FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Marian Blair
Birmingham, AL
April 4, 2010 (205) 328-0553 ext. 26
www.SpaceOneEleven.org Marianblair@SpaceOneEleven.org
Opening: May 7th 5-7pm
For Immediate Release:
FREE MONEY!
Space One Eleven’s group exhibition Free Money! explores identity, logos and commerce in pop youth culture. Free Money! is the debut exhibition from Alabama Charcoal, a free youth program designed to foster a diverse community of artists around the studio environment through mentoring, portfolio development and creative exploration. In a receding economy struggling to fund the arts in schools and urban areas, young artists must find ways to make art relevant to their lives. The 19 artists exhibiting in Free Money! make art for and about their friends, their family, and their teachers using lines, patterns and symbols that describe the way they see the world.
The Free Money! store is a pop-up business, managed and designed by Birmingham area youth but staffed by plaster casts and life-sized self portraits. The walls are packed with charcoal drawings ranging from technical still lives by Marquis Timmons to spacious abstractions by Kristalyn Robinson. Alabama Charcoal’s teacher Marian Blair began the year teaching the students to draw from life with charcoal in order to expand their observation and technical skills. The students quickly rebelled, overflowing with personal projects they wanted to explore.
The exhibition shows that the students were not shy learning new techniques to express their ideas. There are painted shoes in display cases and on clothes lines, screen printed shirts on hooks and on plaster casts, installations, wall drawings, floor decals and even a few paper mache bunnies. All of the work is actually for sale and all profits go back to the artists. The student art work is interspersed with the participating art mentors’ work. The art mentors range from established artists to local college students who have volunteered their time to create art with, and teach the students. Their work includes photography, printmaking, painting and furniture.
The title Free Money! was suggested by Wenonah high school student Paris Pope and conceptualized by the Alabama Charcoal class. Whether you interpret the title to mean release money in the tradition of Free Tibet! or assume that there will be an abundance of “free money” at the show opening, the title is grandiose and absurd. Woodlawn student, Devoiser Evans explains that “free money” means “art is our wealth”. Carver student Marquis Timmons depicts an illustration of a rainfall of money falling on a proud man begging. Wenonah student, Keyonna Richburg interprets “free money” to describe education, citing the proverb “If you catch a fish for a man, he will eat for a day. If you teach a man to fish he will eat forever.” In the end the title intends to be humorous and hopeful. In the words of Wenonah student, Jazzmine Huggins “no one gets free money, but with money someone can buy my artwork!”
About Space One Eleven’s Arts Education Programs
Since 1989, Space One Eleven's (SOE) nationally acclaimed arts education program, City Center Art (CCA) has offered quality arts education programs to the youth of Birmingham and its surrounding metro areas. Birmingham families and their children take part in scholarship and tuition assisted after-school and summer art programs, which have proved to be a much needed venue for cultural education in a community where most youth do not have visual art opportunities.
In its first two decades, Space One Eleven has grown from a pioneering art space into a model artistic center. As SOE heads into the next phase of its evolution, it seeks creative ways to address the ongoing need for those youth who have a desire to pursue their abilities, as well as find more pervasive methods to include all individuals who would enjoy, and benefit from art education classes.
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Space One Eleven Mission
Deeply grounded in place, Space One Eleven’s mission is to provide professional opportunities for visual artists while creating a forum for public understanding of contemporary art. Cornerstones are Space One Eleven’s adherence to artistic freedom and a commitment to the payment of professional fees to participating artists
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