Year in Review: Savannah's art scene gaining traction for under-rated, -represented artists

It might be recency bias, but one of the most powerful visual arts pieces I saw this year was Samantha Mack’s installation “Things Removed” at the new Studio Capilla, a house gallery of sorts run by fellow multi-disciplinary artist Eduardo Capilla.

Mack had shown a bit at group shows at Sulfur Studios in 2020 and 2021, but it was last year’s solo “Through a Kaleidoscope” where she really made herself known to the Savannah art scene (or to this writer, at least). The exhibition was an expansive collection of crocheted color sculptures of illuminated butterflies, oversized cushions, and delicate lace pieces enclosed in light boxes. It was consuming and delightful, a joy to walk around within.

It would have been easy to imagine her going bigger, more numerous, more complex for her follow-up. Remarkably, however, Mack zigged instead of zagged and stepped way, way back, much to both my surprise and great pleasure. “Things Removed” had but the barest hint of what she’d done before, just a handful of small crocheted chrysalis’ hanging amongst the branches of the cut tree limbs that jutted from, or stretched across, the studio’s walls.

For the installation, the artist also covered the floors in dried leaves, so as the viewer approached the piece to inspect those aforementioned chrysalis’, there was a satisfying crunch of leaves underfoot. And it smelled great in the space, like old house and autumn.

But beyond the aesthetic accomplishment of the piece in and of itself, the thing that struck me when I saw it, and something that I’ve thought about many times since, was how perfectly Mack managed to execute an escape, of sorts, from creating an expectation from her audience that each successive exhibition would be more, more, more. Her pivot to a minimal approach, but one that feels perfectly connected to what she’s shown before, is proof that she can, in my mind at least, do anything. Plus, I can’t imagine what she’ll do next, which is a very good thing.

Here are a few other observations I’ve made this year, in no particular order:

The Isle of Hope Art and Music Festival was very, very white

According to census.gov, 52.7% of Savannah residents identify as Black or African American. And yet, I saw exactly one black artist amongst the vendors at this year’s Isle of Hope Art and Music Festival. Perhaps I missed a few, but there is no doubt that the yearly event simply must do better to include the entire fabric of Savannah’s creative community.

Don’t get me wrong; there were a lot of great artists in attendance, and from those I spoke to, it sounds like it was a successful endeavor. But c’mon, it’s 2023. It’s an abject failure to have such a white-centric event in a multicultural city like ours. Might I suggest adding a person of color to the creative team behind the event? Right now, all seven decision-makers listed on the website are white, which likely has something to do with the lack of melanin amongst the participants.

Uplift: Revitalized Gordonston Art Fair is put on by locals, for local artists and community

Local Fare: Savannah's Hello Neighbor creates connection through Multi-Neighborhood Fall Festival

There were a lot of art festivals this year

Speaking of Isle of Hope Art and Music Festival, there were a lot of local art fairs this year, more than I can remember seeing in at least a decade. I wrote about two: Hello Neighbor’s Multi-Neighborhood Fall Festival and Gordonston Art Fair, but that barely scratched the surface of the artistic offerings available to Savannahians in 2023.

With the twice-yearly favorite SLAM continuing its run of strong showings, ARTS Southeast’s regular First Friday street fairs, and the seemingly endless string of artisan events along DeSoto Row in the Starland District, I felt like there was some sort of art-based happening almost every week.

One big out-of-town festival came to our city for the first time, as well. In spite of it’s high price tag for participation, however, Superfine Art Fair was at best underwhelming, at worst a cash grab for the organizers, who deigned it appropriate to charge thousands of dollars to artists who were simply not ready to have their work shown in such an environment.

Regardless, more opportunities for local artists to show and sell increases the likelihood that those artists can actually make a living from their work alone, so I’m all for it. That said, could all you organizers out there communicate a bit better so that all these events don’t happen on the same weekend in October? Please and thank you.

Will Sunday Supper stop serving?

Besides art festivals, October brought an announcement from acclaimed Savannah-based painter, muralist, and tattoo artist Zay Hutchins that 2023’s final “Sunday Supper” event was being cancelled due to a lack of artist participation.

For the uninitiated, Sunday Supper is the brainchild of Hutchins, musician Phillip Davis (aka Phil Beach), and DJ Carlitobaby, real name Charles Singleton. Each month or so the trio would choose a theme, then put on a big art, music, and dance party at The Collage, a space in which Hutchins and Davis hold an ownership stake. It started three years ago in Hutchins’ former mall art gallery and studio, and has become a reliable showcase for up and coming creatives, especially for young black artists.

In his Facebook posting about the cancellation, Hutchins noted that the event has been facing diminishing returns, and the plan for 2024 is to scale it back to a quarterly occurrence. But with the talented artist recently adding a baby girl to his list of responsibilities, I wonder if the juice won’t be worth the squeeze, and we may have eaten our last meal, so to speak.

If it is the end, indulge me a moment to praise all three of the creatives who brought Sunday Supper to Savannah. Don’t give up gentlemen: Savannah needs what you do.

“I Am Who I Am” is who I thought that they were

I first started hearing about SOY X SOY (pronounced soy como soy, which translates to “I am who I am”), the Savannah-based Latin/Native American artist collective, in the summer of 2022 while interviewing Tafy LaPlanche for a piece on up and coming local creatives. By the fall of that year, the new group had its first show “EL SALÓN” at Savannah’s Cultural Arts Center Gallery, an exhibition I covered, giving me the opportunity to get to know more of their membership.

With folks like ARTS Southeast’s AJ Perez, photographer Adriana Iris Boatwright, and acclaimed muralist Adolfo Alvarado on board, I had high hopes for the group. But I’ve learned through experience to adopt a wait and see approach, because frequently the initial energy of a new endeavor like this ultimately gives over to the doldrums of wrangling cats (aka artists), and, unfortunately, what was once a good idea becomes a chore that the members simply stop doing.

Not so with SOY X SOY.

The metaphorical band has not only stayed together but grown, and 2023 ended up being a year-long coming out party of sorts for the collective. They did another show at the Cultural Arts Center Gallery, “Reclaiming América,” a provocative look at what it means to be an American, and a blockbuster in terms of attendance. And they put on two art parties, one at Troupial and one at Savoy Society, where the artwork wasn’t just in the paintings and sculptures, but also in the creativity of the chefs, mixologists, and DJs that they’ve invited to be a part of the group.

SOY X SOY also added painter and muralist José Ray to their roster this year, one of the biggest names in the Savannah art scene. Ray does double duty as both artist and DJ, and he has been utilizing his fellow collective members to bring live art-making to his popular “Viernes Chiquito” events, also at Troupial. Moreover, it’s allowed him to re-invigorate “The ArtPort Shuffle,” a rotating four artist collaborative live painting project, where each creative has a set time to work on a piece before passing it on to the next artist, resulting in four completed pieces each touched by all four artists. These he then auctions off, usually at an absurdly low price. When I stopped by last month the quartet included Ray himself, LaPlanche, emerging painter Michelle Perez, and recent Telfair #art912 artist Duff Yong.

The only downside to all of this year’s success is that SOY X SOY has set a very high bar for themselves.

So about that LaPlanche…

Incidentally, in the scant few years that Tafy LaPlanche has called Savannah home, she’s certainly made her mark. Starting with her “Boxed In/Break Out” project “N/um” for Telfair Museums’ Jepson Center, which featured a series of portraits with skeletal outlines and botanical elements that I found both enrapturing and slightly disturbing, the creative has been a constant presence in the art scene over the past two years.

This year, LaPlanche also welcomed a studio mate in fellow painter Brian MacGregor.

Other than the fact that two high-profile artists are sharing a studio, why does this matter? Because MacGregor’s move was, at least in part, due to the uncertainty that still surrounds the artist studios of City Market. And he’s not the only one to have given up their space. His former neighbor Lisa Rosenmeier left as well. And those are just the folks I know personally.

Early this year, new City Market owners Green Room Partners noted that they wanted to make the area “more family friendly.” That’s great. That should mean more artists, not fewer.

Whatever ultimately happens at the downtown staple, I hope that it doesn’t turn it’s back on the creative community. City Market is one of the few places where artists can actually take advantage of the rampant tourism we have to contend with. Let’s keep it that way.

Rule of Three is dead; long live Cleo the Gallery

Interestingly, the same 2022 article where I first featured LaPlanche, I also noted the excitement surrounding another upstart: Cleo the Gallery.

Back then, Gallery Director Jeanette McCune had her space literally in the back room of another store, which was both outrageously hip and incredibly unfortunate. After a brief period without a home, she ultimately moved into the space previously occupied by Rule of Three Gallery at 915 B Montgomery St.

It was a bittersweet moment for me, because I loved Rule of Three Gallery. Curator and artist Stephanie Forbes is one of the good ones, and I knew how much passion and energy she’d put into the space.

But it was also nice for a closing gallery to not become yet another over-priced mediocre faux-fancy southern fusion restaurant (did I say that out loud?), and instead stay true to the vision Forbes enacted when she transformed the once derelict space into the kind of gallery more often found in bigger cities. Plus, McCune is also one of the good ones, known for her spending transparency and respectful treatment of artists, so it’s heartening to know that the location is in good hands.

Cleo’s roster of artists is very underrated, starting with Ben Tollefson, who finally seems to be getting a fraction of the attention that he deserves for his genre-bending and evocative paintings. Given the talent she has to work with, it’ll be interesting to see what McCune will do with the space in 2024, her first full year in a true gallery location.

The Savannah State University Art Club is everything that is good about art

“Art Club is just a place I can come to so I don’t feel entirely alone anymore,” I quoted Savannah State University Art Club member Ellen Hunter as saying in my piece about the group earlier this year. “Being in Art Club gave me a reason to be here, every Thursday and Friday, just getting through a week, seeing people who care about me.”

I’d first come learn about SSU’s Art Club via Instagram, where I’d seen images of the students posing at art shows at places like Cleo and Sulfur Studios. Criminally under-covered locally, I’m always looking for reasons to explore the artistic happenings at the HBCU, so seeing a bunch of young artists having a great time exploring our art community for the first time was a no-brainer for me to write about.

It reminded me of how powerful art can be as a simple concept, beyond the actual production of viewable objects. The young adults of this group, and no doubt in student art clubs all over the world, became like family in the days following the pandemic. In many cases, as it was for Hunter, the art club was essentially their only social contact for a period.

Another young artist, the incredibly gregarious Kortez Taylor, noted that without the group he’d likely have found himself on another, much more troubled, path.

I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say that the SSU Art Club is saving lives through art, but it’s definitely making them much, much better.

Love it or hate it, A.I. art is a thing now

In speaking with the students at Savannah State, I asked them about A.I. art. I try not to bring my biases to any interview I conduct, but I went in at least leaning towards the thought that they would be the first generation to embrace the new technology.

But they hate it.

“A.I. steals from other artists” I quoted Star Beckett as saying in the aforementioned column.

That piece was published in early October, but their sentiments align with most local artists that I’ve spoken with, especially illustrators. In February I met with gifted graphic novelist Andre Frattino to talk about his disdain for A.I. art, and since then he’s continued to frequently rail against the technology on social media.

And he’s not the only one. All anyone needs to do is scroll through Facebook awhile until they come upon an A.I. generated image being used in an advertisement and click on the comments to find literally hundreds of examples of folks expressing their disdain.

Not everyone is entirely opposed to the idea of using it as an art-making tool, however. Pulitzer Prize winning art critic Jerry Saltz, in speaking to an audience of around 500 people at Georgia Southern Armstrong last month, was asked during the Q&A portion of the event what he thought about its potential impact on the arts. His answer was one I’ve heard echoed by the small minority of folks who don’t seem to mind it, that being that A.I. is just another tool, and artists should make use of it in order to claim ownership of that tool.

But then again, Saltz also recently engaged in an online feud with A.I. artist Refik Anadol, calling the creator’s large projection piece “Unsupervised,” which was recently purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, “a half-million-dollar screensaver.”

More locally, puppeteer and Saw the Wheel theatre company founder Eoley Mulally chose to embrace the form, but in a way that only she can, with a variety show titled “In the Age of A.I. Will There Be Art? Yes There Will Be Art About the Age of A.I..” Arguably, however, the main attraction of the event was much more analog than digital, a pro-robot protest with many of Mulally’s usual collaborators dressed in robot costumes dancing.

The award for “Best Use of A.I. in Art” for 2023, however, must go to Will Penny. The perpetually clever multi-disciplinary creator utilized the controversial medium to turn early 2000s gag gift sensation Big Mouth Billy Bass into a legitimate, interesting, and technically masterful art piece at a burger joint (Green Truck).

Isn’t art grand?

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Savannah art 2023 year in review