Carrie Schneider's Détournement

Robert Boyd

Tonight Right Here, Right Now opens at the CAMH, featuring Houston artists Debra Barrera, Nathaniel Donnett and Carrie Marie Schneider. I have heard through the grapevine that there is some dissatisfaction with how much the CAMH is paying the artists. Schneider has always been a big supporter of the idea that institutions should pay artists more. Now the following article appeared on Glasstire, under her byline. I think it was Schneider trolling the CAMH, using her old log-in credentials to insert this piece of détournement onto Glasstire's site. By doing it on opening night, there is no way the CAMH can pull her from the show. The article claims to be an interview with the "director of the CAMH," but it never mentions CAMH director Bill Arning by name. I am swiping this article without permission from anybody. If Schneider wants me to pull it down, I will. If she wants to get paid, there is a crisp $100 bill with her name on it.

(Updates: As I was posting this, the article has been pulled from Glasstire. But it was subsequently put back up, with an explanation from the publisher that it was an unauthorized article. Now that I've seen the exhibit and spoken to Schneider, I have posted a review of her section of Right Here, Right Now.)

Right Here, Right Now: Houston, Hearing from CAMH’s Director

August 22nd, 2014 – Carrie Marie Schneider

Today the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston opens with a show entitled “Right Here, Right Now: Houston” featuring the work of local artists. In anticipation of this exhibition, and concurrent with the institution’s 65th anniversary season, I sat down with the Director of the CAMH to learn more.
 
Why did the CAMH choose to show local Houston artists?
I feel it should be one of our responsibilities to recognize the [local] artists who present new ideas and a fresh approach. It is one of our responsibilities. Museums and art centers are so preoccupied with exhibitions that they tend to forget the artists. We do not intend to make the museum a sacred temple. We mean to research new ideas. For too long now, we in the museums have considered the artist merely as a commodity to be used, but the artist today is someone who uses [their] imagination to produce something more than just an object to be collected. I think the real savers of the environment will be the young creative people who understand the problems of an urban society and can change that society for the better. I think artists should work directly with city planners. People say that’s being done now, but it’s just tokenism. I’ve talked about paying artists to come to the museum and innovate and people tell me it’s a silly idea, that we’re doing the artists a favor. Well, I say you can’t get a scientist to work for you without paying him. Why should we treat our artists any differently?

How could the CAMH afford such a proposal?
We’re going to dispose with a lot of the unnecessary crap that most museums get stuck with.  This museum cannot be either an Acropolis or a country club and it won’t be. It’s going be a place to move things- and it’s…flexible enough so that it can function inside and out as an artistic medium in which artists can create imaginative works. The outside walls have a reflective skin, so that the whole building can be turned into a light sculpture. We hope to make everyone aware of sensations they may have forgotten or have never experienced. We have to get over the idea that all art must be viewed under glass and at a distance.

I look forward to seeing that.
This place won’t just be concerned with exhibitions, either. [We'll have] an after-school program with a thousand kids enrolled.  And I don’t mean making things to take home to Mama. The idea is to take a kid and make him aware of his environment, that’s all. [We'll get] seven-year-olds making fountains. We’re trying to develop awareness, not art, and we’ll do it with rock music or whatever else it takes.

That’s a big education initiative, but is it really the CAMH’s place?
I believe in a total education program. I want to develop a living center for the community. We need people from the public schools in here with us. The education department has been a dirty word in museums, but public school teachers are vitally important. I’ve got to take time to meet with teachers and find out what their kids want and need, and not just send them a lot of stuff they don’t need. I want to get this museum involved with college students, too. Let them install shows and get them working directly with artists. It is not Culture on a Corner. We plan to bring visiting artists and to take a role in the development of the whole city, by bringing statements, via exhibitions, about urban development. One day art forms will be flowing out TO people rather than being collected IN what we now think of as museums. Art can’t be divorced from people. Art is society and society is art. Art today moves out of museums and into the whole city.

That is all impressively ambitious, but really, how could you afford it?
I’m concerned with here. I came here because I believed Houston was capable of vigorous art activity. I know it is now. The money is here, the resources haven’t been tapped. Houston is potentially able to support contemporary art as few other places can. And who’s in a better position to act as liaison between the artists and the corporations than the museum?

And how will the board be convinced to go along with it?
I’m one of the few museum directors in the country whose trustees don’t interfere with museum programs and I couldn’t have that freedom in Los Angeles or New York or anywhere else. I gave a lecture at the Chamber of Commerce not long ago, and told them a lot of things that would have horrified conservatives in other cities, and when it was all over a lot of those businessmen told me, “I like what you said.”

What’s the impetus behind these policies?
Artists today aren’t interested in selling works to collectors – at least, not the artists I want to work with. This will enable an artist to come in here and use the museum, not just show in it. We’ve got to put the human thing back into our museums, and the only people who can do it are artists.

Right Here, Right Now: Houston opens at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston August 22 at 6:30 pm and is on view until November 30, 2014.

also by Carrie Marie Schneider

• Interview with Reginald Adams, Obama Muralist - March 3rd, 2013
• Psychographic Consumer Profiling - February 6th, 2013
• Not a Big Fan of Clifford Owens - January 17th, 2013
• Maker Faire Preview - January 16th, 2013
• Artist Profile: Aisen Caro Chacin - January 14th, 2013

Go Read This 2-Part Post on Glasstire about Rigoberto Gonzalez

by Robert Boyd


Rigoberto Gonzalez, The Zetas Cartel Beheading Their Rivals (Se Los Cargo La Chingada), Oil on linen, 7' x 7'

I always read Glasstire and use it as a resource (they have the best art listings--totally crucial for me). And I want to point people to good writing about local art. After all, we have less and less of that here as time goes on. So if you aren't already reading Glasstire, do so. And in any case, read this spectacular 2-part piece on Harlingen-based painter, Rigoberto Gonzalez, who has a provocative (if poorly lit) show up currently at the Art League. What I like about it is that even though author Sarah Frisch interviewed Gonzalez, she doesn't merely depend on the interview--she approaches the artist and his art from multiple angles. Her writing is personal, but as the article goes on, she cedes more and more ground to Gonzalez. You can read part 1 here and part 2 here.

Links Links Links Links Links Links

by Robert Boyd



Glasstire has moved their troops into key positions in Southern California, as seen in this map

The Empire expands, part 1: Glasstire has started up a Southern California edition. So far it looks just like the Texas edition, except for the map. On the Glasstire Texas map, each little marker represents a whole city, if not a vast region within Texas. On the Southern California map, many of the markers represent a different region of Los Angeles--Santa Monica/Venice, Culver City, West Hollywood/Midtown, Downtown, and LA Other. (I know Santa Monica, Culver City and West Hollywood are separate municipalities, but they're separate in the sense that Bellaire or Piney Point are separate from Houston.) The last three regions listed are Santa Barbara, Orange County and San Diego. (I guess Bakersfield is too far north or too blue collar to qualify.) Now this expansion is risky--many in SoCal might resent the intrusion of a bunch of Texans and fight back! Likewise, if the Glasstire folks take their eyes off their capital city, they might lose it to some amateur upstart like The Great God Pan is Dead.

The Empire expands, part 2: Glasstire reports that Rice is going to get a new art center. Art has risen and fallen at Rice since the 60s, when it became its own department. Its history is too involved to relate here. Sewell Hall was built to house the department, and it had two additional "temporary" buildings way over on the Southeast side of campus (which was quite isolated back then). The temporary buildings were the Rice Media Center, which housed the movie theater (one of the best theaters in Houston, in my opinion) and various facilities for photographers and film-makers. Next to it was the Rice Museum, which was a little like the CAMH--a non-collecting museum showing contemporary art. The department was small and was combined with art history. The art department was eventually spun off from Art History to become Visual and Dramatic Arts. Art History grew--now it offers a Phd. But VADA has stagnated. (And the Rice Museum no longer exists.) But this might change with a new facility--with more studio space and more exhibitions space, Rice might be able to offer an MFA program (I have mixed feelings about that) and perhaps more curation-oriented classes. [Glasstire]



Sidney Nolan (a member of the Boyd family by marriage), Ned Kelly, 1946

I might not have an empire, but at least I have a dynasty. There is a family that since 1851 has produced and/or intermarried with many of Australia's leading artists. Personally, I've never heard of any of these various Boyds, but let's face it,  Australia has not historically been an center of the art-world. Still, the country has produced a few great artists, including Sidney Nolan, who married Mary Boyd, herself a painter and part of the Boyd family. OK, there is so much that is weird about this. First of all, that there could even be a multi-generational group of artists in the first place, one that starts in 1851 and still exists with practicing artists/descendants today. Artistic talent occasionally goes from one generation to the next, but we're talking six generations. Second, even though I was born in Australia (really), I have no connection at all with the Australian Boyd dynasty. There is a book about the family called The Boyds: A Family Biography. Would it be too weird if I got a copy of this book?



The new paradigm for self-published comics. This excellent Kickstarter campaign reminds me of how the world of comics has changed. With distribution more difficult than ever (especially for art comics), more self-publishers are turning to Kickstarter to pre-fund their comics. I believe the idea behind Kickstarter was initially philanthropic. But for cartoonists, it has become in some ways an elaborate preordering system. With Suspect Device 2, if you "donate" $13 dollars, you get a copy of the finished comic, post-paid. Self-publishers have always dealt with middlemen--distributors, wholesalers,retailers--who take big chunks of the sales revenue. Kickstarter is another middleman, but the toll they charge is quite modest (approximately 8%).



Forrest Bess, title and date unknown

Forrest Bess, cancer fighter. Forrest Bess is in the news a lot lately. The latest news is that a bunch of his paintings are being offered for sale by Christie's to benefit MD Anderson. The Art Market Monitor article has an error, though. Bess had a show at the Houston Museum of Fines Arts in 1951 (they say his first museum shows were in 1981). I've heard there will be a Bess solo exhibit at the Menil next year, but I don't know any of the details. [Art Market Monitor]