City formalizes Coliseum deal with Wiseacre Brewing
The Memphis City Council on Tuesday cemented its vote to lease the Mid-South Coliseum to Wiseacre Brewing by approving the minutes of its Aug. 23 meeting over objections from the promoter of a competing Coliseum plan.
Wiseacre will have 180 days to investigate the feasibility of its plan to redevelop the building to house its brewery operations, among other uses.
The vote followed a last-ditch effort by Brian Saulsberry to persuade council members to instead adopt his plan to lease and spend $20 million to redevelop the Coliseum as an events and concert venue, anchoring a larger plan to use the Fairgrounds for youth sports.
Saulsberry argued that a venue of fewer than 5,000 seats wouldn’t violate a noncompete agreement the city signed with FedExForum, but council members said city attorneys had already reviewed the agreement and determined that it prohibits the city from being involved in the construction or operation of an enclosed venue like the Coliseum — no matter the size of the events.
Artist Dread Scott, a self-described “creator of revolutionary art to propel history forward,” will give a free lecture and performance on the relationship of art, political activism, race and social inequality at 6 p.m. Thursday in Hardie Auditorium at Rhodes College.
The event’s title is “The Impossibility of Freedom in a Country Founded on Slav- ery and Genocide.”
Born Scott Taylor and raised in Chicago, Dread Scott’s professional name — “as real as Bob Dylan, David Bowie or Chuck D,” the artist has declared — offers a purposeful homage to Dred Scott, the man at the center of an 1857 decision in which the Supreme Court declared that even a freed slave could not be an American citizen.
Scott, who works in a wide variety of media, first earned national attention in 1989 with “an installation for audience participation” at the Art Institute of Chicago titled “What Is the Proper Way to Display an American Flag?” The piece included a flag spread on the floor of the gallery, leading to a ledger on a shelf; the most convenient way to access the shelf to write answers to the piece’s title question inside the book was to walk across or stand on the flag. President George H.W. Bush declared the piece “disgraceful,” and it figured prominently in congressional attempts to make flag desecration illegal.
Some new work by Scott will be included in an exhibition that opens Friday at the college’s Clough-Hanson Gallery. Titled “The Weight of Hope,” the group exhibit features work inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and other affiliated protest initiatives.
Scott’s appearance is part of the Rhodes College “Communities in Conversation” series. A 5:30 p.m. reception precedes the talk.