ArtsCriticATL.com

Last month I was among a group of journalists who toured Israel’s holiest city as guests of Jerusalem Season of Culture (JSOC), a fledgling organization that will mount a multidisciplinary arts festival in summer 2011. Although it has secured internationally-known artists as headliners, its purpose is to showcase its homegrown cultural assets and talent, as was the trip.

The organizers laid the groundwork for understanding the cultural milieu with tours of the city. Its long, tumultuous history and biblical roots are incarnated in the architecture. Vestiges of Roman, Ottoman, Crusader and British rule as…

The Center for Creativity & Arts at Emory University created the Creativity & Arts Awards this year and has given the first community awards to art critic Jerry Cullum and choreographer Lauri Stallings.

The awards are designed to highlight the mission of the CCA, including “discovery, societal impact, courageous inquiry, innovation, collaboration, human spirit and the exploration of new frontiers.” In addition to the two community awards, other awards will be given to Emory staff, alumni and students for “significant artistic and administrative contributions to the arts in metro Atlanta.”

Honors are becoming something…

ArtsCriticATL.com posted Jerry Cullum’s perspicacious review of the Dalí exhibition earlier this month. I could not resist weighing in as well. — C.F.

Any museum exhibition worth its salt, even if it’s about a familiar artist, shows us something we didn’t know. What artist has been more studied, exhibited and parsed than Picasso? Yet “Picasso Looks at Degas,” at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass., surprised me with revelations of the extent and depth of the elder artist’s influence, even on the iconic “Demoiselles d’Avignon.”

Similarly, one might imagine that…

John Morse’s “Roadside Haiku” project has ruffled some feathers. Keep Atlanta Beautiful has notified sponsor Flux Projects that the installation violates a city sign ordinance and that it faces fines if the signs aren’t removed. 

WSB-TV, which first reported the dust-up, presented it as a version of ”But is it art?” — the creaky and deliberately provocative trope commonly used to diss contemporary art. But that’s not the point, according to Peggy Denby, director of Keep Atlanta Beautiful.

“I’m not opposed…

If you’re driving around and see a small sign that’s not trying to sell you something or send you to heaven, it’s probably one of John Morse’s “Roadside Haiku.”

The Atlanta artist has composed 10 poems, two of them in Spanish, in the pithy haiku form, printed 50 signs of each and installed the 500 signs on well-traveled streets.  

The haikus, an installation funded by Flux Projects, might also be visible on the information superhighway, thanks to Atlanta filmmaker…

The Atlanta Gallery Association calls it an art walk, but I’m betting you’ll need a car to take advantage of “Art Sun-Up to Sundown,” the gallery-a-thon taking place this Saturday, August 21. 

The 35 participating galleries — AGA’s 12 members and others — museums and non-profit spaces are spread across metro Atlanta, from the Westside Arts District to Decatur, from Castleberry Hill to Roswell Road. You will, however, have 12 hours to take them all in…