Pan Recommends for the week of August 16 through August 22

It's Thursday, and that means that Pan has recommendations for the weekend and beyond for you. Here are a few things that caught our eye.

LAYOVER: Houston Airport System Portable Artwork Collection at Space 125 Gallery, 5:30 to 7:30 Thursday, August 16. This show has been open for a while, but tonight is the official reception for it. This is art from the Houston Airport System. It includes work by many of our favorite local artists, including Karin Broker, Jeff Forster, Jonathan Leach, Randy Twaddle and more!

Word Around Town wraps up this week with readings tonight (8 pm) at Secret Word Cafe, tomorrow (8 pm) at the Ripley-Baker Neighborhood Center and Saturday (8 pm) at Dean's Credit Clothing. Literary events are usually outside our bailiwick, but Dean Liscum is live-blogging WAT this year, and Dean's one of us.

Diverse Works garage sale, Friday, August 17, 9 am - 5 pm and Saturday, August 18, 9 am - 12 pm. I'm sure all of you have heard the blessed news that Diverse Works is moving to Midtown (not to the proposed Independent Arts Collaborative--at least, not yet). They've been in their current converted warehouse location for over a hundred years (roughly--I'm too lazy to look it up) and have acquired a bunch of crap they don't want to take with them. Now's your chance to own stuff that Diverse Works doesn't want anymore!

Experimental Eye at the Aurora Picture Show, curated by Kelly Sears, 8 pm, Saturday, August 18. Awesome animator Kelly Sears has put together this festival of short experimental animated movies, which includes one by one of our favorite cartoonists, Lilli Carré. Should be excellent!

These are what we're looking forward to--what about you? Please feel free to add events in the comments!

Jeff Forster's Progress

by Robert Boyd

I can't say I have been following Jeff Forster's career for a long time--I first saw his work in April of last year. But he has an old website that seems to date from 2007 and one can see his work has evolved quite a bit. Back then, his work was divided into two groups, Relics and Earthworks & Remnants. It is certainly possible to see in these works the roots of his current work. The "Relics" were ceramics that "stem from modern everyday household forms that society is familiar with." He derived "great satisfaction in reusing discarded items to create art." Forster deliberately made these ceramic pieces look aged--he wanted them to appear to be ancient sacred objects. But for his work moving forward, the key thing is the idea of a relic and the appearance of age. The Earthworks also were created to have the appearance of great age.

In 2010, Forster displayed work at Poissant Gallery that not only looked old, but was actually crumbling. Instead of a stately ruin, the work looks like a neglected mess.


Jeff Forster, Frailty, found object, porcelain, native Houston clay, 2010

 My thought after seeing this was that it mimicked what one would experience in an abandoned building. For example, a house that was flooded out during Katrina--what does it look like when you go back after all the water has receded and dried up? Artists and architects have long been fascinated by ruins--one need only think of the etchings of Piranesi or the follies (sham ruins) of 18th century England. But Forster is doing something a bit different. Those earlier lovers of ruins imagined a cleaned-up idea of the ruin compared to Forster's debris-strewn floor. But I think the relationship is strong, and as a consequence, I think we could apply to Forster's work in this vein an 18th century word, picturesque.

But among all the objects of art, the picturesque eye is perhaps most inquisitive after the elegant relics of ancient architecture; the ruined tower, the Gothic arch, the remains of castles, and abbeys. These are the richest legacies of art. They are consecrated by time; and almost deserve the veneration we pay to the works of nature itself.(William Gilpin, Three Essays on Picturesque Beauty, 1794)

I think in Forster's work, we have a modern interpretation of the Picturesque--perhaps the Enlightenment-era notion of the picturesque combined with nostalgie de la boue. This is something I can relate to. I take an indecent pleasure in seeing pictures of destroyed cities and towns--whether the result of natural disaster or war or mere neglect. And the ubiquity of such images of "disaster porn" in the mass media suggest I am not alone in this shameful voyeurism. The Sex Pistols got it right when they referred to "a cheap holiday in other people's misery." After all, when we see something like Frailty, it is implied that something bad happened. Buildings aren't abandoned for good reasons.  Eviction, delinquent taxes, bankruptcy, fcoreclosures, etc.--these lie behind this work.

 
 Jeff Forster, Endangered Species, native clays and palm fronds dipped in porcelain then fired, 2010

He pushes it even further in Endangered Species (from an exhibit in September 2010 at the Art League). While frailty had the remains of a wooden box mounted on the wall, Endangered Species is a portrait of total decay. Two nondescript objects are on the floor surrounded by a partially swept nimbus of random ceramic flakes. One might wonder where the structure is here? The answer lies in the walls of the Art League's gallery. As an installation, Endangered Species uses its space as part of the piece itself. The gallery is the ruined building, its floor scattered with debris.


Still, these smallish pieces by Forster suggest that with more space, he could build a structure--the actual ruin. That's what he did with Abandoned, which was shown this summer at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft's show of former artists-in-residence, Crafting Live(s): 10 Years of Artists-in-Residence.


Jeff Forster, Abandoned, reclaimed wood, concrete, local vegetation, native clays, 2011

Abandoned takes the ideas he developed in Frailty and Endangered Species and pushes them about as far as they can go in a gallery setting. Here we clearly see the remnants of a structure.It appears to be made of wood, with straw or pine needles on the roof. One could imagine stumbling across it in rural West Texas or Northern Mexico. My grandparents had a small farm in Louisiana. By the time I started visiting them, they were too old to farm and had leased their land to timber companies. In the woods (formerly fields), there was an old long-abandoned sharecropper's cabin. This piece stirred strong memories of that cabin. It too was strewn with detritus that hinted at the lives of its former inhabitants.


Jeff Forster, Abandoned (detail), reclaimed wood, concrete, local vegetation, native clays, 2011

This leads us to Forster's current work, a solo show called Detritus currently on view at Lawndale. To advance his postmodern picturesque effect, he has had to move his work outside, into Lawndale's back yard. Each of the pieces in the show has its own name, but I can't match the names to specific pieces, so please forgive my imprecision.


Jeff Forster, Detritus installation, reclaimed fencing and lumber, steel, local vegetation, concrete, adobe, paint, local and recycled clays

The first thing I noticed was how neat and tidy everything was. These large, somewhat abstract shapes are carefully spread about Lawndale's neatly manicured (if somewhat dry) lawn. They seem designed to suggest the ruins of obscure industrial structures. As someone who has looked at a lot of Forster's earlier work, the second thing I noticed was the lack of small broken bits of ceramic refuse, as we had seen in Frailty, Endangered Species, and Abandoned.


Jeff Forster, Detritus installation, reclaimed fencing and lumber, steel, local vegetation, concrete, adobe, paint, local and recycled clays

I pointed out the difference between Forster's work and the Picturesque of Gilpin and Horace Walpole. Those 18th century Englishmen didn't want actual ruins--they weren't looking for burned-out cities or weed-strewn lots. They placed their faux ruins in carefully designed gardens. The power of Forster's earlier pieces was in their feeling of actual decay--places where some tragedy had happened and which no one had touched since. A sharecropper's cabin with the litter of old newspapers and 1930s Sears catalogs on the floor. That is not what we see in Detritus, despite its name. It is closer to a folly like the Jealous Wall  -- a beautifully constructed sham ruin artfully set in a lovely lawn.



Jeff Forster, Detritus installation detail, reclaimed fencing and lumber, steel, local vegetation, concrete, adobe, paint, local and recycled clays

In expanding the scale of his work, Forster has moved closer to the 18th century ideal of the picturesque. I don't see that as a forward step. Detritus lacks the power of his earlier work. It feels like a misstep. When Kara Walker, for example, makes use of a quirky 18th century art form (silhouette), she gives it a modern resonance--and power. Forster seemed on that path until now. But as someone who is following Forster's experiment with updating the picturesque, I am hoping that he will move past Detritus. Perhaps what Forster needs is a piece of property where he can build a relatively permanent folly. A project like that would be similar to an earthwork, or to La Ribaute, Anselm Kiefer's "city" in France. Given several acres, Forster could build his own folly, perhaps a complex of ruined structures--structures that would decay naturally over a span of years. It would be a monument to entropy.

(Here I have to acknowledge that I own a piece of Forster ceramic--I bought it at a Box 13 fundraiser in 2010. And I have to acknowledge as well that when I own a piece for an artist, that puts me in the position of rooting for his or her artistic success.)

My Top 10 Houston Art Shows

Robert Boyd

Hey, it's that time of year. This is my own highly idiosyncratic list. Basically, I went through all the shows I saw last year and gave them a rating from 1 to 10. If a show was above a five, I considered it for this list. I'm ranking them below from best, second best, and so on.

#1. Hand+Made at the CAMH. Great exhibit with a startling variety of performances and objects built around the idea of "craft"--which has been for so long a dirty word in contemporary art. But for me, some of my favorite artists in Houston come out of craft traditions.

#2. Barkley Hendricks at the CAMH. Super show of giant, full-figure portraits of African Americans. To me, it just defined cool. I really loved the Fela installation.

#3. James Drake at the Station Museum. Some of the best shows this year had to do with ideas of manhood or manliness. Drake really captured the stoic, mournful ideal.

#4. James Surls sculptures at Rice University. I have loved James Surls since they installed his sculpture in Market Square back in the 80s. I thought the temporary installation of sculptures at Rice was fantastic. He also had a nice show at Barbara Davis this year.

#5. Maurizio Cattelan at the Menil. Maurizio Cattelan does something kind of obvious in a way. He creates sculptures that seem as if they are three dimensional representations of some forgotten surrealist painter's paintings. The genius part of the Menil exhibit was to scatter them throughout the galleries (and on the roof), mixed in with work from the permanent collection.


Patricia Cronin, Memorial to a Marriage, marble at "Because We Are".

#6. Because We Are at the Station Museum. This group show dealt with LGBT civil rights, which in the wake of the defeat of gay marriage in California and now with the Smithsonian Wojnarowicz episode (not to mention the repeal of DADT), feels like it was the right exhibit at the right time. It even included an unusually powerful Wojnarowicz, Untitled (One Day This Kid...). What made this better than the run-of-the-mill agitprop exhibit was that the art was visually powerful and highly personal, as in Patricia Cronin's sculpture.

#7. Peat Duggins at Art Palace. I found this exhibit to be be thought-provoking and very, very beautiful. It delved into the relationship of religion to nature without offering easy answers. Duggins seems to have created his own personal sort of shamanism.



Andrea Dezsö, Sometimes in My Dreams I Fly detail, 2010

#8. Andrea Dezsö at the Rice gallery. Sometimes in My Dreams I Fly was the summer installation, which means the whole thing was behind glass. Dezsö created kind of a puppet-theater tableau of an alien, underground civilization. As a kid, I would have written stories about these people. As an adult, I visited it several times, charmed by her fertile imagination.

#9. Jeff Forster and Jillian Conrad at the Art League. Forster is a ceramicist who has embraced a kind of anti-craft approach. The deconstructed pieces in this show intrigued me. I felt the same about Jillian Conrad's sculptures made of construction site materials and glitter. The work of both these artists is challenging and interesting.

#10. Francis Giampietro at the Temporary Space. Another artist who dealt with masculinity as a subject this year was Francis Giampietro. I liked his heavy, somewhat dangerous assemblages, which reference body building and football.

Honorable mention:
Sarah Williams at McMurtrey Gallery
Joseph Cohen at Wade Wilson
Robert Pruitt at Hooks-Epstein
Wishing Well for Houston by Brian Piana, Aram Nagle and Heath Hayner at the Art League
Not the Family Jewels group show at Gallery 1764
Terry Suprean at the Temporary Space
Material and deStructure group show at Poissant Gallery
Ward Sanders at Hooks-Epstein
Are You There God? It's Me, Birdie group show at the Joannex
MFA Thesis show at the Blaffer Gallery
Daniel Heimbinder at the Joannex
The Big Show at Lawndale
Seth Alverson at Art Palace
Edward Lane McCarthy at Goldesberry Gallery
Boozefox at Lawndale
Tobiah Mundt at Lawndale
B-Sides at Fotofest
Poems and Pictures at the Museum of Printing History
It's Better to Regret Something You Have Done... group show at Art Palace
The New Black: Contemporary Concepts in Color and Abstraction at Williams Tower
Mark Greenwalt at Hooks-Epstein
Maria Smits at Lawndale

For commercial gallery of the year, I think I'm going to go with Art Palace, although I think Moody Gallery, Gallery 1724, Poissant Gallery and many more all had great shows, and I expect PG Contemporary to be a strong contender next year.

The choices are even harder when you go to non-profit spaces. Pretty much all of them had fantastic exhibits, performances, film presentations and more this year. But some special shoutouts to Lawndale and Box 13 and FotoFest for great years, and a special remembrance for The Temporary Space, which we always knew was going to go. A big salute to Keijiro Suzuki, whose curatorial energy was boundless.

I'm not the only one making a best-of list. Douglas Britt has his up at 29-95 (we overlap only on two shows). Has anyone else done one? Britt's is the only other one I have seen, so far...

Jeff Forster and Jillian Conrad at The Art League

These two artists have a small show up in the front gallery at the Art League. I wasn't familiar with Jillian Conrad, but Jeff Forster's work is work I have encountered several times over the past few months, up to and including winning a piece of his in the Box 13 raffle. So I was eager to see what he had for this show.


Jeff Forster, Endangered Species, native clays and palm fronds dipped in porcelain then fired, 2010

Palm fronds dipped in porcelain then fired--so that's how he makes those little clay chips. I was wondering that ever since I saw his piece Frailty. What interests me about the process is, what happens when you take something organic and/or flammable and fire it in a kiln? Does the organic part burn away, leaving just the ceramic part? This has been on my mind ever since I won the two Marie Weichman porcelain rags which were apparently made in a similar way.

This piece (and one other in the show) were made out of similar little ceramic pieces. Installing them means scattering the stuff on the floor, so the dimensions are, as they say, variable. I think maybe the are meant to evoke a sense of crumbling ruin, as if you have stumbled across a site that was once built up but is now a shattered and decayed remain. That's how it feels to me. There is something amusing about transporting this into a pristine art gallery.


Jeff Forster, Remnant of Reflected Space, fired native clay, mirror, and naturally collected vegetation, 2009

If the former piece was meant to evoke the decay of something man-made, this piece seems like an attempt to contrive something that appears natural. Except for the mirror--I'm not sure what that's all about. The location is particularly interesting--against a glass. It can be seen from the outside and when you view it from the inside, you see the sidewalk and the street and trees and passing cars, forming kind of a backdrop for the piece. If the object is man-made nature--a "rock" formed from natural clay (as slate is nature-made rock formed from clay), then what we see through the window, our built and grown environment, is also man-made "nature." Maybe then the mirror is meant to remind us that the "rock" is a reflection of what we do in our cities and towns. We build our own "nature," our own environment.


Jillian Conrad, Pile, wood, concrete,foam,paint, glitter, 2010

Jillian Conrad, at first glance, seems like an apt partner in this exhibit. But there is a difference in their work. While Forster's work may be chaotic and may resemble decay, it is ultimately crafted  using one of mankind's oldest crafts. Conrad's pieces, while constructed, seem deliberately uncrafted. For instance, the wooden table in Pile is not the result of carpentry, but rather the result of nailing pieces of wood together. The concrete looks more like concrete accidentally spilled at a worksite than concrete deliberately formed for some purpose. That's the feeling I get from looking at this--a temporary work-table assembled at a construction site. All the materials (save the glitter) are materials construction workers might use to build a house or commercial structure. It's the kind of object that, after the job was done, would be broken up and thrown in the dumpster with the rest of the waste products. Put in a gallery recontextualizes it. Whether this interpretation has anything to do with Conrad's intent, I have no idea. But it's what I saw.

The Big Show at Lawndale 2010, part 1

A little over a year ago, I started writing about art in Houston regularly. My reason was to use writing as an excuse to get out of the house and see art. I was becoming too much of a couch potato, see? I always went to see museum shows and whatever was happening at Diverse Works, but I wasn't going to galleries or seeing much of what was happening at the other great art spaces in Houston.

Consequently, when I saw The Big Show last year, it was with virgin eyes, so to speak. Here was a show that, in a way, captured a moment of a regional scene about which I knew nothing. So I was completely unfamiliar with the artists being shown.

Obviously this year is different. While there were still plenty of artists in the Big Show I didn't know, but this time around, I was familiar with a lot of them.

This got me thinking about curating a show like this. The concept behind The Big Show is that anyone can enter (as long as they are from the area and pay the entry fee), and some outside curator is the juror. In this case, Paul Middendorf from galleryHOMELAND in Portland. OR. He helicopters in, looks at a bunch of art, and picks some. Compare this to what a curator usually does. She has an idea--either a unifying concept or an artist whose work she is interested in or some combination. When she picks artists, she does so because she is aware of what they have done in the past. For her, the work in the show she curates has a kind of context based on her knowledge of the artists in the show.

Middendorf, on the other hand, had no idea where the artists he picked were coming from. Was a given piece that he chose the culmination of some process for an artist? Or was it a one-off? Last year, as a viewer, I was in the same circumstance as the juror. These pieces were, for me, without context (aside from the context of the show itself). This time, I have specific knowledge of some of the artists (I even own pieces by a three of them), and a more general knowledge of the scene they represent. And that made viewing the show a really different experience in 2010 than it was in 2009.

Jed Foronda, Excavation #15, excavated magazine, wood panel, white primer, 2010

Jed Foronda is one of the artists in this year's show who was also in last year's. I really liked his pieces in last year's Big Show. So much so that I bought one, The Wheels Keep on Spinning. The pieces from last year resemble this piece--they all use "excavated magazines" as part of the content. What Foronda does is to take a magazine and carve on subsequent pages more-or-less concentric shapes, which leave the magazine looking a little like a terraced open-pit mine. It is then mounted behind a white wood panel which itself has a shape cut out of it that is concentric with the cut out parts of the magazine. Last year's works were highly symmetric. The pictures were perfectly square, and the excavations were more-or-less circular. This year, the picture has a less regular shape (although it is still bilaterally symmetric), and the excavation doesn't even attempt to be regular. The work is inherently more dynamic.

Between last year's big show and this year's, I had seen no Foronda work--not in any group shows or at any galleries. But apparently he spent at least some of that time developing his excavation ideas. (But he was also drawing--see the two drawings he donated to Box 13 for their raffle.) While the basic concept remains the same, this Excavation #15 feels like a stronger piece than the earlier ones. He has extended the vocabulary of the technique he developed. I'm impressed.

I don't have last year's catalog, but I noticed a few "repeat" artists. There was another provocation by John Runnels (last year, it was the word "fuck", this year, it's lots of naked ladies), and more sickeningly realistic sculptures of mold by Jasmyne Graybill.

But more than repeat artists (there are probably many more than the three I've mentioned) are artists whose work has been seen in other venues. There is a sense that The Big Show is for "emerging" artists. But the rules state anyone can enter, so it's not surprising therefore that some more established artists have done so.

Jeff Forster, Frailty, native clay, porcelain, found object, 2010

This compelling portrait of decay by Jeff Forster was displayed at Poissant Gallery earlier this year. He's also one of the artists whose work I won at the Box 13 raffle.

Joseph Cohen, Proposition 113B, reclaimed latex and latex on walnut, 2009

Joseph Cohen, Proposition S-11, reclaimed latex, enamel and latex on driftwood and steel, 2009

Cohen's work has been shown at Wade Wilson. He's one of my favorite artists in Houston, and his work definitely stood out in the context of this show--it was simultaneously assured and daring. His paintings are inherently sculptural, and here he took the next step and displayed a painted sculpture. The work is about waist high, and it has--like his paintings--the drippy plastic look. Given the reclaimed and modest materials he uses, and the sculptural way he uses paint, I am reminded both of early Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg.

Amy Weiks, Lick No. 1, hand-dyed terrycloth, Poly-fil, thread and seed beads, 2008

Weiks had work in the group show Not the Family Jewels earlier this year. She seems to be part of the fine art/craft nexus that is happening in art right now. (See the current show at CAMH, for example.) This necklace is both cute and slightly disgusting at the same time.

Several other pieces in the show also demonstrated exceptional craftsmanship. A pair of pieces that really wowed people were by Catherine Winkler Rayroud.

Catherine Winkler Rayroud, Women's Liberation? What Liberation, papercutting made in one piece with nail scissors, 2008

Catherine Winkler Rayroud, Set Yourself Free!, papercutting made in one piece with nail scissors, 2008

Catherine Winkler Rayroud, Set Yourself Free! detail, papercutting made in one piece with nail scissors, 2008

Catherine Winkler Rayroud, Set Yourself Free! detail, papercutting made in one piece with nail scissors, 2008

Rayroud is engaging in a strategy that, by now, is traditional in some streams of feminist art--she is using craft to deal with feminist themes. Specifically a craft that is typically associated with women. This strategy allows the work to operate on two levels. First, the content of the work (silhouette depictions of lace underwear, with feminist vignettes within the lace). Second, the medium, by being a craft associated with women, challenges the (male-defined) concept of what is art (painting, sculpture, architecture) and what is craft. Had this work been done in 1970, it would have been a revolutionary challenge to old hierarchies. But the old academic definitions of what is art and what is not has been pretty thoroughly demolished by now (with the help of feminist art). The pieces come off, in a way, as nostalgic. But they are beautiful, and there's nothing wrong with nostalgia.

But there's an irony in these pieces being in this show, because one thing you can definitely say about this Big Show--it has a lot of naked ladies.

Stuart Kimbrell, The Virgin Mary, oil paint on stretched canvas, 2010

Some were elegant. Some were absurd.

Melanie Loew, Honey Bunny, oil on found fabric on canvas, 2010

K. Eisenbeiss, Buffalo Spwy 3333, photograph, 2010

This piece is a headscratcher for me. It is an image that holds you, certainly. It's a classic sexist situation in art--naked woman with clothed man. It is hard to construct a mental narrative that matches what is in this photo. They appear to be on a high floor in a highrise building (presumably near Buffalo Speedway, although not at 3333 Buffalo Speedway--there doesn't appear to be a highrise there). The astroturf on the table is mysterious. He appears to be about to eat, and both are looking at the photographer with bland, neutral expressions. What about the photographer? Maybe if I could see some more of his (her?) work, I'd understand the piece better. Context, remember.

But K. Eisenbeiss seems to have no web presence. The "K." part carefully hides the photographer's gender. "Eisenbeiss" means "hot iron" in German. (That helps a lot. Not.)

There are several other naked or semi-naked ladies in the show. I wonder if someone took Paul Middendorf to Treasures while he was in town...

(Continued in Part 2)

New Acquisitions--Carrie A. Dyer, Jeff Forster and Marie Weichman at the Box 13 Raffle

Last night was the Empty Box fundraiser for Box 13. I knew it was going to be a raffle, and I knew there were quite a few artworks being raffled, but I wasn't sure how it was supposed to work. The way they did it was rather clever. The key was that a lot of artworks were being raffled. Dozens of pieces. The work varied wildly in style. So when you bought your raffle tickets, instead of putting them in one big bin, you actually chose the works you liked and put your ticket into a little box beside the work in question.



That way, you could be certain that you were buying a chance to win only works you like.


Kathy Kelley, our histories flow yesterday into tomorrow, tubes, bailing wire, wood, 2010

This was one of the pieces I selected, but I didn't win it (alas). Obviously, the more popular an individual piece was (and I think this one by Kathy Kelley was definitely popular), the smaller the chance you had of winning. But you could game this a little. You could shake the box and try to determine if anyone else had put in a ticket. If not, you could be virtually guaranteed to win that piece. That was not my approach, though. I bought a bunch of tickets (not out of a desire to win artwork, but in order to support an institution that I really love) and spread them to a variety of pieces that I liked. For instance, this photo:


Ben Ruggiero, Suspended Letter B, Austin, Texas, archival inkjet print

(I didn't win this one, though.) Or this pair of cuties by Jed Foronda:


Jed Foronda, Household Name, ink on paper, 2010

(I didn't win these two, either.)

The real fun began at 9 pm, when they started do drawings. It was a real Christmas-present opening atmosphere.



And in the end, I came home with four pieces. I paid a decent amount for my tickets, but the fact is that if I had bought any one of these pieces at a gallery, I would have paid more--much more depending on the piece. So for the many raffle winners, Empty Box was a bargain. I think this fundraiser is annual. For selfish reasons, I'd like to keep it small and intimate. But really, if you are a collector on a budget, it is well worth it to come out. And, as I said, what makes it work is the staggering amount of artwork contributed for the show. Houston artists support each other.

So here's what I got.


Jeff Forster, Object of Ceremony, wood-fired stoneware, 2009

You might recall Jeff Forster had a very interesting piece at Poissant Gallery a few months ago. That same piece is up at The Big Show right now. This aptly-named piece is very different, though.


Marie Weichman, Washclothes, stained porcelain slip drip fabric, 2008

I literally walked right by these at first. I though Weichman (an artist with whom I am not familiar), in a conceptual statement of some sort, had hung old chamois cloth and a pink rag. Then someone mentioned to me that they were ceramic. In a way, I had to ask myself why that makes a difference? This tension was, itself, attractive to me. So I dropped my ticket in and now they're mine. And I love them.


Carrie A. Dyer, descendants of the clouds one, digital print, 2008


Carrie A. Dyer, descendants of the clouds two, digital print, 2008

I liked these two pieces by Carrie Dyer. What appealed to me was the combination of digitally produced effects (which were fairly subtle) and hand-drawing. I know nothing about this artist (beyond what's on her website.) But one interesting coincidence--she is an assistant professor at Central Arkansas University in Conway--a town I occasionally visit for business.

The Empty Box was a really fun event, and I ended up with some really nice artworks. I'll definitely be there next year.

New Review on 29-95 of Material & deStructure at Poissant Gallery

Robert Boyd

I have a new review up at 29-95. Please check it out. It's a review of the group show at Poissant Gallery (which you can see until May 8).

As usual, I have some extra photos from the show. Like this one:



Jeff Forster, Frailty, found object, porcelain, native Houston clay, 2010

Jeff Forster is a ceramicist whose work deals with the natural reality of clay—some of his work involves taking natural clay and firing it and returning it to the environment, “essentially speeding up geologic time.” But for Frailty, made of a wooden box, porcelain and native Houston clay, it’s not geologic time that’s represented but urban time. The best word to describe it would be debris. It looks like the remnant of a long abandoned building, perhaps damaged by a natural disaster, slowly sinking back into a state of nature.



Paul Kittelson, Tombs, contact paper, glass, wood, 2010

This is one you really need to see in person to experience. The effect of the refraction of the light through the glass is really neat. The name "tombs" is perfect for these little pyramids. I imagine a science fiction novel, set in some far distant future where civilization, after reaching almost incomprehensible technological heights, has collapsed. You are with a group of wanderers and you come across these crystal pyramids--mysterious, uneroding, ancient but ageless. (And then Yes starts playing "Starship Troopers" and you wake up to find the joint you were holding has burned a hole through your new velour shirt.)



Marzia Faggin, Abstraction Re-Abstracted, acrylic on canvas, 2010

I wrote about this one in the review, but they didn't run a photo. So if you read the review, here is one of the two Faggin paintings I wrote about.