Daniel Duford at The Contemporary

A few close ups of the Atlanta Contemporary Art Centers most recent main gallery exhibit. In addition to paneled comics on paper, Duford showed wall murals and sculpture, also part of the larger comic.

Speaking of paneling, Duford makes some pretty interesting choices in that department - along the lines of what you'd see in most good indie-comics, but with a more unified overall feel. If you're ignoring the images Duford uses, and only seeing the layout of his panels, you can still get a pretty good idea of his comics narrative path. The boxes swell and overwhelm each other on some pages, become rigid boxes within boxes on others, and, very occasionally, a box expands to fill the equivalent of a double page. Still, Duford is relatively rigid in his use of traditional comic panels - you never see an image without a black border around it, and each page of his comic is surrounded by a larger border.

If you don't get a chance to see the exhibit before it closes August 31, you can still check out Daniel Duford's webpage, which has extensive samples of Naked Boy and his other work.

Frisky Friday

Noot d'Noot's album release party tonight. It's a decent album, but nowhere near their live show. Check them out at The Earl tonight, or, if you can't make it, they play a show at Lenny's with Judi Chicago every Friday this summer. And they're playing at Whirlyball with Dark Meat this Saturday.

Here's Fire King, from the new album.
A lot of local bicyclists are getting together to hold a "Courteous Mass" at 6 pm tonight. The mass is an alternative to Atlanta's monthly Critical Mass; it follows a planned route and obeys all traffic laws. The pace should be slow enough for even the most novice cyclist, so try and stop by after work. We're meeting in Woodruff Park downtown, leaving at 6:30, and will be riding a total distance of 12 miles.

If you can't make it to the park in time, we'll probably be riding until around 8:30ish along this route.

Also, there's an interesting discussion about the Mass here.



There are a few promising visual arts exhibitions connected to the National Black Arts Festival opening this weekend. Dave McKenzie will be showing some video work at The Contemporary tonight (through August 30th). I couldn't find any of his videos online, but The Contemporary offers this description:

Dave McKenzie is best known for a performance documented on video in which he walks the streets of Harlem in NYC, wearing a Bill Clinton mask, shaking hands with area residents. Performed after the former President located his offices to the area but rarely was seen there, McKenzie became a surrogate, hiding in public but also being available. As an artist of color, he was clearly toying with the concept of Clinton as “the first Black President.”

Using materials including newspapers, cut metal signs, day planners, and basketballs, the artist will present variously interactive objects and events that continue his exploration of daily rituals, time, communication, and identity.

If you're reading this blog, there's a good chance you started salivating when you read the words "exploration of daily rituals."

The opening is from 7 to 9 tonight.

A Paradise For Couples Only at Beep Beep Gallery (Preview)

This is freaking me out:


I'm not sure why. But I am tremendously excited about seeing it in person this Saturday.

Rain On Our Parade

Not so much going on in Atlanta art this week.

There's the cool sculpture exhibit at Youngblood... but that's the only opening over this last week and the coming weekend, right?

Oh, and New Street Gallery's 4th Annual Vinyl show Saturday the 12th:


I'm looking forward to it - a big handful of artists I recognize and like, another even bigger handful I can't wait to see for the first time.

Speaking of vinyl...

I ran into this guy leafing through a box of records outside Star Bar last night, and asked him what was up. He told me that Wax n' Fact's owner tossed a box of records out every few nights. The records all play fine, they just don't happen to be selling.

(This is how the guy selling records in Little Five Point's concrete park finds his merchandise.)

We looked through the records for a bit, and I wished I still had a record player.

And, speaking of music...

Kiki Blood and Shana Robbins are playing the Masquerade Tuesday night. Check it out.

I Use Google News to Track World Beer Prices

All images by Tom Long. Grabbed from his interview on Fecal Face.

With little useful agricultural land, Japan can only produce around 40 percent of the food that its 128 million people consume every year—the lowest among industrialized nations.

That means the country is especially hard hit by fuel costs, which make importing a larger burden than in other developed nations.

In the past year, the cost of instant noodles has risen 17 percent, spaghetti is up 13 percent, and mayonnaise 10 percent. In April, butter practically disappeared from supermarket shelves as surging global grain prices made it impossible for Japan's dairy farmers to import enough feed to increase milk production.

"Japan's Thirst for Beer Quashed By High Price of Imports," National Geographic, June 3 2008



These last two might convince you to find a bigger monitor.