On Choosing Not to Decipher

Robert Boyd

The name of the exhibit is I'll Imply, You Decipher, which could be the name of any number of contemporary art exhibits in the past 50-odd years. Much contemporary art can be described as abstruse, gnomic, hermetic, mystifying, inscrutable and impenetrable. For some viewers, this is off-putting. They may even feel insulted by it. They may feel that the work they're looking at (if not the entire enterprise of contemporary art) is fraudulent. Or they may feel that the work intentionally excludes them, they they aren't invited to the "club." That they aren't meant to "get it." They may feel that the work is a kind of puzzle to be deciphered. That it has a meaning that is hidden. The title of this show suggests that, doesn't it? But that's a game I don't play.

It's not interesting to me because "meaning" seems like the least valuable aspect of a work of art. The pay-off in drawing meaning out of an inscrutable artwork is almost always less than the cost of the effort put into the deciphering. If the meaning is right there on the surface, then I'll take it into account; otherwise, it's not worth the trouble. Because art has other qualities that--for me, at least--count a lot more. Artworks have presence. They may even have beauty. They have personal associations that are unrelated to whatever meaning the artist assigned to the work. All of which is far more important to me as a viewer than what an artist "meant."

But from the point of view of an artist like Kyle Earl McAvoy or Betsy Huete (who has written many posts for The Great God Pan Is Dead) there must be an awareness that their art may strike some viewers as difficult. Perhaps they realize that aspects of their art which presumably have personal meanings for each artist may not have that meaning at all for someone else.


Betsy Huete,  The Folly in Architecture, plastic bag, diatomaceous earth, thread, needles

For example, the use of diatomaceous earth in The Folly in Architecture by Betsy Huete. This white powdery substance is made of the fossilized shells of diatoms and has various industrial and agricultural uses. So if an artist uses a very specific "non-art" material like diatomaceous earth, she may be interested in some specific use of the material (as an absorbent substance for controlling spills of toxic liquids, for example), or in its nature as the fossilized remains of beautiful unicellular organisms, or because of its formal qualities (for example, its color or tactile qualities) or for some combination of unknowable reasons. Or she may be using it as a bricoleur, because it was handy. Maybe Huete just happens to have a lot of diatomaceous earth around.

But as a viewer, all I have if what is in front of my eyes filtered through my own experiences, thought processes, biases, desires, etc. And when I looked at  The Folly in Architecture, I mostly thought, "Bags of white stuff. huh."

Huete could have added a card with some information to help us interpret  The Folly in Architecture, much as has been done in the current show of art by Robert Hodge at the CAMH. I'm so glad she didn't. Such texts, while sometimes necessary, are graceless additions to a work of art. They never make the art better, just--at best--more comprehensible.


Betsy Huete, Harbor, 2013, dirt, table, concrete, meat, thread, needles, model trees/cacti, television, lamp

Huete's Harbor feels like a work of bricolage, except maybe for the model trees and cacti. It's an example of the time-worn genre of combining crap with crap. No aspect of it is elegant, not element of it seems new or particularly beautiful. The fact that it includes a steak that is undoubtedly starting to rot before our eyes just reminds you that Harbour may be many things, but pretty ain't one of them.


Betsy Huete, Harbor (detail), 2013, dirt, table, concrete, meat, thread, needles, model trees/cacti, television, lamp

What appeals to me--and perhaps only to me because it reminds me of a personal failing I have--is the tentative, unfinished quality. It's like she thought about making dinner but didn't get around to cooking the steak. She thought about doing a little gardening but only got as far as dumping some dirt out. Maybe making a model railroad would be a good project, but she only got as far as setting up the HO scale trees and cacti. Even relaxing in front of the tube was apparently interrupted, because now all we're picking up is snow. (The problem lies in this new antenna. If this damn set's broken, go to Allied TV Rental.)


Betsy Huete, Harbor (detail), 2013, dirt, table, concrete, meat, thread, needles, model trees/cacti, television, lamp

What does it all mean? The installation is begging you to ask that question. But I prefer to experience it as a strange presence, as if a bizarre interior decorator has installed a conversation nook in the back of galleryHOMELAND. The elements have no obvious relationship with one another beyond that we give them. And beauty? Well, why not--it's just "as beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table."


Kyle Earl McAvoy, 👍, socks, sandals, white briefs

By contrast, Kyle Earl McAvoy goes for more crowd-pleasing effects. Deciphering really isn't the issue with  👍 [sic, I guess]. Undies and a pair of muscular thighs are sure to get a thumbs up from about half the population. The individual elements of 👍, socks, sandals, undies and store-display half-dummy are all found objects (at least I assume the dummy is a found object), but they're all found objects that were designed to look good. Therefore it's not a surprise then that the combination of these objects looks good.


 Kyle Earl McAvoy, Solicit, 2014, mower engine, fumes

A lawn-mower engine, on the other hand, might be beautiful in the eyes of some, but it wasn't designed to look good. But McAvoy appeals to viewers in a different way here--with spectacle. The motor is bolted to the white pedestal, which is itself reinforced with angle brackets. Why? Because when you pull the rip cord and start the motor up, the whole thing bucks and jumps.


Kyle Earl McAvoy, Solicit, 2014, mower engine, fumes

It's a crowd-pleasing effect (as can be seen by the cheering Betsy Huete in the background above). There is an off-switch (which, if it is similar to other mower engines I've used, shorts the spark-plug to kill the engine) which the bucking of the pedestal eventually triggers. It's not quite a Jean Tinguely, but it does provide a few moments of pleasurable noise and movement (not to mention a lot of exhaust--on the opening night, galleryHOMELAND director Paul Middendorf had to open the gallery's bay door to keep the exhaust from overcoming the viewers).


Kyle Earl McAvoy, Solicit, 2014, mower engine, fumes

With Solicit, "deciphering" feels utterly beside the point. That's my advice for this exhibit (and really, for most art). It's an old idea and I'll defer to Susan Sontag (circa 1966). She said deciphering (or "interpretation," as she called it) was "the intellect's revenge on art." It's a wall between the viewer and experiencing the art. This viewer, at least.

I'll Imply, You Decipher runs through December 3 at galleryHOMELAND.

The Best of Pan: No Seriously, What’s the Matter With Rice?

[This is the last of our "best of Pan" posts. Tough choice. Betsy Huete has written a bunch of good posts, and I almost chose her great review of the Wols retrospective at the Menil. Two other posts considered were Virginia Billeaud Anderson's visits with Perry House and Nathanial Donnett--they brought a personal connection with the artists that is generally lacking in reviews. But there can only be five, and I chose this post from March 2014 because as a Rice graduate, Rice's ambivalent relationship with art education has long troubled me.--Robert Boyd]

Betsy Huete

 
The building formerly known as Art Barn ready to be disassembled

Rice University’s recent decision to raze the Art Barn has caused quite the stir. (Well, possible razing—the Brown Foundation at present is discussing the possibility of moving the building to the Fourth Ward—because deconstructing, moving, finding land, and rebuilding is apparently a much more financially viable option than simply maintaining it onsite.) Although it has done little for the arts beyond sitting next to the Media Center for decades, proponents claim that it has symbolic and rich art historical and architectural value for not only Rice but Houston at large. While these claims may absolutely be true and the Art Barn’s demolishing very sad, as arts writer Devon Britt-Darby, Matchbox co-curator Jessica Fuquay, and Glasstire commenter Lisa Hardaway among others have made abundantly clear, this is just one incident, one symptom of the systemic failure of Rice University to take its arts program seriously.

And it’s easy for us to point finger, isn’t it? Yes, where the powers that be choose to direct—or not direct—their funding is certainly one culprit, and we’ll get to that in a bit. But the truth is Rice’s blatant lack of respect disguised as nonchalance towards the visual arts has far reaching tendrils that are deeply entrenched within the arts department as well as the greater student culture.

 
Edward and Nancy Kienholz, The Art Show, 1984 at the Art Barn (from Finders/Keepers catalog, 1997)

I’d like to start by saying that I didn’t even know what the Art Barn was until I got to grad school, nor was I aware of its dense, luxurious history and connection to the Menils. I thought it was just the corrugated metal building for Continuing Studies that happened to look an awful lot like the Media Center. Now sure, we can chalk that up to my own ignorance and lack of curiosity, but it begs the question: why is the school across town discussing, educating, and celebrating Rice’s art historical significance when Rice isn’t? Why did it take nearly a decade out of school to understand how amazing it was to be able to take a class with Thomas McEvilley? And why were there only three people in it? Why did Rice Gallery, one of the most exciting spaces in Houston, turn their backs on its students and deny them a senior show?

To be clear, Visual and Dramatic Arts department (VADA) has a lot of great things going on. When I was there, the faculty was excellent, and as people like George Smith, Bas Poulos, and Darra Keeton have retired, it seems they have found excellent replacements in Chris Sperandio and Natasha Bowdoin, and I’m sure they will find someone great to fill the sculpture faculty position. Rice’s decision to team up with the MFAH and have a constant influx of Core Fellows as adjuncts was stellar, and I can say first hand how formative that was for my undergraduate experience. But there have also been missteps within the department, like alienating probably the best lecturer I’ve ever had—David Brauer—because students complained that he graded too harshly. What the hell? Has anyone heard of Rice students filing a petition against their chemistry professor because, gee, he’s just too tough?

And this brings me to the student culture. Rice’s student body consists of the most creative, innovative, quirky, nerdy, funny, open-minded people I have ever met. This is why I found their indignant attitude towards the arts as a discipline, towards its power as an instigator of critical thought so confounding. I remember the sideways glances, the thinly veiled looks of contempt upon telling anyone at school I was an art major. I mean, how impractical is that? What kind of job would I get? And I think a lot of that doubt and even shame pervaded students within the department. It is common for students at Rice to double, even triple major, but it says something when every student in the department is a double major. In fact, I distinctly remember being the only student in my class who only majored in art. Why is that? There’s no way to be totally sure, but it certainly speaks for a lack of confidence in art’s purpose as a discipline and rigor within the department.

To be completely fair, I’m pretty old; I graduated nearly a decade ago (Martel ’05). It’s quite possible many things have changed since my time there. I hope they have, and there are obvious indicators to suggest times are indeed changing within the department. The development of grass-roots student run and alternative spaces like Matchbox and the Emergency Room have become exciting mainstays not only for the campus but for the Houston arts community in general. The Cargo Space is an innovative mobile residency, one of the very few mobile artist residencies in the country, at least that I’m aware of. Unfortunately, these endeavors were done in spite of Rice’s support, not because of it.

And that brings me back to the powers that be: what propels Rice’s blasé attitude towards the visual arts? Just ask Rice’s PR rep, B.J. Almond, and he’ll retort, citing the university’s public art program and its plans for the Moody Center of the Arts. The argument against plop art is too easy: as pretty as it is, it doesn’t tangibly affect the students and their education. The Moody Center of the Arts is a little more difficult; it’s harder to criticize an institution that doesn’t even exist yet. As exciting as it seems though, the evidence suggests that the Moody Center is more interested in garnering public attention and collecting donations than fostering an excellent visual arts program. The vice provost for interdisciplinary initiatives, Caroline Leveander, was quoted in Rice News as saying that “there’s a trend in elite higher education to build art centers on campus and raise awareness of the arts” and that “the new center should help recruit highly talented faculty and students in the visual and performing arts.” Call me crazy, but I think a good way to recruit exceptional talent would probably be to establish an MFA program for them to be able to attend. OR A BFA PROGRAM FOR THAT MATTER.

While the “Harvard of the South” continuously turns up its nose at its own artists, it is interesting to note that actual Ivy League schools like Columbia and Yale not only support their art students and faculty, they are among the best in the country. It seems that those universities are dedicated to the utmost excellence in all disciplines, not just the ones that the people running the show deem most important. So I think the real question isn’t why Rice doesn’t support the visual arts, but rather why isn’t Rice embarrassed that it doesn’t support the visual arts?

I hate to say it, but perhaps the demolishing of the Art Barn is a good thing. It seems to be shining a light on issues subsumed within yet simmering at Rice University for a very long time. Maybe this is what VADA needed: maybe this will somehow inhibit people from settling for the university’s PR placations and instead ask it to nurture its students and faculty that are trying so hard to make their program better.

Pan is Five Year Old

Robert Boyd

  

I just realized that Pan had an anniversary this month. The Great God Pan Is Dead is officially five years old. Now if you look over in the right hand column, you will see posts going as far back as December, 2006. But that is a little deceptive.

I started a personal blog (initially called Boyd's Blog, later renamed Wha' Happen?) back in May 2006. I occasionally wrote about art on it, increasing in frequency as I made more of an effort to see more local art events and exhibits. Finally, in August 2009, I decided to spin off an art blog separate from my personal blog. My first post official post was posted on August 21, 2009. But I imported a bunch of art posts from Wha'Happen? into this blog, which is why it seems to start much earlier.

The first five posts after that introductory post were:

• An explanation of the title of the blog from a piece by William Burroughs.
• A post on Herb and Dorothy Vogel (with notes on the Menils and Glenn Bray).
• A post relating a dream I had about James Turrell. 
• A description of some of the acts at the Frenetic Theater Fringe Festival, including Jim Pirtle's wine enema.
• A post about James Surls giving a talk at Lawndale (featuring art by Emily Sloan and Elaine Bradford).

Interestingly, some of these are subjects I would return to again and again: two more posts about the Vogels,  several posts mentioning Jim Pirtle (including this one), ditto for Surls, Elaine Bradford and Emily Sloan.

As for Wha'Happen?, it gradually diminished as The Great God Pan Is Dead expanded.

To celebrate our fifth birthday, I'm going to re-post my five favorite posts, perhaps with a little introductory commentary, over this Labor Day weekend.

I want to thank everyone who has read The Great God Pan Is Dead for the past five years, and I especially want to thank the writers who contributed over the years: Dean Liscum, Virginia Billeaud Anderson, Betsy Huete, Brian Piana, Paul Mullan, Pete Gershon and Carrie Marie Schneider. Thank you all so much!

VIDA and Pan

Robert Boyd

VIDA is an organization that supports "women in the literary arts" and has for the past several years been counting how many women are published in and reviewed by literary magazines and journals. The results for 2013 were pretty depressing, as have been most previous years. For instance, The New York Review of Books really doesn't use women writers all that much:



And I guess that might have something to do with the fact that they don't review books by women very much.



Really depressing, especially because I like The New York Review of Books.

If we look at how many men versus how many women posted on The Great God Pan Is Dead, it looks pretty great!



 But not so fast. If we look at it in terms of "posts by women" vs. "post by men," it looks terrible.





The explanation (excuse?) is simple. Out of 272 posts on Pan in 2013, 215 were written by me. While Betsy Huete and Virginia Billaud Anderson contributed 38 posts together (Carrie Schneider only did one--but it was a good one!), Pan is still pretty much my project. (Also thanks here to Dean Liscum and Paul Mullan for their posts--Liscum is responsible for the most popular post in Pan history.)

To be honest, I would rather it not be a solo album with occasional guest vocalists. I'd like more of you writing for Pan. We pay nothing (which can only be justified by the fact that we make nothing). But we offer the opportunity for you to get your writing up on line quick. We want criticism and journalism, as long as it deals with art in Houston and vicinity.

I know there are a bunch of you studying art history at St. Thomas, Rice and the University of Houston. Wouldn't you like to write something that is read by more than just your professor? I invite you to get in touch with me.

All you would be writers, email me at robertwboyd2020@yahoo.com. Pan wants you!

Pan Recommends for the week of September 26 to October 2

Robert Boyd

THURSDAY


Gaia, Mies Van Der Rohe at Charles One Center, Baltimore (Part of Legacy Project), 2012-13

GAIA: Marshland, Rice University Art Gallery, 5–7 pm. I don't know what to expect from this installation by a credentialed "street artist" with a very pompous name, Gaia. Big faces presumably.

Help Yourself: Mark Ponder and Ariane Roesch, curated by Rachel Hooper , EMERGEncy Room Gallery, 7 to 10 pm. I don't quite know what to expect here. Ariane Roesch is known for her work using EL wire, though. And Ponder has a video.



BETSY HUETE: Interiorities at the Matchbox Gallery, 8 to 11 pm. Betsy Huete is a writer for this here blog, which should be the only reason you need to the see her show. Aside from that, all I can say is that I hope this joint includes the above-pictured varmint.

FRIDAY


Rachel Hecker, Can't Fly


Rachel Hecker: Group Show, 2013 Texas Artist of the Year, Art League Houston, 6–9 pm. Reportedly this show involves carved styrofoam snowmen in a winter wonderland-style installation. I don't have any photos of that, so here's a photo of a Rachel Hecker painting of a post-it note from my personal collection.


Kermit Oliver, A Swine Before a Silvered Bowl of River Pearls, 2012

Kermit Oliver: Tracing Our Pilgrimage, Lifetime Achievement Award in the Visual Arts , Art League Houston, 6–9 pm. An exceptional artist like Kermit Oliver must sometimes feel like he is casting his pearls before swine (like me). Here's a chance to see a room full of this painter's astonishing work.


Luc Tuymans portrait

Nice. Luc Tuymans, Menil Collection, 6–8 pm. A selection of the Belgian painter's monochromatic, washed-out portraits.

MOVING VIOLATION by Mark Nelson,  14 Pews on Friday, 6 to 9pm. Houston artist Mark Nelson presents a multi-media installation on the theme of motion.

SATURDAY


Ward Sanders, From the Ruins of Industrie , 2013 , assemblage , 9 x 7.5 x 3"

Q&A Session with Jacqueline Dee Parker and Ward Sanders conducted by yours truly at Hooks Epstein Galleries, 2:30 pm. RSVP strongly suggested. I am very pleased to be conducting this talk Parker and Sanders. Expect French sounding words like "collage", "assemblage" and "bricolage" to be uttered.


Brian Jobe, Channel Modules, 2012, basswood, paint, flagging tape, 7.5" x 64" x 3"

TransAMplitude with J. Derrick Durham, Brian R. Jobe, Carin Rodenborn and Heidi Wehring at BLUEorange Contemporary, 6–9 pm. Take the bus to see  this show that is described as "an investigation of transit."


Jo Ann Fleischhauer, detail of one of the new clock faces

What Time Is It? by Jo Ann Fleischhauer (with composers Anthony Brandt and Chapman Welch and new music group Musiqa), The Louis and Annie Friedman Clock Tower, 6:30–9:30 pm. This sounds like an interesting intervention on the old clock at Market Square.


Did this influence my Pan Art Fair decision?

Eyesore and Give Up: Current work and Collaborative efforts, Cardoza Fine Art, 8–11 pm. Eyesore and Give Up, two wheatpaste-style street artists whose work might be described as "not nice," show new work.

Mildred’s Lane and The Order of the Third Bird

Betsy Huete

Mildred’s Lane is a living sculpture, archive and museum, artist residency, and pedagogical experiment coordinated by artists J. Morgan Puett and Mark Dion and located in Beach Lake, PA. It’s a site that brings in various visiting artists that lead projects throughout the year, but mostly in the summer.

I had the pleasure of attending a week-long workshop this past week called "The Order of the Third Bird." Highlights include, but are not limited to: dancing under a meteor shower, Mark Ruffalo helping me light a candle, and watching a deer from ten feet away eat an entire apple in one bite.

As a newly inducted Bird, I am beholden to a certain amount of secrecy, but I can say that it involves a ritualized, sustained attention to objects made to looked at (usually works of art). The following are my accounts of each practice. (Anything in my journals alluding to ritual, however,  has been redacted.)


Deer at Mildred’s Lane

August 6

Originally saw a statue of a woman’s head, previously completely wrapped in a yellow scarf. Scarf withdrawn, neck bathed in yellow fabric. Standing on wrought iron table.

My goal was to disassemble assumptions regarding the work, like its link to classical sculpture. Instead, simply understand and assess as an object. Actually, trying to undo what I understood it to be as a representation of a woman. Kept seeing the head though…I re-assembled the head in conjunction with the cloth and the table. It formed an awkward being…a seemingly top-heavy structure. I also reincorporated the structure as a component of its immediate environment—linking color and form together. Yellow of cloth linking to yellow of flowers, dilapidated head linking to rusty/decayed objects in the immediate landscape.

I undid my understanding of it as representation, as a woman. I deconstructed it as an art object, setting the stage to try to understand it as a valid object worth engaging. When I deconstructed it, removing its artfulness, I began to look at the surface. I saw breaks in the surface, but not in the actual material. This showed a capturing of action, a recreation of passing time. I also saw on the object actual markings that appeared unintentional, like dirt and scratches. These were actual, in the moment markings of time. In rethinking of it as an art object, I see it as something that holds real and perceived markings of time.


At Puett’s studio. These are collector’s edition pieces of canvas mold that came from the walls of the Mildred’s Lane exhibition at MoMA last fall.

August 7

I came in and saw a brown woman’s ass, bent over, ready to take it doggy style. Except her ass was also the color of the icing of a chocolate donut, and the texture had the same consistency. Her butt was covered in sprinkles, and she appeared to be trapped in the side of the mountain. Really her butt was sticking out of a small pile of rocks, but the lighting on the side of the rocks was majestic, making everything feel out of scale. The small pile seemed huge, and the woman’s ass seemed normal and giant at the same time.

The angle I settled on was a profile, so I was less engaged with the work as half an ass and more its form. I also began to think of the previous woman, and all the empathy it needed and how I felt none. I thought this was much more deserving of empathy—after all, this poor woman is crunched, ass-out, in a mountain. But I didn’t feel empathy, I felt enthralled and a little disgusted. The form seemed confrontational, as if it was barking to me, “I’m fine!” when obviously she wasn’t. The form was in and out of place, variously echoing and rejecting the landscape with its neon sprinkles. It also seemed like the mountains were spewing this globular thing, and it was on the way of oozing out.

I thought instead of the woman being trapped, what if she grew mountainous armor and top-heavily collapsed forward with her ass in the air? What would happen if I did feel sorry for it? I even feel sorry for referring to “it” when I should say “her.” The empathy is pretty agonizing in that case—it must be absolutely humiliating to be standing with your ass hanging in the air and some asshole adorned sprinkles all over it. I also thought about the total form being a rejection of this place. While it was bathed in a warm mid-afternoon sunlight, it seemed like it should reside under fluorescents. After a while I just listened to the rain and forgot about the work altogether.

I wasn’t sure what had changed at firs, but it sincerely seemed like it didn’t want me to feel sorry for it. Then everything suddenly felt wildly optimistic. The form seemed pregnant and about to give birth.


This is the pathway leading from the barn to Dion’s Memento Mori

August 8 (part I)

Everything felt ominous and really anxious. There was a playful attitude about the work, but it was as if it knew it was fake and being obvious about it.

When you’re trying to hear something, an attempt is made to drown out your other senses. Like when you’re talking on the phone, you aren’t really paying attention to where you’re looking, but inevitably your eyes fall on something. After a while I noticed my eyes were falling on the same thing, which was a hole in the floor. And I became interested in the problem, or maybe not problem of sustained attention of two senses. As I was listening I became interested in why I settled on that hole. Slipping away? Escaping to another side? Finding comfort? And I was interested not only in the relationship between sound and object, but also the issues surrounding the value system of what we choose to look at and why.

The first at least third of the piece is very ambient, which triggered me to turn around and face the landscape. My motive was to think of the sound work as just another part of the environment, like the birds chirping, wind blowing, etc. So I just looked out and tried to let that happen. I started thinking about the sound drawing lines, delineating edges of trees and hills. Also I thought about how all these things can’t talk and the implications of not having a voice. But then I thought that they do talk all the time, that it’s just not a language we speak in particular.

I closed my eyes and stopped trying. I sat there, not trying, and everything became very bodily for me. The music turned my body into flowing water at one point, it made me want to vomit at another, and then it turned me into a hairbrush.


Side view of Puett’s house, early morning

August 8 (part II)

Walking in felt like a deeply interior space. I was more drawn to the humming of the projector. The projector and the silence of the video somehow made me feel like I needed, or really wanted, to be watching this by myself.

I started counting her movements, but ended at “two.” I was accidentally counting one and two to the rhythm of her movement. I also noticed the intonation of my voice changing with each movement, like a failed attempt at binary code. This made me think of decoding language through movement and vice versa.

I headed to the projector and listened to the sound of the projector. My 1’s and 2’s turned into onnnnne’s and twwwwwwwo’s that were really just following my breathing. Then I started listening more deeply and heard these rapid stutterings, so I followed that. 1212121212 and so on…but it was too quick to keep up with and I failed. So I stopped doing that and just listened. Turns out there were multiple layers in the sound…humming, vibrating—all kinds of vibrations.

I asked the piece what it needed, and it told me it needed to be consumed. So I did that. Normally I feel very uncomfortable as a voyeur of any kind, but I reveled in it this time. Every movement that seemed provocative in the slightest I let feel sexual, anything trite I let it feel dumb, anything frustrated I let it be so. It made me horny and visually hungry.


Stairwell inside Puett’s home

August 9 (part I)

I encountered a dramatic unveiling of the barn window to reveal a landscape. Immediately, I felt a sense of competition among planes. First there was the 2D plane of the light/window, there 2D plane of the white circle, there were the competing pillars acting as interventions, and there was the depth of the landscape.

The angle in which I settled did not allow me to view the intended object, and decided that was ok. So I let my eyes course through the various planes I did see, and started viewing everything from the vantage point of pure form rather than representation. Everything became a geometric abstraction—the angle of the roof, the rafters, the meeting of hillside to sky. I began to look at the sky. It looked like gray milk. It looked really opaque.

Then I put all of my focus into that singular object in an attempt to drown out the landscape. I stuck my head through the window, breaking that plane as well. I noticed how the rain soaked through the fabric, creating a palimpsest of the table.

I stepped back into, vaguely into, my original spot, I gave everything equal weight and noticed how censors were just made.


The Mildred’s Lane library

August 9 (part II)

The house seemed carefully curated, like it was consciously dilapidated.

I stood in front of the house, looking back at it. I was standing in the rain, and at first it felt really nice. As it rained harder and harder, I began to reconsider. Then it started to rain absurdly hard—I almost jumped onto the porch when it occurred to me that, after all, the house is getting rained on like this too, so I might as well stay out there. I began looking at the porch and some of its wooden supports, noticing that some had been replaced more recently than others. And I thought about the rain rinsing off things from the house. It was like the house was fighting itself, like it couldn’t decide if it wanted to erode or keep itself together, like a patchwork quilt.

Since I had faced the house and purposely endured what it was enduring, I came up onto the porch and faced out. I just let myself feel the comfort of being sheltered. As I was looking out, it occurred to me that this is probably fun for trees because it’s their dinner. The leaves looked really green, and they were bouncing all around because of the raindrops.

I needed to learn more about endurance. So I went back into the rain and looked at things that are better at enduring than houses or myself. I looked a while at the trees and overall landscape, and it seemed that they are better at endurance because they are quiet and accept violence.


View from the best reading chair in the entire world

5 x 5 x 5 (plus): Huete, Liscum and Boyd on the Big Show at Lawndale

Robert Boyd

Since 2009, I've been writing about the annual Big Show at Lawndale. This year's edition was juried by Duncan KacKenzie, the force behind the popular art podcast, Bad at Sports. He's a brash, forceful personality, and I think the art in the show reflects his personality and tastes. So perhaps because of that, I decided that I wanted The Great God Pan Is Dead's posts about the Big Show to be something other than just my opinion. So I enlisted long-time contributor Dean Liscum and new contributor Betsy Huete to help. Three writers, three points of view, three tastes. Each of picked five pieces to write about.

Betsy's five pieces


Melinda Laszczynski, Hold On, 2013, Watercolor, acrylic, tape, wax, beads, 16 x 16 inches 

Dean's five pieces


JooYoung Choi, Sacrifice of Putt-Putt, 2013, acrylic and paper on canvas, 75 x 70 inches

Robert's Five pieces


Avril Falgout, Black Veil Brides, 2013, paper maché, 75 x 50 x 105 inches

But after I chose five pieces, I realized that I really wanted to write about more pieces from the show. So I dragooned Betsy and Dean into picking some "honorable mention" pieces. These we've published in a post called "More from the Big Show."