Agnes

Agnes was an art gallery specializing in photography and book arts that was open in Birmingham from 1992 to 2000. The gallery promoted social causes as well as artistic talent, often mounting controversial exhibitions dealing with AIDS, racism, imprisonment, and other social justice issues through photography, film and video, poetry and book arts.

The gallery was opened in 1992 next door to Studio 2030 Gallery and was located at 2030A 11th Avenue South. Louis Hill's Studio 2030 gallery was already established when Agnes Gallery moved into the space next door.

These two galleries in 5 Points South became a very vibrant art place for Birmingham in the next coming years few years.

Founded and opened by artist Jon Coffelt, along with his two partners Shawn Boley and Jan Hughes. The first location was at 2030-A 11th Avenue South near Five Points South, but Studio 2030 closed and the gallery decided to move to 2829 2nd Avenue South, at Dr Pepper Place in Lakeview. With no real traffic or restaurants to pull in clients in 1998, Agnes moved again, to the Hugh Martin Cottage at 1919 15th Avenue South where it remained until Coffelt closed the gallery in 2000, after eight years and 77 exhibitions, to focus on his artwork.

Exhibitions

• Melissa Springer's Julia Tutwiler Prison Series was Agnes' first exhibit.
• Alexandre Glyadelov's [1] Homeless in Bosnia with Médecins sans Frontières was the gallery's last exhibit.
• Agnes worked with Visual AIDS and "The Electric Blanket" [2] and hosted its first "World's AIDS Day" in 1992 with "A Day without Art". [3]
• UPsouth traveled to several venues across Birmingham, including Space One Eleven, Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Visual Arts Gallery, and Agnes itself. [4] It showed the work of artists Emma Amos and Willie Cole and writer bell hooks, as well as Ann Benton, Priscilla Hancock Cooper, Karen Graffeo, Lee Isaacs, Mary Ann Sampson, J. M. Walker and Marie Weaver. [5]
• The gallery assisted Ellen Fleurov with her Olympic exhibition at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta called Picturing the South. (The exhibition is described in Allison Eckardt Ledes' "The South in photographs: Artistic pictures taken from Savannah, GA" for Magazine Antiques (July 1996). See also Ellen Dugan, ed., Picturing the South (San Francisco: Chronicle), Acknowledgements, p. 10.) This exhibition was also made into a book by Susan Sipple Elliott, The South by Its Photographers.

Artists

Agnes artists list included: Sara Garden Armstrong, Pinky Bass, Sadie Benning, Ruth Bernhard, Mare Blocker, Cal Breed, Elisa Bryan, Kevin Bubriski, Dan Budnik, Denise Carbone, Jim Cohen, Liesa Cole, Clayton Colvin, Paul Caponigro, Danah Coester, Randal Crow, Craig Cutler, Craig Daniels, Mark Dauber, Jurgen Dopatka, Al Edwards, Roberta Eichenberg, Timothy Ely, Paulo Ferrario, Adrienne Ford, Mitchell Gaudet, Nina Glaser, Alexandre Glyadelov, Alice Goodwin, William K. Greiner, Kelly Grider,Jerry Griffies, Robert John Guttke, J. D. Hayward, Susan Hensel, James Herbert, Jenny Holzer, Davi Det Hompson, Christina Hope, Shig Ikeda, Sally Johnson, Adrian Jones, Steven Katzman, Susan E. King, Janice Kluge, Jim Koss, Cam Langley, Lori Lavoy, Ruth Laxson, O. Winston Link, Miranda Maher, Patrick Martin, Spider Martin, Matuschka, Ian McFarland, Bart Michiels, Dana Moore, Julie Moos, R. J. Muna, Hermann Nitsch, Ray Lewis Payne, Liz Phelps, Jim Pitts, Vicki Ragan, Patricia Richardson, Tut Altman Riddick, Stewart Riddle, Iris Rinke-Hammer, Anita Ronderos, Jessica Rosner, Ed Ruscha, Lori Salcedo, John Patrick Salsbury, David Sandlin, Elise Mitchell Sanford, Claire Jeanine Satin, Stephen Savage, Virginia Scruggs, Joel Seah, Volker Seding, Vincent Serbin, Robert A. Shaefer jr., Susan Share, Carolyn Sherer, Jack Spencer, Maggie Taylor, Jason Thrasher, Arthur Tress, Thomas Tulis, Jerry Uelsmann, James Vella, Adriene Veninger, Joe Veras, Linda Voychehovski, John Wawrzonek, Nancy Webber, Randy West, and Timothy Wolcott.

See also

Studio 2030

References

• "Agnes (gallery)." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 19 Nov 2006, 16:51 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 20 Nov 2006 [6].

External links

• Visual AIDS
• UPsouth with Space One Eleven
• Day Without Art