Month: October 2013

Above: Carroll Cloar’s 1976 ‘Kudzu’ — I photographed this at the Mississippi Museum of Art, in their permanent collection.

The Carroll Cloar exhibit organized by the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art and the Arkansas Arts Center, ‘The Crossroads of Memory,’ opens at the Georgia Museum of Art October 5 and runs through January 5, 2014.  As the Athens Herald-Banner put it:

Brittle barn skeletons withering under the spooky creep of kudzu — it’s a scene folks living in the South know all too well. As Southern states served as vanguards of late 20th-century suburbanization, they’ve also been the last guards of old, weird America — that honest, scary netherworld known now only through sepia-toned photographs.

Through new works, the rest of the country is becoming acquainted the wild beasts that roam our swamps and backwoods. Such a rise in attention marks the perfect occasion to revisit the artists who first actualized the faithful and dark magic that permeates the region.

Unless any works have been taken out of the exhibit since it appeared at the Brooks this summer, it includes 85 works which come from both public and privately-held collections. The works include MoMA’s Autumn Conversion (1953) and the Brooks’ Where the Southern Cross the Yellow Dog (1964) along with others from the Met, the Whitney, Crystal Bridges, and the Hirshhorn.

Others, all appear here with media usage permission via Memphis Brooks Museum of Art:

Carroll Cloar, American 1913-1993
The Baptizing of Charlie Mae, 1978
Acrylic on Masonite
Private Collection
Copyright Estate of Carroll Cloar

Carroll Cloar, American 1913-1993
Wedding Party, 1971
Acrylic on Masonite
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art
Eugenia Buxton Whitnel Funds 73.24
Copyright Estate of Carroll Cloar

Carroll Cloar, American 1913-1993
Gibson Bayou Anthology, 1956
Casein Tempera on Masonite
Collection of Dianne and Bobby Tucker
Copyright Estate of Carroll Cloar

Carroll Cloar, American 1913-1993
My Father Was Big As A Tree, 1955
Casein Tempera on Masonite
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art;
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Morrie A. Moss 55.24
Copyright Estate of Carroll Cloar

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Interestingly, his “The Little Girl from Nashville” was in Sotheby’s “American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture” auction this week and while Sotheby’s estimated the work for $12-18k, it sold at $46875.

The middle of last month, there was a week-long commemoration for the 50th anniversary of the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church:

As part of the commemoration, a new sculpture in memory of the four girls who were killed was dedicated across the street in Kelly Ingram Park.  The sculpture also mentions two boys who were killed later in the day in another part of town:

The church’s bell had been brought to Washington a few days earlier for the ceremony where the girls were posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.  On Sunday, September 15 at 10:22a, the bell was rung four times at the exact moment when the bomb went off 50 years earlier.  Av was there as part of the Jewish community contingent that was invited to the Sunday morning service.  Most of the public events were held later that day.  Av said that the family members of the four girls were in attendance and everyone filed out of the church just before 10:22a to hear the bell, and then the family members walked down the sidewalk to the outdoor memorial where the bomb was, and placed a wreath.

Rev. Price of 16th Street — he was in Av’s Leadership Birmingham class last year — delivered a message entitled, ‘The Love that Forgives’ which was the title of the message that was going to be delivered 50 years earlier.  There is no known copy of the message from 50 years ago, though a lot of people have tried to find one.

Also speaking was Rev Jesse Jackson, among many others across the country who came for the commemorations.

Here is the ringing of the bell, and the wreath which was laid a few moments later:

Everyone filed back in for the rest of the service, which for the most part was a normal Sunday service:

I think this is Alan Collins talking with Rev Jackson here, the gentleman to the right looking away is Doug Jones who was the prosecutor in the most recent trials that convicted those responsible for bombing the church.  Av has spoken with Doug Jones about the attempted bombing of Temple Beth-El in 1958.

Part of Rev Jackson’s remarks that day included how great it was to see black and white athletes for Alabama on the field in Texas the day before, but come Monday, there still were no black members of the white sororities on campus.  Afterwards, Av spoke with Rev Jackson and told him that there was one white sorority that regularly admitted black members — the Jewish one.  Rev Jackson patted Av on the back, had a big smile, and said, “G-d bless you!”.