“Beverly’s Athens,” the first major solo exhibition of the work of Beverly Buchanan, is slated to open at the Athenaeum on Saturday, Jan. 17. A press and VIP preview will be held from 3 to 4 p.m. before a general public opening reception from 4 to 6 p.m.
Beverly Buchanan was an artist who lived in Athens for over two decades. The exhibition will highlight the impact of the local community and its conditions on Buchanan’s work. It will also emphasize two pieces of Buchanan’s life in Athens: her persistence against chronic illness in the face of unequal healthcare systems and her plight to learn and bring to light Black Southern traditions, geography and forms.
Curated by Mo Costello and Katz Tepper, the exhibition takes from local friends, supporters and caregivers of Buchanan and features print media, drawings, sculptures, research and more. These materials all give context to Buchanan’s popular “shack” works, which are small-scale sculptures of homes that Black tenant farmers lived in.
“Beverly’s Athens” will run until March 21. The exhibition marks the spring reopening of Athenaeum, the University of Georgia’s non-collecting contemporary art gallery in affiliation with the Lamar Dodd School of Art..
For more information, contact Rachel Waldrop, director and curator of the Athenaeum, at rachel.waldrop@uga.edu and http://athenaeum.uga.edu/. Information on parking and accessibility can be found here.