I wrote about one piece in the Joanna's current show--the Exurb four projector piece. But there is so much more. Unfortunately, the show come down tonight at 8 pm, according to Joanna co-director Cody Ledvina. So if you haven't seen it, try to see it today! Here's a little of what you will see, if you go--this represents only a small percentage of all the pieces in the show.
piece by Emily Link
I don't know who did this stalactite, but I like it.
painting by Jordan Johnson
Jordan Johnson sure likes four-letter words.
detourned comics page by Harry Dearing III
Peter Parker has a conversation with himself, but disappears for part of it.
painting by Mark Flood
painting by Lane Hagood
wall painting by Lane Hagood
painting with hanging cloth by "Isabelle"
Vinyl painting by Sebastian Forray
This Sebastian Forray painting was just outside the front door to The Joanna, demonstrating their keen commercial acumen.
watercolor drawing by Daniel Heimbinder
watercolor drawing by Daniel Heimbinder
computer, Fleshlight and vibrator by Nick Beradino
Mark Flood pointed this one out as a piece he really liked. When I asked "What is it?," he looked at me incredulously and said, "Like you don't know what that is!" Then it clicked. At first, I thought it was a bong because of the way it was put together. But it's actually a futuristic self-fucking machine. I predict ever American will own one by the end of the decade.
Nick Beradino's sculpture in action. The future of sex, right here.
collage by Chris Cascio
When I saw this, I thought the shoes were part of it. They look like they are, don't they? But I saw Cascio a few days later and he said he has no idea how the shoes got there, but they aren't part of his work.
bread and mayonnaise by Nick Merriweather
I think I accidentally stepped on this homage to Carl Andre by Nick Merriweather
carved plywood by Jack Ericksson
painting by ?????
I think this anonymous giant period is a good way to end the post.
Mark Flood was predictably skeptical. To paraphrase him, he said how can they expect to fill 22 Lawndales with art when they can't even fill one? He basically expressed doubt that Houston's artists and curators could step up, which is a concern that many people have expressed. He suggested that Sharon Engelstein might be able to fill the space with art that didn't get lost. However, despite his skepticism, he seemed willing to entertain the possibility of success, suggesting that if Dia Beacon could do it, maybe we could too.
Daniel Heimbinder came up with an idea for an installation that I frankly considered stealing from him. Air dancers.
Air dancers, aka skydancers, would be used to fill the interior space of the old J.C. Penney's. Hundred of them. The blowers would be so loud, it'd be like being in a jet engine. The spastic air dancers would have such frenetic, jerky motions, they could cause seizures. And as an installation, it would be an apt comment on the space itself, a mall on the desolate retail landscape of Highway 6.
At the Box 13 opening for Dutch Invasion, Paul Middendorf described being contacted by Sharston Plenge--the organizer of the West Oaks Mall art space--and being a bit suspicious at first. He wondered what Plenge, a Californian artist, was doing sniffing around Houston non-profits. (Mark Flood also wondered about the ulterior motive--but to me the ulterior motive is not hidden at all: Pacific Retail Capital Partners wants artists to help increase the visibility and desirability of West Oaks Mall. Their exit strategy is always to sell the property--that's the business they are in.) However, after Middendorf heard a first hand report of the space, he was more open to the possibilities and spoke of a similar large building that was handed over to Portland, Oregon, arts groups for temporary use.
Jonathan Leach instantly honed in on the problem of making effective use of 100,000 square feet. His suggestion? Sound stages for film and video students. Of course sound stages aren't cheap, but with two of the primary expenses--the building itself and the utilities--paid for, any use of the space is already heavily subsidized.
Rachel Hecker focused on practical issues. She said everyone has ideas about the space, so there needs to be a "think tank" or conference where all potential stakeholders get together and thrash out a plan. No one person or art organization can make this happen. Thinking about such a conclave, I can envision it having all the faults of committee-think (lack of boldness, conventionality, compromise that destroys any visionary thinking, sluggishness, jockeying for power, etc.). Making sure that a committee didn't succumb to group-think would be one of the big challenges. Hecker also suggested that the space be split between studio space/residencies and exhibition space. The former would guarantee that the building would be in constant use.
So Pan readers--what do you think should be done with 100,000 square feet of air-conditioned space in West Oaks Mall?
When artists start talking about quantum physics, that's when I reach for my particle accelerator. It's dangerous ground for a curator or artist. I know we are supposed to be living in a beautiful world of cross-disciplinary art, but there are certain subjects in science and mathematics which have an undeniable appeal to writers and artists that they should resist. Mind-blowing phrases like "the uncertainty principle" and "spooky action at a distance" sound so cool that they draw artists and writers in, who then construct awkward metaphors out of these very precise and specific scientific definitions. Good for artists for trying, but rarely do they have anything useful to say about more abstruse, counterintuitive areas of science and mathematics. (Here's a notable exception: Everything and More by David Foster Wallace, who tackles infinity as a mathematical concept--not a metaphor, not a metaphysical construct.)
So I was pretty skeptical approaching Quantumdada Phase 2, up now at Rudolph Blume. (Even more skeptical after reading Michael Bise's evisceration of "Phase 1.") And in terms of saying anything interesting about quantum physics or science in general, my skepticism was rewarded. But that doesn't mean that the art was bad. On the contrary, I thought it was a pretty decent collection of pieces. The less literal they were, the less they tried to be about physics, the better they were.
Michael Brims, Oval Eyes Shaking, video, 2010
Curator Eisele Volker writes "'Oval Eyes Shaking' represents the conscious observer of this room [the front gallery]. Every room has its own conscious observer in order to represent Dada consciousness and to, hopefully, interact with the quantum world." Boy, is he putting a lot of responsibility on Michael Brims' wacky video. I like this video not because it seems in any way to "represent Dada consciousness," but because it feels like Brim has created a video version of Googly Eyes. (And of course, being the rock nerd that I am, I was also reminded of this classic.) But what I found a little weird about Volker's description was that he hoped it would interact with the quantum world. His hopes should be amply fulfilled, since like all matter and energy, Brim's video is continuously interacting with the quantum world, as the electrons in every atom in the room achieve their stochastically determined quantum states... But I assume that's not what Volker meant. But I'll confess that I don't have a clue what he means by yoking Dada and quantum physics together. Dada was a reaction to the insanity of mankind, which was slaughtering itself by the millions as the first Dadaists performed on the stage at Cabaret Voltaire. Quantum physics, as strange as its results are, is the result of supreme acts of ratiocination. Dada is deliberately irrational.
Kevin Jones, Blend, photographs
This may be my favorite piece in the show. While I don't see a connection with quantum physics, there is a connection with science. This kind of photodocumentation seems typical of how a scientist would observe a movement--carefully, deliberately, obsessively, from a single vantage point. One thinks of the work of Eadweard Muybridge and Harold Edgerton. Of course, the irony was that those to photo pioneers were capturing images that the human eye couldn't discern, whereas Kevin Jones is capturing images that we can easily see for ourselves, but would be far too boring to watch. Jones solves the boredom problem by showing them all simultaneously. The viewer doesn't have to wait for the snail to complete his transit.
Kevin Jones, Blend detail, photographs
Also in the "science-y" vein is The Path of Least Resistance by Ariane Roesch.
Ariane Roesch, The Path of Least Resistance, Electroluminescent Wire, 2010
Ariane Roesch has been using EL Wire in her work for a while now. EL Wire is a very clever product; basically, it is simply copper wire coated with phosphor.
Of all the pieces here, this is one where a principle of quantum physics is perhaps most at its core. As electricity travels through wire, the energy causes electrons in the phosphor molecules to become excited and jump up to a higher energy level (a quantum leap). When the electrons fall, they release photons. The principle with EL Wire is not terribly different from fluorescent lamps (and like them, EL Wires are very efficient).
Being in that room had another science-y association for me.
I wonder if Roesch were deliberately recalling the scene in 2001 where Bowman slowly, carefully kills HAL.
Daniel Heimbinder, Entanglement, colored marker on paper
One has to wonder whether Daniel Heimbinder was inspired by the concept of quantum entanglement or if he just happened to have created one of his brilliant cartoon images--the offsprint of a Philip Guston painting and a Saul Steinberg drawing--that also just happened to work with that word, "entanglement." His entanglement and quantum entanglement are unrelated. His bears a closer relationship to the Marx Brothers than to Richard Feynman.
Greg Metz, George W Bush as a Kleenex dispenser, sculpture bust with tissue
Here is a piece by Greg Metz that has no obvious relationship to quantum physics at all, and only a slight one to Dada (insofar as both were anti-war expressions). The plaque reads "MY DEEPEST REGRETS TO THOSE WHO HAVE SACRIFICED THEIR LOVED ONES FOR MY IRAQ WAR". This sentiment is mocked by the goofy smile on Bush's face, and by the inadequacy of offering a tissue to a grieving spouse or parent. It's a pretty brutal, bitter piece, and it works where so many other political works fail by being personal. George Bush and his failure as a person are the subject.
You will notice that the last two pieces have a somewhat orange tint to them. That is not local color. It's the result of sharing a small room with David Graeve's piece, an orange balloon, 8 feet in diameter, hung from the ceiling. The room itself was hardly 12 feet square (I'm guessing), so this balloon dominated the room. The light reflected off the balloon gave everything an orange tint (not as orange as in Ariane Roesch's room, of course). I couldn't take a picture of it--there was no place within the room where I could get the whole balloon into my viewfinder.
This show had as its objective the task of "connecting aspects of the quantum world with the world of art as Dada." In that regard, it is a failure. However, the better way to look at the show is to ignore its stated objective and consider it as a heterogeneous collection of artworks, some good, some less so. Leave the curatorial conceit behind and see it as a group show. On this basis, I recommend it. There are pieces here worth seeing.
The Joannex continues to have some of the most interesting shows in town (I'd put them even with The Temporary Space on that score). I knew nothing about Daniel Heimbinder before this show, but I was blown away by the sheer draughtsmanly exuberance of his work. He can draw--there is no doubt about it (and my photos really don't do his drawings justice)--and what he chooses to draw just works on multiple levels.
For example, he has a bunch of watercolors and colored drawings called Time Wounds All Heels (inspired by Nick Lowe perhaps?).
Daniel Heimbinder, Time Wounds All Heels, watercolor (?)
Daniel Heimbinder, Time Wounds All Heels, watercolor (?)
Daniel Heimbinder, Time Wounds All Heels, watercolor (?)
Really fun pieces. In their surreal cartoonishness, they recall Saul Steinberg. But I think there is an even more direct precedent.
Philip Guston, Rug III, oil on canvas, 1976
These bigfoot shoes started appearing regularly in Guston's paintings towards the end of his life. Heimbinder's heels are more antic, less autumnal. They are a young man's shoes.
There were several extremely large drawings with highly textured figures (very abstract, generalized figures--they are relatives to the "PED XING" man). They have white areas that define their structure--they look like the lines you would make a stick figure out of. On these white "bones" is a bumpy, somewhat diseased looking flesh. The figures are doing terrible things to each other, and are caught in moments of violent motion--with manga-like motion lines added.
Daniel Heimbinder, not sure about the title, drawing on paper
Daniel Heimbinder, not sure about the title, drawing on paper
The surface of these "people" is so detailed, so obsessively worked over.
Not everything Heimbinder had inthe show had such a strong relationship to cartooning. This multi-part piece were black velvet paintings of various crystal chalices, goblets, etc.
Daniel Heimbinder, Crystal (installation view), painting
Daniel Heimbinder, Crystal (detail), painting
Heimbinder's work feels like he's coming out of an illustration background. What ultimately comes through is a love of drawing. The sheer size of these pieces speaks to that as well--that's something that can easily be shown here on the webpage. Their size afford them a real presence for the viewer. Moving the Joanna to the larger Joannex space allows them to show work on this scale--which is a wonderful thing.
