Pan Recommends for the week of June 27 to July 3

Robert Boyd

There is actually quite a lot of stuff happening in Houston's art world this weekend--a little surprising for the middle of summer. Below are just a few of the events we'll be braving the triple digits to check out this weekend.


THURSDAY


Presumably no paint will be involved in this hand-shaking performance

Shake Hands With The Art Guys in the Tunnel System Beneath The Esperson Building, 7 am – 3 pm.  Press the flesh with Massing and Galbreth downtown Thursday as they continue their year-long celebration of 30 years collaborating.
 
FRIDAY



Jay Giroux

Jay Giroux: Ideas Are Free at Devin Borden Gallery, 6-8 pm, with a talk by the artist on June 29 at noon. From the outstanding 2011 UH MFA class, now in Brooklyn, Giroux returns to Houston with new work.


Erik Shane Swanson, Polychromatic Pentaptych, 2013, enamel and acetone on panel, 19 x 75 inches

Under the Moon Tower at David Shelton Gallery featuring Peter Abrami, Janaye Brown, Georgia Carter, Adriana Corral, Aaron Meyers, James Scheuren and Erik Shane Swanson, 6-8 pm. All right all right all right, party at the moon tower with seven graduates and candidates from the 2013-2015 UT MBA classes. There's a new fiesta in the making as we speak. Everybody's gonna be there--you outta go.


Michael Menchaca, Sweven , 2013

Fahamu Pecou: All Dat Glitters Ain't Goals and Michael Menchaca: SWEVEN at BLUEorange, 6:00 - 9:00 pm. Atlanta artist Fahamu Pecou and San Antonio artist Michael Menchaca each have shows at BLUEorange, one of Houston's newer galleries. I saw the Pecou show in Austin, and it's great. And Menchaca's graphic work looks totally insane.


I think that's a Rabéa Ballin on the left and an Ann Johnson on the right, but I'm not quite sure!

Bās featuring Rabéa Ballin, Ann Johnson, Delita Martin, Lovie Olivia at the Art League Houston, 6 ­ to 9 PM with the artists speaking at 7:00 PM. These four artists have been having joint exhibits for four years. I've been a fan of Ballin's for years, and Johnson's technique of photo printing on surfaces like dried leaves allows her to create some haunting images.


Carter Ernst

Carter Ernst: Fur Bitten, Ken Mazzu: Echoes of Oblivion, and Pat Johnson: Artist Tries to Save the World at the Art Car Museum, 7 to 10 pm. If you missed her show at the Nave Museum, you still have a chance to see Carter Ernst's sculpture show, along with additional shows by Ken Mazzu and Pat Johnson (I wonder if this is the same Pat Johnson who was an art critic here in town for so long?)

Pan Recommends for the week of June 13 to June 19

Robert Boyd

Whazzappen this weekend? Opportunities to see a lot of prints, for one thing. Here are some of the things we'll be checking out.

THURSDAY

 
Candace Hicks, Composition in Orange, silkscreen, 2011, 20" x 25"

PRINTX, a juried show of prints featuring work by Ann Johnson, Anna Mavromatis, Brian Johnson, Candace Hicks, Cathie Kayser, Elvia Perrin, Evan Rottet, Jesus de la Rosa, Joan Winter, Joelle Verstraeten, Kathy Trice, Kim Cadmus Owens, Margaret Craig, Miguel Aragon, Nick Mendoza, Orna Feinstein, Ricky Armendariz, Sandra Fernandez, Teresa Gomez-Martorell, and Terri Thoman at the Museum of Printing History, 6 to 8 pm, runs through September 14. Lots of prints by lots of printmakers. A catalog is available and can be previewed online.


Jim Livesey, The Siamese Twins, 8 x 10 inches

The 2013 UHCL Graduate Student Exhibition with art by Shara Appanaitis, Christina Carfora, Tamara Foster, Yocasta Gonzalés, Michele Humphries, Sarah Langston, Brandie Minchew, Sherrie Schaeffer, Tess Stilwell, Jennifer Windham and Jim Livesey at the UH Clear Lake Gallery, 5 to 7 pm. Lots of ceramics and photography on view for anyone on that side of town Thursday evening.

FRIDAY





top:Tony Garbarini at galleryHOMELAND, 6 pm to 10 pm. GalleryHOMELAND is hosting sculptor/installation artist Tony Garbarini. I hope there will in fact be a green bowling ball stabbed with a knife in this show.

SATURDAY


Sean Starwars

Steamrolled III featuring Sean Starwars and many other printmakers at Peveto, 4 to 6 pm.  Did you miss the steamroller printmaking event at St. Arnold's brewery a few weeks back? Yeah, me too--but now you can see the prints made there at Peveto. I anticipate fun.

Pan Recommends for the week of March 14 to March 20

Robert Boyd

THURSDAY

 
Ron Regé, Jr., The Cartoon Utopia p. 16, panel 6, January 20, 2009, 7" x 8.5"

Comics: Works From the Collection of Robert Boyd at the Emergency Room (402 Sewell Hall, Rice University) at 6 pm, with a talk at 7, up through April 11. I heard this was going to be excellent.

FRIDAY

 
Tatiana Istomina, 26 Portraits: heads of Russiaʼs Federal Security Services (FSB) from 1917 to 2010, based on the official website of the FSB (detail: n. 17 and 24), 2010, watercolor on paper, a group of 26 drawings, 9" x 6"

2013 Core Exhibition with work by Miguel Amat, Anthea Behm, Jang Soon Im, Tatiana Istomina, Anna Elise Johnson, Senalka McDonald, Madsen Minax and Ronny Quevedo at the Glassell School of Art, 6 pm, running through April 21. The Core exhibit is always worth checking out, if also often somewhat perplexing. What are the odds that some piece of art in this show will include cinder blocks?

 
Melanie Loew, 2012, Oil on fabric, 11x14 inches 

Lynn Lane and Melanie Loew: Cats, Bunnies, and The Surface Value of It All at Fresh Arts, 6 pm, up through March 26. Photos and paintings of people with cats and/or bunnies? I'm there!

Katie Wynne, The Sylphides have the beast captured and are grooming him, 2011, cardboard, house paint, string, rope, tape, glue, fabrics, wood, furniture and architectural scraps, nails, screws, wrapping paper, metallic basket filler, sequins, motorized tie racks, a tassel, a poster and a plaid shirt, dimensions variable

6 shows at Lawndale (featuring work by Mike Beradino, Richard Nix, Rahul Mitra, Katie Wynne, Brian Benfer, Sharbani Das Gupta, Jessica Dupuis, John Emerson, Jeff Forster, Kamila Szczesna, Daniel Anguilu and Aaron Parizette) at 6:30, through April 20. Lots of interesting work on view, and I am especially intrigued to see the mural collaboration between a mandarin and the street (Parizette and Anguilu).

SATURDAY

 
work by Ann Johnson

Municipal Dirt in Russ Pitman Park at Russ Pitman Park in Bellaire, 4 to 6 pm, up through April 26. Curated by Lucinda Cobley & June Woest and featuring James Ciosek, Lucinda Cobley, Melanie Crader, Michael Crowder, Danielle Frankenthal, Nelda Gilliam, Ann Johnson, Cathie Kayser, Mari Omori, Lelu Overbeck, Jennifer Overfield, Jacqueline Dee Parker, Lisa Qualls, Tecklenberg & Georgeson, Justin Varner, June Woest, and Jo Zider.Weather's supposed to be beautiful Saturday--that alone is a good excuse to go to the park. And all the art? Just a big bonus!

Family Values at UP Art Studio, 6 pm, open through March 23. Features work by the Bernal Family Collective with Luis Guzman, Sae 1, Bryan Cope, Megan Thiede, and Santiago Paez IV. I have no idea what to expect (I can't find any photos), but I'm intrigued by the family art collective aspect.
 
Angel by Paul Darmafall aka The Baltimore Glassman, 20x42, broken glass on found particle board, 1988

Plain Sight with Paul Darmafall, Richard Gordon Kendall and "Remmy" at 14 Pews, 6 pm. Three outsider artists (two from Houston).

What's the New News - part 1

by Dean Liscum

To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.

Henry David Thoreau

I'm not sure that Nathaniel Donnett, the artist and curator of "What's the New News," would completely agree with Thoreau's opinion of the news, but judging from the show I doubt he'd subscribe to Fox New's tag line that insists it's "Fair and Balanced" either.

Donnet has brought together writers Ayanna McCloud, Egie Ighite, Michael K. Taylor, Phillip Pyle II, Tyres Bryant, Robert A. Pruitt and Kenya "Mumbles Medina" Evans, and visual artists Ann "Sole Sister" Johnson, Lovia Olivia, Regina Agu, Gregory M. Carter, William Cordova, Pruitt, Rabe´a Ballin and Robert Hodge. Together in the microcosm that is the Third Ward, they take on the questions of "What is news? Whose news is it? What meanings does it convey? What and whose purpose does it serve?"

The exhibition has two parts. The first one took place at the Community Artists´ Collective (The Collective) in the Midtown Art Center Tea Room, 1413 Holman at LaBranch, from September 16 through October 1, 2011. It consisted of newspaper stands reimagined and examples of the New News. Both of these types of work challenge their traditional rolls. The newsstands are no longer branded boxes meant to convey conventional news. They are unique oracles meant to engage the community. Their exteriors illustrate their ideological foundation. This is not the dispassionate, decontextualized version of the story.

From Rabe'a Ballin's Coloured...

Rabe'a Ballin

Coloured

digital photograph collage, 2011

...to Robert Hodge's piece, which celebrates the rich history of the Third Ward, these news racks announce that this is not your white-washed, sanitize-for-your-protection version of the news.

Robert Hodge

A Lil Bit of 3rd Ward

acrylic, enamel, and conte silk screen on metal, 2011

 Ann Johnson uses the ancient technology of mosiacs to record her message.

Ann Johnson

Collective Community

pebble mosaic, 2011

Whereas Gregory Carter uses the new technology of QR codes to enable viewers to use their phones to scan with their bar code reader apps to learn about the prominent African-Americans that adorn his news rack.

Gregory Carter
House Hold Names

magnets, 2011

Like its subject, the second part engages the community and goes on indefinitely. Donnett invites artists (writers, poets, visual artists, musicians) to reinterpret new stories about events that occurred in the Third Ward. He then places the news racks with the re-presented news at the sites throughout the Third Ward. This enables residents (and non-residents) to experience another facet of an event that occurred in the neighborhood. It's news that questions and even contradicts the official news. That idea may not be new, but in this town at this time, it certainly feels that way.