Showing posts with label Ana Serrano. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ana Serrano. Show all posts

Monday, September 8, 2014

A Gathering of Flies: Texas Contemporary Art Fair, part 1

Robert Boyd


Fly at the Glasstire booth

My first impression was that it felt smaller. I don't have last year's program book, but I have 2012's. This year there were 55 exhibitors (of which four were non-profit spaces), and in 2012 there were 74 (with three non-profit spaces). Last year, when you walked in the door, there were massive artworks by Ann Wood, Sharon Engelstein and the Clayton Brothers greeting you before you even saw a single booth. This time, there were some cars. And 18 of the exhibitors this year were from Houston. In other words, after what felt like three years of growth, this year's fair felt like a retrenchment.

So what is it? The economy? That can't be it--we hear in national media over and over about how well Houston is doing. This time, everything felt scaled down and constrained. Glasstire, which has in the past had elaborate booths with live animals this year had a pedicab. Fun, but not so exciting in terms of sheer spectacle.


Bill Davenport gives me a pedicab ride through the fair

The thing was, on opening night as I surveyed the well-dressed crowd of VIP party attendees, I had an epiphany: Houston shouldn't have an art fair. I'm not going to try to make an economic argument here. If galleries--particularly local galleries--make some profit while there here and in doing so put some money into artists' hands, then I'm wrong and I'll happily cop to it. It just seems like if you are a Houstonian and you want to collect art by local artists, you don't need this fair. And if you want to collect work by artists from other places around the world, get on a plane to Art Basel or Frieze. I realize that not much of the work here was blue chip art, and therefore was relatively affordable, but the same can be said of the art shown at any number of satellite art fairs around Art Basel and Frieze. And to me, that makes TCAF seem surplus to requirements.

The fair would have been a tedious experience if I hadn't had a house guest in town. It is best to have a Virgil along with you when you enter the infernal pit. Artist Matthew Couper was showing his work Zoya Tommy Gallery, so I offered to put him up for the weekend.


Matthew Couper, Kindle, 2014, oil on metal, 5 x 7 inches

His work is a pastiche of Spanish colonial retablos, symbol-laden tableaux painted on very flat pieces of metal. The images are often dark and a bit shadowy. The horizon is low and the space is usually indistinct or bounded with distant mountains. There is always a night sky. The deliberately primitive realism heightens the sense of utter strangeness, the feeling that these things are vessels of arcane knowledge. Of course, Manuel Ocampo has mined similar terrain. One might think also of Michael Tracy, but Tracy's art is much more ecstatic and performance oriented.


Matthew Couper, Horror Vacui! (Stardust), 2014, masking tape and oil on loose linen, 18 x 14 inches

Couper comes from New Zealand but has been living in Las Vegas for the past four years. As screwed up as the Houston art scene sometimes seems, Couper's description of the Las Vegas scene makes Houston sound like paradise. But despite this, Vegas fascinates him, you can see from the piece above (which was not shown at TCAF, alas). His paintings are intriguing and beautiful--if you missed them at TCAF, check them out at Zoya Tommy Gallery.

I mentioned to him how previous TCAFs had seemed larger and more spectacular. I showed him photos of last year's entryway flanked by the two looming Sharon Engelstein blow-ups.  He laid the blame on the art fair promoters. Where was the media? Where was the advertising? Where was the hype? Where was the spectacle?


Andela Andea, Lux Aeterna. cold cathode fluorescent lights, LED lights, flex neon, computer power sources, plastic

The one on-site installation that really impressed me Andela Andea's Lux Aeterna. It was a sprawling, garish piece, hanging off one of the weird radiating posts that dot the convention hall. But to be honest, I liked Alex Tremino's two glowing poles at Diana Lowenstain Gallery better. In the genre of "glowy art", Tremino does more with less.


Alex Tremino, Luminous I and Luminous II, 2013, neon lights, Plexiglass tubes, knitting, crochet, fibers, found objects

In a different hall in the same convention center that weekend was the Big Texas Train Show. How did I find out about them? Simple--they had a billboard up on I-45. Did TCAF have a billboard? Maybe, but if so I never saw it. The only mainstream media coverage of TCAF I saw was this nice article in the Houston Chronicle about Nathaniel Donnett's "Gap store" at the Darke Gallery booth. But maybe I just missed all the camera crews from the local TV stations.


Lego trains

The Big Texas Train Show had installations which easily competed with those at TCAF in size. They were pretty spectacular--there were many tables installed covered with elaborate dioramas, little landscapes and cities, in every scale from Z (1:220 scale) to HO (1:87 scale) to G (1:32 scale). I had never even heard of G-scale trains. They're freaking huge.


G-scale trains

The oval track they set up for the G-scale trains was bigger than my apartment!


Train with an elevated street car set-up

When I saw this beautiful diorama with its elevated streetcar, I thought--how cool it would be to build an HO scale model of the High Line in New York.

You can think of model railroads as a kind of industrial age folk art. So if you think of model railroads (and especially the attendant dioramas) as art--and I certainly do--who had the more successful art fair this weekend? What could TCAF have learned from the Big Texas Train Show? That buying billboards is a good idea? (It may be that TCAF had more advertising and publicity than I'm giving them credit for--but I didn't see any, and I was on the lookout for it.)

By the end of Saturday (I didn't attend Sunday), the thing that left the strongest negative impression were the flies. They were everywhere, especially around the bar in the VIP lounge. I can't think of a better metaphor for something being dead than a bunch of flies buzzing around. I hope they weren't an omen.

Art I Liked

But in the end, the main reason to go to an art fair is to look at a bunch of art. Sure an art fair is not the best way to see art, but it is often the only way to see a lot of contemporary art all at once. That's what I like the most about them. TCAF was conservative this year. There wasn't much video, for example, nor installation or new media. It was mostly art that could be hung on a wall. Don't get me wrong--I love me some paintings and drawings and photos. I just would have hoped a fair explicitly devoted to contemporary art would have represented a broader range of contemporary art practice. But the exhibit strategy was undoubtedly practical--show what you can sell. In any case, here's some of the art I liked best.


Al Souza at Moody Gallery


Al Souza


Allan McCullom, Visible Markers, 2012, reinforced fiberglass resin at McClain Gallery



Ana Serrano at Rice Gallery


Ana Serrano


Billy Zinser, Lil', oil on panel, 5 x 5 inches each at the Public Trust



Nathaniel Donnett, How Much for These Dreams and Memories, vitrine, gold leaf on books and plastic objects, 2011 at Darke Gallery


Nathaniel Donnett, No White Tees, cloth, duct tape, paper, belt, 2013


Nathaniel Donnett, Fill In the Blanks, conte, graphite, plastic, paper bags, 2014

Darke Gallery was shuttered a while back when Linda Darke took time off to recover from a serious illness. It was back at the art fair with a wonderful solo show by Nathaniel Donnett. And Linda Darke was looking great.


Devon Borden Gallery wall installation


Chris Cascio, Smut Peddlers (detail),  2014, Ink On Paper,  60 X 40 inches

I heard that this large Chris Cascio (on the right of Devin Borden Gallery's salon-style hanging) was sold. Also, Devin Borden Gallery has evidently signed Chris Cascio!


Matt Messinger, no title, 2014 mixed media on canvas with collage,  5 x 4


Claire Shegog at Aureus Contemporary


Claire Shegog detail

Claire Shegog apparently takes little figures used for cake decorations and heavily paints them to give them a little more solidity, then arranges them as you can see here. Now part of me laughs when I see something like that because it seems to fulfill Hennessy Youngman's definition of art as explained in this video. But there is something about it that appeals to me visually.



Cordy Ryman at Morgan Lehman

Cordy Ryman's artwork was at DCKT Contemporary at the fair in 2011, and now it's at Morgan Lehman. Lower east Side to Chelsea--I guess that's a move up. In any case, I liked this suite of tiny paintings. The sales director there suggested that Ryman's use of various materials in his work was a sign of his excellence as an artist, because only a really good artist could use so many media so well. But he is not a master of any media. His paintings always look awkward and king of unfinished. I can't tell if it's because of this or despite it that his work is appealing. Sometimes crudeness works--look at Forrest Bess.


Cordy Ryman


Cordy Ryman


Cordy Ryman


Noriko Shinohara, Cutie and Bullie Series, 2008, pencil, watercolor and sumi on paper, 24 x 18 inches


Noriko Shinohara, Cutie and Bullie Series, 2008, pencil, watercolor and sumi on paper, 24 x 18 inches


Noriko Shinohara, Cutie and Bullie Series (detail), 2008, pencil, watercolor and sumi on paper, 24 x 18 inches

This was wonderful. While Zoya Tommy Gallery had some Ushio Shinohara boxing paintings at her booth, Kirk Hopper Fine Art had his wife, Noriko Shinohara, at his. I remember seeing these pages in the documentary about the couple, Cutie and the Boxer. The funny thing was that the labels on the wall said everything about the materials used and the date, but didn't mention that these were comics pages that were meant to be read in a particular order. In other words, there is no page number. I wonder if Noriko Shinohara considers them part of a whole? Are these, in fact, two pages from a unified graphic novel? If so, I wish someone would publish it.


Dan Tague, Whistle While We Work, 2013-2014, dimensions variable at Jonathan Ferrara Gallery


Dan Tague, Whistle While We Work (detail), 2013-2014, dimensions variable at Jonathan Ferrara Gallery


Dan Tague, Lie Detector at Konathan Ferrara Gallery


And that's all for this post. I'll continue this tour of TCAF 2014 in part 2.

Monday, December 19, 2011

The Best (and Worst) of 2011 -- The Houston Art Community Fails to Reach a Consensus (part 2)

by Robert Boyd

This is continued from part 1. The shows/events listed below are everything that got one vote from the 14 respondents to my poll.

Howard Sherman, Apocalyptic Wallpaper at McMurtrey. This show actually got two votes, but one was from Howard Sherman himself! I approve of an artist having high self-esteem, but thought it wouldn't be right to count that toward the total. Mark Flood also liked this show.

Alex Jones' protest against the Federal Reserve bank on Allen Pkwy. This odd entry on the list came from Mark Flood: "Maybe not art but I loved [the] Alex Jones led a protest against the Federal Reserve bank on Allen Pkwy., sorta connected with occupy."

Ancestors of the Lake: Art of Lake Sentani and Humboldt Bay, New Guinea at the Menil. Mark Flood wrote, "I also loved [the Menil's] Ancestors of the Lake: Art of Lake Sentani and Humboldt Bay, New Guinea. It makes me sound like a Menil groupie but believe me I'm not."

Salon of Beauty by Ana Serrano
Ana Serrano, House of Beauty installation view, mixed media, 2011

Ana Serrano's Salon of Beauty at Rice Gallery. An anonymous respondent said, "I love to be totally immersed in an artist's world. This was spectacular! I wish I could visit it still."

BOX of Curiosities PODA Project by various Box 13 artists. This was one of the choices of an anonymous respondent.


Carlos Cruz-Diez: Color in Space and Time at MFAH. This color-saturated show was one of Devon Britt-Darby's favorites.

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CounterCrawl flyer

CounterCrawl. A bicycling trip through various art studios struck a chord which performance artist Carrie Schneider.

The Cy Twombly Gallery shortly after his death. One of the most moving responses I got to my poll wass this one by painter/collagist/crochetist Stephanie Toppin: "To take an extremely personal take on this that I have not really told or blogged to anyone about, I did the very typical artist thing and visited the Cy Twombly gallery after he died. He is a part of the realm of painters that mak[es] me fall in love with not art, but paint. The relationship to canvas is what I could gawk at, spending hours away. I don't know what I really went for, but I had to go to satisfy the itch of not going. I wanted to think about art now that moved me like this. I felt scared. This year has been a personal rollercoaster for me and art has always been my safe place. For the first time, life seemed marked. I am not afraid of death, I am afraid of artist's death, of an art death. It actually hurts me to type this. Maybe I always felt that his painting lived, the possibility of more, and with his death they truly stopped. All of it became history. This is all there is.

"I know it is dramatic. I wish I was better at communicating a feeling that I can hardly contain. I've been thinking about it for days. I just wanted to tell you, it doesn't matter if you post this. I wish there was a show that shined above this for me.

"Art seems so fast now, there are so many pop up shows and work around every corner. I applaud the energy, I think it helps the public know and understand arts contribution to the culture of the city. I guess I am romantic. I want more slow art. I will have to stew on that."

LIKE
Dennis Harper, iPageant, performance with paper props, 2011

iPageant, Dennis Harper & friends at the Joanna. An anonymous respondent wrote, "I was really disappointed with Nancy Douthey's performance, and I wish there was more time spent on the game show portion of the exhibition, but this was great." (Personally, I liked Douthey's performance, but I agree the game show should have kept going--hopefully they will restage it sometime.)

The Devon Britt-Darby saga. Emily Sloan voted for "Devon Britt-Darby's life, art, religion, sexcapades!"


Donald Moffett: The Extravagant Vein at CAMH. And speaking of Devon Britt-Darby, this is one of his top choices of the year.

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Emily Peacock, MeeMee and Me, C Print, 2010

Emily Peacock. One anonymous correspondent wrote voted for "anything Emily Peacock does," which raises a point--there are artists that you see here and there who may not have a solo exhibit, but the sum of their work makes a big impact. I can see that effect with Peacock's photography.

Francis Giampietro & Jeremy DePrez, The Power of Negative Feedback at Lawndale. This two-man show garnered a vote from one of my anonymous respondents.

(Because I've reached the limit on the number of characters I can have in my "tags", I'm going to contiunue this in part 3--and part 4 and part 5. Onward!)


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Friday, September 30, 2011

Three Installations at Rice

by Robert Boyd

Ana Serrano
Ana Serrano, Salon of Beauty (detail), cardboard, paint, 2011

Rice VADA (Visual and Dramatic Arts) got its act together last night. Mostly. Instead of having a Rice Gallery opening that existed in a kind of void, they had two other simultaneous openings in Sewell Hall--a Matchbox Gallery opening and an installation by Seth Mittag upstairs in a tiny glassed-in space called EMERGEncy Room. (I say the mostly got their act together because if you visited the Rice Gallery opening, you wouldn't have necessarily known about the other two--there was no signage linking the three events, and Sewell Hall is a big building.)

Ana Serrano is a Mexican-American artist whose work deals with urban environments (particularly Los Angeles). In Salon of Beauty, the new installation at the Rice Gallery, she has created kind of a walk-in diorama of an L.A. barrio. Unlike a natural history museum, however, she doesn't try to make her diorama particularly realistic. Both is scale and color, it is highly stylized. She also employs a highly original typography which doesn't look like any store signage I have ever seen. The whole effect is like walking into a cartoon, which makes me wonder if this is something that chief curator Kimberley Davenport feels a particular affinity for--Ana Serrano, Andrea Dezsö and Wayne White have each brought a cartoon/alternative comics esthetic to the gallery with their installations over the past three years.

Ana Serrano
Ana Serrano, Salon of Beauty (detail), cardboard, paint, 2011

It's a large and impressive piece of work, but part of me wants to say, "so what?" The whole seems to add up to less than the sum of the parts. There are lovely and amusing details, but the combination of them doesn't strike me as particularly insightful or revelatory. The size of the piece is meant to overwhelm you a bit, but I actually think it would have been better if she had made it smaller--something on a table-top instead of something you walk through. Then the wholeness of it--and its representation of a community--would have been stronger.

Ana Serrano
Ana Serrano, Salon of Beauty (detail), cardboard, paint, 2011

But as I said, the details were great. These little blue and green boxes for example, or the lettering on the strip joint.

Ana Serrano
Ana Serrano, Salon of Beauty (detail), cardboard, paint, 2011

(By the way, to give you an idea of the scale of the installation, here's a person standing in front of the strip joint.)

Ana Serrano
Ana Serrano, Salon of Beauty (detail), cardboard, paint, 2011

Serrano has a blog where she details the building of the piece, as well as a side trip to see the Charles LeDray show at MFAH. (As you may guess, she loved it.)

Seth Mittag
Seth Mittag, We're Still Here, mixed media, 2011

Seth Mittag's piece is oddly parallel with Ana Serrano's. They have both made reduced-sized dioramas of buildings. Here we have a lavishly detailed, tiny mobile home, post-tornado. Placing it in this glass case and including a painted horizon give it the feel of a natural history museum diorama, and in that way is is quite different from Serrano's work downstairs. (Given Mittag's prodigious skills at creating a realistic scale model, it was something of a surprise to learn that he commissioned a mural painter to provide the back-ground painting. It was even more of a surprise to learn that the muralist was Robynn Sanders, who has work up at the Art Car Museum right now and was one of the subjects of a recent, slightly controversial post of mine).

Seth Mittag
Seth Mittag, We're Still Here (detail), mixed media, 2011

This piece is not really a stand-alone diorama. It's actually a movie set--for an animated movie that Mittag is working on. So the best way to look at this is as a work in progress.

Seth Mittag
Seth Mittag, We're Still Here (detail), mixed media, 2011

Still, it stands up as a piece in its own right. The detail is amazing--and amusing, as in the case of this lilliputian pair of underwear hanging on a tree branch.

Dolly Li
Dolly Li, Repurposed (with the artist sitting on it), plastic bags, 2011

Down in the subterranean sculpture courtyard of Sewell Hall is the student-run gallery Matchbox. For their opening show of the year, the co-directors of the space decided to collaborate on an installation. But it really feels like two distinct works that occupy the same space. On the floor is Dolly Li's carpet made of old plastic bags. Hanging from the ceiling are cut up photos taken by Elliot SoRelle.

Dolly Li
Dolly Li, Repurposed, plastic bags, 2011

Elliot SoRelle
Elliot SoRelle, Repurposed, photographs, thread, 2011

The two elements don't interact with one another conceptually or visually (you have to look down to see Li's and look up to see SoRelle's). While Li's piece works fine on its own, SoRelle's is lacking--indeed, it makes me think of the half-assed artworks that certain art students would put together the day before they were due because they had procrastinated all semester. With the help of weed. I'm not suggesting SoRelle did this; it's just art student behavior about which I have some personal knowledge, yaknowhatimean?

Elliot SoRelle
Elliot SoRelle, Repurposed, photographs, thread, 2011

So it doesn't quite jell. That's OK--they're undergrads. I like that they did it. And I like that Matchbox Gallery, EMERGEncy Room and the Rice Gallery got together on one night to show their stuff.


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