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 by artist Jon Coffelt, along with partners Shawn Boley and Jan Hughes. The first location was at 2030-A 11th Avenue South near Five Points South, but the gallery later moved to 2829 2nd Avenue South, at Dr Pepper Place in Lakeview. 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 worked with many other artists: Sara Garden Armstrong, Pinky Bass, Ruth Bernhard, Mare Blocker, Dan Budnik, Clayton Colvin, Paul Caponigro, Al Edwards, Mitchell Gaudet, Nina Glaser, Karen Graffeo, William K. Greiner, Susan Hensel, Davi Det Hompson, Christina Hope, Shig Ikeda, Lee Isaacs, Steven Katzman, Susan E. King, Janice Kluge, Jim Koss, Cam Langley, Ruth Laxson, O. Winston Link, Spider Martin, Matuschka, Ray Lewis Payne, Vicki Ragan, Ed Ruscha, Mary Ann Sampson, David Sandlin, Claire Jeanine Satin, Virginia Scruggs, Joel Seah, Volker Seding, Vincent Serbin, Robert A. Shaefer Jr, Carolyn Sherer, Jack Spencer, Melissa Springer, Thomas Tulis, Jerry Uelsmann, Adriene Veninger, Jess Marie Walker, Marie Weaver, Nancy Webber and Randy West among others.
References
- "Agnes (gallery)." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 19 Nov 2006, 16:51 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 20 Nov 2006 [6].