Team Lump
July 27, 2020
In the Heat of the Night, 1967, directed by Norman Jewison Sidney Poitier imbued the characters he played with power and unimpeachable morality. But that flawlessness, which he was repeatedly expected to perform, often translated into a sort of neuter elitism which excluded the social realities of Black America. This film, In the Heat of the Night (1967) places Poitier in a similarly awkward position, playing a liberated Northerner in the Jim Crow South, where his professional expertise is desperately needed and unambiguously resented. It sounds like a decent logline, but when you consider the off screen reality of the deadliness of racism, paired with our understanding of how “liberated” those Northern cities actually are for people of color, it appears once again that Hollywood is playing out its misguided fantasy of what an upstanding Black American should be, then […]
July 27, 2020
In the unusually sweltering summer of 2011 in Boone, NC, I worked as a track attendant at Fun N’ Wheels, the High Country’s premiere tetanus-addled go-kart track and tourist trap that, judging by the plush Izzy doll in the claw machine, hadn’t been updated (or likely inspected) since 1996. The wages were low, the days were slow and I was way into it– a mostly pleasant haze of gasoline fumes and ennui. Shifts were mostly spent kicking back in one of the cars, eating gas station hot dogs and thumbing through something like a Camus novel between dozey bouts of navel-gazing as we awaited customers. I don’t recall much of the work-work, but did occasionally putter around the track to pass the time or feed rubber to a birthday party of youngins. Much to the dismay of the two frat […]
July 12, 2020
Naturally, in observance of the immensity of the Black Lives Matter movement, I’ve stalled a bit with these weekly selections and labored over how best to get back in the groove. This week’s features each grabbed hold of my ears, mind and spirit out of the blue, for whatever reasons. They’re lesser-known than most– scrappy Demigods perhaps, on the fringe but certainly no less deserving of the consideration and celebration of Titans like The Coltranes that we all know and love. They’re the type of artists that I desperately seek along the road to finding and sharing more wonderful and startling creative outposts and since they’ve been simmering in the queue for a good while, I figured it was as good a time as any to serve ‘em up. Fred E. Scott is a total enigma, but whoever he is, […]
July 12, 2020
The Fits, 2016, directed by Anna Rose Holmer, story by Anna Rose Holmer, Saela Davis, Lisa Kjerulff The Fits is a rare treat. It’s deeply considered without being pretentious, mesmerizing without sacrificing story, political without uttering a word of rhetoric. It also proves that a fantastic film can be created on a minuscule budget. This one weighs in at a featherweight, $168,000 which by the standards of practically any era of film making is chump change. It’s about eleven year old Toni who is training to be a boxer along with her older brother. Toni becomes enamored by a dance team that practices in a gymnasium close by, and eventually she trades her pugilistic ambitions for a spot on the team. But there’s something weird going on. One by one, dancers are afflicted with mysterious “fits” that have them seizing […]
March 23, 2020
FÄQUE KNEWS, beginning March 27th online Thanks to COVID- 19, we are forced to reconsider our use of the gallery space, in a moment when its traditional function is a sudden liability to public health. Like most art spaces, Lump has shut its doors and retracted into an entirely digital space. But instead of showing images of work that are originally designed to be experienced with feet on the ground, eyeball to canvas, Lump is investing its energy in showcasing work that is meant to exist solely in a digital space. FÄQUE KNEWS is the first of a series of exclusively digital projects that circumvent the traditional model of exhibition. Geraldo Rivera recently told us on national T.V. that if we can hold our breath for more than ten seconds, then we clearly don’t have the Corona virus. That type […]
March 23, 2020
FLICK, PAPERBACK, SOUND While you’re sequestered, look at the bright side. Time suddenly feels like it did when you were ten. It yawns. It drags. It lays bare, huge swaths of itself. That’s an awful prospect when you’re a kid, but knowing what you know now, consider the luxurious reality of having the time to catch up on that back log of entertainment you’ve been wishfully adding to for years. Through HIT LIST, Team Lump will share its entertainment favs with you. We’re talking about essential material that has, in some part, defined our culture, both high and low. So, if your watch list is depleted, you’re sick of hearing that nagging ear worm, or you just ripped through the last of the Travis McGee pulp series, then check in every Friday for an ever growing list of movies, books […]
February 8, 2020
NIGHT OF THE HUNTER film screening, Friday February 28th, 7pm Robert Mitchum’s preacher, in this Hollywood classic, is unadulteratedly evil. He is Species Complex, incarnate. Like an animal on the prowl in some fable, he moves slowly and speaks deliberately, with conviction. He is, at once, a chameleon and a predator. And he’s hunting children. Projected in High Definition from a new digital restoration from the original 35mm, black and white negative. Free admission and free popcorn.
February 8, 2020
LORD OF THE FLIES and CARNAL KNOWLEDGE – double feature film screening, Friday March 6th, 7pm and 9pm, respectively This unlikely double feature offers two more angles on the theme of Jeff Whetstone’s, Species Complex.First: What happens when a group of school boys are stranded on an island with no adult supervision? According to the legendary book of the same name (the one that we were all forced to read in the 9th grade), they regress to humankind’s base nature. The strong rule by violence, and the weak suffer quietly. But, they don’t become total animals. These marooned Catholics, at least, maintain allegiance to a god. One that exists in the flesh, right on the island. Darwin would be giddy and disturbed. Second: What happens when two college students set out to lose their virginity? Nothing remotely like you’ll see in Porky’s or American Pie. Carnal Knowledge is quite possibly one of the most slyly upsetting movies […]
February 8, 2020
MILLIE and FLOOR MODEL performances on Friday, March 13th, 8pm More experimental music from two spectacularly hypnotic performers.
February 8, 2020
BLOUNT FORCE MAGAZINE #2 Available February, 28th. We’re calling this issue, The Beyond. Read about moments that occurred at threshold of the unknown. See images that leave you hanging, ill at ease. We’ve collected a handful of artists’ accounts of the afterlife, UFOs, telekinesis, terrorists, magicians, cults and more. Blount Force #2 preaches Team Lump’s collective faith in the inexplicable. It’s a notion that nearly every artist enshrines in their creative practice, because if we knew for sure what our strangest experiences were and what they meant, we’d be bored to death, all the way into The Beyond. Stop by the gallery in March and grab a copy, or go to, blountforce.org to place an order. You can also add it to your bag of printed goodies from The Concern Newsstand at, theconcernnewsstand.com.
February 8, 2020
SPECIES COMPLEX Pictures and films by Jeff Whetstone February 7th through March 14th The term “Species Complex” describes the muddled area where the distinction between different species becomes unclear. Jeff Whetstone, who was originally trained as a zoologist, offers new meaning to that term, through a series of deeply toned, floor to ceiling, gelatin silver prints and a stark, video installation, taken from degraded images produced by infrared hunting cameras. Many of the images are startlingly intimate. Through them, Jeff leads us by the hand into a beautiful but unsettling place, where humans and their supposedly lower counterparts in mutual existence, look and behave nearly the same. jeffwhetstone.net The first book I ever bought was the Audubon Field Guide to North American Reptiles and Amphibians. I was eleven years old when my mother took me to the mall where it was on a lower shelf in the Christian Book Store in the Nature section. This book became my […]
February 7, 2020
The Concern Newsstand The Concern Newsstand has such a name because of a concern that the world is falling to distracted mindlessness and that we’re all reading from physical, paper objects less and less. A ‘concern’ is also the name of a ‘business’. The Chapel Hill / Carrboro, NC area no longer has m/any used book or magazine stores. The Newsstand is offering this service to the community. It is also a venue for local artists & artists from beyond to sell their printed materials & limited edition products. Housed in a gallery & among artist studios, it is a meeting spot & hang out place. The curated focus is to expand one’s mind in some way beyond the mundane via artist books, comics, art books, magazines, small press publishers, used books, vintage magazines & more. The curator & artist behind […]