When ZieherSmith, the Chelsea-based art gallery operated by Andrea Zieher and her husband Scott, opened a pop-up gallery in the ground floor of a Nashville condo in 2011, artist Adrienne Outlaw knew immediately that Zieher was someone she'd like to work with. "We asked her to lead our very first professional development workshop about a year ago," Outlaw tells the Scene, "and it was by far one of our best."
Since then, Seed Space, the Wedgewood-Houston art organization Outlaw operates with curator Rachel Bubis, has hosted a range of quality workshops, including a talk in December with 2014 Whitney Biennial curator Michelle Grabner. But Outlaw wanted this month's series of professional development workshops to be different.
"Andrea and I sat down and discussed how to orchestrate those workshops to get the most out of them," Outlaw explains, citing past frustrations among participants of various professional abilities and skill sets as a key concern. The resulting month of programming that Zieher and Outlaw have put together addresses the multiple motivations of Nashville's creative community. Tonight's reception is a free opening that acts kind of like a meet-and-greet among Nashville artists.
"I curated a film night during our 2012 pop-up," Zieher tells the Scene, "and it was very well-received, so I was inspired to do it again. I find all these films to be both visually stunning and conceptually rigorous."
Among the films at tonight's hourlong reception at Track One, the Fourth Avenue South building that's been host to Seed Space since its move from Chestnut Square earlier this year, are Alison Schulnik's "Eager" (2014), Matt Stokes' "Long After Tonight" (2005) and Keren Cytter's "Der Spiegel" (2007). "Eager" is Schulnick's fourth claymation film — a similar video, "The Forest," was a centerpiece of the Frist's Fairytales, Monsters and the Genetic Imagination exhibit — and it's also her longest to date. As for Cytter's "Der Spiegel," Zieher calls it "probably the most famous work by this celebrated young Israeli artist" and sent an email description:
"In this somewhat surreal piece, which has alternately been compared to Greek and Shakespearean drama, a 42-year-old woman confronts her mirror image to deal with issues of aging and sexuality. In a single shot filmed in a small Berlin apartment with actors speaking alternately in English and German, Cytter lyrically addresses big themes of love and mortality with limited means."
See the list of Seed Space professional development workshops above. For more information about the month's programming, visit seedspace.org.
Email arts@nashvillescene.com.
