The Endless Gallery Two-Step

Robert Boyd

An art gallery is a hard business to make a success of. I suspect starting an art gallery is no less risky than a restaurant. In Houston, there are galleries that have been around for a long, long time--Moody Gallery (38 years in business), Hooks-Epstein (44 years) and Texas Gallery (43 years) for example. But they're the exceptions. In the past few months we've seen De Santos Gallery and Goldesberry Gallery close, not to mention the Joanna, which wasn't really a commercial gallery and in any case is really just evolving.  Starting in September, the successor to the Joanna, Brandon opens in the space currently occupied (for a few more days) by Domy. And the space at 4411 Montrose that had been occupied by Joan Wich Gallery is finally being taken by The Mission, a Chicago Gallery specializing in Latin American art. It will open in October. And there are rumors of at least one other well-known local gallery closing. Opening and closing--it's what galleries do in Houston.


Nicole Longnecker Gallery

Three new galleries got started in the past few months, so with two recent closures, that puts us ahead. Nicole Longnecker Gallery has taken the space vacated by Goldesberry Gallery. They've had one show so far featuring work by Devon Christopher Moore. The work was handsome but a bit sterile. It felt like corporate decoration.


Devon Christopher Moore, Enfold - I, folded and sanded steel

However, it is too early to make any sort of judgment about the gallery. Their next show, Interpretive Voices featuring work by Jessica Dupuis, Megan Harrison, Erin Stafford and Jade Cooper, seems much less likely to end up gracing the boardroom of some large corporation than the Moore pieces. I'll have to see a few shows before I can really size up this gallery. In any case, I like what they did with the old Goldesberry space. The new gallery is spare and open and will be a very flexible space for whatever art they choose to display. And their location on gallery row on Colquitt guarantees ample foot-traffic.


(left) Jonathan Higgins, 2 Wavy Lines, lithograph, chine colle' paper: Seikishu, Somerset Satin, 30 x 30 inches; (right) Equestrian with 5 Riders Facing Front and Equestrian with 5 Riders Facing Sides, Matakam , Nigeria, Wood, Height: 19" and 17" respectively, Length: 23"

Establishing an identity is no problem for Gallery Jatad. The gallery shows a unique combination of both traditional African art and contemporary art, as can be seen in the photo above. The current show contains both African equestrian art and a group of contemporary pieces by gallery artists. The director of the gallery is Matthew Scheiner, who is married to Lisa Qualls, who is an artist I have written about before.


(left) Bronze Equestrian Pair Kahugu, Nigeria, bronze, Male Height:25", Female Height: 25". (right)Equestrian Pair Nok, Nigeria, wood on custom stands, Male Height:27", Female Height: 27"

It remains to be seen if this bifurcated approach will work, but it appeals to me. It says you, the collector, don't have to like just one kind of art. The challenge for Gallery Jatad, it seems to me, is accessing the deep-pocketed collectors of traditional African art. The work they have on display isn't cheap decorative stuff made for tourists--these pieces are ritual, spiritual or utilitarian, and often quite old. And while you can get some of the smaller pieces for less than $1000 (nice for a collector just starting out in this field), the prices get big quickly, going up to $125,000 for the magnificent Olowe of Ise door.

 
Olowe of Ise Door Yoruba, Nigeria, wood, pigment

The other challenge is the location on Blodgett Street. This is in the museum district and quite close to a bunch of art institutions, but still, Blodgett Street is not Montrose or Main Street. Furthermore, they don't have a gallery next door to them the way the Colquitt St., 4411 Montrose and Isabella Courts galleries do. So they don't get the benefit of the "cluster effect."


BLUEorange Gallery interior, with art by Ben Mata

BLUEorange Gallery started in November of last year, and I have to admit I didn't even hear about it until April. Whether this is attributable to my own obliviousness or a lack of promotion by the gallery, I can't say. In any case, brother and sister gallerists Jacob and Megan Spacek have slowly built up awareness for the gallery with increasingly high profile shows, such all the Houston stop for Fahamu Pecou's All That Glitters Ain't Goals.


Fahamu Pecou (left) and friend at BLUEorange

Next up for BLUEorange is the Salon des Refusés, a show of the art not selected for the Big Show. They have already gotten some buzz for this. Whether this translates to repeat visitors will be determined. BLUEorange shares a weakness with Gallery Jatad--they aren't located next to any other galleries (it's on West Gray between Waugh and Montrose). In order for a gallery like that to succeed, it has to have one of two things--a rolodex full of collectors to call (not likely for a pair of recent art school grads like the Spaceks) or big events that draw the art public away from their old beaten paths.

 
Michael Menchaca, ToroLlo Que Quieres es Toyo, 2013, silk-screen, 25 x 18 inches

Still, with exciting work by artists like Pecou and Michael Menchaca, I'm rooting for them to succeed. And if I'm around 44 years from now, I'll be interested to see if BLUEorange, Gallery Jatad or Nicole Longnecker Gallery have beaten the odds like Hooks-Epstein. If they do, expect a follow-up post!

 
Michael Menchaca, SWEVEN (detail), acrylic on foam board and acrylic on canvas installation

Big Frame Up in Austin

Robert Boyd


This giant blue genie had nothing to do with Frame besides being across the parking lot from Big Medium

East Austin has become a locus for Austin's art scene.  Of course there is EAST, the East Austin studio tour, but studios are the loam out of which other things grow--galleries, artists spaces, etc. Frame to me seemed to be about promoting the next stage of the evolution of an art district. Some institutions have sprung up, and to help people realize this, they join their voices like the citizens of Whoville, shouting "We are here!" The four participants were Tiny Park, MASS, Big Medium and Co-Lab. What's interesting is that this grouping includes a commercial gallery, a non-profit and a couple of artist-run spaces.

Big Medium is a nonprofit that organizes EAST and the Texas Biennial. Soon they will have their own storefront space in a new development called Canopy. Right now, Canopy is empty. I think they'd like to full of galleries and complimentary businesses. Big Medium arranged for two of the spaces to be used on a temporary basis. So on the day of Frame, Fahamu Pecou: All Dat Glitters Ain’t Goals (curated by Salvador Castillo) was having its closing night and The F.R. Etchen Collection; Selected Works and More was opening.


Fahamu Pecou at Big Medium

Fahamu Pecou is an Atlanta-based artist who uses self-portraiture, video and performance to reflect on images and stereotypes of black manhood in the era of hiphop. The big canvases were impressive and projected an ironic sense of overblown masculinity, but the videos were the star of the show. They came across as modest and homespun (although they included some clever effects), with forceful but ironic raps.



The other Big Medium show was a show of Russell Etchen's personal art collection. Obviously this is a curatorial idea I have no real objection to. In Etchen's case, a lot of his collection comes from his colleagues in Sketch Klubb, various folks on the Houston art scene who are about his age, bits of comics-related artwork, and other odds and ends. Etchen is a cash-poor collector, which makes his collection all the more interesting--each piece has a story and is not simply the result of a cash exchange.


Mark Flood, Blue Skies for Russell Etchen

For example, Etchen has an astonishing collection of Mark Flood paintings because he designs Flood's publications and is more-or-less a member of the Flood entourage.


Mark Flood, Kitchen Mirror


Clockwise from the top: Jonny Negron drawing; 2 Geoff Hippensteil paintings; Travis Kent, Fan



Johnny Ryan

I loved Johnny Ryan's tribute to D.J. Screw.


Tim Kerr, Coltrane

John Porcellino, Skunk Cabbage

My next stop was MASS Gallery, a co-op operation that includes studios and a giant exhibition space. They were opening with a group show called Wally, which was apparently about the relationship of art to the wall. Unless you are radically examining this concept as William Anastasi did with Six Sites, it seems like a trivial theme for a show. The ways that the work addressed "walls" were not particularly profound. But it was a group show, and the thing about group shows is that one can usually find a few things to like.


Leah Bailis, Cinderblocks, 2013, cardboard and paint

Something like Cinderblocks by Leah Bailis strikes me as painfully obvious in terms of "walls," but quite appealing in terms of being a piece of sculpture. Because of their cardboard structure, they have the feeling of cartoon cinderblocks--the kind that Popeye could bust through easily.


Lee Piechocki, I Have a Lot of Faith in This Model, 2013, plexiglass, wood, sculpy, paint, paper, vinyl, found objects on shelf

As someone whose job revolves around making computer models of real things, I liked I Have a Lot of Faith in This Model by Lee Piechocki. The models I make are generally opaque to the people I make them for, and a lot of what I do is convince them that I believe in the model and that they should as well. This mysterious grouping of objects is also asking us to take it on faith that it works. And I do.


Yashua Klos, Totem, 2011, woodblock prints collaged onto archival paper

And I thought Yashua Klos's Totem was simply beautiful.


Kansas City Plein Air Coterie (KC PAC) Open Session 

After checking out the show, I went out into the vast concrete "courtyard" where several people were set up painting. This was an activity open to all but led by the Kansas City Plein Air Coterie (KC PAC) with artist Lee Piechocki.

Then off to Co-Lab, which was having an exhibit and performance by Brooke Gassiot called The Stories Our Neurons Tell. It consisted of several sculptural objects, some incorporating video elements.

 
piece by Brooke Gassiot.

This one, whose title I didn't catch, was quite powerful. At first, you saw a large circular structure supporting a curtain that was about 7 or 8 feet high. You had to walk into the corner of the gallery space behind the structure to find a gap in the curtain. When you did, you saw the bathtub with a video projection in it above. I couldn't tell if the woman in the tub was crying or exhausted, but it's a strong image. And the way it provides a glow within the otherwise dimply-lit scene made it stronger. A projected image like this is a ghostly image--I didn't feel like it was meant to portray something existing now but rather the memory of something, possibly something very bad. Something that makes a woman cry in her bathtub.


scar piece by Brooke Gassiot

And memory is continued in this piece. You can't really see them in this photo, but the lightbox there is covered with little drawings. Gassiot was drawing these in the next room. People would sit down and show Gassiot a scar, which she would draw. As she drew, her subject told the story of that scar to her. Mine was a scar on my right palm, acquired in the late 80s on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico, stitched up in an emergency room in Houma, Louisiana. Then using needle and thread, she sewed up the drawing of your scar with the same number of stitches you actually got. Then you took the drawing and added it to the pile. It was a very personal experience between you and the artist. (And the artist got to hear a bunch of great stories, so she got something out of it as well.)

My favorite show was at Tiny Park, my last stop on my Frame Tour.  It was a show by Joel Ross and Jason Creps. Their work consists mainly of signs that they have made and left someplace. This is Ross's part of the process. The residue of the work are photos of the signs in situ (taken by Creps, who is also a commercial photographer. He did the cover photo for Neko Case's album Middle Cyclone.)


Joel Ross and Jacob Creps, IN THE FUTURE (Installed and abandoned, Bradley, IL), 2012, archival pigment print, 42 x 55 inches

In addition to the photographs, the show consists of signs and word pieces. Their power is somewhat diminished being in a gallery setting (instead of just being out in public), but Ross makes up for that by being so amusing and clever.


Joel Ross, #UC!&+%, 2012, vinyl and acrylic paint on pine, dimensions variable


Joel Ross, #UC!&+%, 2012, vinyl and acrylic paint on pine, dimensions variable


 Joel Ross, It Was a Bad Idea, 2010, flashe and graphite on paper, 60 x 30 inches

Still, the problem with these in the gallery setting is that they seem like clever one-liners of a sort. It's only out in the world that these things gain power. So Ross did an installation. He did it at the studio of OK Mountain over on Cesar Chavez, so he wasn't strictly removing it from an institutional setting. Nonetheless, it must have given people whiplash as they drove by it at night.


Joel Ross, TORTURE SOUNDS INCREDIBLE, 2006, electronic LED sign, 57 x 84 x 7 inches

All in all, I thought Frame was a success. But it would be even better if there were a bunch of galleries at Canopy. Frame is trying to force a beneficial clustering effect, and that may work, but it needs to get bigger and more dense in the long run.