rather than some things appearing to rise up soft to your chest and a whole lotta' mercy
February 15, 2019-February7, 2020
Hartsfield -Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Atlanta, Georgia

August 11-October 20, 2018
Hudgens Center
Duluth, Georgia

This exhibition continues artist Lauri Stallings' research in choreography as a tool box devised to bring together things that normally never meet, and as a means of moving and surviving between multiple conditions and contexts. The title is meant to offer the public immediate relief from the effort to have to see and make associations, while considering what ways art can help us provide our own answers in these tough times. Five topics throughout the work that the artist feels are important: mounds and curves as portions in topography of the female body; color, which in this country has always been associated with social and cultural background; movement as a visual practice; empathy, as a new form of currency, and meeting beautiful strangers.

rather than some things appearing to rise up soft to your chest and a whole lotta' mercy invites people from 1 to 100 years old to respond freely and openly in a museum that is filled with oscillating rhythms. Stallings' materials have been chosen for their emotional power they give off. The artist is motivated by a wish to connect to things outside what we can see and understand, both the strange and the stranger, and inspire a society.

glo female moving artists will get settled in, and activate choreographies during daily regular museum hours. Stallings is really always trying to develop direct engagement with the public, even if it means working outside the confines of the museum. Parallel to the work, a series of day and nighttime happenings, movement shops, and community talks will take place. glo will travel off-site with materials from the exhibition and activate historic Downtown Duluth. The work evolves as its own platform on multiple levels and as a continuous project altered daily for the public to be free.

Lauri Stallings is the recipient of the 2017 Hudgens Prize.

PRESS
2018 Year in Review: Art & Design: Deanna Sirlin for ArtsATL
A conversation with Hudgens Prize finalist: Catherine Rush for ArtsATL
Hudgens Prize announcement: Burnaway
Hudgens Prize announcement: AJC
Hudgens Prize announcement: ArtsATL.com