The Front: Straight Shot
09/18/2015 - 10/24/2015
MASS excitedly welcomes The Front—a New Orleans artist-run collective and not-for-profit gallery—to Austin for a group exhibition made up of new work by its current members.
Affectionately known as a “shotgun” house for their linear approach to room design, these dwellings hold architectural connections to the Afro-Caribbean diaspora. In the past, the shotgun home had a specific connotation to the working class and to renters. This has dramatically changed in the current urban housing void.
The Front utilizes the form of the shotgun house to emphasize each of our roles in the process of running a collective. Each of us work individually as artists. We also have a group identity working in combination to achieve goals that would otherwise prove to be impossible. The design of our gallery space in New Orleans derives from the classic corner grocery. The shows in our four rooms are experienced in serial sequence like the straight-shot rooms in a shotgun house. Sequences build associations and meaning. As a collective, we seek honest and direct connection between art and audience without intermediary or detour.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
The Front, an artist-run collective and not-for-profit gallery, fosters the development of contemporary art in the city of New Orleans through innovative exhibitions, lectures, screenings, performances, and other arts programming, all of which are free and open to the public. Founded by artists in 2008 amidst the post-Katrina resurgence of New Orleans and committed to a spirit of grassroots DIY determinism, The Front cultivates new and experimental work, in particular from emerging artists, but also from nationally and internationally known artists.
The Front is:
Opening Reception refreshments provided generously by JuiceLand.