Calendar of Events

The Arts & Culture Alliance is pleased to present five new exhibitions at the Emporium Center in downtown Knoxville from April 1-30, 2022. A free reception with the artists will take place on Friday, April 1, from 5:00-9:00 PM and features jazz music inside the Emporium by Taber Gable and Friends and an outdoor concert by Knoxville Opera musicians. Most of the works will be for sale and may be purchased through the close of the exhibition by visiting in person or the online shop at www.knoxalliance.store.

As a suffix, “ic” means having the character of, having the form of, or the nature of. Also, “ic” suggests what something is similar to, caused by, or made of. Sometimes, the “ic” word compels what I should paint. Other times, what’s painted suggests an adjective or adverb that describes the painting. None of these paintings are really representational but rather my interpretation or abstraction of the “ic.”

Booder Barnes moved from New York state to Tennessee 26 years ago. In New York, he studied oil painting with Larry Zingale. He joined A1LabArts after moving to Knoxville and has been an active member throughout the years. Barnes took watercolor classes with Betsy Worden at the Candy Factory, and he studied handbuilding clay sculpture with Annamaria Gundlach. In 2011, he began making short films with University of Tennessee Professor Norman Magden, and they formed Magboo Productions to develop their ideas.

Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, in downtown Knoxville. Hours: M-F 9-5, Sat 10-1. CLOSED SAT APR 9 AND FRI APR 15 - BUT OPEN SUN APR 10, 10-1. Info: 865-523-7543, www.knoxalliance.com

The Arts & Culture Alliance is pleased to present five new exhibitions at the Emporium Center in downtown Knoxville from April 1-30, 2022. A free reception with the artists will take place on Friday, April 1, from 5:00-9:00 PM and features jazz music inside the Emporium by Taber Gable and Friends and an outdoor concert by Knoxville Opera musicians. Most of the works will be for sale and may be purchased through the close of the exhibition by visiting in person or the online shop at www.knoxalliance.store.

This unique exhibition includes music, photographs, and memorabilia of composer Giacomo Puccini from the private collection of Brian Salesky. Highlights include 1st edition 19th and 20th century piano/vocal scores, librettos, and photographs, some autographed by legendary opera singers. This display is presented in conjunction with Knoxville Opera performances of Puccini’s music on Sunday, April 24 at Sacred Heart Cathedral (link coming soon) and Friday, April 29 at the Bijou Theatre. Tickets for the April 29 performance may be purchased at https://knoxvilleopera.secure.force.com/ticket/#/events/a0S2E000010V8wBUAS.

For more information, visit www.knoxvilleopera.com

Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, in downtown Knoxville. Hours: M-F 9-5, Sat 10-1. CLOSED SAT APR 9 AND FRI APR 15 - BUT OPEN SUN APR 10, 10-1. Info: 865-523-7543, www.knoxalliance.com

The Arts & Culture Alliance is pleased to present five new exhibitions at the Emporium Center in downtown Knoxville from April 1-30, 2022. A free reception with the artists will take place on Friday, April 1, from 5:00-9:00 PM and features jazz music inside the Emporium by Taber Gable and Friends and an outdoor concert by Knoxville Opera musicians. Most of the works will be for sale and may be purchased through the close of the exhibition by visiting in person or the online shop at www.knoxalliance.store.

Featuring more than 40 works created over a 60-year span, Fritz Massaquoi (1926-2022): In Memoriam pays tribute to the long and prolific career of a West African multi-media artist who spent his last three decades in Knoxville. Fritz Hilary Massaquoi was a self-taught painter who also worked in batik, tie-dye, weaving, printmaking, and papermaking. A long time Emporium resident artist, his works have been collected and exhibited internationally. He was also active as an art teacher and inspired his students wherever he taught.

The son of West African royalty, Massaquoi relocated to the United States in 1990 due to civil war in his home country of Liberia. His colorful paintings, prints, and weavings capture vivid recollections of idyllic West African landscapes and scenes from daily life. The places, people, and events depicted often feature bold silhouettes and imagery portrayed as if through the filter of distant memory. Other works take the form of lyrical, vibrant abstractions inspired by Massaquoi’s extensive experience as a modern dancer. He built each composition intuitively, and often added bits of eggshell, aluminum foil, and other materials to his acrylic pigments in order to enhance the surface texture of his paintings. Throughout his career, Massaquoi shifted between painting village scenes and abstractions as the spirit moved him. He often opted not to sign his paintings and felt as if his brushwork served as a signature. Massaquoi rarely dated any paintings and viewed them as living creations always open to revision or embellishment. He created nearly all the works in this exhibition after his arrival in Knoxville in 1990. Most of his works are untitled since the artist viewed titles as limiting the narrative possibilities for his compositions.

Proceeds from the sale of any of Massaquoi’s paintings will go toward supporting a school he helped build in his ancestral village of N’Jabacca, Liberia.

Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, in downtown Knoxville. Hours: M-F 9-5, Sat 10-1. CLOSED SAT APR 9 AND FRI APR 15 - BUT OPEN SUN APR 10, 10-1. Info: 865-523-7543, www.knoxalliance.com

Awaken Coffee will host an opening reception for artist Allison Meriwether Friday, April 1, from 6-8 pm

Allison is a recent transplant to Knoxville. She teaches high school art full-time and creates in her south Knox studio. Allison creates thoughtfully curated painted portraits and isolated realistic drawings of hands that serve as symbols of personal relationships. Her work focuses on associations to moments and memories, sharing stories about interactions and experiences. Her work has been shown widely nationally and internationally.

Please join us for some amazing art, light refreshments, and of course great coffee!

Awaken Coffee, 125 W Jackson Ave, Knoxville, TN 37902. Open daily. Information: 865-951-0427, www.instagram.com/awaken_coffee or www.facebook.com/awakencoffeeoldcity/

Opening Reception - Fri Apr 1, 5-9 PM
Event by UT Downtown Gallery and University of Tennessee School of Art

Friedman and Ghenov are comfortable with ghosts in the studio. Ghenov uses family ledgers and documents found while cleaning out her childhood home. Friedman combines unexpected materials such as crayons, reference book photocopies, and lighting gels. Both artists use the act of drawing to try to capture the present moment, while their materials are envoys of the past. These technical and physical modes of working underscore their mutual interest in the foggy lines between different chapters in a human lifetime and realms of presence.

As Friedman and Ghenov simultaneously tease out and further obscure the boundaries between past and present, drawing and accumulated materials, their work is put into conversation with artists from the University of Tennessee’s permanent collection such as Joseph Delaney, Nancy Spero, and Walter Haskell Hinton. The dialogue that ensues explores the blurred lines between drawing as practice and performance, between studies and finished works, and between art-making and living.

Amanda Friedman is a Visiting Artist and Lecturer in the Painting and Drawing Dept. at UT Knoxville’s School of Art. Amanda Friedman’s art is rooted in drawing, painting, and writing. She directs plays and makes ceramics, installations, drawings, paintings, and performances that connect. Her work exists in different fields of action and poetry – varying spaces of concreteness, collaboration, and interiority. Friedman’s work is attuned to rituals and moved by a holistic drive to make worlds. Friedman has had recent solo and two-person shows at Grifter, NYC (2020) and Safe Gallery, Brooklyn (2018). She has been included in group shows at Cleopatra’s, Brooklyn; Situations, NYC; Adds Donna, Chicago; and Redling Fine Art, LA, among many others. Her plays or time-based paintings have been staged in NYC at All Saints Church, Essex Flowers, Safe Gallery, and White Columns. She holds an MFA from Bard College in Painting, where she was the recipient of the Hartog Travel Grant, and has participated in residencies at such places as Shandaken Projects, New York; Autocenter, Berlin; and Clay Break at The University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Friedman published an artist book, Because Nothing Ends, with Peradam in 2013. Drawing Hilma Af Klint, made in collaboration with artists Ariel Dill and Denise Schatz, was published by Miniature Garden in 2014. Friedman is a founding member of the artist-run cooperative gallery Essex Flowers in NYC. www.Amandabfriedman.com

Lynne Marinelli Ghenov is a visual artist who primarily makes drawings and works on paper. Lynne's work mirrors the act of bricolage though most of the elements mixed in are absorbed and translated through and in the process of drawing. An array of ephemera and objects that spur memory, generate a story, or conjure sentimentality, is vital to her drawing practice. Family business ledgers, old lined paper, children's toys, found architectural drawings, and antique letters encompass the material choices that create the work's substrate. Lynne has shown work in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, and Tennessee. She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1975 and raised in southern New Jersey. She currently lives and works in East Tennessee, where she co-founded and co-directed C for Courtside Gallery, an artist-run curatorial space in north downtown Knoxville, from 2017-2020. Lynne's day job is the Associate position at Loghaven Artist Residency in Knoxville, TN. She graduated from Tyler School of Art, receiving a BFA in sculpture in 1998. She also studied abroad at Temple University Rome in Italy in 1996. LynneGhenov.com

All UT Downtown Gallery events are free and open to the public. Masking is strongly encouraged. UT Downtown Gallery, 106 S. Gay St, Knoxville, TN 37902. Hours: W-F 11-6, Sa 10-3. Information: 865-673-0802, https://downtown.utk.edu

First Friday event from 5-9 PM

The Casa HoLa Store will be open for shopping!

https://holahoralatina.org/events/
https://www.facebook.com/HoLaHoraLatina
https://www.instagram.com/holahoralatina/
https://twitter.com/CasaHoLa

HoLa Hora Latina is located inside of the Emporium for the Arts at 100 S. Gay St. Suite 112, Knoxville, TN 37902. Info: (865)335-3358 or casahola@holafestival.org

Visit the Ijams Hallway Gallery in April to view photography by David Liles!

This former CPA loves color and high contrast, and his works are often abstractions that are achieved through color, pattern, shape and detail (or lack thereof).

Ijams Nature Center, 2915 Island Home Ave, Knoxville, TN 37920. Information: 865-577-4717, www.ijams.org

Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM

by Paul Rudnick
Directed by Courtney Woolard

A young and successful television actor relocates to New York, where he rents a marvelous, gothic apartment.

With his television career in limbo, the actor is offered the opportunity to play Hamlet onstage, but there’s one problem: He hates Hamlet.

His dilemma deepens with the entrance of John Barrymore’s ghost, who arrives intoxicated and in full costume to the apartment that once was his. The contrast between the two actors, the towering, dissipated Barrymore whose Hamlet was the greatest of his time, and Andrew Rally, hot young television star, leads to a wildly funny duel over women, art, success, duty, television, and yes, the apartment.

Reviews
…unapologetically silly and at times hilarious…affectionately amusing about the theatre…
—NY Times

“…fast-mouthed and funny…It has the old-fashioned Broadway virtues of brightness without pretensions and sentimentality without morals.”
— Village Voice

Theatre Knoxville Downtown, 800 S. Central Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information & tickets: 865-544-1999, www.theatreknoxville.com

Celebration of the pieces at a reception on Sunday, April 3 from 2 to 4 PM.

The show is intended to answer the question: “What do you love?” We have asked our members to lend us up to six of their favorite pieces to share with the community to show a range of what speaks to and moves each of the individuals. In essence, it will be curated by the larger group, rather than a single person and, therefore, we are hoping it will be both diverse and dynamic.

There are all sorts of reasons people collect art. In most cases, artwork is displayed in our homes or work spaces, but in others it may not be. Most people buy art because they love the imagery and want to live with it to create a feeling or mood in their living space. The work may echo feelings, emotions, or memories they cherish. They may offer a range of emotions from comforting and soothing to exciting or invigorating. Work may also titillate the imagination, beckon stories, or challenge viewers to define or describe their subject matter. These may inspire ever changing reactions or a sense of renewal and inspire different feelings as one looks at the work over the long term. Some of us own pieces that have familial ties or generational importance. These items may involve references to one’s heritage or aspects from the culture or cultures from which they hail. Still others invest in artwork, hoping it will rise in value and that they will see a large return on that investment. While I concede this happens, I believe these individuals are in the minority. What we choose to love and live with says a lot about each of us—who we are and how we live. For this reason, we are asking our member collectors to select what they would like to show. We want your/their choices to make sure we do not slant the exhibition through a single individual’s filter.

One collector has offered to show a series of 13 Dali works that Dali created as illustrations for Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland. The set is delightfully colorful and depicts the chapters of the book. These should be as enchanting to view as the book was to read! We are looking forward to sharing in the joy these pieces will bring to everyone who sees them. Other items that will be exhibited include a piece or pieces that were purchased while traveling. For one of the owners, her work takes them back to that experience, the newness and freedom the trip inspired. In addition it was a new type of work that has inspired her own thinking and creations since. It is those anticipated experiences that prompt us to offer this exhibition. To share these works our members are opening their experiences to others and allowing our viewers to make that journey with them. That communication should be as interesting or thought – provoking as the works themselves.

Oak Ridge Art Center, 201 Badger Avenue, Oak Ridge, TN 37830. Hours: Tu-F 9-5, Sa-M 1-4. Information: 865-482-1441, www.oakridgeartcenter.org

The play will be performed Thursdays and Fridays at 7 PM, Saturdays at 1 PM and 5 PM, and Sundays at 3 PM.

Knoxville Children’s Theatre, in partnership with the Clayton Foundation will present a live production of Jackie & Me by Steven Dietz and adapted from the book by Dan Gutman.

Ten-year-old Joey Stoshack is a headstrong young boy with a special talent for time travel. When Joey is assigned to write a report on an African American who has made an important contribution to society, he uses his special ability to go back to Brooklyn, New York, in 1947. He meets one of baseball’s greatest players, Jackie Robinson. Joey plans on writing a prize-winning report, but he doesn’t plan on a trip that will forever change his view of history and his definition of courage.

"[Kids] learn about Jackie Robinson, racial discrimination and restraining one's temper to achieve a larger goal. … The show is truthful, fun and filled with worthy life lessons for kids." -Chicagocritic.com

The play is performed by 14 talented young actors, from ages 9 to 18. Joey will be played by Oak Holden, who is making his KCT debut. He will be joined by Elijah Clemes and DeShayla Foley, who will portray Jackie and Rachel Robinson.

The show is directed by guest director Derrick Washington, Jr. who is a former KCT participant.

KCT is East Tennessee’s leading producer of plays for children and families.
Knoxville Children's Theatre, 109 E. Churchwell Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37917. Information: 865-208-3677, www.knoxvillechildrenstheatre.com

By Qui Nguyen, Directed by Casey Sams
Carousel Theatre

After the death of her teenage sister Tilly, Agnes discovers an untouched “Dungeons and Dragons” campaign in Tilly’s room. In an effort to connect with her sister one last time, Agnes enters the imaginary “Dungeons and Dragons” world she once mocked. She uncovers levels of her sister that she didn’t know existed in an action-packed adventure filled with homicidal fairies, nasty ogres, and ‘90s pop culture.

The Pay What You Can Preview performance, where patrons can name their own price, will be held Wednesday, March 23rd. Half of the proceeds from PWYW tickets will benefit Girls Inc. of Tennessee Valley. Behind the Scenes Sunday will take place following the Sunday, March 27 matinee. A Designer Talk Back will take place Sunday, April 3rd following the matinee. And, an Actor Talk Back will take place following the April 10th 2:00 pm matinee. The Open Captioned performance also is Sunday, April 10th at 2:00 pm.

Free and convenient parking is available in the Upper Parking of McClung Tower Garage (G2) on Volunteer Boulevard. This show addresses themes of bullying and homophobia and contains depictions of violence, mild sexual content, and mild profanity. Those with auditory and visual sensitivities should be aware loud noises, theatrical haze and flashing lights occur at times in this production.

https://clarencebrowntheatre.com/plays/she-kills-monsters/

Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage Artist-of-the-Year: Alex Foster
March 21 – May 1, 2022

GEOFFREY A. WOLPERT GALLERY
Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, 556 Parkway, Gatlinburg, TN 37738. Information: 865-436-5860, https://www.arrowmont.org/visit/galleries/exhibition-schedule/