This weekend, Grind City Brewing Company is hosting its first-ever Grind City Fest in a collaborative effort with Mammoth Live and local promoter Nick Barbian to bring live music back to Uptown Memphis. The two-day festival will consist of blues and bluegrass performances, headlined by the Grammy-winning Infamous Stringdusters on Friday, and Greensky Bluegrass on Saturday.
Other performances will include Saxsquatch, The Travelin’ McCourys, Here Come the Mummies, The Wild Feathers, Kyle Nix & the 38s, and local acts Cyrena Wages and Dirty Streets.
The festival has been a year in the making, with the idea for the festival originating in a casual conversation between Barbian, who recently opened Big River Market in the South Main neighborhood, and Grind City Brewing founder Hopper Seely. “We were literally just out there at Grind City Brewing Company having a couple beers, looking at a great skyline of Downtown Memphis and this beautiful, just shy of two-acre lawn,” Barbian says, “and we were like, ‘We should do music out here.’”
(Credit: Grind City Brewing Company)
The hope, Barbian explains, is to promote more live entertainment in the area. “This fest is definitely a preview of things to come. This is hopefully just the beginning. We want to bring more music back to Uptown, especially because that is such a developing part of the city right now, and having the brewery up there is such a great asset.”
Tickets can be purchased in advance at ticketmaster.com or at the door. Single day passes cost $35, and two-day passes cost $65. Children, 12 and under, get in free. VIP tickets are available for $125 and include early access to the venue, one free beer per day, free parking, access to the tap room and patio, a preferred viewing area, private bar and restrooms, limited edition laminate, an expanded beer menu, and complimentary Grind City Brewing tastings.
Krisco Kringle (Photo: Courtesy Blue Suede Sisters)
If you’ve ever seen a loud gaggle of nuns of various genders in white face paint, you’ve come across the Blue Suede Sisters, one house of the international Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, known for their community service and advocacy (and outlandish drag). And if you haven’t met them yet, you’re missing out.
Originally from California, Blue Suede Abbess Krisco Kringle says, “Since I was probably in my late 20s, I wanted to be a sister because I admired the work they do. But I was never in the right career, time, city, and I’m in Memphis working and I’m in one of the local bars and sisters walk in, and I was like, ‘Oh. My. God.’ … I said, ‘I’m joining now.’ For me, it’s the impact they have on society and people, and my personal mission is to spread joy [and] bring smiles.”
A few years later, sisters Twinkle VanWinkle and Kat Ion would feel a similar calling. “I have seen sisters and known about them probably since the early ’90s, late ’80s, somewhere in there,” says Twinkle, but she admits that she assumed the group was only for gay men. However, after reaching out to the group about hosting a volunteer event, they explained that the sisterhood is open to anyone, no matter their gender, sexuality, age, religion, etc., and before Twinkle knew it, she was going through the process of becoming a sister herself. “Once a sister gets her little claws in you,” she says, “they just don’t ever let you go. Although Krisco really likes the clowning aspect, what really fills my heart when I work with the sisters is the fact that I have the opportunity to work with so many different charitable organizations and so many different groups. And the fact that we get to dress up and do silly things and get away with stuff that we’d never be able to get away with until we put that white makeup on, it’s an added bonus.”
Sisters Krisco Kringle, Twinkle VanWinkle, and Kat Ion (Photo: Courtesy Blue Suede Sisters)
Indeed, the group aligns itself with a number of community issues, from advocating for the unhoused community to marching for reproductive justice. “If there’s a protest or a need to bring attention to it, having a white-bearded man in a full-on nun outfit with white-face, it brings attention,” Krisco says.
“That is what we would call ministry of presence,” Twinkle adds. “We are present and using our presence to inform, educate, to make people smile. Krisco’s always got a joke or some smart-ass little comment to make. I’m always the one with business cards and contact info.”
“And I’m just running late walking in shoes that I can’t really walk in,” quips Kat.
Kat, for her part, is a novice, yet to become a full-fledged sister, and part of that process is coming up with a novice project for the community’s behalf. Serendipitously, a representative from the Museum of Science & History had reached out for the group’s insight for its exhibition about LGBTQ+ history in Memphis, “Memphis Proud.”
“They said, ‘We want the sisters to be involved,’” Kat says, “And I said, ‘Well, I could sorta do chemistry while dressed up.’” And what unfolded are the Cocktails & Chemistry sessions, at which Kat, as part of her novice project, will lead participants through “actual, real experiments. It’s very college-level and intense, but it’s none of the hard stuff, none of the math, none of the ‘Oh my god, I’m going to fail,’ none of that. It’s all the fun stuff. Without giving too much away, we’re just doing some really cool stuff with metal — stuff that you wouldn’t think that anyone would let me play with but they do.
(Photo: Courtesy Blue Suede Sisters)
“I like to tell people I’m not a mad scientist. I’m a bad scientist.”
In fact, this attitude inspired Kat’s name choice. She explains, “In science, a positive or negatively charged molecule is known as an ion. If it’s a positive ion, it’s known as a cation. If it’s a negatively charged molecule, it’s an anion. I feel like a cation. If it’s positive that means it’s lost electrons, so I’m a few electrons short of a whole atom.”
“We agree with you, but only in love,” Twinkle adds. “Which is why Sister Krisco and I will be mingling and enjoying the signature cocktails while Sister Kat deals with all the chemicals far, far away.”
As such before the experiments, participants will get a chance to mingle and enjoy cocktails with the sisters. Tickets for the 21+ event on Friday, August 19th, can be purchased here. Two sessions will be available to choose from, one at 6 p.m., the other at 8 p.m. Another set of Cocktails & Chemistry sessions will be held on September 16th.
In the meantime, the sisters are hard at work preparing a sexual health educational session for young people in the fall, as well as a job fair for previously incarcerated people. And they’ll be making an appearance at Memphis Public Libraries’ Pride Kickoff at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library on September 3rd. To keep up with the sisters, visit bluesuedesisters.org.
Cocktails & Chemistry, Museum of Science & History, Friday, August 19, 6 p.m. and 8 p.m., $25, 21+.
Ted Torres Martin as Elvis (Photo: Club Elvis España)
Elvis hasn’t left the building, or rather Elvis hasn’t left the hearts of fans who keep his legacy alive, some even on stage where his star once shone so brightly. Ted Torres Martin is one such figure — a full-time Elvis tribute artist — and he’ll be here this week performing as Elvis in Aloha from Memphis.
Ever since an 11-year-old Martin caught a glimpse of the King in Jailhouse Rock, he has been enthralled with Elvis’ musicality and charisma. “I was just hooked,” he says, and his attraction to Elvis the musician was natural, seeing that his parents were professional musicians and he’s studied music all his life. “I became a musician first, and I learned to appreciate all kinds of music, but Elvis was always in the back of my mind. … His catalog is so extensive, more than people listen to, beyond the hits.”
Eventually, Martin began attending Elvis conventions. “I started meeting more people who knew him — family members, band members,” he says. “They heard me sing at open mics and told me I could [become an Elvis performer]. I was like, ‘No, I have long hair’ — I still kinda do. Like, ‘I’m a musician; I’m a songwriter. I’m not going to become an Elvis impersonator. There’s only one Elvis, blah blah blah.’”
But as he grew closer to the people who once knew Elvis — especially D.J. Fontana, Elvis’ longtime drummer, and Gordon Stoker from The Jordanaires who sang backup for him — Martin began to know Elvis the person. “I thought it was kinda weird how many similarities and parallels I found between his life and mine, character-wise as well, from what his friends told me,” Martin says. “Our personalities are pretty similar. By learning more about him from his friends, musicians, and family, I learned that he was such a good-hearted person. That attracted me to him even more.”
So, despite his initial resistance, Martin began his Elvis performances full-time nearly 20 years ago. “I’m like, ‘Okay, let me try to do this respectfully and as authentic as I can, at the same time keeping myself separated where I don’t get so lost where I think I’m Elvis or anything like that.’ I’m Elvis on stage, but when I step off the stage, I’m Ted.”
For Elvis Week, Martin will take over the Halloran Centre’s stage. “We’re doing a complete recreation of the Aloha from Hawaii, including what they called the insert songs that he did in montages,” Martin says. “We’re celebrating the upcoming 50th anniversary which will be in January in 2023. We’re getting ahead and going to do it during Elvis Week, which I feel is a very special thing.”
Aloha From Memphis Starring Ted Torres Martin, Halloran Centre, Friday, August 12, 3 p.m., $60-$85.
This Sunday, August 14th, the Hellzapoppin Circus Sideshow is bringing its thrilling brand of entertainment to Lafayette’s Music Room. Championing themselves as the “world’s largest and last remaining troupe of sideshow freaks and circus performers,” this group of performers defies death every time they take the stage, from swallowing swords to eating fire to practicing foot archery and more — all in a two-and-a-half hour show.
As seen on AMC’s Freakshow, Ripley’s Believe It Not, Guinness World Records, the Discovery Channel, the Travel Channel, America’s Got Talent, and more, these performers hope to inspire audiences in conquering their fears and dwelling in anticipation. Lucky for us, the Memphis Flyer got a chance to catch up with performer Short E. Dangerously in a quick Q&A to ask him all about what it means to join the circus.
Short E. Dangerously (Photo: Courtesy Great Scott Productions)
Memphis Flyer: What led you to being a part of Hellzapoppin?
Short E. Dangerously: After 15 years in the nightclub business as a DJ, I found myself looking for something different. I had no idea what direction I wanted to go. A mutual friend introduced me to [ringleader] Bryce “The Govna” Graves. He contacted me and offered to have me as a guest on an upcoming show Hellzapoppin had not far from where I lived. I had one skill — I could do an inverted handstand. Now, keep in mind, I don’t have any legs. So, I came out, gave a little speech, and went into a handstand, with the understanding of the audience that the louder they were, the higher up I would go.
What is your act all about?
My signature act is walking on broken shards of glass with my bare hands while it is on fire! It is a demonstration of pain tolerance and mental and physical toughness. I was born with a physical condition that does set me apart from other performers. In the sideshow world, I am considered a half-man. I am also considered a natural born performer, a natural born “freak” if you will. However, I trained and studied for over a year with the glass walking before even attempting it on stage.
Most of the sideshow stunts are passed down from performer to performer as a generational thing. In order to do what we do, you have to have a knowledge of science, physics as well as anatomy. Whereas a musician plays their given instrument, our bodies are our instruments. For example, in order for Willow [Lauren] to learn how to swallow a sword, she had to know the anatomy and the science of what is going on with her body as well as controlling gag reflexes that are normally involuntary. She has to control those with her mind and suppress them.
Willow Lauren, one of the few women in the world who swallow swords and regurgitate razor blades (Photo: Courtesy Great Scott Productions)
Circuses have a layered history, often exploitative. How have y’all confronted this history?
Bryce and I get asked this question all the time regarding exploitation. However, there’s no exploitation going on. I am in the show because I have a talent and I’m a performer. It’s not just because of how I look. I have a skill set. My background as a DJ helped me in this field. I run all of the music cues and the production during the show except for when I’m on stage. Then Willow runs my music cues.
Have you ever surprised yourself in being able to perform a certain act?
I can recall one time when I did surprise myself. The big finish to the glass walking act is when I jump down onto the pile of glass from an elevated ladder or stool. This one particular time, the only ladder that was available for us to use was approximately four-and-a-half feet high. I normally jumped from around two or two-and-a-half feet. When I got to the top of the ladder, Bryce came out to me and pulled the microphone away and said, “You don’t really have to do this.” I looked at him. I smiled. I said, “I’m either going to make history or be history.” I looked down, took a deep breath, and sent it! I landed safely with no problems. As I walked off stage, I thought to myself that it was really crazy, but I would love to do it again!
(Photo: Through the Eyes of a Queen/Courtesy Great Scott Productions)
Do you ever doubt yourself or get nervous before doing something that most people wouldn’t dare to try?
I get asked this question a lot and the best way I can answer it is I ask people a question: Do you get nervous before you go to work? This is my job. This is my profession. Ironically, there’s a calmness that comes over me before the show starts. Then, when I hit the stage, everything explodes! All of that fear and anxiety is gone and I am focused on my job, the task at hand.
What does it feel like when you’ve succeeded in performing a death-defying stunt, especially in front of an audience?
It’s the best! It’s an incredible adrenaline rush! There’s nothing like it anywhere! It’s the best drug in the world! I have defied death countless times in my life — injury not so much. A lot of times, audience members and average people fail to realize that we literally torture ourselves for their entertainment. However, when you’re on stage, you don’t feel any pain. We all tend to feel our pain off stage, after the show, when the adrenaline wears off and reality kicks back in. One thing I have learned is that sometimes our audiences are a little bit bloodthirsty. It’s like most of our audiences are the ones that go to a car race just for the crashes!
However, the energy we get from the audience always gives us the energy to get it done. We literally feed off the energy the audience gives us some nights because it’s the only way that we can do it. You do this because you love it and you can’t imagine doing anything else in the world. Only a few people can do what we do, which is what makes us so unique.
Is there anything else that you feel is important to mention?
You can find us all on social media. Make sure to check out www.hellzapoppin.com for all of our tour dates and performer bios!
Hellzapoppin Circus Sideshow, Lafayette’s Music Room, Sunday, August 14, 7 p.m., $20 /general admission, $35/VIP, 21+.
Cinderella had her glass slippers, and Ramona Sonin had her white go-go boots. “I was about 5 years old, and my mom got me my first pair of white go-go boots,” she says, “and it was over. I wore those boots everywhere and everything became about those boots. Magic happened, I think, with a 5-year-old ready to take on the world walking in her go-go boots.”
It was from that moment — if she had to choose a moment — she discovered her love of fashion. “It’s just kind of something you’re born with.”
Today, Sonin channels her passion into designing couture dresses with sculptured bodices and tulle that pours, almost floats, out of the skirt in her latest exhibition of gowns at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens. “There’s no machine involved,” she says. “Everything you see is completely hand-stitched, and so each gown and each couture piece you see is at least 300 hours of work a piece.”
Though Sonin starts with a sketch outlining her general idea, once she approaches the dress form, improv and intuition take over, and the piece takes on a life of its own, thirsting for the artist’s creativity to feed and care for it. “I just kind of sculpt it on the body and on the form, … and all of a sudden I’m breathing life into these things,” she says, before referencing a quote from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein that goes: “With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet.”
What lays at Sonin’s feet are the pieces of fabric already in her studio, which she upcycles into a fabric of her own to piece together and make three-dimensional appliques. For one gown in the show, Ophelia, she even uses fabric from her own wedding dress, showing that though the histories of her materials may come from vulnerable, some even forgotten, moments, these moments came together in support of this new creation, in support of the potential wearer. “The history of the material, there’s power and strength in that,” she says.
At first glance, the dresses may seem overly delicate with their muted colors, tulle, sequins, and the embellishments that seem to have fallen in the perfect place, but they have a bit of “edge” to them, an ephemeral quality that’s haunting and intimidating. The gowns’ fragility is an armor in itself; it’s untouchable. As Sonin says, her gowns are a blend of “Viking shields and Brigitte Bardot.”
Sonin also takes inspiration from other recognizable women, specifically Shakespearean women after whom she titles her gowns. “In what Shakespeare did,” she says, “many of the women were notable and very strong and powerful and free-thinking in a time where society actually commanded them to be delicate. Shakespeare’s women played both of those, that struggle between power and femininity.”
And yet Shakespeare’s women, just like Sonin’s dresses, find power in the feminine.
“Flowerful: Fashioning the Armored Feminine,” Dixon Gallery & Gardens, on display through October 23.
Crown Me Royal hosts its first film fest. (Photo: Courtesy CMRL)
“I was kind of a troubled teenager, you could say,” Chassidy Jade says with a bit of a chuckle, but she adds, she found a mentor in fellow church-attendee Ron Crawford, who worked for Fox 13 News and encouraged her to try filmmaking. “He gave me a camera and was like, ‘You just need something to do.’ I was always a creative person, and I just didn’t know where to put that energy. I had no idea about filmmaking or how it worked.” Now, Jade works remotely in Memphis as an editor for Parallax Post, a production studio in L.A., in addition to pursuing her own creative projects and developing her production studio Crown Me Royal Labs. Yet, even in the whirlwind of her burgeoning career, she still seeks to follow her mentor’s example and expose the Memphis community, “especially Black and Brown girls,” to opportunities in the film and media industry.
One such step in her ambitions is this weekend’s Crown Me Royal Film Festival, which will have panels, workshops, and more for those curious about the film industry. “A lot of our panelists and people on the lineup for workshops are people who work behind the scenes, not in front of the camera,” Jade says. “So we have voice actors, we have editors, cinematographers, we have Carmeon Hamilton who has her own show on HGTV. … People will be able to meet the people who work on these big projects for Netflix, HBO, BET, [and more].” Of course, no film festival would be complete without a few movies, and Crown Me Royal won’t disappoint with screenings of The Last Dragon, short films by youth filmmakers, and short films centered around Black male voices, some even local.
“[The festival’s] also a place for people to network, have fun, and experience some local vendors and installations,” Jade says. “We have a lot of free activities [like pottery and shea butter making].” To close the festival, Jade will host her fourth annual “Visuals & Vibes,” an exhibition of film and other forms of art by female artists. “It’s not just paintings,” Jade says. “You’ll see a henna artist and a pole dancer and a body painter [and more].”
“It’s really a festival that’s for everyone,” she adds. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit crownmeroyallabs.com/filmfest.
Crown Me Royal Film Fest, various locations, Friday-Sunday, July 29-31, $25-$100.
The Gay Ole Opry features Allysun Wunderland. (Photo: Courtesy Friends of George’s)
Halloween 1969, Memphis had its first drag show at what is now the Evergreen Theatre. At the time, dressing in clothing of the opposite sex was illegal, but on Halloween, you could get away with dressing however you wanted. So on that night, no one was attacked or arrested for participating in or attending the drag show — a fact that emboldened the Memphis LGBTQ+ community to continue putting on drag shows even with the threat of raids. That same year, George Wilson purchased his bar, where drag shows began happening regularly and continued until it closed in 1990.
Often referred to as Queen Mother of Memphis Gay Bars and the Showplace of the South, George’s was a staple in the LGBTQ+ community, so in 2010 to honor the 20th anniversary of its closure, a group of former patrons and performers put together a reunion show in true George’s style and tradition. More than 1,800 guests attended, and the group, known as Friends of George’s, became energized, says board member Ty Phillips. “We had no real immediate plans to continue, but we all felt the strong sense that we should continue producing events, and so we continued doing that and ultimately branded ourselves into more of a theater company.”
Now, after a pandemic-related hiatus, the group is bringing back its annual Dragnificent Variety Show, this time with a twang. “In the past we’ve done themes like decades,” says Phillips. “This year we’ve gone country with The Gay Ole Opry. … It’s a combination of drag performances, production numbers, and original skits that we’ve written and produced. We’ve got a game show, some running gags. A lot of it is rooted in Hee Haw humor if you remember that show from back in the day.”
The show, taking place at the LGBTQ+ landmark Evergreen Theatre, will run July 29th-31st and August 4th-6th. Ticket sales for The Gay Ole Opry will benefit CHOICES – Memphis Center for Reproductive Health. Tickets can be purchased at friendsofgeorges.org/gay-ole-opry.
The Dragnificent Variety Show: The Gay Ole Opry, The Evergreen Theatre, July 29-31 and August 4-6, $27.
Nothing Ever Goes Unseen, oil on panel, 2022 (Photo: Courtesy John Roberts/David Lusk Gallery)
“I’m sitting here in the yard right now, and I feel like someone’s watching me from the window upstairs,” John Roberts tells me over the phone. He’s at his family farm in Weakley County, Tennessee, where his distant grandmother purchased the land in 1838 and where in 1921 his great-grandfather built the house he now lives in. “There’s just so much history here,” Roberts says.
This history and the legends that linger in the fabric of his environment have, in turn, laid the backdrop for Roberts’ first solo show: “Nothing Ever Goes Unseen.” In this series of paintings, various figures from the generations before him stare directly at the viewer without shame or menace, surrounded by a “warm and inviting” color palette. “It’s not supposed to be creepy,” he says. “I like to think about what comes next after this life. I like to think we’ll be reunited. I guess, my faith has a lot to do with it, too; I’m Catholic. And I think these people are just waiting around for me. … I’ll be out mowing the yard and I’ll think about things like ‘Is there somebody in the window?’ or I think I see somebody peering around the corner of the house. … It’s a comfort for me to see these people, to paint them. And it’s kind of like an act of prayer for me because Catholics pray for the dead.”
“Thinking about them gets me a little choked up,” he adds. “My great-great-grandma looking out for me — those things are outside of time now, and I’ll be there, too, some time.”
Indeed, the artist spends a lot of time contemplating mortality, having been a tombstone etcher for more than 20 years, a job he got right out of grad school and still works to this day. Soon after starting this job, though, Roberts, a father of eight, became consumed by his responsibilities in work and in his family and couldn’t make time to paint until a year and a half ago. Though he admits that his work as an etcher has helped improve his skills as an artist, Roberts says, “It’s been frustrating because I felt like I haven’t been able to express myself. … The whole time I really longed to be making art, but I had so many things going on.”
Yet, he adds, those “things going on” have empowered him with the lived experiences to express the generational memories and warmth that his paintings aim to convey. As such, to Roberts, those 20 or so years of not painting were not a loss but a time of artistic enrichment. And now at 48, having the time to paint has been “revolutionary,” he says. “I can’t imagine not having that outlet now. I’ve taken a few days off since my show, and I don’t know what to do with myself. I can’t wait to get back in the studio.”
“Nothing Ever Goes Unseen,” David Lusk Gallery, on view through July 31.
Kevin Wong with Spyro and Godzilla (Photo: Kevin Wong)
Most people would squirm at the idea of living in the same house as a bunch of roaches, but Kevin Wong has turned cohabitating with vermin into a profitable business — the Dubia Dude, which sells and ships Dubia roaches across the country. Dubia roaches, Wong explains, are high in protein, making them a great meal for reptiles, spiders, fish, and even chickens.
In 2019, while working as an assistant manager at T-Mobile, Wong bought two baby bearded dragons, which he aptly named Spyro and Godzilla, and at first, he used crickets to feed them. “Crickets are really annoying to deal with,” he says. “They would jump out and can actually harm the bearded dragons.” But during a vet visit for a deformity in Godzilla’s tail, the vet suggested he try Dubia roaches, a much more nutritious (and less finicky) option for the growing dragons.
“Nobody around here sold them, so eventually I ordered some online,” Wong says. “And my bearded dragons — the two of them — ate through them super quick, and they’re kinda expensive, too, so after that, I started breeding them. Once I had a successful colony and my dragons were at a pretty good age where they didn’t need as much, I reached out to people on Facebook and they were like, ‘Well, I’ll buy some.’”
As one would expect, breeding roaches proved an interesting task. Initially, Wong kept them in his “small, not even walk-in” closet. “I would hear them at night,” he says. “It was creepy, and now I don’t sleep in the same room as them.” Instead, he says, the roaches have taken over the upstairs bedroom and closet in the house he shares with three roommates. “I think right now I’m close to 100,000 [roaches], or between 100,000 to 200,000.”
Though initially focused on curating a local brand, once Wong started his website and promoted his business on social media, the Dubia Dude began shipping nationally, and he quit his T-Mobile job. “I actually got my first [online] order while out of town, so basically my mom ended up packaging up the order and shipping it out, which was really nice of her. She’s helped me a lot.”
In fact, Wong’s mom’s influence has spread into his business practices, as she encouraged him and his siblings to be environmentally conscious and to always recycle. Out of this mindset came the idea to reuse plastic bottles to ship the roaches. “So they’re not loose in the box,” Wong explains. “I based it off of ease of use for the customer so you can take the [mesh] top off the bottle and shake them out.” So far, the Dubia Dude has reused over 7,000 bottles sourced from family and friends.
But Dubia Dude’s green footprint doesn’t end there. “I’m trying to do the whole cycle,” Wong says, so all dead roaches end up in a compost, sometimes his mom’s, sometimes his assistant’s. “We create a lot of fertilizer. I’m trying to create a liquid fertilizer for people to use,” he says. “I know that the roaches [who are fed only organic food] are super high in nutrients. As fertilizer, they’re really good to use.”
As Wong continues to grow his business and delve into other areas of interest, such as real estate, scuba diving, and rock-climbing, he hopes to emulate his father’s work ethic and his mother’s humility, and maybe even acquire a few other reptilian pets for his collection, which has since grown to include two scorpions and a colony of hissing cockroaches.
Tower of Babel, 2021. (Photo: Courtesy Kenneth Wayne Alexander)
When Beeple sold an NFT for $69 million in March 2021, I can bet $69 million that you hadn’t heard of NFTs before then. Okay, maybe that’s just me. But digital art has been around since the 1960s as artists experimented with early computer art. Today, though, after a pandemic-induced shift toward virtual environments, digital art seems more mainstream than ever. “Whether or not you think this is valid art,” says Patricia Daigle, “the way we use digital, it’s just part of who we are. I think you’ll just increasingly see [digital] art in general.”
Daigle, who has curated the Brooks’ latest exhibition “Another Dimension: Digital Art in Memphis,” points out that digital art is not just “a tiny GIF or something you can view on the screen, that the digital can be thought of as a tool or space.” In this exhibit, artists like Kenneth Wayne Alexander II, Karl Erickson, and Anthony Sims, do turn to animation and NFTs as their preferred medium, but Coe Lapossy and Sarai Payne demonstrate the use of digital in sculpture featuring video and collage using online images and Photoshop.
“I find it really interesting how artists of all backgrounds are using these digital tools,” Daigle says. “I think it’s really interesting and exciting we’re living in this moment where [a new art movement is] being developed. … The market and sort of the attitudes are always shifting. What you’re looking at isn’t staying static.”
To speak on our constantly changing, hyper-digitized world, the Brooks is hosting two panels this weekend, the first of which will touch on how and why artists engage with digital forms, the second of which will delve into NFTs. “We’re almost at a point where we feel overwhelmed by technology,” Daigle says, but she hopes that by engaging with the exhibition we can find pleasure in the digital and perhaps reflect on our connection to technology, “whether it’s positive or negative or neither.”
“Another Dimension: Digital Art in Memphis,” Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, on Display through September 11. Artists’ Talk: Art in the Digital Age, Friday, July 15, 6 p.m. | NFTs: Beyond Boom or Bust, Saturday, July 16, 2 p.m.
