Tchotchkes, Knickknacks and Scale Models at Devin Borden

by Robert Boyd

You don't see a lot of sculpture in galleries. Work tend to be "wall art"--paintings, photos, drawings, collages, reliefs, etc. The reason is obvious--sculpture is hard to own and display. For a collector, sculpture displaces furniture. It renders some amount of floor space unusable. It's just not as convenient to collect as wall art. So that means sculpture is not something you see very often in art galleries. And that's too bad.

But Devin Borden got around the inconvenience factor with his show Table Top by showing mostly very small sculptures--the kind that can fit on a bookshelf or in a china cabinet. The funny thing is that when I think of pieces like that, I think of ceramic tchotchkes. Things your grandmother might have cluttering up her parlor. Or to be more modern about it, the toys and action figures that hipsters and comics nerds collect--you can buy stuff like that at Domy or Bedrock City.

And in a way, the work in this group show is a variation of that. Matt Messinger's pieces seem to be a direct riff on that theme of grandmother-friendly ceramic tchotchke.



Matt Messinger small sculpture installation



Matt Messinger, Untitled (Cat), 2011, found ceramic, buttons, resin

When I see stacks of buttons like that, I think of Tara Donovan, but her use of them is clearly different. She uses identical buttons to create a texture. Her buttons tend to have neutral, unassuming colors. Messinger is going for color with his stacks.



Matt Messinger, Untitled (Owl and Teacup), 2012, found ceramic, buttons, resin

So unlike Donovan, I think Messinger is all about these little ceramic things and the buttons for what they signify--I kind of domesticity that reminds one of  of a particular place and time. You are a child and you visit your aunt or grandmother and you see these things, and you nose around, looking in drawers (because you're bored) and you find old buttons. The three twisting stacks of buttons in untitled (Owl and Teacup) reminded me of DNA. And this kind of stuff is in our DNA. It's a part of our collective culture.



more Matt Messinger in the back room

Awww, cute!



Sharon Engelstein, Cat Mount, 2008, plaster and cyanoacrylate adhesive 3-D print

Also verging on cute is Cat Mount by Sharon Engelstein. But it's also kind of mysterious. Because the image is small, when I saw it I saw it as a scale model for something bigger. With the jagged rock-like form and the steps on the right, you could see it as the top of a rock outcropping, or the very summit of a mountain. And on top of this mountain is a strange piece of cartoon-cat-shaped equipment. It has two pipes, implying liquid or gas moving through it. It could almost be a piece of gas pipeline equipment. Except that it's cat-shaped. I imagine that someone has taken a long stairway up the side of a mountain--not a high mountain (no snow), but still it took some effort to get to the top. And then you behold this mysterious piece of equipment. To me, that would be like discovering that magic is real. It's a hike up a mountain worth taking. Needless to say, I love this little sculpture.



Sharon Engelstein, Bumbry, 2002, plaster and cyanoacrylate adhesive 3-D print

This earlier piece, Bumbry, feels like a model for one of her large forced-air pieces, but I have never seen this particular arrangement of bulbous partial spheres in any of those larger pieces. But like the inflatable pieces, it is playful and biomorphic.


Nicholas Kersulis, Objects for a Table (Rocks: Taos: Rumsfeld), 2010, black gesso on found rocks/studio table with Cornforth White paint

These rocks by Nicholas Kersulis are not cute at all. Kersulis was a Core fellow a few years ago. I've seen similar pieces to this where he used white gesso. I don't know how he makes the gesso so thick, except that maybe he paints on layer after layer. Gesso is naturally white because it's made out of gypsum and chalk, but it can have pigment mixed in, which is presumably the case here.



Nicholas Kersulis, Objects for a Table (Rocks: Taos: Rumsfeld) detail, 2010, black gesso on found rocks/studio table with Cornforth White paint

The way the gesso part of each rock is kind of swirly makes it look a bit like obsidian (although less glassy than obsidian). Its utter blackness reminds one of coal or asphalt. The fact that the rocks are bisected in a way--the bottom half natural rock, the top half black thick gesso, make me think of rock strata. And the display on the table looks like a collection. With a glass top to turn it into a vitrine, it could be a display in a natural history museum. But one can't get around the fact that the gesso portion of each "rock" looks weird and unnatural. And ironically, that's what is so appealing about them.



Kaneem Smith, Untitled (White), 2010, cloth, cotton balls, wax; and Wring Out, 2012, burlap, cotton, wax

Kaneem Smith's work goes a bit off message--Untitled (White) is a wall hanging instead of a table-top sculpture. But the scale is the thing, really. Even though Smith is working on table-top scale, she has produced work that is the opposite of cute (like Kersulis). These pieces are not going into auntie's china cabinet. The work is grungy. The use of burlap and cotton perhaps are meant to recall the importance of cotton in Houston (and the South generally), and the grungy quality of the work, as well as the "wrung out" aspect of Wring Out may be a reference to the back-breaking labor, performed first by black slaves and later by black sharecroppers in appalling conditions.

 
Darryl Lauster, Diarama, 2011, found toys, electric motor, wooden table

Darryl Lauster takes U.S. history and the American scene as the subject of his often quite amusing artwork. Diarama [sic] takes on the revolutionary war. The motor keeps the seesaw element rocking back and forth--sometimes the British are up, sometimes the revolutionary soldier is up.



Darryl Lauster, The New World, 2012, acrylic, electric aquarium pump, steel, brass, water, cement and silicone

The New World seems especially appropriate for Houston. In fact, I'm always puzzled by the relative lack of art that relates to oil and gas production. It was in 1863 that Charles Baudelaire in "The Painter of Modern Life" instructed artists to look around and depict the modern world in which they lived in their art. And yet, oil production remains under-explored as an artistic subject. This witty piece, like The New World, has a kinetic element--bubbles pumped from the bottom that make the octopus clinging to the side of the platform move. Folks in the oil industry will recognize that this is a fairly archaic form of drilling platform.

Thematically, there is little to link these artists. Lauster and Smith both touch on industries that are associated with Houston historically. (Kersulis rocks, if you see the black gesso as symbolic of oil-bearing rock, could also be read as relating to oil production.) Messinger explores cuteness and nostalgia, and cuteness is touched on by both Engelstein and Lauster. But mainly what we have here is a heterogeneous collection of small sculptures, each with its own virtues.

Art at the Houston Permitting Center

by Robert Boyd


Do you read Swamplot? (You should--it's one of Houston's most consistently entertaining blogs.) Every year they vote for "the Swampies", voting on various architectural, development, and planning/anti-planning successes and fiascoes in the Houston metro area. One Swampie is "Most Notable Recycling Effort"--a vote for the best remodelling/refurbishing/repurposing project in Houston. And on the top of the ballot this year is the Houston Permitting Center--and the voting seems to be favoring it. (Voting closes on December 27.) Pretty much everyone who has seen this has been impressed.



The Houston Permitting Center

What is it? It used to be a warehouse, and many who saw it described it as an eyesore. It's on the very end of Washington, next to the Amtrack station. The City of Houston decided to turn this building into their new Permitting Center. This is where contractors go to get the various permits they need for building projects. The city hired Studio RED to design the Center. The City devotes a 1.75% of capital improvements to art.  So for an expensive project like this, that's a shitload of money for art. Mary Margaret Hansen won the commission, but it wasn't a single piece of art she put up. Instead, working with 12 artists, she put art everywhere inside and outside the building.

Hansen is a compulsive blogger--she has a personal blog and seems to start up a new blog every time she starts a new project. I like this--it builds anticipation, and informs people about the process and the progress of the project. Her blog about the Permitting Center is worth reading, but reading it as the project unfolded was the ideal way to experience it.




interior of the Houston Permitting Center, first floor

The first art you see on the inside is this:



This is the information desk. Most of the art is labeled, but I couldn't find one for these decorative silhouettes.



Kaneem Smith, Remnant Reverie, 2011

The name plaque for this piece by Kaneem Smith instructs viewers to "please touch."

As I walked further towards the south end of the first floor, I saw these:




I thought at first they were a large art installation, but what they in fact are are demonstration models of various construction materials. But just behind them is this:



Dan Havel and Dean Ruck, Torrent (detail), 2011

This is the first "indoor" piece I've ever seen by Havel and Ruck. It definitely gives on the impression of flotsam being carried away by a flood. Kind of a weird item for a building that is mainly concerned with building things (although the Permitting Center also issues demolition permits).Even though they are using recycled material in this piece, it seems ironically to suggest that this is the end-state of all this construction that happens in Houston. It's an evergreen notion:

"My name is OZYMANDIAS, King of Kings."
Look on my works ye Mighty, and despair!
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that Colossal Wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Gonzo247, Information Highway, 2011



Gonzo247, Sunset in the City, 2011

Of the two Gonzo247 pieces, I prefer sunset in the city. It feels closer to a traditional graffiti piece. Also I like the irony--sunset often being associated with a quiet time, but in his work, he implies that the city comes alive at night. It has a jazzy urban feel that in some ways recalls Start Davis.



Mary Margaret Hansen, Overheard, 2011

Hansen spent time at the old permitting office listening to the phrases people used. Then she created this word collage out of her research. I've heard through the grapevine that she is irked that they put chairs in front of the piece. No artist likes to have their work covered up. But the Houston Permitting Center is not a museum--it's a working office. Things like this are to be expected. And I thought it had an unexpected aesthetic benefit. In my photograph, it feels like the piece is mirroring the actual thoughts of the guy sitting in front of it with his rolled-up plans and paperwork.



Jesse Sifuentes, View from the East, 2011

A lot of the work so far seems to reflect the bustle of both the Center and of the City, which is appropriate. The Permitting Center is about Houston in transition: tearing down, transforming, building up. You hear a soundtrack of chopped and screwed hip hop or grindcore. Not so with this pretty line of magnolias by Jesse Sifuentes.We're still clearly in an urban environment, but Sifuentes is reminding us of one of Houston's glories--its abundant trees.



Geoff Winningham, Fishing at Allen's Landing on Buffalo Bayou, 2001

The most subtle pieces are Geoff Winningham's photos, which are somehow printed on metal.Winningham too shows a quiet side of the city, but with the reflection in the still water, he reminds the viewer that they are in an urban space--indeed in the very heart of the city. The shadows, the reflection, the silhouette of the fisherman all make this a formally complex photograph. For that reason alone, you could sit and look at it for quite a while. But as a portrait of this city, it also seems perfect. It's timeless--one imagines this scene was common 100 years ago, and it wouldn't be out of place in an old Sig Byrd column.

There are several other artworks in the building and outside. The Houston Permitting Center strikes me as an exemplary example of how to use the 1.75% of capital costs for art. And I say this in a city that is full of squandered art dollars (ahem Tolerance ahem Open Channel Flow).