Antenna::Open Call Selections for 2017

We are excited to announce the Antenna:: Open Call selections for exhibitions in 2017!

From a group of 205 national and international applicants, members of the Antenna gallery collective selected Montréal-based artist Sara Nance for a fully funded 2017 solo exhibition, $1000 honorarium, and development of a print publication.

Sara Nance, marking time in light. 2014, Alvord Desert, Eastern Oregon

For the Louisiana award, Curator Danny Orendorff selected New Orleans based artist Lorna Williams from a pool of 103 Louisiana-based working artist applicants. She will develop a solo exhibition at Antenna, receive a $1500 honorarium, and will work with the Antenna team to develop a print publication. Orendorff also selected 14 finalists that will participate in a 2017 group exhibition in collaboration with Parse. Those finalists include: Chris Berntsen, Jason Childers, David Thomas Colannino, Paige DeVries, Ariel Jackson, Jeremy Jones, J Knoblach, Erica Lambertson, Avery Lawrence, Kristin Meyers, Catherine Nelson, the duo of Jessica Peterson and Sara White, Colin Roberson, and Max Seckel.

Of the process, Orendorff stated, “at first I felt primarily honored to be selected as the juror for this year’s Antenna::Open Call for Louisiana Artists however now, having reviewed the often gorgeous, often heartbreaking, intellectually stimulating, and politically provocative work of those that applied, I feel grateful. It is very clear to me that Louisiana is a state rich with talented artists invested in transforming the materiality of their cities into impossibly beautiful meditations on our world and bodies, committed to honoring history and the dead through inventive and even playful rituals or altars, willing to explore the difficult and ever-so-urgent issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality with wit and nuance, expansively drawing upon fantasy to imagine new worlds, identities, and communities, and capable of rendering even the most mundane of spaces or objects as truly wondrous. I am so pleased to have been a part of this process, and want to thank everyone who applied for all the work that you do.

photo by Carly Gaebe from a 2011 interview with Lorna Williams in Art in America Magazine (click here to check it out).

The artist I’ve selected for this great opportunity with Antenna is Lorna Williams. I found Ms. Williams’s work to be visceral, fascinating, and instantly unforgettable. While drawing upon traditions of assemblage, Arte Povera, Funk, Folk, and what’s been
called ‘outsider art,’ her work feels singular – risking categorical incomprehensibility to achieve provocative and imaginative forms beyond easy classification. Her unlikely and spellbinding assemblages combining organic material (from branches to bones and back) and the stuff of hardware stores and dilapidated homes speak to a traditional ethos of the handmade, of hard work, and of craftswomen, while simultaneously seeming to exist in some unforeseen future I, and I’m sure many others, can’t wait to visit.”

The team at Antenna wants to again thank the over three hundred working artists that applied this year and let all of you know that we are humbled at seeing the way you shape the cultural landscape of our city, state, country, and world. For us, this selection process every year is both incredibly inspiring to see such amazing work and close to impossible with so many talented and ambitious artists working in the field today. With an opportunity that is so popular that includes only a handful of selections, we are always disappointed to have to turn down so many amazing artists. We encourage you to stay tuned for our other opportunities here and please apply again!