The Bart Book of the Dead

Robert Boyd

The catalog says it best: "Sketch Klubb is a group of friends who get together every other Saturday morning to draw." It was 12 guys, but one of them, Michael Harwell, recently died. 1,000 Crappy Barts for Michael Harwell plus Klay Klubb is a tribute to their lost compadre.



When you walk into the big back gallery of Box 13, there is a vitrine with an open sketchbook. This is Harwell's sketchbook, and the page we see has 16 drawings of Bart Simpson's head. There are a minimal number of lines in the Matt Groening-designed head of Bart, and Harwell deliberately takes them apart.

Starting from this page, the surviving members of Sketch Klubb--Seth Alverson, Rene Cruz, Russell Etchen, Sebastian Forray, Lane Hagood, Cody Ledvina, Nick Meriwether, Eric Pearce, Patrick Phipps, J. Michael Stovall and David Wang--drew 1000 versions of Bart Simpson, which are on the three walls surrounding the vitrine.







They aren't very memorable drawings. The goal was quantity over quality. This may reflect the ethos of Sketch Klubb. They've put together a few zines and a book before, but I suspect the idea is to get together and draw without having an endgame in mind. Doesn't matter if it's "good."



Not that there weren't a few drawings that were clever. Like this Creature from the Black Lagoon Bart.



Or this Bart who looks a little like Hank Hill crossed with Walter White.



How about an airbrushed Bart with 13 eyes?



Or a sweaty Bart with a beard and boobs for eyes. (There were a lot of mutant Barts in the show.)



The work was hung in a off-hand, unprofessional way--pages curled up in the humidity. But that seemed right. After all, they weren't creating something for the ages--this was a temporary tribute to Harwell that no doubt recalled their casual Saturday morning get-togethers.

Slightly more finished work was on display in the front gallery of Box 13. These were ceramic objects made by Sketch Klubb. None of the work was labeled, so for the purpose of this review, just assume a collective authorship for these bizarre ceramic knick-knacks.





(Thank God the "MAN MILK" jug was empty.)










Some of them are pretty funny, and they seem like a natural extension of the artistic ethos of Sketch Klubb.

The individual artists in Sketch Klubb do a wide variety of work on their own, but as diverse as their styles are, I'd say that what they have in common is an element of humor. The question I have is that was it their sense of humor that drew them together in 2005, or is their sense of humor as artists partly a result of their time together in Sketch Klubb?

I saw this exhibit on opening night. The crowd was boisterous and good humored. I wonder what it would be like to see when the galleries are quiet and unpopulated.

Making art to make a difference at Brasil

Dean Liscum

Sunday's are generally art free days. Of course, the museums are open and the hoi polloi pour in. But the local galleries and the local artists generally give themselves the day off after a Thursday to Saturday series of openings and parties.



On July 21st, however, several artists associated with ArtBridge Houston, gathered at Brasil on Dunlavy to make some paper sculptures and raise money for the Southside Community Center. Southside provides educational and cultural enrichment programs to kids. Recently, it's been the victim of multiple burglaries in which thieves stole everything of value: 14 computers, 4 digital cameras, 4 TVs and supplies.

Artists Cody Ledvina and Diana Sanchez work as art facilitators (I think that means teacher) and Nick Meriwether is the co-executive director for ArtBridge, which works with Southside.  They figured, how hard would it be to teach adults, most of them artists or at least arts aficionados, to create some orgami sculptures for a donation to help Southside get back on it's technological feet?

They got schooled. The point obviously wasn't the art, but they earnest in their endeavors. After a half-hour and the onset of a migraine headache, I managed an origami box, and Diana Sanchez started a tab at the bar. Other donors proved just as challenging for the facilitators, so we spent most of our time learning about some of the cool things they do at Southside and gossiping about art and artists.

It was a nice way to spend a Sunday evening and a good use of expendable income. If you missed it, it's never too late to donate directly to ArtBridge Houston or contact ArtBridge to see how you can helpout Southside Community Center.  

It was too crowded to look at art at the Big Show opening

Robert Boyd

So I looked at people. Here are a few whose photos are more-or-less in focus.


Daniel Anguilu and Rahul Mitra


Julon Pinkston


Kia Neill


John Adelman explains stuff to Jason Fuller


David McClain and Jane Schmitt


Adela Andea and Joshua Fischer


Cody Ledvina (with Jordan Dupuis) waves hello!

Endings and Beginnings

Robert Boyd


This has nothing to do with beginnings and endings--I just liked it (hat tip to Scott Gilbert)

Goodbye Joanna. Hello Brandon. There was a slightly confusing news bit in the Houston Press recently about the Joanna closing up. I asked Cody Ledvina about it, and here's what he told me.

The Joanna's last show is May 31st (Bill Willis). I'm doing all the press on Monday. Brian [Rod, Joanna's co-director] and I decided it was time to wrap it up. While I'm moving on to The Brandon, Brian will be working on projects in Houston and Austin.
"Brandon"? Was "Chad" taken?
Brandon is my puppet who happens to also be the director of the space. Although Chad is equally as funny a name for a space.
Is Domy closing?
I don't know. That's up to Dan [Fergus, owner of Domy]. There is the possibility of it moving next to Brasil in what is currently "Space". I know a lot of people will be upset.
Are you just taking the whole Domy space?
It'll be all gallery space. We have our fall programming already in line to start with a large group show in September.
Why are you guys closing tha Joanna?
I think it was just time. Brian wants to focus on other projects and because he was the lease holder of the space I totally respect his decision. It was totally amicable.

Domy closed down in Austin, and I guess it could happen in Houston. Let me say, as someone who has spent hundreds of dollars over the years on books at Domy, that its closing would be tragic. But given the tough market for "brick and morter" bookstores, I would understand. Nonetheless, while I have nothing against Space, the world is full of stores that sell tchotchkes but still needs eccentric art bookstores like Domy.

All that said, welcome Brandon!


Future site of Brandon. (Via indiehouston.org)

 
Charles Burns at the 2010 BCGF

Goodbye Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival. In the world of art comics, there are a bunch of small festivals around the country and in Canada. At any given time, one of them is considered the standard bearer--first APE, then SPX, then MoCCA and most recently the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival. (Now the champion is TCAF in Toronto based on what I've heard).  The BCGF has run since 2009. I attended two of them--2010 and 2012. I loved the 2010 festival but was pretty miserable at the 2012 festival. My misery was mostly my own fault, but part of the problem in 2012 was that the festival had gotten too big and too crowded for its physical venues.

The festival was owned by three people: Dan Nadel, who is also the owner of the comics and art book publisher PictureBox and co-edits the Comics Journal website; Gabriel Fowler, owner of Desert Island, which is my favorite comic store in the world (visit it if you're ever in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn); and Bill Kartalopoulos, an independent scholar of comics who has recently started a publishing company, Rebus. Apparently tensions between the three owners had increased over the past few months, and on May 16, Kartalopoulos and Nadel announced the end.

Nadel, Kartalopoulos and Fowler each have a different take events, but I think in part the end of the BCGF can be attributed to its success. After the 2012 show, they must have realized that they needed to grow or die. But growth is a big commitment. Each of these guys is quite busy with other stuff, and growing would have probably required serious sacrifices in time from all of them. Would Nadel be willing to give up working of the Comics Journal, or would Kartalopoulos be willing to drop Rebus in order to expand the BCGF? Apparently not, and I don't blame them.

According to the article in the Comics Journal, Fowler still seems pretty keen on a show of some sort. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if he got together some new partners and put on a similar show with a different name.


Michael Heizer, 45°, 90°, 180°, 1983, Color lithograph, screenprint, etching with stamps on paper. 

Not really relevant to the topic at hand, but I don't know where else to put it. This lithograph by Michael Heizer is being auctioned right now--the perfect gift for an art-loving Rice University engineer. The lithograph is a spin-off from the large piece in the engineering quad at Rice, 45°, 90°, 180°. Since it was installed in 1984 (I was an undergraduate at the time), it has been a popular site for climbing expeditions, sunbathing and other activities.

 
Photo by David Rod from Rice News, 2007

Linkarama

Robert Boyd


What else is there to say? More like this can be found at panels2ponder.com and even more at the Panels2Ponder Facebook page. Compiled by Frank Young, co-creator of The Carter Family: Don't Forget This Song.


Forrest Bess, untitled (The Crowded Mind/The Void) (1947), oil on canvas, 10 x 11 3/4 inches

There's a Forrest Bess show up at the Menil, and I wrote a review of it. That review is not on this site (at least, not yet), but you can go over to Glasstire and read it. In fact, I insist!


facebook farm, pg version from Dark Blood on Vimeo.

Whenever Mark Flood has a new show, he makes a new song with an accompanying video. This one is called "Facebook Farm." This is the PG13 version, which strongly implies there is an x-rated version out there... The exhibit is at a gallery in Birmingham, Alabama called Beta Pictoris.


For some reason, people love creating pastiches of the Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David. I found Helen Mirren doing it in Painted Lady, and Vik Muñiz did one made of garbage, and last Sunday Garry Trudeau did it in Doonesbury. It seems that Marat just won't die.


Cody Ledvina, mural on the side of E.J.'s Bar.

Cody Ledvina has begun painting murals in Montrose because there are not enough murals and especially not enough murals of grotesquely elongated cartoon dachshunds. Swamplot reported this, as they often do with things like this, and Swamplot's devoted commenters chimed in for a little art criticism, not just of Ledvina, but of Houston art in general.

• From commonsense: “too much shitty visual culture”, says the guy that drew a giant cartoon dog with a paint roller? And people wonder why I have zero respect for “artists”.
• From montrosechica: I love the Vermont Street mural! Not only has that building gone through some wonderful renovations recently, but now I break out in a smile every time I see the cat sitting on the edge of the pool looking towards downtown.
• From Northsider: You must be one boring SOB to hang out with @commonsense.
• From windows95: @commonsense I highly doubt that anyone wonders why you have zero respect for artists.
• From Harold: I have zero respect for most Houston area artists as well. Most of the “art” that I see at galleries is frankly, garbage, such as facial portraits with genitalia painted on them. Sorry, but the people buying these orange stucco Mcmansions are the same idiots plunking down $2,000-3,000 for this junk.
• From commonsense: To each is own, I’m entertained by discussing business and politics, some people are entertained by malcontents with a paint bucket.
• From Tom: The mural on Dunlavy is hidieous. The owners did a good job on the buildings renovations and ruined the whole look with the amature.
• From Shane Tolbert: Montrose is lucky to have Cody Ledvina. What is with the negative criticism? What are YOU doing to beautify a neighborhood and build a sense of community? Thank you Cody!
• From windows95: Some people just don’t like art, which is fine but for some reason art is unique in that the naysayers always feel entitled to make value judgements on the entirety of art. I guess visual art is just an easy target. As to the penis art, nobody hears a shitty band at one of the 100 Little Woodrows in town and declares all of Houston music dead.
• From Robert Boyd: I disagree, Harold. I love facial portraits with genitalia painted on them, and I’m really pleased that this genre of art has become associated with Houston. I was just remarking on this the other day to a fellow malcontent at an exhibit at the Watercolor Art Society of Houston over on Alabama. The theme of the show? Facial portraits with genitalia painted on them, of course.
• From longdoglover: This is one of the best things that has recently happened to Montrose. Keep up the excellent work, Mr. Ledvina! Thank you for bringing some genuine human charm to this new wave of quickly drowsying urban “development”.
• From Gene Morgan: Once every fifty years you get a facial-portraits-with-genitalia-painted-on-them painter of Cody Ledvina’s talent.
• From Tom: If you really think the cat on the lake or whatever it is looks good then your sense of aestetic is obviously out of whack. That “mural” is out of place and poorly done. I actully like some of the fun graffiti art on buildings around Montrose…. but not that horrible mess. It looks like an art project from a kindergarten class. Im sure some of the paragons of “art appreciation” would howl if the next store neighbor painted their house hot pink with polka dots all over it……etc.
• From doofus: Um, a giant weiner dog painted on the side of EJ’s is hilarious. I love it. Nice to see camp return to Montrose!
• From miss_msry: If it’s going to be a public mural, get a professional muralist.

 
Paul McCarthy, Complex Shit (partially deflated) (Getty Images)

I wonder what the critics of Cody Ledvina at Swamplot would think of Paul McCarthy's Complex Shit. I can think of many sites in Houston that would be improved by having this inflatable sculpture on them--Reliant Stadium, George Bush Park, the parking lot of any Walmart, etc.

Pan Recommends for the week of March 7 to March 13

Robert Boyd

Here are just a few of the art events this weekend happening in Houston and Galveston.

THURSDAY

 
Bas Poulos, Arcadia Vista 'A' (Large Version), 2012, 48x60 inches, acrylic on canvas

Bas Poulos: The Arcadia Vista Landscapes at Meredith Long Gallery, 5 pm. I saw these in Poulos' studio when he was still working on them, and am looking forward to seeing the completed series. Based on certain Greek landscapes, former Rice University painting professor Poulos simplifies and abstracts them in these intensely colored paintings.

Tetramorph: The Mavis C. Pitman Award Exhibition at the Rice Media Center, 6–8 pm, featuring work by Trey Ferguson, Lisa Bileska, Jessie Anderson, and Alexandria Fernandez. I know nothing about this except that these are Rice student artists, and I was one of those once. I bet they are less clueless than was. (Thursday is the night for Rice artists, it seems.)

FRIDAY



Kodachronology featuring work by Shannon Duncan, Donna Fernandez, and Tere Garcia at the Caroline Collective, 7-10 PM [show runs through April 19th]. Even though Kodachrome film was officially discontinued in 2009, these photographers still had some of the color film that "give[s] us those nice bright colors" and "the greens of summer," according to Paul Simon. They developed the film in black and white chemicals, and this show is the result of that experiment.

SATURDAY



Akin Forray Ledvina: Art Show at Domy Houston with work by Chris Akin, Sebastian Forray and Cody Ledvina at 7 pm. I'm informed that this art exhibit will feature free beer.


Chris Akin, Sebastian Foray and Cody Ledvina (not to scale)



piece by Teruko Nimura

The Bridge Club; Christa Mares, Marianne McGrath, Teruko Nimura; and Jared Wesley Singer at Box 13, 5 pm. The Bridge Club performs (5 to 8 pm) and other artists have work on display in conjunction with the NCECA conference later this month. The Bridge Club's hypnotic performances are always worth checking out.

The Middle is Missing: Cody Ledvina at galleryHOMELAND

Dean Liscum

I'll start by apologizing to Cody Ledvina because I'm going to project wwwwaaaaaaayyyyy too much of my personal and political shit into his work and then I'm going to try and pass it off as detached, apolitical,  objective, Kantian criticism.

I purposely did not talk to Cody about his installation at the opening of Dadtown is an HJ Hub at galleryHOMELAND because I wanted to concentrate on my reaction and not his intention.

The entire show is a single installation. It consists of a jumble of geometric forms: circles, triangles, rectangles, and squares. Ledvina excised the shapes from local political campaign signs for the November 2012 election.  An animated projection and a soundtrack of a seemingly random episode of the Howard Stern radio shows finish out the installation.



My first impression of the exhibit is one of noise: visual, sonic, and cinematic noise. The sign pieces overlap each other in an intentionally random jumble that echoes any polling place on election day.



The pieces are fragments of political visual and linguistic tropes vying for the viewer's attention. They are immediately recognizable as "political" and this recognition emphasizes the branding of political communication: signage and speech in particular. Ledvina's installation takes this branding, this stylistic visual and linguistic argot in which politicians say nothing, but with lots of feeling and strong, vibrant colors as its main target. Ledvina could make a game of completing the signs because it's communication that we've been saturated with. We can finish the phrases but we might not be able to define them because this kind of language has lost its meaning, or like the signs from which Ledvina cut these shapes, its substance.

Which brings me to the other "unspoken" part of this artwork. It is installed on the corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy. These works lack attribution, but they bare an uncanny resemblance to Ledvina's handy work.







And they bear out Ledvina's message. The center will not (and in this case does not) hold.



The segment of Stern's radio show echoes this lack of substance. It sounds like communication, like dialog, like the exchange of information between two people but it's not. The participants take turns speaking AT each other. They don't actually say anything. They don't hear each other. No ideas are formulated or exchanged. Instead, they repeat or rather parrot various cultural tropes. Both basically shouting "Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?" while their responses seemingly say "Yes, but I don't care."

In Dadtown, Ledvina points out the obvious by literally cutting it out right in front of our faces (or at least in front of a popular cafe \ avant garde bookstore). The center of political discourse, the substance of our communal life, the middle is missing. In the national political climate with the right-wing's perennial Reagan romanticism, Dadtown ironically reminds me of the Robbie Conal's protest posters that admonished politicians to SPEAK at the Iran-Contra hearings. Since then, politicians and political operatives have learned to speak, they just don't say anything.


Robbie Conal, Speak

Amid the popular political art, I find this criticism / culture jamming (as Keisha Washington stated in Not That This) savvy and shrewed. Especially for an artist who once commented on criticism about his own artspace, Tha Joanna, using this pictogram:

8===>------

Oh well. Sometimes, we may not understand the words (or pictograms) coming out of each others mouths (-butts), but in the end, I do think Ledvina cares. And in Dadtown, it shows.

...and if I'm wrong, fuck it. I already apologized at the beginning. 8===> (*)