stardom. Even better, it pairs well with the High’s summer-long exhibition of Dutch paintings, including the eponymous work (renowned for its use of light), ending on Sept. 29.
SUNDAY
- Courtesy The High/Peter Harholdt
- Raccoon Rib Necklace, 9x10x1/2, ca. 1986-1988
Speaking of the High, Gogo: Nature Transformed is closing this Sunday. It’s your last chance to see designer Janet “Gogo” Ferguson’s jewelry and home wares (the eucalyptus candleholders and armadillo shell necklaces), which are shaped, in part, by the natural shapes and scapes found on/around Cumberland Island.