Critical Mass 13: Get Up Close and Personal
Critical Mass 13: Get Up Close and Personal
By Caleb Bell
Upon entering the Critical Mass 13 exhibition, one might feel overwhelmed. From bright paintings to subdued mixed-media sculptures, the colors found throughout the gallery range the entire spectrum. The mediums used in the salon-style show are only outnumbered by the subjects they represent. And boasting over 100 works of art, though carefully arranged, there is no rest for the eye. So why go? You might be asking yourself this point because you need to.
This annual exhibition provides a perfect pulse check on the regional art scene, offering a comprehensive overview of what's happening and who's doing it. Viewing opportunities like this are rare. It is just as much a celebration of community as it is of artistic merit.
With drastically varying degrees of experience and professionalism hung side by side, a viewer doesn't know what to expect around the corner, and therein lies the beauty. It takes time and patience to soak it all in, but close inspection reveals a few hidden gems.
One piece that stands out above the rest is "Crown Me" by Irene Gallion, which happens to be this year's Critics' Choice winner. The portrait's size and scale immediately demand your attention. Its color palette draws you in while its detailing holds your gaze. The sitter, posed in an homage to Barron Claiborne's famous 1997 portrait of The Notorious B.I.G. as the King of New York, wears a crown adorned with hints of gold. The gold accents could have easily been gimmicky, but their reserved use reinforces that Gallion knows what she is doing. That attention to detail continues onto the figure's clothing. Bearing the pattern of a black and white composition notebook, the sitter's shirt contains several empowering elements, including a sticky note reading "You got this!" and a bandage with the word "healed" on it.
"Waterlogged" by Whitney Tates holds its own as well. It pushes the idea of what a portrait can be. At just 11 by 14 inches, the small piece packs an emotional punch. Executed in soft pink and light blue, the figure's tears roll out of her eyes, filling her body. Equally subtle and overt, the piece evokes an undeniable sense of grief.
Joshua Chambers' "I Thought I Knew Happiness When It Started" is also not to be missed. The piece's title is set amongst the sky and a silhouetted flock of birds. A scuba diver emerges from the bottom right of the painting with a pink and purple floatie. Despite all those elements, its narrative remains somewhat unclear, allowing viewers to project their own meaning.
The show is an honest reflection of the present moment. Though larger themes unintentionally emerge when viewed as a whole, its true cohesiveness is the idea of place — Northwest Louisiana.
Critical Mass 13 remains on view at Artspace through June 7, 2025.
Review: Drag Performer & Community Organizer 'Su Denim' Wins Critical Mass 13 Performing Arts Competition
By Dori Bosnyak
After reviewing online Critical Mass performance submissions last fall, I arrived at Shreveport's Caddo Common Park — "The Common" — with high expectations and giddy intrigue. While I know how limiting it feels for performing artists to show their work through short clips, their talent nonetheless shone bright through my screen, and this made me excited to view what Shreveport had to offer in person. Once I saw the beautiful 1+ acre creative urban greenspace and the carefully designed stage at the heart of The Common, I knew I was in for a treat.
To provide some context before we dive into the show: Performing artists from Northwest Louisiana share their talents with Critical Mass each year, aiming for the Best in Show title, which comes with a $5,000 cash prize to use for curating a solo performance the following year. Critical Mass is a critics’ series presented by SRAC, culminating in an annual event that showcases some of the region's top artists in literary, visual and performing arts disciplines.
As expected from an open-call performance event, music acts dominated the evening, with a smattering of dance, theater and spoken word broadening the night's offerings. Many of the performances explored the themes of faith, love and flowers, creating an unofficial theme that runs through this collection.
Honorable Mention Edi Ki was a newcomer at this year's Critical Mass. Ki's songwriting encouraged listeners to exercise their voting rights and to keep dreaming — strong and uplifting messages much needed in today's times. Elyric's beautiful vocals and lyrics immediately drew in her audience with rich melodies and presentation, much like Adreana, who closed the evening with a powerhouse performance, stopping patrons in their tracks as some were getting ready to assemble their picnic blankets and head out. Adreana's custom-made outfit and unmatched stage presence commanded attention, and I hope she will return to Critical Mass next year to showcase more.
Arguably, the most energetic moment of the show came with TyeHndrxx, an obvious crowd-pleaser, as he delivered on his promise of creating music that is fun. Siren was a sort of sensual inversion, with his powerful, raspy sound and emotional content plucking at the audience's heartstrings. Slive, an interdisciplinary artist, brought an impressively large and skilled group on stage to perform a theatrical piece with a live band. It was a memorable concept I've never witnessed before.
After lengthy deliberations, this year's Critic's Choice Award was presented to Su Denim, a scintillating drag performer and community activist, who struck a subtle balance between overt camp and a unifying call. Starting with an impactful "The Handmaid's Tale" reference with the backing track of Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." Su Denim finished the eponymous chorus with the message, "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun … Damental Rights." Su Denim truly grabbed everyone's attention. How does one serve not only a call to civic duty but also serve flawless, original looks while maintaining full stage presence from the opening moment of entrance to exit? Condragulations, hunny! I cannot wait to see what Su Denim will create for next year's full-length performance and to get closer to understanding the magic.
A Review: Literary Critical Mass 13
By Misha Rai
Literature and stories are where we see ourselves reflected and learn about lives and experiences. It is also where we learn to honor and hold lives and experiences unlike ours. This year at Critical Mass 13, the literary talent, mostly emerging, some mid-career, and a few established, showcased just that in a moving and varied abundance, making excellent use of the many writing containers available to writers. Some submitted cohesive packets of poetry; others sent a single poem, including a Pecha Kucha. An epilogue from a longer work functioned as a stand alone piece. A short story. Chapters of a novel-in-progress, as well as a section of a young adult novel, one that had already been published. A children's book. And a play.
Like the many forms utilized, the concerns expressed within the submitted words also varied. What stood out was a collective and clear response to how the fabric of the United States of America and the world at large is being remade. The writings, some speculative, were all engaged in witnessing and ensuring that the reader cannot look away from the realities of our current circumstances. Another important aspect of the work that caught my attention was the writers' instinct to seed hope for the future. This move seemed to be almost a call to arms to imagine a better, more generous world where people, in all their fallibility, show up for one another.
The work that rose to the top from an already raw and impressive submission pile did just that. It showed the reader what the world is and can be. In a moving piece of narrative fiction, a young woman traumatized by childhood abuse not only finds support in her mother, who initially overlooked the signs of abuse, but also chooses to find ways that will help her build a healthy relationship with the man she is involved with. In another submission, the speaker of the poem calls above to a Father, repeatedly, trying to make sense of their human experience in all its complicated glory. Still another poet, through a series of poems, envisions the act of freedom and the process, hard and arduous as it may be. And then there is the poem, aptly titled, "Dare to Dream," that calls to account how inequality functions within society, how those in power perpetuate it, and yet, one cannot give up and must dare to dream of "a life of harmony and justice …"
The winning entry, or the winner of the Literary Critics Choice Award this year, was Rebecca Macijeski's "How To," a series of nine poems. These poems titled "How to Come Home," "How to Hear I Love You," "How to Track Joy," "How to Keep a Secret to Yourself," "How to Paint the Sky," "How to Transform," "How to Keep Going," "How to Imagine" and "How to Lose Your Fear of Death" can be mistaken, if one were to merely glance at the titles, as a series of guidelines, but they transcend that. As a collection, they are remarkable in their characterization of the world inhabited and the world imagined. The titles of the poems serve as a jumping-off point for commentary on the natural world, relationships, the unknowability of a person, mythical creatures, the reality of death, color, knowledge, politics, mental health, hope, fear, capitalism and on and on. The breadth of subjects this collection covers, with precise brevity, is to be admired. A whimsy in these poems encourages the reader to lean into that curiosity, so particular of childhood, that allows us to reach beyond ourselves and toward all that is still possible.
