Self-Portraiture through Social Media with a Side of Crystal Meth

Dean Liscum

As a self-proclaimed art critic and reviewer, I was curious about/envious of/doubtful that Devon Britt-Darby's exhibition, Art Criticism and Reporting, could command my (or anyone else's) attention or interest for longer than it took me to inhale my drink. I went out of morbid curiosity because as a writer I know that art writing is many things: analysis, critical thinking, emotional insecurity, pettiness, and personal preference professed, but art it is not. I doubted that Britt-Darby's work could hold its own against Adela Andea's sculptures (think Donald Judd on acid)


Adela Andea's work in the Art League courtyard

or the mixed media complexity of Giovanni Valderas but I was willing to listen to his talk and check it out the work.

The talk wandered through the maze that has become the Art Guys Marry a Plant and Britt-Darby's response, a social sculpture/performance piece, The Art Gay Marries a Woman, and the antics that have followed. (It's all on his blog...at least the interesting parts.) The topic was germane, but  the presentation was more Jermaine Jackson in that you had a vague sense of why you were there but the show wasn't delivering what you wanted. For instance, I learned that according to Devon (Douglas Britt's nom de sex) being a sex worker in San Francisco is relatively easy and lucrative. Lots of artists moonlight as sex workers (according to one artist/ex-sex worker). Also, sex work is a cash business that makes crystal meth addiction that much easier.  Go figure.

However, the talk did eventually meander toward art and set the stage for the source of the works in the exhibit, the portraits. The works are monochromatic, text-based works composed of grey acrylic paint and glass particles on canvas. The legibility of the works shifts with the changes in the ambient light in the gallery.


Devon Britt-Darby, Doug69, HooBoy’s Male4Male Escort Review, 2013, Acrylic, glass microspheres and enamel on canvas

Britt-Darby cites Glenn Ligon's coal dust paintings, which play with legibility and text, as one of his influences.


Devon Britt-Darby, Peter Simek, Salon, 2013, Acrylic, glass microspheres and enamel on canvas

Britt-Darby added another visibility challenge to his canvases by borrowing a technique from the Los Angeles based artist Mary Corse. Corse uses glass microspheres, which are used to make painted lines on roads reflective.

The text consists of quotes taken from social media sites. Some of the media reviews art. Some of it reviews escorts/sex workers. All of it reviews Devon Britt-Darby. Britt-Darby deems these works on canvas as portraits of the people who wrote the art criticism and reporting. In his creation myth, he is the Rorschach test by which these reviewers reveal themselves. As he states of the works and himself in the third person, "[these texts] aren't by him, they are directed at him." As an artist selecting which textual passages to paint, he views himself as in control of his subject. He is the portrait artist with himself as a common, defining theme for his subjects.

The conceit becomes (as he presents it) portraits of the authors as seen through the lens of his sex worker-crystal meth addiction-plant marrying protest antics. And I reject that conceit. His assertion seems a little disingenuous to me. It's both silly and safe for Britt-Darby to position these works as portraits because the focus becomes these reviewers and the culture/audience that they represent. But it's not. Anyone who heard the talk or views the show will immediately understand that it's all about Britt-Darby. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Because there isn't. These portraits are unique and intriguing exactly because their medium is the words and perceptions of others about the artist.


Devon Britt-Darby, Robert Boyd, The Great God Pan Is Dead, 2013, Acrylic, glass microspheres and enamel on canvas

It is in this selection process that Britt-Darby portrays himself, that he self-actualizes for all the world to see. Not as a sex worker or meth addict or a gay-rights activist or a self-absorbed columnist, but as an artist. It is in these supposed "portraits" of his critics and reviewers that he creates his own revealing self-portraits.

The supposition of the show begs the question--if what a person (artist/critic/audience member) says about a subject (controversial or not) portrays who s/he is, then DOES NOT the criticism of someone that the criticized chooses to repeat/re-present to an audience through verbal or visual art self-portray (or betray) that person?

I say it does, and I'm not sure what that says about me. But I'm thegreatgodpanisdead, and I'm OK with that.

Pan Recommends for the week of May 16 to May 22

Dean Liscum & Robert Boyd

There's a lot going on art-wise in Houston this weekend. Here's some of what we're interested in checking out.

THURSDAY


Clarissa Tossin, Brasília by Foot, 2009. Archival inkjet on cotton paper. 20 in. x 30 in.


Study for a Landscape by Clarissa Tossin at Sicardi Gallery, 6 pm (with an artist talk on Monday at 7 pm). Keep the International Festival's Brazil theme going with former Core fellow Clarissa Tossin's work. (Also, don't forget to check out her Milam Street window installations.)

FRIDAY

Delio Delgado, Untitled #1, Mixed media print, 13” x 13”, 2011

The boat is a floating piece of space featuring Charles Campbell, Delio Delgado, Erika DeFreitas, Dionne Simpson and Stacey Tyrrell at the Houston Museum of African American Culture, 6:30 pm. Work by Canadian artists of Caribbean descent. Frater and the HMAAC continue to deliver. Miss this and miss out.

Former Houston Chronicle art critic Devon Britt-Darby can't stop explaining art to us--even his own art.

Lots of stuff at the Art League starting at 6 pm, including:

• Cocomirie by Adela Andea in collaboration with Markus Cone and Ian Travis, who will be doing a musical performance at the opening (artist talk at 6:30 and performance at 7:15)
• Art Criticism and Reporting by Devon Britt-Darby (artist talk at 7 pm)
• New Work by Giovanni Valderas (artist talk at 6:15)

It's another Jenny Ash and company Art League orgy. Prepare to be overwhelmed.


Andy Coolquitt, Red Blue Stick (detail), 2011, lighters, acrylic rod, epoxy

andy coolquitt: attainable excellence at the Blaffer Art Museum, 6 pm. This Austin artist has shot up to the big time with his grungy assemblages of weird old crap (including crackhead's plastic lighters). Come prepared to be slightly perplexed and mighty intrigued.


Jeffrey Dell knows what the public likes!

Jeffrey Dell: Follies and Linda Post: Igvonne at Art Palace, 6 pm. I have two words for the two shows at Art Palace: Iggy and Cake.

SATURDAY



Incorpus Articum by Nestor Topchy 7 to 10 p.m.  at George H. Lewis and Sons Funeral Directors, 1010 Bering Drive. Art, embalming fluid, alcohol and Nestor Topchy. Bring it!

 
This is what Kerry Adams showed at the Spacetaker ARC Gallery in 2011

Box 13 Artspace presents:

• Darcy Rosenberger and Guillaume Gelot show D+G, a “festivitiy of love.”
• Kerry Adams’ Reality of Memories 
• Ann Wood’s Pyre
• Shelby Shadwell’s, A Universal Picture

from 7 to 9 pm. Love, memories, a pyre (or two) and drawings of dead cockroaches...and Topchy thought he'd have a lock on morbidity this Saturday night.

Pan Recommends for the week of January 24 to January 30

Robert Boyd

Curiously enough, Thursday seems to be the big day for openings this week. I guess no one wants to compete with openings at Lawndale and the Station Museum scheduled for Friday evening, and who can blame them. Those institutions always draw big crowds for their openings. So the art weekend begins tonight. Here are a few events that caught our eye.

THURSDAY


Arturo García Bustos, El sembrador (The sower), 1958, 8.3 x 8.5”, linoleum print

Arturo García Bustos at the Museum of Printing History, 6 pm; runs through April 13. This master printer and painter, who studied under Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo (as a follower of Kahlo, he belonged to a group that ws called "los Fridos"). Expect to see many dramatic, political,  and somewhat nostalgic images.


Nicolás Paris, Subject, 2009, Plastic figure and dime, 6.8 cm x 2.8 cm x 2.5 cm

Transitional, curated by María Iovino and featuring work by María Isabel Arango, Teresa Currea, Cesar González, Diana Menestrey, Nicolás Paris, Andrés Ramírez Gaviria, Luisa Roa and Adriana Salazar at Sicardi Gallery, 6 pm; runs through March 16, 2013.  A group show of eight Colombian artists. I can't say much about them, but the images on the Sicardi website are quite intriguing.

FRIDAY


This is a older piece by Abi Semtner

Carrie Cook & Abi Semtner: Doing It Like Dolly Does...How Does Dolly Do It at Lawndale Art Center, 6:30 pm; up through March 21. There are several shows opening at Lawndale Friday, but I especially want to call attention to this show because I've liked the Abi Semtner work I've seen, and want to see what she is doing now. Also, Dolly Parton is the musical inspiration for the show, which is awesome.


Alexandre Rosa does delicate blue drawings like this one

ProjeXion featuring work by Tim Gonzalez, Devon Britt-Darby, and Alexandre Rosa at Avis Frank Gallery, 6 pm; runs through February 20. Described as "a multimedia exploration of masculinity and sexuality through abstract, homo erotically charged vignettes" and restricted to viewers 21 and older, I anticipate many penises in this show.

SATURDAY


Kalup Linzy as Kaye, Romantic Loner

Performance: Kalup Linzy at the Houston Museum of African American Culture, 7 to 8 pm. The CAMH's series of performances continues, this time with Kalup Linzy at the HMAAC on Caroline St. You've seen his videos--now see the artist performing his newest character, Kaye, the Romantic Loner.

Pan Recommends for the week of January 10 to January 16

Robert Boyd

Busy weekend ahead for art. Here are some of the shows we're looking forward to.

FRIDAY


The Bridge Club, The Voyage Out II, 2012, archival digital print, 24" x 36"

The Bridge Club: Still at Art Palace, 6 pm, through February 16. The Bridge Club, a four-woman performance group noted for their very deliberate performances (and their wigs) are performing again at Art Palace as well as displaying a selection of "stills" from their previous performances.


 SATURDAY


Ian Hamilton Findlay and George Oliver, Arcadia, 1973, silkscreen print on paper

Ian Hamilton Finlay: Printed Works at Hiram Butler Gallery, 11 am, runs through February 23. I'm not sure if the print above will be in this show, but any show by this late post-modern neo-neoclassicist is worth checking out, in my opinion.


Clifford Owens, Photographs With an Audience (New York) (detail), 2008-09

Clifford Owens, Anthology at the CAMH at 2 pm. Clifford Owens performs as part of the CAMH's Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art. This particular performance is the performance equivalent of a singer doing a covers album.



Devon Britt-Darby, Trust Exercises

Devon Britt-Darby, Keepsakes from Several Occasions at PG Contemporary (Milam St. location) at 6 pm. PG Contemporary's old location with one final show will close out with a bang with a show featuring Devon Britt-Darby, former Houston Chronicle art critic and central figure in The Art Guy's Marry a Tree affair. I'm looking forward to a spectacle, if not an outright scandal!


Maggie Taylor, Small Boat Waiting, 2012, inkjet print

Maggie Taylor, No Ordinary Days at Catherine Courtier Gallery at 6 pm, runs through February 9. Maggie Taylor returns for a new exhibit of her gently surreal painterly photo-collages.

What exhibits will you be seeing this weekend?