Pan Recommends for the week of October 25 to October 31

Robert Boyd

THURSDAY

Roberta Harris: Recent Paintings and Works on Paper at the Contemporary Art Gallery at Houston Baptist University, 6 pm to 8 pm (on view through November 25). HBU's artistic profile has been on the rise, but I've never been out to see their gallery (have you?). This show by Roberta Harris seems like a good opportunity to make the trek out to Southwest Houston.

Debra Barrera: Kissing In Cars, Driving Alone at Moody Gallery, 6 pm to 8 pm (on view through November 21). Debra Barrera apparently leaves behind her trademark resin for a show of mostly drawings with some sculptural work.

Dario Robleto: The Boundary of Life is Quietly Crossed at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts at UH, 6 pm (reception at 5 pm). This multimedia lecture by Dario Robleto sounds like kind of a downer--the guy is obsessed with death! He's a very good speaker, so I anticipate that this will be pretty compelling.

FRIDAY

Uriel Landeros: Houston We have a Problem at James Gallery, 2500 Summer St., Unit 212, 7 pm. I was talking to an AP reporter this morning about this show (really!) and said that if someone were putting on an art exhibit in town that was the pinnacle of human artistic achievement, literally the greatest art ever created, it wouldn't get the same publicity as Uriel Landeros's show. Sad, isn't it? While you're at Summer St., check out skeez181 & TKNY: Escondidas (in hiding) at Chuntaro Jones Studio. That show should be worth seeing.

SATURDAY

David McClain and Russ Havard: Unpremeditated Natures at Gallery 1724, 8 pm (on view through January 26, 2013). Our favorite hair salon/art gallery returns with a new two-person show by Russ Havard and David McClain. This show features several Sunday afternoon "drawing salons."

Anne J. Regan's Magical Music Art

by Robert Boyd

Anne J. Regan, Black Flag (Silent Painting Series), 2011, Guilford of Maine acoustic speaker fabric and wood

In 1978, Raymond Pettibon designed the logo for his brother Greg Ginn's band, Black Flag. The four dislocated black stripes were easy to reproduce and made for excellent graffiti tags. In 1980, Anne J. Regan was born. In 1982, Black Flag played at the U.H. Lawndale Art Annex. And in 2011, Regan replicated Pettibon's graphic using speaker fabric. And in 2012, she displayed the work at Lawndale Art Center as part of "Prospectors," a show consisting of work by the three artists in the Lawndale Artist Studio Program. Thus art and rock are intertwined over 34 years.

Black Flag show flyer

Regan's part in the "Prospectors" show is a music nerd's dream exhibit. I relate very strongly to this work. I'm the kind of person who doesn't just listen to a lot of music, but reads books about the bands and artists. What could be more nerdy? (Current music reading-- Tammy Wynette: Tragic Country Queen.) Anne Regan takes things even further. As she showed in her MFA exhibit, she is very willing to take pilgrimages to key sites in the history of American pop/folk music.She continues those pilgrimages for the pieces in this show.

Anne J. Regan, (clockwise from the left) Boll Weevil Blues, 2011-2012, cotton gathered in Mississippi along HWY 61 and beeswax encaustic on panel; Tumblin' Tumbleweed, 2012, tumbleweed and beeswax encaustic on panel; John and June Carter Cash, 2011-2012, grass and rocks gathered at Johnny and June Carter Cash's grave in Hendersonville, Tennessee, and beeswax encaustic on panel

Taking a pilgrimage is an act of magic. It suggests there is something magic about a particular place, and that the act of traveling to this particular place is by itself a significant, if not holy, act. And I think magic is a major theme in the work in this exhibit. There is a variety of ritual and magic here--some cargo-cult-like actions, some hoodoo, some good old table-raping seance stuff. And all of these actions strike me as symbolic of the immense power music has on us--which is kind of magic.

Anne J. Regan, Lightnin' Wand, 2011, oak and mahogany conductor's wand buried at Lightnin' Hopkins grave for seven days and seven nights

Lightnin' Wand resonates because of the furtive ritual that created it. Lightnin' Hopkins, a giant of blues music, is buried here in Houston at Forest Park cemetery (ironically located on Lawndale--just a few blocks from the original UH Lawndale Art Annex).

Lightnin' Hopkins' grave marker

I imagine Regan visiting the cemetery (which is huge) and glancing around to see if anyone was watching, then poking the wand into the dirt by Hopkins' grave marker. Then a week later, coming back, hoping and praying that no one has discovered the wand. She pulls it up and the ritual is complete. Does the wand now have magic powers? Can it bring down thunder and lightning like Thor's hammer? I doubt it, but it feels like a quite significant object now.

Anne J. Regan, Wall of Sound (Silent Painting Series), 2010-2012, beeswax encaustic on MDF exposed at concerts to soak up the energy. (Left to right, top to bottom) Chuck Berry, Neil Young, Daniel Johnston, Beach House, The Raveonettes, Wu-Tang Clan, Dan Sartain, Bun B, Frank Fairfield, PJ Harvey, The Magnetic Fields, Girls, Bob Dylan, Clipse, Best Coast, Leonard Cohen, Jack White, Bleached, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, Peaches

Likewise bringing rectangles of wax to a concert in order to "soak up the energy" seems like ritual magic--transmuting the sound into encaustic. Hence the title, the Silent Painting series. It's amusing that each painting looks identical, but each is distinguished by the knowledge that it was at a particular concert. And the fact that the earliest music recordings were made on wax cylinders connects this work to the very beginning of recorded popular music.

Anne J. Regan, I'll Meet You On the Other Shore, 2012, letters written to various musicians, photographs

In I'll Meet You On the Other Shore, Regan attempts to become a medium, communicating with the dead. Her method doesn't involve darkened rooms, holding hands, or trances. She employs the U.S. mail.

Anne J. Regan, I'll Meet You On the Other Shore (detail), 2012, letters written to various musicians, photographs

Each of her letters was sent to a dead musical figure. The way I interpret this piece is that the letters marked "RETURN TO SENDER" were not received by their ghostly addressees. But the ones she photographed that were not returned made it to that other shore. But the real power of the piece is the idea of writing down something you wanted to say but never could because the person you wanted to say it to was dead. Of course, the title comes from an old folk hymn. (The piece reminds me of a song--"Dancing With Joey Ramone" by Amy Rigby.)

Anne J. Regan, Mourning Sleeves, 2011, to sleeve titles in your record collection when a beloved musician passes

Regan understands how the death of a musician you love can affect you. The delicate black lace that symbolizes mourning strongly recalls work by Dario Robleto. Indeed, Regan's entire oeuvre seems very similar to Robleto's. (She's obviously less obsessive than Robleto, but who is?) This is not a criticism--I think there is room for more than one person to be working in this vein, and being first is no particular virtue outside of track and field and motor sports. What matters is the work. And the work has a lot of power.

Anne J. Regan, Billie's Fridge, everything from Billie Holiday's grocery list at the Alexander Hamilton Hotel in San Francisco, 1946, refrigerator, groceries

To a certain extent, we imitate our musical idols. But Regan takes this to a new level, buying everything on Billie Holiday's shopping list. This is what Lady Day was eating in 1946, near the peak of her career. This is imitation at the most intimate and banal. She isn't trying to look like Billie Holiday--she's trying to eat like Billie Holliday. But this could be magic too--the most powerful kind. "He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him."

I was simultaneously amused and moved by Regan's music-based art. I think it's hard for art to deal with music without becoming merely fannish. Jon Langford's portraits of his musical idols, for example,  are great, but they don't communicate much more than his own love of these musicians. I think Regan takes it a step further and suggests the strange power that music has over us with her objects full of ritual.


(Music listened to while writing this review: Traffic, Slowdrive, The Ramones, The Violent Femmes, Air, Ernest Tubb, Ian Gomm, John Doe, Alberto Iglesias, Orkestar Zirkonium, Jethro Tull, Legião Urbana, Elf Power, Shelagh McDonald, The Judy's, David Bowie, Bach, Badfinger, Titãs, Focus, Johnny Cash, Kurt Wagner and Amy Rigby)

The CAMH speaks in the vernacular

by Dean Liscum

On Saturday July 30, 2011, Darsie Alexander did some plain speaking about the "The Spectacular of Vernacular" exhibit, which she curated at the CAMH.

I don't think the talk had a formal title, but if I had to label it I'd call it "The art of everyday things." Alexander started her spiel off with the historic origin of this style of low-brow art. It, like Warhol's Pop art, began as a reaction to the abstract expressionism of the 50s, as practiced by Pollack and De Kooning. Having been told that representational, narrative art was dead, a group of artists immediately sought to revive art-life relationships in their works and inform it with popular culture and media imagery. Next, Alexander provided the definition of the vernacular that she used to develop the show in which she emphasized its linguistic origin and idiom and dialect, but also acknowledged its use in architecture to highlight regional-geographical trends.

Placing the show in the contemporary context, she noted the irony that the more global we get as a society, the more interested we are in local activities and aesthetics. This localization of aesthetic constitutes another facet of pop art. Not the mass production of media images à la Warhol, but the popular, amateur, naive aesthetics made by regional population's approaches to issues of lose, grief, remembrance, celebration, exaltation. This type of pop art is characterized by inherited histories passed along through domestic artifacts, extremely detailed works, craft-ish media.

Alexander then conducted a brief tour discussing selective works from the exhibition and discussing how each embodied the vernacular aesthetic.

The first pieces that she drew the crowd's attention to was Faith Ringgold. Her large fabric piece is a patch work quilt with images of women painted or silk-screened on. These possess the spirit of femininity, but are no less feminist. Working in vocabularies of the domestic sphere, they are cogent in their insistence for equal rights for women.

Next, she highlighted two piece from Kara Walker's pieces from her Selections from Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated) (different from those in the catalog because some of the pieces did not make it from the original show at the Walker Art Center in Minnesota to the CAMH). Walker imposes silhouettes, which were popular among the bourgeoisie in the 18th-century, over Harper's illustration of the civil war. In combining these two popular media, Walker re-purposes an iconography that's lost its original meaning and power to question (although the meaning is sometimes ambiguous) the social values associated with both.

Selections from Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated)
Mixed Media, 2005
Kara Walker

As I mentioned, this show debuted at the Walker Art Center where Alexander is the Chief Curator. When she assembled the show she pulled included two pieces from Minnesota native Aaron Spangler. His works draw from woodcarving tradition of that region. Spangler's technique draws from native american traditions in the area as well as chain saw art of the local logging culture. His work celebrates the regional culture but he also injects into these tapestries violence and strife that constitutes such a life.

I Owe My Soul To The Company Store, 2009-2010
carved and painted basswood graphite on welded steel base
Aaron Spangler

Dario Robleto attended the talk and Alexander asked him to comment on his piece, Demonstrations of Sailor's Valentines. He echoed Alexander's sentiment that this work came out of the tradition of  the momento mori, which was a popular means for people to express and deal with loss. After 9/11, he turned to this vernacular folk art of the 19th century as a creative/therapeutic response to loss. As an artist he finds in the language of craft and its meticulous craftsmanship and labor an expression of love and hope.

Demonstrations of Sailor's Valentines, 2009
cut paper, various seashells, colored wax, cartes-de-visite, silk, ribbon, foam coare, glue
Dario Robleto

Butt Johnson was also in attendance and he echoed Dario's sentiment about the importance of the labor intensive process. Using the technique of pastiche, he combines the trope of engraving and 19th century floral motifs in his two works. Each piece references a flower from Georges Bataille's essay "The Language of Flowers" but more importantly and indirectly to reference those flowers that are emblematic of human emotion. In his handling of popular symbols and techniques, the works equate to today's mashups.

Untitled Floral Pastiche (Waterlily), 2009
ballpoint pen ink on paper
Butt Johnson

Mike Kelley's contribution looks anything but vernacular. Although the Walker Center version of the show featured his Afghan quilts (which are pictured in the show catalogue), the Houston installation substitues a mobile that looks more like a constructionist sculpture. Alexander deconstructs the mobile, revealing the autobiographical inspiration for each part of Kelley's work. A nest of wires refers to a bush from his high school that students would go behind to make out. Other shapes represent classrooms and public spaces in the school. At least one member of the crowd questioned if these referents for abstract work from the cannon made it "vernacular." Alexander acknowledge the point and added that Kelley works from an Irish belief/custom that to give something personal, something made by hand and unique, can never be repaid.  The specificity and uniqueness of the object make it one of a kind, something that can never be repaid. Kelley has further stated that he looks to always make his work highly personal.

Part of the vernacular is the impulse to collect, Alexander revealed that many of these artists are self-professed "voracious collectors." They then reuse these collections and create from what the culture casts off. In Rachel Harrison's series, Voyages of the Beagle, she collects portraits of the culture by photographing busts of high- and low-brow figures (classic sculptures to cartoon characters). She then scales and presents them all equally, democratically editing the photos to be uniform in size and orientation.

From Voyage of the Beagle, Three 2010
pigmented inkjet prints
Rachel Harrison

From Voyage of the Beagle, Three 2010
pigmented inkjet prints
Rachel Harrison

Moving west, Alexander addressed the California quotidian as not maple trees or mason jars but massive messaging. She indicates that visual pollution/seduction pervades the landscape. In Larry Pittman's piece, he chooses to play with it both criticizing and co-opting the aesthetic.

Alexander concluded her talk with anecdote that illustrates how interest in and inspiration from the vernacular spans generations. A few Walker Evans photographs are in the exhibit. Alexander drew the crowds attention to model of a small scale replica of a country store in the deep south by William Christenberry that resembles the photographs. The store does not mimic the photographs by accident. Christenberry's family owned some of the buildings that Walker photographed. Christenberry saw the photos in one of Evan's books and contacted him. The two then revisited several of the sites and visit inspired some of Christenberry's art work.

To summarize her curatorial approach, Alexander stated that these artists and this show is a rejection of minimalism and conceptual-ism in the great conversation of art. That may be true, but it's also full of humorous salvos in that spirited debate. Being a child of the cold-war, Jeffrey Vallance's pieces tapped into childhood-angst and made me erupt with nervous laughter.

Blinky Bone, 2006
mixed media
Jeffrey Vallance

Vladimir Lenin: Relics of the USSR, 2006
mixed media
Jeffrey Vallance

The exhibit runs through September 18, 2011.

Various Random Arts Seen in the Last Two Weeks

by Robert Boyd

It has been an art-filled two weeks, Pan readers. There are several reviews in line, but before I got to them, I just wanted to pay homage to a few random pieces of art that I saw recently.


Mary McCleary, Tower, mixed media collage on paper, 2011

Mary McCleary's work is always a pleasure to look at. This one is hanging in the middle gallery at Moody Gallery. (And for $60,000 it can be yours!)


Dario Robleto, Defiant Gardens, mixed media, 2011

When I write "mixed media" in regard to this work by Dario Robleto, I am taking a liberty. As anyone who has ever checked out a work by Robleto knows, he lists every bizarre ingredient on the little information tag--and this list is essential to the art. You might even say the list is part of the art. Here's what he made Defiant Gardens from:

Cut paper, homemade paper (pulp made from soldiers' letters sent home and wife/sweetheart letters sent to soldiers from various wars, cotten), carrier pigeon skeletons, WWII pigeon message capsules, dried flowers braided by war widows, mourning dress fabric, excavated shrapnel and bullet lead from various battlefields, various seeds, various seashells, cartes de visites, gold leaf, silk, ribbon, wood, glass, foam core, glue

You can see Defiant Gardens in the rear gallery at Inman Gallery.


Jules Buck Jones, Great Grey, ink on paper, 2010

Jules Buck Jones drew these owls with spooky blank eyes. I include them here because I like owls. (Did you know that Jules Buck Jones was a member of Boozefox?) You can see his work now at McMurtrey Gallery.


Rachel Hecker, Jesus, 2011

This was what I saw (when I used the flash on my camera) at The Chapel, Rachel Hecker's residency at Many Mini. This was the description:

For two hours, the residency space will be converted into an ecumenical/non-denominational chapel for prayer, worship, meditation, or quiet reflection. The centerpiece of the chapel will be a painting of Jesus based on a photograph of Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour. The Rev. Rachel Hecker has received the Credentials of Ministry from the Universal Life Church, and will perform ministerial services, as requested.

My photo above is a misrepresentation. The only light in the room was from candles and a little light leaking in from outside. It was a gloomy environment. Hecker had three rows of hard wooden pews (her denomination must be quite staunch--no fancy padded pews for the congregants). This was a one-night-only even, but I'm sure this painting (and more like it) will be on display somewhere sometime soon. Probably Texas Gallery.Here's what it looked like--sort of--in the dark.


Rachel Hecker, Jesus, 2011

Odds and Ends from the Art Houston Weekend

Robert Boyd

I have a lot to write about from last weekend--The Big Show at Lawndale, the 28th Annual Juried membership Exhibition at HCP, and several good gallery shows. But for now, here are some odds and ends from other shows.

I'm going to assume everyone reading this (in Houston) has been to Goldesberry Gallery. I haven't written much about them, despite the fact they regularly display art that I like--art that is playful, art that is beautiful, art that has unexpected and appealing textures and volume. It's a "craft" gallery. So lots of handmade things--lots of ceramics. But they have a very modern conception of craft. You can see this by noting how many Goldesberry artists were in the avant-craft show Not the Family Jewels. One of those artists is San Antonio artist Gary Schott. His work--completely handcrafted (he even made the wooden handles on a lathe)--requires viewer interaction, so I made this little video:

 

Over at Barbara Davis Gallery, I saw a bunch of pieces that looked a little like this when I walked in.




These are by Jay Shinn, and they initially made me think of Larry Bell's minimalist pieces with their tinted glass planes. But as I looked closer, I realized there was no glass in them.




The "shadows" were actually shapes painted right on the walls.



(Sorry I don't have the titles for the individual pieces.) So in reality, the piece consisted of the lightsource, the metal framework, and the painted "shadow" on the wall (which worked in conjunction with the actual case shadow of the metal framework). I don't think there is much behind these pieces, but they sure are clever!

Inman Gallery had a huge show spread over two galleries that consisted of portraits and portrait-like things. It didn't really cohere as a show, but neither did The Big Show. It's hard to do when you have a lot of different artists, and Inman had 35.

Still, a lot of the individual pieces were good. I always like Beth Secor's embroidery.



Beth Secor, Irish American Woman as Depicted by Alfred Hitchcock Presents, silk and cotton embroidery on cotton sheet, 2010

The thing that makes these look so cool (much much better in person) is that her stitches go in all directions--they feel almost random--and when you look up close, you see that the colors of the threads are often weirdly contrasting with the overall color of the area. These are pieces that are fun to look at up close--as well as from across the gallery.

"Fun" is not a word I'd use for Dario Robleto. Morbid, haunted, gothic--these words come to mind. Maybe just a hint of arid wryness leaks into the work. He had a small piece in the show.



Dario Robleto, Who Will Mend Your Phantom Limbs?, Excavated bullets from various wars carved into spools, hair salvaged from excavated lockets, homemade paper (cotton, passion flower), stretched audiotapes of the earliest recording of time (experimental clock, 1878), 10,000 year old flower caught in amber, carved bone and ivory, braided hair, lead coated rose stem, ribbon, mourning handkerchief, locket photograph, cast lamp black, resin, typeset, paint, 2007

You know, when Gallery 1724 announced they were going to host a Salon des Refusés, I was amused but fully expected it to be mostly bad art. The original Salon des Refusés (which was sponsored by the French Government!) famously included work by Monet, Manet, Pissarro and Cezanne, but also a bunch of second rate artists who couldn't make it in the regular Beaux Arts competition.

But in the end there were pieces in our own Salon that I liked. When you walked into the gallery, you saw this:




I don't know who did it, but right on!

Here's another one I liked.



Deborah Bright, Alice's Cat, acrylic, 2010

This wacky psychedelic imagery and maori-ish facial tattoos seem so at odds with the cool demeanor and realism of the cat.




I went by Rudolph-Blume where I saw Lane Hagood (depicted above in a really unflattering photo...). He told me that after he won the Hunting Prize, he thought he'd quit his gallery job. But a conservative financial instinct won out in the end.

OK one final photo. Laura Rathe Fine Art has the most over-designed interior I have ever seen. Here's the bathroom.




Square toilet!

A Half Year in Art in Houston

This was a pretty weird year, because for the first half of the year, I hardly saw any exhibits. This reflects inertia on my part, and this inertia was what induced me to start this blog. The blog itself would be the inducement I needed to get the hell out the front door. Consequently, even though there were some worthwhile shows in the first half of the year, I'm concentrating mostly on the year since June. So here is my list of my favorite artists and/or events of the year.

a "pushme-pullyou" in Elaine Bradford's studio, 2009

1) Elaine Bradford. One of the few shows I saw early in the year was "The Museum of Unnatural History" by Elaine Bradford at the Art League. I loved the combination of taxidermy forms and knitting. Her work was later shown at Lawndale, and I got the opportunity to see her studio one night at Box 13.

Kathy Kelley, (not sure what the title is), rubber, 2009

2) Kathryn Kelley. Kathryn Kelley is an artist who combines a rigorous post-minimalist approach with really personal work. I am not revealing any confidences in saying that this past year has been an emotionally tough one for her--it's all over her art and her blog. I saw her solo show at Ggallery and then saw more work recently at Box 13, where she also has her studio.

Oneself by Oneself, Stephanie Toppin, 2009

3) Stephanie Toppin. I first saw Stephanie Toppin's long, super-colorful "autobiographical" abstract painting at the $timulus show Diverse Works. Then a larger version of the same piece was put up at Box 13 (above). Then she had drawings up at the Frenetic Fringe Festival, and I bought a few (they were a bargain!). Then finally, she had a show at  Rudolph Projects, where I took the plunge and bought a painting of hers.

Carlos Runcie-Tanaka, Huayco/Kawa/Rio, ceramic

4) Carlos Runcie-Tanaka. This Peruvian artist had a haunting, moving show of ceramic installations at the Station Museum, which I couldn't stop thinking about for a long time after I saw it.


Havel and Ruck, Give and Take, hollowed-out house, 2009

5) No Zoning. I said some unkind things about this show at CAMH, but loved the catalog. But for me, it was an introduction to a certain art history of Houston and group of artists who were worth knowing. I subsequently met Bill Davenport (and played ping pong with him) and Jim Pirtle, who managed to change my mind about No Zoning. (Plus there were funny comments on Facebook.)

Wayne White, Big Lectric Fan to Keep Me Cool, installation details, 2009

6) Wayne White. This painter/sculptor/cartoonist/puppeteer had a huge genius installation at the Rice Gallery--a huge cartoon head of George Jones. He also had a great art book out this year (signed copies still available at Brazos Bookstore--get it!) and even a couple of paintings at Inman Gallery.

Jorge Galvan, This Land Was Made (detail), mixed media, 2009

7) Jorge Galvan. Jorge Galvan is a student at the University of Houston. He had an installation at Project Row Houses this summer that blew me away with its use of text and construction materials to form a tribute to laborers. Then later, during the Art Crawl, I saw a functional sculpture of his called "American Bred." I liked it so much that I bought it!

Dario Robleto, An Instinct Towards Life Only a Phantom Can Know,  mixed media, 2007-2008

8) Dario Robleto. Dario Robleto's work up at Inman Gallery just blew my mind. It was so well crafted and so visually interesting, then had additional layers of meaning added when you learned what it was made of. I'm really still trying to absorb it. It was breathtaking.

One final observation--there seem to be more excellent artists in Houston who are women than who are men. In addition to the ones I listed above, I have seen and loved work by Emily Sloan, Kia O'Neill, Beth Secor, Carmen Flores, Jasmyne Graybill, and Karin Broker. (That said, there was excellent art by dudes as well--the Art Guys, Matthew Guest, Seth Alverson, and Mark Greenwalt, for example.)

Dario Robleto at Inman Gallery

Inman Gallery is using a vacant space in their building (which I believe will become the Art Palace in 2010) to display some Dario Robleto installations. Robleto is both a highly intellectual artist but also an artist who creates visually stunning pieces. Many (if not all) of these pieces have been parts of museum exhibits in Seattle, San Diego and Boston--so I feel we are lucky that Inman was willing and able to exhibit them here.

When you walk in, you see two large display cases, one white and one black. They look a lot like display cases used to show sports trophies or glass collectibles. The cases are about six feet high and nine feet wide, with several shelves that go along the length of the cabinets. The shelves are behind glass doors.

On the shelves are small plaques propped up by small easels. Each one is fairly packed with type. The easels and plaques are white or black, matching their respective cases.

The black case is called "The Boundary of Life is Quietly Crossed." Written on the plaques are AP newspaper articles recording the death of the oldest living human. The plaque on the upper left is the one who died most recently. Then subsequent plaques record the deaths of previous "oldest humans." The thing about being the oldest living person is that you aren't likely to hold this record very long. All of these people were over 100 years old, mostly over 110 years. Each article tells a little about the life of the person who has died, mentions who had been the oldest living person previously, and ends by reporting the identity of the new oldest living person. Then the plaque next to it is the previous oldest person.

I usually don't like to read while I am looking at art in a gallery. I like presence, visual and otherwise. Making a viewer read is a serious imposition. A phrase here or there is ok. Text that is not meant to be read is acceptable (for example, Mark Tansey used distressed silk-screened type as texture in some of his paintings). So when I saw "The Boundary of Life is Quietly Crossed," I instantly went on to other pieces. I just didn't want to have to read those damn plaques. But eventually I felt I had to go back and see what was on them. And I sat their reading for quite a while--they were just so interesting, and the way they were arranged created compelling but random narrative (where each part of the narrative had only a coincidental connection with the previous part of the narrative). I don't know why, but reading so many of these articles at once made me feel more keenly aware of these people's long long lives than I would have if I had read one of these articles in the newspaper. The subjects of these plaques had lived through so much. Admittedly, these people are not historically significant. And as far as I can tell, their lives were not terribly eventful (eventful lives tend to be a lot shorter!). Individually, there is nothing special about these people except for their longevity. And yet, the black memorial case and presentation of the plaques is very moving.

The white display case is "The Ark of Frailty," which is the counterpart to "The Boundary of Life is Quietly Crossed." Each of the plaques within reproduces a news story, as in the other piece. In this case, each plaque discusses a "Lazarus species," a species thought to be extinct until a new living specimen is sighted. It feels like a perfect mirror to the other case.

Both of these cases include bizarre features that no viewer would be aware of without reading the little adjacent card  that lists the materials used in making the pieces. For instance, Robleto often uses stretched and curled audiotape as part of the pieces. In "The Boundary of Life is Quietly Crossed," he includes locks of "hair" that are actually made of stretched, curled audiotapes of people speaking who are older than 110 years. Not that you can listen to them. Nor would you recognize them as audiotapes unless you read the informational card.

Consequently, that little card is a part of the piece. If you see the piece without reading the card, your experience of the piece will be less complete. I'm not sure how I feel about this. It seems unnecessary to me, although it may have seemed important to Robleto to include these distressed bits of audiotape into the installations. Does he really care if we know what they are? I assume he does.

Dario Robleto, An Instinct Towards Life Only a Phantom Can Know,  mixed media, 2007-2008

Again Robleto gives us black next to white, one wedding dress and two mourning dresses. They are "walking" on pathways made of paper flowers (and some of the paper is handmade of cotton rag and ground passion flower). I'm not sure how I should interpet the fact that their are two mourning dresses for one wedding dress. But like the other pieces, there is an air of the antique here (the wedding dress is from the 19th century).

In the third room are two elaborate display cases. In some ways, the remind me of coffins, in other ways, the old sample cases that travelling salesmen carried. But they really are unique--designed tautologically to display the things that were designed to be displayed in them.

Dario Robleto, Time Measures Nothing But This Love, mixed media, 2008

This piece displays 10 glass containers that look a bit like hourglasses laid sideways, but also look like infinity symbols. Each one is desgned to fit on the space in which it rests, so they are longer and more stretched out at top, and rather squat at the bottom.

Dario Robleto, Time Measures Nothing But This Love detail, mixed media, 2008

The stuff inside is leafy and frankly looks a little like marijuana (I'm assuming that is not intentional). The plant matter actually consists of ground resurrection plant,  ground rosebuds and rosehips, and stretched and pulled audiotape (again!) of the voices of the world's oldest married couple and of an experimental clock from the 19th centrury.

Its virtual twin (twinned installations seems like a theme of Robleto's) is "Love has Value Because It's Not Eternal."

Dario Robleto, Love Has Value Because It's Not Eternal, mixed media, 2008

This piece also displays little glass bottles with plant matter inside.

Dario Robleto, Love Has Value Because It's Not Eternal detail, mixed media, 2008

Again there are audiotapes--this time of glaciers melting (recorded in 2005-06) and of lovers recording each others heartbeats--pulled and stretched and mixed with plant matter--resurrection plant again, passion flower, "eternal flower" (whatever that is) and amber.

Robleto really sweats the details.

Dario Robleto, Love Has Value Because It's Not Eternal detail, mixed media, 2008

What is it all about? The mortality of humans and the immortality of nature, perhaps. But the experience of simply being in the same room as these mysterious, beautiful objects is meaning enough for me.