“In the end,” H.W. Janson wrote in his standard History of Art, “works of art exist in order to be liked rather than to be debated.”
Really?
When the latest gallery shows opened earlier this month–three of them–debates were quick and on occasion bitter (see the comments). There’s Beth Garren and JJ Graham at Hollingsworth Gallery at City Market Place in Palm Coast. There are 41 artists in the “Color Splash” show by the Flagler County Art League, a few doors down from Hollingsworth. And there’s Peter Cerreta at the Gallery of Local Art in Flagler Beach. All three shows, on exhibit through the end of the month, pack their share of “pleasing” and provocative works.
Click On:
- Craving Art? Garren, Graham, Cerreta and More Dish It Out: 3 Local Galleries, 3 New Shows
- On Point: Color Splash from Hollingsworth To the Art League
- Bucking Long-Range Goals, Palm Coast Again Scales Back Cultural Arts Grants Funding
No photographic reproduction ever equals the experience of seeing a work of art in person. So the gallery presented below of samples from the three shows is intended only to whet your appetite to go see those shows for yourself, if you haven;t already, or to go see them again and maybe engage the questions they raise. Or raise new ones.
And keep in mind what Mark Twain said about art (in Innocents Abroad): “It vexes me to hear people talk so glibly of ‘feeling,’ ‘expression,’ ‘tone,’ and those other easily acquired and inexpensive technicalities of art that make such a fine show in conversations concerning pictures. There is not one man in seventy-five hundred that can tell what a pictured face is intended to express. There is not one man in five hundred that can go into a court-room and be sure that he will not mistake some harmless innocent of a juryman for the black-hearted assassin on trial. Yet such people talk of ‘character’ and presume to interpret ‘expression’ in pictures.”
Hollingsworth Gallery: 160 Cypress Point Pkwy. Suites 209B & 210B (second floor at City Market Place), Palm Coast. Hours: Monday – Friday, 12–6 p.m. and by appointment. Call 386/871-9546
Flagler County Art League: City Market Place, 160 Cypress Point Parkway, Suite 207C (Second Floor). Office and Gallery hours: Wednesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Call 386/986-4668.
Gallery of Local Art: 208 South Central Ave., Flagler Beach. Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. every day except Tuesday and Sunday, when the gallery is closed. Call 386/439-6659.
Gallery of the Galleries: The Three Shows[nggallery id=50]
stuck in Palm Coast says
I’d like to see a BIG art show in Palm Coast. Maybe they can all get together and get this done!!!
Well... says
I fail to see the provocation in the art that was supplied for this site. Perhaps I see the beauty in artistic expression and therefore do not see controversial or provocative imagery in anything that is the result of creative licensing. I want to see more of these events in Palm Coast that way I do not have to go to Jacksonville or Orlando to experience culture at its finest.