HFAF 2014: The Good Stuff

Robert Boyd

OK, I was pretty harsh on the Houston Fine Art Fair here and here. These things are always a mixture. You have the good and the bad and a lot in between. The problem with HFAF was that the bad was so bad, and there was so much of it, one wonders if good galleries like Shoshana Wayne Gallery and Mark Borghi Fine Art will want to continue their association with the fair. Art fairs need to be curated to an extent, and there was little sense that HFAF was particularly selective.

But even if their inclusion criterion was nothing more than a gallery's willingness to pay the booth fee, some good art sneaked in. Here's some of my favorites.


James Surls at Wade Wilson Gallery


James Surls at Wade Wilson Gallery

I love James Surls and was struck by how nice these large sculptures look inside (I think they are meant to be outdoors sculptures). I was a bit surprised to see Surls associated with Wade Wilson (I though Barbara Davis was his local gallery when he bothered--but a look at the artists page on their website suggests that is no longer true.Wade Wilson Gallery closed their Houston location after opening a Santa Fe gallery. I was a little surprised to see them in Houston--at least one Houston artist had to sue Wade Wilson to get paid in recent years.


Michal Rovner, Yaar (Laila), 2014, LCD screens, paper and video, 46 1/2 x 40 1/2 x 2 3/8 inches at Shoshana Wayne Gallery

Not surprisingly, there wasn't much video art at HFAF. I think there were literally more lenticular artworks than video artworks. But one video piece I liked was this eerie one by Michal Rovner, featuring two lines of people endlessly marching on what looks like the face of a cliff. A group of cypress is in silhouette in the foreground. The latter feature seemed slightly unnecessary--the point of the work was the endless line of marchers. But as I looked closely, I realized that the center tree covered a seam between two video monitors. I guess you have to work with monitors that are actually manufactured, and if you want to have a nearly square image like this, connecting two monitors is the only way to do it. It detracts from the main idea, unfortunately. But I still found Yaar (Laila) to be a rather haunting piece.


Sabrina Gschwandtner, Hearts and Hands Brown and Blue, 2014, 16 mm polyester film, polyester thread, 23 5/8 x 23 1/2 inches at Shoshana Wayne Gallery

I saw Sabrina Gschwandtner's work earlier this year at Pulse. Aside from creating very interesting collages with old bits of 16 mm film, her surname has the highest consonant to vowel ratio of any other artist that I know of. Her pieces require a lightbox to be seen properly. Because the strips of film are sewn together, there is a rather quilt-like quality to her pieces. I find the patterning quite hypnotic.


Sabrina Gschwandtner, Hearts and Hands Brown and Blue (detail), 2014, 16 mm polyester film, polyester thread, 23 5/8 x 23 1/2 inches at Shoshana Wayne Gallery


John Chamberlain, Flywheelsonata, 2007, painted and chromed steel at Mark Borghi Fine Art

This rather antic piece by John Chamberlain exudes a happy feeling not always present in his work, which can be a little anxious in part because the association one may draw from it with car accidents. I know he always claimed to be a formalist, but still his work is from the high tide of the automobile (and thus the auto accident). It's nearly impossible not to think about that. But here, by using narrow strips of brightly painted sheet metal, I get an entirely different feeling.


John Chamberlain prints for sale to benefit the Asia Society

In addition to the John Chamberlain sculpture, HFAF was auctioning off two John Chamberlain prints (and some other artwork) to benefit the Asia Society.


Larry Poons, Untitled #13, 1973, acrylic on canvas, 55 1/2 x 29 inches at Mark Borghi Fine Art

This alarming snot avalanche by Larry Poons was perversely fascinating. 


Luis Jimenez, El Buen Pastor, colored lithograph, 1999 at Redbud Gallery

Redbud Gallery had several Luis Jimenez prints, including this powerful portrait of Esequiel Hernández, Jr., the goat herder killed by U.S. Marines in 1997.


Jim Dine, Double Iron Man, woodcut, 68 x 98 inches at Adamar Fine Arts

When I saw these antic woodcuts, I immediately thought, "Wow!" I would have never guessed that they were by Jim Dine. There is something about these two faces that really grabs me--a combination of the crude cartoonish rendering, the intense and unexpected colors and the restless texture.


Donald Sultan, Screen Aug 25, 1987, aquatint with relief print on reverse, 63 x 144 inches flat at Parkerson Gallery

I wish they had displayed this Donald Sultan on the floor so that we could see both sides of the screen. The image on this side is simple, but I love the smudginess.



Bert Long, Search, 1987, mixed media, 26 x 44 1/2 inches at Deborah Colton Gallery

Great colors on this Bert Long at Deborah Colton Gallery, which had one of the more interesting booths at HFAF.


Suzanne Anker, Carbon Collision in the Diamond Mind 33-40, 2013 metallic glazed porcelain at Deborah Colton Gallery

Suzanne Anker's little porcelain statuettes look decidedly dangerous.


Ferhat Özgür, Corps of Honour, 2011, watercolor on paper, 15.75 x 23.62 inches at Deborah Colton Gallery

Ferhat Özgür had a whole series of bizarre, slightly martial watercolors, including this tender moment between two Turkish soldiers.

The Houston Artists Hall of Fame

Jackie Harris, The Fruitmobile, 1967 Ford station wagon modified 1984

The fair devoted a considerable amount of space to the Houston Artists Hall of Fame, an exhibit of artists chosen by Patricia Covo Johnson. The idea is that there will be new artists added each year. In a way, it might have been a bad idea for HFAF to host this because it showed how weak most of the exhibitors were in comparison. It was nice that Johnson included an art car (one of the very first art cars, in fact) , recognizing the importance of this oddball vernacular art form to Houston.


Jesse Lott, Ascension of the Fire God, ca. 1974, wire and other found materials


two Jim Love sculptures


Manual (Ed Hill and Suzanne Bloom), Louis Corinth in Vermont, gelatin silver


Mel Chin, Cross for the Unforgiven, n.d., AK47s and steel


Alabama Song's booth

As they did last year, HFAF comped Alabama Song a booth. Work was hung salon-style and was for sale at all different price points (good idea!). They also had some participatory art happening. Rocky Wang played ping pong with all challengers.


Rocky Wang taking all comers with a shoe

Despite the fact that he handicapped himself by playing with his shoe instead of a paddle, Wang eviscerated every challenger.


Rocky Wang's hat with a tiny ping pong paddle


Rabéa Ballin at Alabama Song


Miguel Amat at Alabama Song

Miguel Amat will be having a show at the Blaffer Gallery later this fall--I'm looking forward to it and so should you.

Fotofest also had a booth which featured an intriguing selection of Arab photographers.


Ahmed Mater, from the series Illumination (Ottoman Waqf), 2014, gold leaf, tea, pomegranate, Dupont prints at Fotofest


Ahmed Mater, from the series Illumination (Ottoman Waqf), 2014, gold leaf, tea, pomegranate, Dupont prints at Fotofest


Hassan Hajjaj, Odd 1 Out, 2000/1421 from the series Kesh Angels, 2009-2012, c-print, walnut wood frame, tomato cans at Fotofest




Lalla Essaydi, Harem #29, 2012, chromogenic print at Fotofest

So it wasn't all bad. But HFAF still has to improve a lot, and their trajectory over the past couple of years has not been in the right direction.

The MFAH Has an "H" In Its Name

Robert Boyd

I strolled around the Museum of Fine Arts yesterday and checked out a show called Contemporary Art: Selections from the Museum's Collection. (It's only on view through September 14, so if you want to see it--hurry!)


Nick Cave, Soundsuit, 2011, mixed media

One thing that was cool about this little show was that included work by several Houstonians. And they were placed in the same galleries as artists like Nick Cave, Julie Mehretu, Ed Ruscha, and Fischli & Weiss, which is pretty flattering. Two of the Houston artists on display already have national reputations.


Mark Flood, Peacock, 2003, acrylic on canvas

Mark Flood is about to have a solo show at the Saint Louis Contemporary Art Museum, and Trenton Doyle Hancock's recently closed show at the CAMH has traveled to the Akron Art Museum. So the MFAH doesn't risk any hint of provinciality by showing those two artists. I don't know how important that is to the MFAH--it's certainly not something they'd admit in public, anyway. But let's face it--you don't become a "world class" museum by showing a bunch of local yokels.


Trenton Doyle Hancock, Beacon, 2006, acrylic and mixed media on cut canvas mounted on canvas

They were also showing a Jim Love sculpture, although curiously it was not a piece from the museum's collection. It belongs to the Alley Theatre.


Jim Love, Area Code, 1962, steel, cast iron and lead

The last two pieces were the most interesting in the sense that neither artist is particularly well known outside Houston. So the MFAH is, in a sense, taking a chance with these artists by saying they deserve to be displayed in the company of unimpeachably important contemporary artists like Cave, Mehretu and Ruscha.


Jeremy DePrez, untitled, 2013, oil on canvas


Michael Crowder, Air amusé, 2009, blown and cast glass

So why Jeremy DePrez and Michael Crowder and not, say, Emily Peacock or Robert Pruitt? I'm not making a value judgment here--just expressing curiosity about how particular works of Houston area artists end up in the MFAH.

OK, I've been a bit coy. The thing is, for each of these artworks, the wall-label explains where the work came from. Why these works ended up in the collection is up for speculation. There is a  gate-keeping process, but what appeals to a particular curator is ultimately unknown. But at least we know the "whence."

Peacock was a "museum purchase funded by various donors and friends of the artist." Beacon was a "gift of Cecily E. Horton in honor of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Core Program." Hancock was a Core fellow from 2000 to 2002. Air amusé was a "museum purchase funded by Wade Wilson, Jackie Wolens Mazow, Richard H. Moiel and Katherine S. Poeppel." Wade Wilson is a gallerist who shows Crowder's work. (We have reviewed Crowder's work here twice.) The untitled DePrez painting was a "gift of Fredericka Hunter and Ian Glennie." Hunter is the owner of Texas Gallery, where Glennie is the director. Texas Gallery exhibited work by DePrez in 2013 (a show I reviewed). DePrez is the youngest of the Houston artists here--he was born in 1983 and got his MFA from UH in 2011.

So how did this piece end up in the MFAH? I asked Alison de Lima Greene, MFAH's  Curator for Contemporary Art and Special Projects, about it. She told me that "in the case of Jeremy, his gallery invited me to look at the work and make a choice if I thought any would be good for our collection." But even at that point, there is a process for accessioning the work that she describes as "rigorous."

"After the curator and director agree that the object has relevance to the collection (which is separate from monetary value) we first present it to appropriate departmental subcommittee which is made up of a mixture of trustees, collectors, and generally knowledgeable people in that particular field. Then if the subcommittee approves, the recommendation goes to our collections committee which is made up of experienced trustees, who have final say," de Lima Greene explained.

Why would Wade Wilson and Fredericka Hunter want to give away work by an artist at their gallery? They're in the business of selling it, after all. The answer is pretty obvious--being in a museum collection confers legitimacy on an artist. In other words, it's branding. I realize this seems crass, and artists often recoil from this sort of thing--after all, the value of the work should be the work itself, not some story about its credentials--and in any case, that value shouldn't be measured in dollars. But gallerists have to live in the real world where artists and landlords and the power company all get paid lest bankruptcy and lawsuits ensue. So good branding is key to their continued existence.

Each label contained one more piece of data--a number. DePrez's was 2013.334. Beacon's was 2007.1693. This is the year the work was acquired and which work it was in order of all the works acquired that year. So in 2007, at least 1693 works were acquired by the MFAH. This tells you that at any given time, only a tiny percentage of the museum's holdings can be displayed at one time.

This perhaps more than any fear of provincialism likely explains why more Houston artists don't have work on display at any given time. (In addition to the works in this exhibit, a small James Bettison work was on display downstairs.) Not that the museum doesn't have a fraught history with local art. James Johnson Sweeney, director from 1961 to 1967, infamously ended the annual regional exhibition, which provided many Houston area artists with important exposure to viewers who might not ever otherwise see their work. Needless to say, this went over pretty poorly with local artists, as demonstrated by Frank Freed's 1966 painting Out! depicting Sweeney ejecting a local painter from the museum.


Frank Freed, Out!, oil on masonite, 12 x 12 inches

(Ironically, Out! was acquired by the MFAH in 1994. Its number is 94.250.)

Personally, I would like to see more local art exhibited at the MFAH. But its relatively small size combined with its huge collection combined with a mission to be world class institution makes this difficult. I'm hoping that when the new building is completed, which will be focused primarily on art since 1900, there will be more opportunities for the display of art by Houston's own artists.

Train I Ride

Robert Boyd

There is a little train in Hermann Park. Hermann Park has had train for decades (I rode it when I was a whippersnapper), but this is an all-new train--somewhat bigger (it can accommodate wheelchairs and strollers now) and the track is longer. Now they are also installing a lot of new art for one year as part of a celebration of the centennial of the park. Not all of it has been installed yet (there will be pieces by Louise Bourgeois, Ugo Rondinone, Sharon Englestein and Orly Genger--but not yet), but you can see all the new art that's up--as well as art that's been there for a long time--from the train.

I got on the train at a station near Miller Theatre. The first piece of art you see is Atropos Key by Hannah Stewart (1928-2010) on top of the hill in front of the theater.


Hannah Stewart, Atropos Key, 1972, cast bronze

This sculpture has been keeping watch from this hill for 42 years. For me it recalls surrealist sculpture, and with the Greek mythological reference (Atropos is one of the fates), it has a Jungian thing going on.


Hannah Stewart, Atropos Key, 1972, cast bronze

 I like Atropos Key a lot. This abstract female figure, watching down both sides of the hill--into the theater and over towards Main Street, is a comforting presence.


Yvonne Domenge, Wind Waves, painted bronze

The next piece you see is one of the temporary pieces. Wind Waves by Yvonne Domenge is another bronze sculpture. Atropos Key feels hand-made and feels like it belongs where it is. That's probably because I've been seeing it there for so long, but the contrast between it and Wind Waves couldn't be more obvious. Originally shown at the Vancouver Biennial in 2009-2011, Wind Waves is a piece of plop art that has no particular relationship to the location it happens to be occupying for a year or two. It's a generic beautiful object, eye-catching and pretty but empty.  I don't hate it--it's too generic in fact to invite any emotion at all.



Next up is the Pioneer Memorial at one end of the reflecting pool. This is also pretty generic, but it's the kind of thing you expect to see in a city's central municipal park.



By the way, this message in the train really applies to your whole life.



There us an area by the playground where two sets of tracks run parallel. We will return on the other track.



The park was full of people on Saturday. Families, kids, teenagers, joggers, strollers, cops (lots of them for some reason) and this gentleman taking a nap near the intersection of Main and Cambridge.



Then the train approaches a green shed--the location of the next piece of art.


Trenton Doyle Hancock, Destination Mound Town, 2014, vinyl installation

Trenton Doyle Hancock created a piece, Destination Mound Town,  specifically for this site. It's meant to be seen from the moving train, and it is especially meant to be seen by kids. (But adults can dig it. I wanted to ride the train again to see more details.)


Trenton Doyle Hancock, Destination Mound Town, 2014, vinyl installation


Trenton Doyle Hancock, Destination Mound Town, 2014, vinyl installation


Trenton Doyle Hancock, Destination Mound Town, 2014, vinyl installation


Trenton Doyle Hancock, Destination Mound Town, 2014, vinyl installation


Trenton Doyle Hancock, Destination Mound Town, 2014, vinyl installation

When we exited the tunnel, the kid behind me shouted, "Cool!" That is the perfect critical judgment.




Patrick Dougherty, untitled, sticks

As the train crosses McGovern Lake, you come across the next work of temporary art, an untitled twig building made by Patrick Dougherty and 150 volunteers. Like Hancock's piece, this seems like a perfect piece for the park. It's interactive (you can enter the building) and likely to appeal to a broad cross-section of park-goers. Especially kids. In fact, people who interact it may not see it as a piece of art at all.


Patrick Dougherty, untitled, sticks


Patrick Dougherty, untitled, sticks


Patrick Dougherty, untitled, sticks



Patrick Dougherty, untitled, sticks


Patrick Dougherty, untitled, sticks

To me, it's obviously a piece of art. The way the saplings are made to flow in certain directions are clearly esthetic decisions. But I don't mind it if other people see it instead as kind of an elaborate piece of playground equipment. (I don't know if Patrick Dougherty would agree.)



Now we cross by the other end of the reflecting pool, where we can see the Sam Houston Monument (1924) by Enrico Filiberto Cerracchio. Bronze monuments to hero/founders are the ultimate municipal art cliche, but I'd feel something was lacking if a park like Hermann Park didn't have one. It helps identify the park as a civic space. And Sam Houston was a cool guy.



The name of this train is the Dr. Jack Express. I have no idea who Dr. Jack is.


Jim Love, Portable Trojan Bear, 1974, pine and steel

Jim Love's Portable Trojan Bear has been here since 1984. This is another piece that seems to waver between being an artwork and being a piece of playground equipment. Like so much of Love's work, it's cute and lovable--qualities that probably kept him from being taken seriously as an artist outside of Houston. But Houston loves him--you can see a couple of his pieces next door at Rice University, the wonderful plane at Hobby Airport, and until very recently, a lovely giant red jack at the Menil.


Jim Love, Portable Trojan Bear, 1974, pine and steel

And that's it. All photos were taken from the train in motion--I apologize if a few are a bit fuzzy and poorly composed. I hope the additional sculptures being installed for this centennial celebration will also be visible from the train. I'd love another excuse to ride it again.