Bill Lowe Gallery, located in Atlanta’s Miami Circle, announces a rebrand as Johnson Lowe Gallery under the new leadership of Donovan Johnson, previously co-director at the gallery. The re-establishment follows the legacy of Founding Director Bill Lowe, who passed in 2021, and coincides with the launch of a comprehensive exhibition schedule and potential off-site projects and programming in Atlanta, championing Atlanta-based and international artists.
Future programming includes “Sleeping Giants” , affirming the importance of previously overlooked artists, including Herbert Creecy, Thornton Dial, and Sam Glankoff (May – June), Ilidio Candja Candja & Navin Norling (July – August) from Africa and the United States, respectively, drawing on the parallels and differences within the Black experience globally, and “In Unity as in Division” (September- November), a multi-expo group show highlighting new perspectives in practices of seven Atlanta-based artists.
Co-curated by art critic and curator Seph Rodney and gallery director Donovan Johnson, new programming commences with a group show, The Alchemists (March 3 – April 22, 2023), featuring works by twenty-nine artists constructing new forms of expression rooted in the Black experience and ancestral legacies.
Participating artists include Sanford Biggers, Mark Bradford, Layo Bright, Danielle Deadwyler, DARNstudio, Thornton Dial, William Downs, Leonardo Drew, Rico Gatson, Shanequa Gay, Todd Gray, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Lyle Ashton Harris, Ashanté Kindle, Michi Meko, Shervone Neckles, Masela Nkolo, Navin Norling, Yanique Norman, Masud Olufani, Yaw Owusu, Ebony G. Patterson, Ato Ribeiro, Devan Shimoyama, Renée Stout, Felandus Thames, Shoshanna Weinberger, Cosmo Whyte, Brenna Youngblood.
Johnson Lowe Gallery has long been interested in the creative process of constructing, reimagining, appropriating, and rendering source materials, both natural and artificial, into unanticipated forms akin to the ancient alchemical quest for longevity and immortality. Referencing cinema, literature, and music, the exhibition underscores how alchemy has long been a part of the Black experience and, thus, part of Black artistic practice. For example, witness how via hip-hop, jazz, and of course, the blues – musical genres built upon woe and misery – artists have generated excellence from the worst of conditions.
This museum quality exhibition positions a group of internationally renowned artists together to reflect on the transmutation of the Black experience and ancestral legacy. Featuring works across a wide range of materials — painting, video, collage, assemblage, and installation — The Alchemists acts as a critical platform for the exploration of ideologies concerning what it means to be Black and the celebration of Black material culture, traditions, and collective identity, which are often undervalued and ignored in mass culture. Ultimately, this show demonstrates that changing, altering, and transforming our current reality remains possible through aesthetic exploration.
Notes to Editors
Title: The Alchemists
Dates: March 3 – April 22, 2023
Address: 764 Miami Cir NE #210, Atlanta, GA 30324
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