Real Estate Art: 47 Grand Regency Circle

 Robert Boyd

47 Grand Regency Circle is a mansion in the Woodlands, a planned community north of Houston. It can be yours for just $6,495,000. The art in the photos is not particular interesting as art, but it is interesting to see what a wealthy oil zillionaire chooses to decorate his house with.

This painting is the most interesting piece of art shown in the photos. It has an regionalist feel, similar to Thomas Hart Benton. With its oil field roughneck subject matter, it reminds one of Texas regionalist artists like Jerry Bywaters and Alexandre Hogue. I can't identify the painter by looking at it, but I do wonder if it is contemporary pastiche of regionalism. Can any of my readers identify it?

One can almost make out the signature on this one, but I can't read it.

I'm assuming that the photo in the center is of the couple who owns this house. It feels a little self-absorbed, but if I were a late 18th/early 19th century English lord, I would love to have a portrait of myself by Gainsborough, Reynolds or Romney. I was intrigued by the Van Gogh self-portrait to the right. It can't be an original--is it a framed poster? A painted duplicate?

Another photo portrait decorates the bathroom.

It's hard to see, but there is a sexy photo of the lady of the house (I assume) that wouldn't be out of place on the walls of a dude's college dorm.

I did like the way this black wall in the breakfast room was designed to be written on. The portrait of the woman's face is interesting.

The Pan Review of Books: Midcentury Modern Art in Texas

Robert Boyd



I remember reading Robert Hughes on how when he was a young man in Australia, he and his friends would have passionate discussions about the latest developments in modern art based on two inch tall black and white photos in Art News. It wasn't quite as bad in Texas--one could take a trip to New York from Texas more easily than you could from Australia, after all, but let's face it: Texas was far, culturally and physically, from the cultural capitals of the world where modernism was forged. Of course, you can't keep a thing like modernism secret. Word leaks out to the provinces and artists get inspired to try their hands at it. Midcentury Modern Art in Texas by Katie Robinson Edwards tells the story of how modern art came to Texas.

She tells the story in two ways. First, she describes "scenes"--groups of artists in one location who knew each other and had similar interests and influences. While art in Texas could be seen as a continuity, especially as artists get teaching jobs and teach subsequent generations, and that wouldn't be a wrong way to view it. But the thing was, until about the 1960s or so, it was hard for modernist art to sustain itself in Texas. So these scenes popped up, flourished for a while, and died away. Beyond looking at scenes, she looks at individual artists, particularly those who transcended any scene or who were otherwise so singular, they couldn't be slotted in one place or another.


Forrest Bess, untitled (No. 5), 1949, oil on canvas, 10 x 12 7/8 inches

Forrest Bess (1911-1977) seems like the obvious example of the lone artist, not part of any scene. After all, he painted his best-known work while living in a shack at the mouth of Chinquapin Bayou accessible only by boat and miles from the nearest paved road. But he spent some time in Houston and knew other young modernists there. Ola McNeill Davidson (1884-1976) started a gallery in 1938 called Our Little Gallery, where she taught young artists, including Forrest Bess, Robert Preusser, Frank Delejska, Gene Charlton and Carden Bailey--some of the earliest modernist painters in Houston.

But the astonishing thing is that Davidson wasn't Houston's first modernist painter--that distinction belongs to a woman born in 1859 (!) named Emma Richardson Cherry. Based on the reproductions of her work I've seen, she wasn't a very good painter, but she wasn't completely dire. But she is important because she was always eager to know what was new in the world of art and to bring it to wherever she happened to be living. She moved to Houston in 1896, but frequently visited Europe. She saw the Salon d'Automne exhibit twice, but the book doesn't specify which years. However, she did see very early works of cubism there, which gives one an idea of the time frame. Cherry became a member of the Société Anonyme, Inc., the organization formed by Katherine Dreier, Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray for the purpose of propagating modern art in America. It was a perfect organization for Cherry as that had been her mission for years. And Davidson was a protégé of Cherry.


Robert O. Preusser, untitled (Stars and Circles), 1937-38, oil on Masonite, 20 x 30 inches

Of Davidson's students, Forrest Bess is the one most likely to be remembered in the art history textbooks. But perhaps the most successful in life was Robert O. Preusser (1919-1992). He saw an early exhibit of abstract art at the MFAH in 1938 and it was a life-changing experience. He studied at the MFAH's school (now the Glassell School) and continued his education in Chicago and Los Angeles, before returning to teach at the MFAH school. But Preusser's story reflects what happened with many Texas artists over the years. In 1954, he took a teaching job at MIT, where he remained for over 30 years. There simply were more opportunities for Texas artists outside of Texas than in Texas. So artists like Gene Charlton, Carden Bailey, Bill Bomar, Myron Stout, whose untitled (number 3, 1954) is on the cover of Midcentury Modern Art in Texas, and other artists felt they had to leave Texas. With this book, Edwards demonstrates that Texas was not a lifeless desert of art in the first half of the 20th century. But it was still pretty dry.



Alexandre Hogue, Erosion No. 2--Mother Earth Laid Bare, 1936, oil on canvas, 44 x 56 inches

While Houston was an outpost of modernism, Dallas belonged mostly to the American Scene painters, who were doing mostly realist work. The two leaders of the Dallas scene were Alexandre Hogue and Jerry Bywaters, both uneven painters capable of greatness. Bywaters went on to become director of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, and Dallas never became a center for modernism in Texas in the way Houston and, surprisingly enough, Fort Worth were. Still, if your city's two greatest 20th century artists are Bywaters and Hogue, you aren't doing too bad.


Bror Utter, untitled, July 1952, oil on canvas, 30 x 18 inches

Fort Worth is the site of two separate artistic scenes or groupings. A group of artists that came to be called the Fort Worth Circle rejected the regionalism of Bywaters and Hogue for modernism and abstraction. They were painters and printmakers; the core group included Bill Bomar (1919-1990) and Bror Utter (1913-1993). But after a bright moment in the 50s, the Fort Worth Circle was disbanded in 1958 and its artists dispersed. Some of the artists were gay, and I suspect that that motivated some of them to move to slightly friendlier climes than Texas. The next scene grew up around sculptor Charles Williams' (1918-1966) studio. Edwards writes:

If late-1940s Fort Worth modernism was marked by sophisticated, occasionally cross-dressing soirées at Flora and Dickson Reeder's house, the mid-1950s and 1960s revolved around the martini-drinking macho "salon" at the sculptor Charles Williams's home and studio.

I wish she had written more about this--what were the social scenes like? Where did artists meet and hang out? A lot of this kind of information is mentioned in passing, and Edwards understandably wants to spend more space talking about the art. But I get the feeling that these gathering places were critical in sustaining these scenes in various cities. In any case, this newer Forth Worth scene attracted younger artists like Roy Fridge, Jack Boynton and Jim Love (the last two more commonly associated with Houston).


Toni LaSelle, Study for Puritan, 1947, oil on canvas, 12 x 14 inches

Edwards discusses other scenes that popped up in places like Austin and Denton, where Toni LaSelle (1902-2002) taught. These scenes were fed by the fact that there were universities there that needed art teachers as post-high school education in Texas expanded. Higher education was (and still is) an important was for artists to make a living as well as a site for them to congregate and trade ideas.

The last chapter on Houston was especially meaningful because some of the artists discussed are people I know who are still alive and productive, including Richard Stout (b. 1934), Henri Gadbois (b. 1930), Leila McConnel (b. 1927) and the woman who taught me to paint, Stella Sullivan (b. 1924). But I was disappointed in the section on John Biggers (1924-2001) and the TSU scene. It's hard to slot Biggers' work in because it is figurative in a time of abstraction, but his work is informed by modernism, as is Carroll Simms. And given the amount of attention given to the Dallas Regionalists, Biggers and the TSU scene seems shortchanged. I would have liked to see more of his art and read more about his career. This all seems ironic since Edwards complains elsewhere in the book that early Texas modernism was almost exclusively produced by white artists.Biggers is a major exception to this depressing rule.

The book closes with a long section of artists biographies and selected exhibitions, making it a useful reference book in addition to being an important history.

I have a feeling a book like this could be written about any region of the country. Modernism was obviously centered in major metropolitan centers like New York and Paris, but it captured the imaginations of a few pioneering spirits like Emma Richardson Cherry, who took it back to wherever they came from. I think it's unfortunate that we don't generally value these regional art histories, particularly when regional scenes occasionally toss up uncategorizable geniuses like Forrest Bess who are hard to slot into canonical art history. But I also feel it's important for art students from a particular location to get some idea of the art history beneath their feet. We need to reclaim "provincial" as a badge of honor--particularly as we now live in a connected, networked world where the art world no longer has a center.

The Best of Pan: Dallas Is a Jewel

[In 2012, I took a big road trip across Texas, visiting museums and srt spaces in San Antonio, Marfa, Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin. The upshot was a series of posts, including this three-part post on Dallas (here are part 2 and part 3). The post comes off as quite critical of Dallas, but the fact is that I loved Dallas and its art, and have been back several times and encountered more of the vibrant alternative scene there.]

Robert Boyd

Did you ever see Dallas from a DC 9 at night

Well Dallas is a jewel oh Dallas is a beautiful sight

But Dallas is a jungle but Dallas gives a beautiful light

Did you ever see Dallas from a DC 9 at night

Dallas is a woman who will walk on you when you're down

But when you are up she's the kind you want to take around

And Dallas ain't a woman who will help you get your feet on the ground

Dallas is a woman who will walk on you when you're down

(bridge)

I came into Dallas with the bright lights on my mind

I came into Dallas with a dollar and a dime

Well Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eyes

A steel and concrete soul in a warm heart and love disguise

A rich man who tends to believe in his own lies

Yeah Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eyes

"Dallas" by Jimmie Dale Gilmore

I arrived in Dallas not by DC-9 but after a non-stop drive from Odessa. My hotel, The Belmont, was on top of a hill overlooking some warehouses, a dollar store, and, off in the distance, downtown Dallas. The Belmont is an old moderne-style hotel built in the 40s and rehabbed fairly recently into hipness. And the neighborhood it's in, Oak Cliff, has undergone a similar transformation. When I arrived in Dallas, I went to a superb restaurant in Oak Cliff called Gloria's with my friend, Todd Ramsell. Todd gave me a tour of the Bishop Street Arts District, a part of Oak Cliff. From what I can tell, Oak Cliff's story is similar to that of the Heights in Houston. A charming neighborhood that became a slum, which made it cheap enough for some artists to movie in, which gave it some hip cache, which caused it to gentrify. The Belmont Hotel is an example of this and is a beautiful reuse of already existing architecture. Driving around, Oak Cliff felt a little like South Congress in Austin. Hip but commercial.

Ramsell told me that some Oak Cliff residents are so loyal to their hood that they try to get the city on their drivers licenses to be shown as "Oak Cliff" instead of "Dallas." (Oak Cliff tried and failed to secede from Dallas in 1990.) But trying to put Oak Cliff on your driver's license is not just an expression of Oak Cliff pride--it's an expression of being ashamed to be from Dallas. As hard as it is to believe about a city that swaggers and wears its self-importance on its sleeve, there are people who cringe at being from Dallas. And for good reason--people from other places really dislike Dallas. Ramsell related to me that occasionally when he tells someone he's from Dallas--especially someone from Austin--their first response will be to say with false solicitousness, "Oh, I'm sorry." I mentioned this to my sister who lives in Austin, and she sent me the phone photo below, which proves Ramsell right.

 
How Austin views Dallas

So what is Dallas? A self-confident art colossus with huge museums (and malls and football stadiums) housing fantastic art collections? Or a place of meek, embarrassed artists who might prefer to be from somewhere else, even if that somewhere else is only Oak Cliff? I think it's both. Dallas has a bit of an inferiority complex, and this manifests itself simultaneously in grandiosity and "cultural cringe." (And look, lest anyone think I am picking on Dallas, I think this is a common complex for provincial art towns, including Houston. I have an artist friend here who is constantly comparing Houston's art scene unfavorably to San Francisco's, for example.)

I was in Dallas for a few days. This was my first extended trip to the city since I was in college. Recognizing that there is something dubious about a critic parachuting in for a few days and then pronouncing judgment, I offer the following disclaimer: this post represents my first impression of the Dallas art scene, but hopefully not my last.

One thing that struck me as weird about Dallas was the way that everything is a "district." The city (or someone) seemed desperate to brand any given part of Dallas as this or that "district". There is the Arts District downtown, the Design District west of downtown, and in Oak Cliff, the Bishop Arts District. (Never could find the Hobo District, though.) In terms of visual arts, the Bishop Arts District seems largely aspirational. According to this gallery map created by Douglas D. Martin, there are only four galleries in this district, compared to a bunch over in the Design District and a large number scattered in other neighborhoods like Deep Ellum. (BAP offers plenty of places to shop, though.)

I started off in Deep Ellum. I wanted to see Kirk Hopper's gallery in particular because I had corresponded  with him briefly about Forest Bess (he runs the big Forrest Bess website, an invaluable resource). He wasn't at the gallery, but I was pretty impressed by the space itself. It was late sumer and late summer is a time for more eccentric art shows. Kirk Hopper was showing Amerwarpornica, a two-person show featuring the work of Kara Maria and Eurydice (yes, she has a one-word name, just like Cher or Sting). Both of them incorporated pin-up/porn images in their work. Eurydice's was notable because it was embroidered.


Eurydice, George (Washington) Gets Hot, 2010, hand-stitched with silk thread on hand-dyed silk, 52: x 43"

The centerpiece of the exhibit was a massive embroidery by Eurydice called Bathers. Here, she provides her take on a classical erotic subject. The bathers are, as far as I can tell, taken from pornographic sources and "collaged" together. They don't quite seem to be occupying the same space as one another, even though they are layered and recede n the distance. This strange "collage" effect may remind viewers of another artist who copied mass-produced female images to create vast populated landscapes--Henry Darger. Even the color of the underlying canvas recalls the somewhat yellowed paper of Darger's original art.


Eurydice, Bathers, 2012, hand stitched embroidery on unprimed canvas and vintage silks, 8' x 28'

I'm interested in the work, but when I walk into a gallery like this, I often wonder who the theoretical buyer is? (Assuming there is one, of course.) Who would hang a 28-foot wide tapestry of porn girls in their home? I'm almost more interested in the potential owner of this work than the work itself. Given the time of year, Hopper may have been assuming that no one would spend $60,000 for Bathers, but that it might draw attention to his gallery. And that seems like a pretty reasonable late-summer strategy.

Barry Whistler Gallery is right around the corner from Kirk Hopper Fine Art, but it was closed when I went by. But I did find something that was to characterize my Dallas trip.



I saw this sign for Health Care Art Consulting and felt instant cognitive dissonance. How do these words go together? But apparently, this is a company that supplies hospitals and other health care facilities with art. And thinking about it, I am not surprised such a business exists. But think about the art you see in hospitals and doctors offices. It is so unmemorable, so staggeringly banal, that it barely exists. And yet here is a business devoted to providing it. I'm sure this service is available in Houston and elsewhere. But until I came to Dallas, I never saw someone advertising this service. And in Dallas, it turns out, such advertisements are common.

 
Art for every occasion

In fact, Dallas has a whole part of town devoted to this kind of thing. It's called the Design District, and it's where you go to buy furniture, decor and art. As you can see in the gallery window above, you can buy art for your corporate offices, your medical clinics, your hotels, and for your home--one-stop shopping! This whole district was confusing to me. There's nothing like it in Houston. No doubt we have retailers of business furniture and interior designers who work to fill hotels and corporate offices with eye-pleasing decor. We just don't have a neighborhood devoted to it.

The Design District has its own sign

I spoke to Danette Dufilho at the Conduit Gallery (a very good gallery in the heart of the Design District), and she told me that at one time, this had been a strictly B2B area. Interior designers, acting on behalf of corporate and individual clients, would buy the furniture and decor they needed here. Apparently, vendors here realized there was money to be made by opening up to the public.

 
Corporate decoration or art? You decide!

The problem I see is that there's no clear demarcation between the galleries that sell corporate decorations by the square yard and the galleries that sell art qua art. Indeed, having such a district where these distinctions are blurred helps remind one that all art in art galleries, no matter how cutting edge it is, is merchandise.

Still, as I noted, there are galleries in the Design District selling interesting work which would be unlikely to be bought by an interior decorator for a corporate office. Conduit Gallery is one of those, and when I visited them, their front gallery was full of beautiful, dangerous-looking objects by Gabriel Dawe (who had a very cool installation last year at Peel).

 
Gabriel Dawe, Pain Series no. 23, 2012, deconstructed shirts and pins, 22" x 11" x 9"

 
Gabriel Dawe, Pain Series no. 28, 2012, shirt collars, sequins and pins, 11" x 8" x 6"

These sculptures, made of pins and fabric, make one think of iron maidens and other medeival torture devices. Or dangerous S&M devices, or things used by the bad guys in a horror movie. Pain Series No. 28 made me also think of primitive carnivorous creatures with maws filled with razor-sharp teeth, waiting for you to swim too close. In short, there is no way someone would put one of these elegant, deadly things in a hospital or corporate office. And in this way, Coduit Gallery separates itself from some of its peers in the Design District.


piece by Rex Ray, oil, acrylic and mixed media on linen

On the other hand, they were also showing colorful, pretty work by Rex Ray in the back, so perhaps they hedge their bets.

Other work I saw in the Design District that struck me as more than mere corporate decoration were the paintings of Benjamin Terry and painting/photos of Bonny Leibowitz at Cohn Drennan Contemporary.

 
Bonny Leibowitz, Streaming Consciousness, 2011, photography, encaustic, monotype on kozo and and pigment on cradled board, 30" x 30"

The two artists seem strikingly dissimilar, and I wonder why they were paired for this show, Blurr. But I liked Leibowitz's quasi abstract pieces, and while it took me a few minutes to get past my feelings of "ugh--paintings of hipsters," I warmed to Benjamin Terry's paintings as well.

 
Benjamin Terry, Over and Over Again, 2012, mixed media on panel, 75" x 74.5"

And over at Holly Johnson Gallery, there was a very likable show of Al Held-like abstractions by Tommy Fitzpatrick.


Tommy Fitzpatrick, Close-up (left) and Structural Components (right), 2012, acrylic on canvas, 13" x 17" each

 
Tommy Fitzpatrick, Techtonic, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 48" x 40"

 
Tommy Fitzpatrick, Unbuild, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 30" x 45"

So while there is something bizarre about having these high-quality galleries crowded in among the generic corporate art galleries, it's no surprise that there are plenty of good galleries in Dallas. (And let's face it--corporate decoration art galleries exist in Houston--they just don't advertise themselves so nakedly. Dallas's corporate galleries should be given points for their honesty.)

But what about more alternative offerings? I saw none and I attribute this primarily to my unfamiliarity with the scene and briefness of my visit. I plan to search that stuff out the next time I'm in Dallas, and I invite any Dallasites to school me about what I missed. But one problem I can see for the grass roots is that the best art school in the area is in Denton. The University of North Texas, like many colleges with large, high quality art departments, spins off a lot of artistic energy. It's like the University of Houston in that regard. The big difference is that UH is inside the Loop--it's near where artists live and work and exhibit. UNT is 40 miles from Dallas and about the same from Fort Worth. Does this inhibit the artistic interaction between Denton and Dallas? It must.

Christina Rees recently wrote an article for Glasstire that dared young Dallas artists to use their very marginality as a license to go crazy without worrying about what anyone thinks. She wrote:

[...]There is no real economy for your art being made here in DFW. Almost none. Not enough to make a living. And there isn’t a mainstream press, like there is in NYC and London, to cover your career if you made a commercial leap anyway. And that’s okay. Because this kind of vacuum is when it’s time to fuck things up. This is a magic hour, a once-in-a-lifetime chance when you have nothing to lose, and the place that you’re in—your neighborhood, your city, your region—if you get busy, can get really interesting.

I’m picking on you lot because you aren’t painters (another breed entirely), and you aren’t makers of pretty things and decorative objects. Your brains are wired the right way to fuck shit up. And I’m not writing about Houston or Brooklyn or Silver Lake either. I’m writing about here. ["Dear Young DFW Whippersnapper Artists," Christina Rees, Glasstire, July 27, 2012]

This got a huge number of responses, many defensive or dismissive (or both at the same time). The article and the responses suggested that there was something wrong with the local scene as far as young and/or cutting edge artists go. The comments were very interesting. I especially liked one by Douglas Martin, who provided a capsule view of the art scene (nice to have for an outsider like me):

What is made obvious in this passionate tirade is that our art scene is currently segmented: You’ve got your old artists that did not go to art school that are either bitter or not, depending on their interpretation of their own status in the scene they are still passionate about being included in (yes, I sometimes take the time to Google the names of commenters I don’t recognize). You’ve got your old artists that went to art school here and maybe got their MFA’s. Of these, some of them stuck around to teach and some left Dallas and maybe returned disenfranchised by the uninviting art scenes of NYC, LA, Chicago, etc. You’ve got the new generation of art students (the whippersnappers) who are blessed with a seemingly unequaled set of passionate and educated teachers who either cut their teeth locally or brought their MFA’s or PhD’s here. There’re the (gutter)punks that think they can make art, the street artists, and the life-time art students who befriend these whippersnappers. Professionally, there’re the gallerists that somehow survived the passage of time selling their abstract glass and brass sculptures and 2-inch thick oil paintings and the gallerists who encourage challenging, often local contemporary artists. And then there’re the staff of the local art institutions, the independent curators, and the journalists and art critics–all of which most people don’t know. What remains are the collectors, the casual buyers, and the simple fans of art (and/or free wine). Maybe I missed some subgroup, but that seems to be the scene. [comment by Douglas D. Martin, "Dear Young DFW Whippersnapper Artists," Christina Rees, Glasstire, July 27, 2012]

And he followed this Dallas taxonomy with a diagnosis of the problem that Rees was addressing.

With maybe the exception of visits during the Art Fair, upper level staff and trustees of the art institutions and collectors rarely make it to see any emerging art shows. And, as I mentioned in my comments on The State of the Arts and on the “research results” of Creative Time, neither do the competing gallerists. This disconnect from the scene is important to note. Older teachers and writers may hang with whippersnappers and wax philosophically over drinks at Amsterdam or Meridian, but because of their institutional ties, they are afraid, as Jenn Gooch mentioned above, to criticize in print, and often they miss shows.  [comment by Douglas D. Martin, "Dear Young DFW Whippersnapper Artists," Christina Rees, Glasstire, July 27, 2012]

Rees's article, in light of Martin's comment, seems almost nihilistic. It's as if she's saying, "Since no one cares anyway, do whatever you want." Is it any better in Houston? I think a lot of big time collectors are very hesitant to buy from local artists (unless they have the sufficient cultural capital, as bestowed by museum shows, blue chip gallery representation, and out-of-town critical recognition) or even to slum in the scene. But some young Houston collectors I know are willing to engage with the work of younger or more difficult artists. It's far from perfect, but if what Rees and Martin are saying is true, it's a lot better in Houston than in Dallas for young whippersnappers.

Indeed, it's not artists one thinks of at all when one thinks of Dallas and art. (And this despite having an interesting art history that goes back at least to the 30s, including two of my favorite Texas artists, Alexandre Hogue and Jerry Bywaters.) One thinks of big institutions and big collectors. I can't remember where I read it, but the statement "In Dallas, the man who owns the art is more highly regarded than the artist" is something that has always stuck with me.

That's the next part of my Dallas trip--viewing the mega-collections.

Dallas is a Jewel

Robert Boyd

Did you ever see Dallas from a DC 9 at night

Well Dallas is a jewel oh Dallas is a beautiful sight

But Dallas is a jungle but Dallas gives a beautiful light

Did you ever see Dallas from a DC 9 at night

Dallas is a woman who will walk on you when you're down

But when you are up she's the kind you want to take around

And Dallas ain't a woman who will help you get your feet on the ground

Dallas is a woman who will walk on you when you're down

(bridge)

I came into Dallas with the bright lights on my mind

I came into Dallas with a dollar and a dime

Well Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eyes

A steel and concrete soul in a warm heart and love disguise

A rich man who tends to believe in his own lies

Yeah Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eyes

"Dallas" by Jimmie Dale Gilmore

I arrived in Dallas not by DC-9 but after a non-stop drive from Odessa. My hotel, The Belmont, was on top of a hill overlooking some warehouses, a dollar store, and, off in the distance, downtown Dallas. The Belmont is an old moderne-style hotel built in the 40s and rehabbed fairly recently into hipness. And the neighborhood it's in, Oak Cliff, has undergone a similar transformation. When I arrived in Dallas, I went to a superb restaurant in Oak Cliff called Gloria's with my friend, Todd Ramsell. Todd gave me a tour of the Bishop Street Arts District, a part of Oak Cliff. From what I can tell, Oak Cliff's story is similar to that of the Heights in Houston. A charming neighborhood that became a slum, which made it cheap enough for some artists to movie in, which gave it some hip cache, which caused it to gentrify. The Belmont Hotel is an example of this and is a beautiful reuse of already existing architecture. Driving around, Oak Cliff felt a little like South Congress in Austin. Hip but commercial.

Ramsell told me that some Oak Cliff residents are so loyal to their hood that they try to get the city on their drivers licenses to be shown as "Oak Cliff" instead of "Dallas." (Oak Cliff tried and failed to secede from Dallas in 1990.) But trying to put Oak Cliff on your driver's license is not just an expression of Oak Cliff pride--it's an expression of being ashamed to be from Dallas. As hard as it is to believe about a city that swaggers and wears its self-importance on its sleeve, there are people who cringe at being from Dallas. And for good reason--people from other places really dislike Dallas. Ramsell related to me that occasionally when he tells someone he's from Dallas--especially someone from Austin--their first response will be to say with false solicitousness, "Oh, I'm sorry." I mentioned this to my sister who lives in Austin, and she sent me the phone photo below, which proves Ramsell right.

 
How Austin views Dallas

So what is Dallas? A self-confident art colossus with huge museums (and malls and football stadiums) housing fantastic art collections? Or a place of meek, embarrassed artists who might prefer to be from somewhere else, even if that somewhere else is only Oak Cliff? I think it's both. Dallas has a bit of an inferiority complex, and this manifests itself simultaneously in grandiosity and "cultural cringe." (And look, lest anyone think I am picking on Dallas, I think this is a common complex for provincial art towns, including Houston. I have an artist friend here who is constantly comparing Houston's art scene unfavorably to San Francisco's, for example.)

I was in Dallas for a few days. This was my first extended trip to the city since I was in college. Recognizing that there is something dubious about a critic parachuting in for a few days and then pronouncing judgment, I offer the following disclaimer: this post represents my first impression of the Dallas art scene, but hopefully not my last.

One thing that struck me as weird about Dallas was the way that everything is a "district." The city (or someone) seemed desperate to brand any given part of Dallas as this or that "district". There is the Arts District downtown, the Design District west of downtown, and in Oak Cliff, the Bishop Arts District. (Never could find the Hobo District, though.) In terms of visual arts, the Bishop Arts District seems largely aspirational. According to this gallery map created by Douglas D. Martin, there are only four galleries in this district, compared to a bunch over in the Design District and a large number scattered in other neighborhoods like Deep Ellum. (BAP offers plenty of places to shop, though.)

I started off in Deep Ellum. I wanted to see Kirk Hopper's gallery in particular because I had corresponded  with him briefly about Forest Bess (he runs the big Forrest Bess website, an invaluable resource). He wasn't at the gallery, but I was pretty impressed by the space itself. It was late sumer and late summer is a time for more eccentric art shows. Kirk Hopper was showing Amerwarpornica, a two-person show featuring the work of Kara Maria and Eurydice (yes, she has a one-word name, just like Cher or Sting). Both of them incorporated pin-up/porn images in their work. Eurydice's was notable because it was embroidered.


Eurydice, George (Washington) Gets Hot, 2010, hand-stitched with silk thread on hand-dyed silk, 52: x 43"

The centerpiece of the exhibit was a massive embroidery by Eurydice called Bathers. Here, she provides her take on a classical erotic subject. The bathers are, as far as I can tell, taken from pornographic sources and "collaged" together. They don't quite seem to be occupying the same space as one another, even though they are layered and recede n the distance. This strange "collage" effect may remind viewers of another artist who copied mass-produced female images to create vast populated landscapes--Henry Darger. Even the color of the underlying canvas recalls the somewhat yellowed paper of Darger's original art.


Eurydice, Bathers, 2012, hand stitched embroidery on unprimed canvas and vintage silks, 8' x 28'

I'm interested in the work, but when I walk into a gallery like this, I often wonder who the theoretical buyer is? (Assuming there is one, of course.) Who would hang a 28-foot wide tapestry of porn girls in their home? I'm almost more interested in the potential owner of this work than the work itself. Given the time of year, Hopper may have been assuming that no one would spend $60,000 for Bathers, but that it might draw attention to his gallery. And that seems like a pretty reasonable late-summer strategy.

Barry Whistler Gallery is right around the corner from Kirk Hopper Fine Art, but it was closed when I went by. But I did find something that was to characterize my Dallas trip.



I saw this sign for Health Care Art Consulting and felt instant cognitive dissonance. How do these words go together? But apparently, this is a company that supplies hospitals and other health care facilities with art. And thinking about it, I am not surprised such a business exists. But think about the art you see in hospitals and doctors offices. It is so unmemorable, so staggeringly banal, that it barely exists. And yet here is a business devoted to providing it. I'm sure this service is available in Houston and elsewhere. But until I came to Dallas, I never saw someone advertising this service. And in Dallas, it turns out, such advertisements are common.

 
Art for every occasion

In fact, Dallas has a whole part of town devoted to this kind of thing. It's called the Design District, and it's where you go to buy furniture, decor and art. As you can see in the gallery window above, you can buy art for your corporate offices, your medical clinics, your hotels, and for your home--one-stop shopping! This whole district was confusing to me. There's nothing like it in Houston. No doubt we have retailers of business furniture and interior designers who work to fill hotels and corporate offices with eye-pleasing decor. We just don't have a neighborhood devoted to it.

The Design District has its own sign

I spoke to Danette Dufilho at the Conduit Gallery (a very good gallery in the heart of the Design District), and she told me that at one time, this had been a strictly B2B area. Interior designers, acting on behalf of corporate and individual clients, would buy the furniture and decor they needed here. Apparently, vendors here realized there was money to be made by opening up to the public.

 
Corporate decoration or art? You decide!

The problem I see is that there's no clear demarcation between the galleries that sell corporate decorations by the square yard and the galleries that sell art qua art. Indeed, having such a district where these distinctions are blurred helps remind one that all art in art galleries, no matter how cutting edge it is, is merchandise.

Still, as I noted, there are galleries in the Design District selling interesting work which would be unlikely to be bought by an interior decorator for a corporate office. Conduit Gallery is one of those, and when I visited them, their front gallery was full of beautiful, dangerous-looking objects by Gabriel Dawe (who had a very cool installation last year at Peel).

 
Gabriel Dawe, Pain Series no. 23, 2012, deconstructed shirts and pins, 22" x 11" x 9"

 
Gabriel Dawe, Pain Series no. 28, 2012, shirt collars, sequins and pins, 11" x 8" x 6"

These sculptures, made of pins and fabric, make one think of iron maidens and other medeival torture devices. Or dangerous S&M devices, or things used by the bad guys in a horror movie. Pain Series No. 28 made me also think of primitive carnivorous creatures with maws filled with razor-sharp teeth, waiting for you to swim too close. In short, there is no way someone would put one of these elegant, deadly things in a hospital or corporate office. And in this way, Coduit Gallery separates itself from some of its peers in the Design District.


piece by Rex Ray, oil, acrylic and mixed media on linen

On the other hand, they were also showing colorful, pretty work by Rex Ray in the back, so perhaps they hedge their bets.

Other work I saw in the Design District that struck me as more than mere corporate decoration were the paintings of Benjamin Terry and painting/photos of Bonny Leibowitz at Cohn Drennan Contemporary.

 
Bonny Leibowitz, Streaming Consciousness, 2011, photography, encaustic, monotype on kozo and and pigment on cradled board, 30" x 30"

The two artists seem strikingly dissimilar, and I wonder why they were paired for this show, Blurr. But I liked Leibowitz's quasi abstract pieces, and while it took me a few minutes to get past my feelings of "ugh--paintings of hipsters," I warmed to Benjamin Terry's paintings as well.

 
Benjamin Terry, Over and Over Again, 2012, mixed media on panel, 75" x 74.5"

And over at Holly Johnson Gallery, there was a very likable show of Al Held-like abstractions by Tommy Fitzpatrick.


Tommy Fitzpatrick, Close-up (left) and Structural Components (right), 2012, acrylic on canvas, 13" x 17" each

 
Tommy Fitzpatrick, Techtonic, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 48" x 40"

 
Tommy Fitzpatrick, Unbuild, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 30" x 45"

So while there is something bizarre about having these high-quality galleries crowded in among the generic corporate art galleries, it's no surprise that there are plenty of good galleries in Dallas. (And let's face it--corporate decoration art galleries exist in Houston--they just don't advertise themselves so nakedly. Dallas's corporate galleries should be given points for their honesty.)

But what about more alternative offerings? I saw none and I attribute this primarily to my unfamiliarity with the scene and briefness of my visit. I plan to search that stuff out the next time I'm in Dallas, and I invite any Dallasites to school me about what I missed. But one problem I can see for the grass roots is that the best art school in the area is in Denton. The University of North Texas, like many colleges with large, high quality art departments, spins off a lot of artistic energy. It's like the University of Houston in that regard. The big difference is that UH is inside the Loop--it's near where artists live and work and exhibit. UNT is 40 miles from Dallas and about the same from Fort Worth. Does this inhibit the artistic interaction between Denton and Dallas? It must.

Christina Rees recently wrote an article for Glasstire that dared young Dallas artists to use their very marginality as a license to go crazy without worrying about what anyone thinks. She wrote:

[...]There is no real economy for your art being made here in DFW. Almost none. Not enough to make a living. And there isn’t a mainstream press, like there is in NYC and London, to cover your career if you made a commercial leap anyway. And that’s okay. Because this kind of vacuum is when it’s time to fuck things up. This is a magic hour, a once-in-a-lifetime chance when you have nothing to lose, and the place that you’re in—your neighborhood, your city, your region—if you get busy, can get really interesting.

I’m picking on you lot because you aren’t painters (another breed entirely), and you aren’t makers of pretty things and decorative objects. Your brains are wired the right way to fuck shit up. And I’m not writing about Houston or Brooklyn or Silver Lake either. I’m writing about here. ["Dear Young DFW Whippersnapper Artists," Christina Rees, Glasstire, July 27, 2012]

This got a huge number of responses, many defensive or dismissive (or both at the same time). The article and the responses suggested that there was something wrong with the local scene as far as young and/or cutting edge artists go. The comments were very interesting. I especially liked one by Douglas Martin, who provided a capsule view of the art scene (nice to have for an outsider like me):

What is made obvious in this passionate tirade is that our art scene is currently segmented: You’ve got your old artists that did not go to art school that are either bitter or not, depending on their interpretation of their own status in the scene they are still passionate about being included in (yes, I sometimes take the time to Google the names of commenters I don’t recognize). You’ve got your old artists that went to art school here and maybe got their MFA’s. Of these, some of them stuck around to teach and some left Dallas and maybe returned disenfranchised by the uninviting art scenes of NYC, LA, Chicago, etc. You’ve got the new generation of art students (the whippersnappers) who are blessed with a seemingly unequaled set of passionate and educated teachers who either cut their teeth locally or brought their MFA’s or PhD’s here. There’re the (gutter)punks that think they can make art, the street artists, and the life-time art students who befriend these whippersnappers. Professionally, there’re the gallerists that somehow survived the passage of time selling their abstract glass and brass sculptures and 2-inch thick oil paintings and the gallerists who encourage challenging, often local contemporary artists. And then there’re the staff of the local art institutions, the independent curators, and the journalists and art critics–all of which most people don’t know. What remains are the collectors, the casual buyers, and the simple fans of art (and/or free wine). Maybe I missed some subgroup, but that seems to be the scene. [comment by Douglas D. Martin, "Dear Young DFW Whippersnapper Artists," Christina Rees, Glasstire, July 27, 2012]

And he followed this Dallas taxonomy with a diagnosis of the problem that Rees was addressing.

With maybe the exception of visits during the Art Fair, upper level staff and trustees of the art institutions and collectors rarely make it to see any emerging art shows. And, as I mentioned in my comments on The State of the Arts and on the “research results” of Creative Time, neither do the competing gallerists. This disconnect from the scene is important to note. Older teachers and writers may hang with whippersnappers and wax philosophically over drinks at Amsterdam or Meridian, but because of their institutional ties, they are afraid, as Jenn Gooch mentioned above, to criticize in print, and often they miss shows.  [comment by Douglas D. Martin, "Dear Young DFW Whippersnapper Artists," Christina Rees, Glasstire, July 27, 2012]

Rees's article, in light of Martin's comment, seems almost nihilistic. It's as if she's saying, "Since no one cares anyway, do whatever you want." Is it any better in Houston? I think a lot of big time collectors are very hesitant to buy from local artists (unless they have the sufficient cultural capital, as bestowed by museum shows, blue chip gallery representation, and out-of-town critical recognition) or even to slum in the scene. But some young Houston collectors I know are willing to engage with the work of younger or more difficult artists. It's far from perfect, but if what Rees and Martin are saying is true, it's a lot better in Houston than in Dallas for young whippersnappers.

Indeed, it's not artists one thinks of at all when one thinks of Dallas and art. (And this despite having an interesting art history that goes back at least to the 30s, including two of my favorite Texas artists, Alexandre Hogue and Jerry Bywaters.) One thinks of big institutions and big collectors. I can't remember where I read it, but the statement "In Dallas, the man who owns the art is more highly regarded than the artist" is something that has always stuck with me.

That's the next part of my Dallas trip--viewing the mega-collections.

Some People View Art Through Politics-Colored Specs

by Robert Boyd

Two recent news stories got me thinking about how politics colors people's vision of art, especially people from outside the art world. (Not that politics isn't important inside the art world, but our politics are often so parochial that to outsiders they may appear meaningless.) First was the story U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore who was offended by a painting by Alexandre Hogue, The Diana Docking reported in The Houston Press.


Alexandre Hogue, The Diana Docking, 1941

Alexandre Hogue was a Dallas painter who worked in a social realist style. A lot of his works were dust bowl farm landscapes--the absence of people in them was a powerful message of the ravages of drought on poor farmers during the 30s. He and fellow painter Jerry Bywaters painted a mural series depicting the history of the Houston Ship Channel for a Post Office building here in Houston in 1941. They were removed sometime in the late 50s and early 60s (possibly because of their pro-labor messages) and then rediscovered in 1975. They were then installed in the Federal Court Building.

Gilmore's objection is to the depiction of the shirtless black man. She states

I brought a boy scout troop here over the holidays to earn their citizenship badge and while I was very proud to show them the historical time line with information about our court, it was rather awkward to have to walk them past the old, antiquated murals with pictures of shirtless black men hauling wood and bales of cotton. It said nothing about our court except that maybe we are too insensitive or oblivious to let some of these images die. We finally managed to get these dreadful images out of the lobby. Now can we please retire them for good. ('Some Judges Want Paintings of "Shirtless Black Men Hauling...Bales of Cotton" Removed from Courthouse,' The Houston Press, February 9, 2012) 

I can understand her discomfort, but on the other hand, it's a true depiction. Ironically, these murals were progressive at the time they were painted. In this way, it's a little like the controversy about Nigger Jim from Huckleberry Finn. Huckleberry Finn is notable because of the humanity it gives to Jim, but now it is difficult to teach because of the word "nigger." I am opposed to bowdlerization, but I understand why the issue exists. (Another judge, Kieth Ellison, added that he shared Gilmore's concerns but also felt that the murals are "bad art." I can't say I agree with him since I haven't seen all of the murals, but The Diana Docking is a really awkward painting. It's not a good example of Hogue's work. Google it and you'll see what I'm talking about.)

But even if Judges Gilmore and Ellison have a point, I can't help but be reminded of the Maine labor mural controversy. In 2011, the governor of Maine, Paul LePage, ordered the removal of a mural from the lobby of the Department of Labor. LePage was elected as part of the Tea Party wave of ultraconservative politicians who gained office in 2010.


Judy Taylor, Maine Department of Labor Mural panels 1-3, paint on MDO board, 8' x 12' (this section)

Judy Taylor's 2007 mural depicted the history of the labor movement positively, which conflicts with LePage's views. LePage's political perspective is probably quite a bit different from Ellison's and Gilmore's. But if Gilmore succeeds in getting the Hogue and Bywater murals removed, what she will share politically with LePage is censorship. And whether you agree with the censorship in either case probably will have something to do with your political perspective.

A recent piece in the Art Newspaper shows what happens when this attitude spreads. The new right-wing government of Hungary has pushed through a new constitution that many consider anti-democratic. In addition to this and many other alarming actions the government has taken, it is asserting itself in the aesthetic realm.

Last month, to celebrate the official inauguration of the constitution, [Prime Minister Viktor] Orban opened a government-organised exhibition at the National Gallery. It chronicles 1,000 years of Hungarian history, focusing on sovereign statehood and Christ­ian­ity (until 16 August). The show includes 15 large state-commissioned canvases depicting important historic events spanning 150 years, including an image of Orban. ("Hungary's Government Tightens the Grip on Arts," The Art Newspaper, February 9, 2012)

This kind of outright propaganda is a little disturbing, although most governments engage in this kind of thing to one degree or another. But combine this with acts of censorship, and you start to have the artistic signs of authoritarianism.

A row broke out in March last year over an image of Hungary’s interwar leader, Miklos Horthy, at the Holocaust Memorial Centre. The state secretary, Andras Levente Gal, said that the picture unjustifiably linked Hungary to the deportation of Jews to Nazi concentration camps and asked that the display be “re-evaluated”. “This kind of historical inaccuracy creates unnecessary tension,” Gal said. His remarks prompted an outcry among some historians and the liberal press. Matters deteriorated when the government relieved Laszlo Harsanyi, the director of the centre, and his chief historical adviser, Judit Molnar, of their positions. ("Hungary's Government Tightens the Grip on Arts," The Art Newspaper, February 9, 2012)

(Hungary had a pro-German government throughout most of World War II, but Hungary'santisemitic  fascist movement, The Arrow Cross, was outlawed. Germany fell out with the government of Hungary in 1944 and invaded. Arrow Cross was legalized and put in charge of Budapest, where they were able to aid in the deportation of 400,000 Hungarian Jews to the German extermination camps. The participation in this deportation of members of the Hungarian government and police forces is a historical fact. However, Horthy largely prevented deportations from happening as long as he was President.)

As soon as an artist takes an art commission from a government, she sets her art up to be judged politically--and that judgment may happen long after she have departed the scene. People with political power often have underdeveloped beliefs regarding openness and freedom. individual instances of censorship increase as political winds change. But when the political winds shift towards the authoritarian or fascist, as they appear to be doing in Hungary, art as a whole becomes a tool of the state.

The Houston Ship Channel as Art

Jerry Bywaters, Loading Oil, 1941

You don't find many articles about art in the business section of the Chronicle, but here is one I was glad to come across.

Houston has a poor track record when it comes to preserving its history, but six painting depicting the early history of the Houston Ship Channel may be back on public display in the next year.

The paintings were done under commission by Alexandre Hogue and Jerry Bywaters and designed to hang in the now-gone Houston Parcel Post building. Each artist was paid $1,300 for their works, which were done between 1939 and 1941.[...]

After much waiting, the General Services Administration -- which manages federal buildings and is the actual owner of the artwork -- has been cleared the funds to clean and restore the paintings and have them hung in a new jury assembly room here at the federal courthouse. They will be much more visible in the new setting and on view for hundreds of people every day. ("Restoring a bit of Houston's commercial history," Tom Fowler, The Houston Chronicle, April 7, 2010)

I've always loved the paintings and murals done for post offices and other public buildings during the Depression. (I guess that makes me a socialist!) I'll definitely have to check these out when they get put back up. For the time being, you can see them here.