Shots Fired, Four Dead

Robert Boyd

I saw Keren Cytter's blood-soaked Rose Garden last night at Diverse Works. It was shot at the Rose Garden bar (up off of Airline in the greater Heights area of Houston), a place that Wayne Gilbert characterized as a dive. The cast consists of a combination of local actors and artists, including Emily Peacock, Nick Meriwether, Wayne Gilbert, Otis Ike and Jim Hatchett.


Rose Garden from keren cytter on Vimeo.

There is a strange logic to the story, but mostly it seems absurd. For example, the bar patrons' reaction to the accidental shooting of Emily Peacock is almost total indifference. The music, a combination of of eerie flute and banjo, was perfect--it gave the video a suspense-filled spaghetti Western feel. The non-actors mostly non-acted, to be blunt, but Otis Ike has to be praised for delivering an amazingly creepy erotic phone-sex monologue.

This video is Keren Cytter's contribution to a larger project, Der Stachel des Skorpions ("The Sting of the Scorpion"),which includes contributions by Tobias Zielony, Chicks on Speed, M+M, Julian Rosefeldt andJohn Bock in addition to Cytter. It is a deliberately surrealist project, based on L’Âge d’Or by the divine Luis Buñuel. L’Âge d’Or has been divided into six sections, and each artist films his or her own version of one of the sections. Therefore it is a film version of the Surrealist game of Exquisite Corpse. Cytter has transformed the feast in the mansion into a Texas bar scene.

Diverse Works brings a lot of artists to Houston who work in non-traditional media or else who are not primarily visual artists at all.  Cytter, an Israeli artist, is one of these. She had a performance and exhibit at Diverse Works in 2013. At times, I've resented this direction from Diverse Works. It veers into theater, which I don't feel especially equipped to deal with critically or even as a viewer. (Claire Bishop, I ain't.) Plus, you can often feel in such situations that the art space has parachuted in some artist who is making a tour of the provinces. It risks feeling unconnected to the here and now.

But one thing Rose Garden made me realize is that a lot of the artists that Diverse Works brings in use Houston--its people, its locations, its events--as material. For example, Liz Magic Laser's Tell Me What You Want to Hear, which included a number of local Houston journalists and political strategists (Houstonians one rarely sees in an art space like Diverse Works, it should be noted), and City Council Meeting by Aaron Landsman, Mallory Catlett and Jim Findlay, which featured a number of Houston amateur actors, including an actual Houston city councilman. Tell Me What You Want to Hear, City Council Meeting and Rose Garden each engage Houston in very specific non-superficial ways.  (You might conclude that I am pretty slow on the uptake if I'm only realizing this now. Probably so!)

My worry that out-of-town artists would necessarily have no connection with Houston and its specific situation is therefore totally unwarranted. When you think about it, Diverse Works and the artists it brings to Houston have made a serious effort to integrate their work locally, even though the artists are here only temporarily. Whether this is the specific intention of Diverse Works or an unintended by-product of the artists they choose to bring here (or some combination of the two), I don't know. But I'm glad they do it and I'm glad that I finally noticed it.

Pan Recommends for the week of September 6 through September 12

Oh my, it's Thursday again. This week is one of the biggest weeks in the year as everyone puts away their white shoes and madras slacks and gets serious about life again. There is so much artsy stuff happening this weekend that no one can possibly hope to see it all. We'll make an effort, though. But if you feel the need to pick and choose, here are our recommendations.

Fall Art Kickoff Slide Jam in the courtyard of Sewell Hall at Rice University, 7 pm, Thursday, September 6. Slides by various Core Fellows and Rice art faculty, a reception at the Matchbox Gallery Space, and music. These events are always fun and a good opportunity to see the work of Rice student artists.

FLYAWAY: New Work by Aaron Parazette at the Art League, 6 pm, Friday, September 7. Aaron Parazette is the Art League's Texas Artist of the Year, and in addition to exhibiting a bunch of his paintings, this show will include a new large site-specific painting.

SHIPPED: Work by Current BOX13 Artists Outside the BOX at 4411 Montrose, 6:30, Friday, September 7. Some Houston art lovers have never made the trek out to Wayside to see Box 13, so Box 13 is making the trek to Montrose to see you! Work by Elaine Bradford, Karen Brasier-Young, Michelle Chen-Dubose, Monica Foote, Michael Henderson, Janine Hughes, Kate Kendall, Jonathan Leach, David McClain, Jennifer McNichols, Tudor Mitroi, Kia Neill, Emily Peacock, Kristy Peet, Mark Ponder, and J. Michael Stovall--in short, some of the finest artists in town.

Karen Cytter: Video Art Manual at Diverse Works (the old space, not the new one), 8 pm, Friday, September 7. This was supposed to open at their new space in Midtown, but construction delays have caused a split opening--part of the show will be the denouement of the downtown location and the next part will be a premiere of the Midtown location. Don't show up at the wrong address!

ERIC ZIMMERMAN: Endless Disharmony & Telltale Ashes at Art Palace, 6 pm, Friday, September 7. Here's your chance to see if the editor of ...might be good might be good himself. His insanely detailed graphite drawings are definitely worth checking out.

In Plain Sight organized by Aaron Parazette at McClain Gallery, 5 pm, Saturday, September 8. In addition to his solo show at the Art League, Parazette has organized a huge survey of the current Houston painting scene--the artists included are Seth Alverson, David Aylsworth, Heather Bause, William Betts, Harvey Bott, Joseph Cohen, Pat Colville, Melanie Crader, Bill Davenport, Jeremy DePrez, Kent Dorn, Christian Eckart, Jane Eifler, Mark Flood, Francesca Fuchs, Ryan Geiger, Marianne Green, Lane Hagood, Alika Herreshoff, Steven Hooks, Perry House, Michael Kennaugh, Jonathan Leach, Cody Ledvina, David McGee, Tierney Malone, Emily McGrew, Marcelyn McNeil, Aaron Parazette, Brian Portman, Cheyenne Ramos, Susie Rosmarin, Robert Ruello, Beth Secor, Howard Sherman, Hana Shoup, Gael Stack, Myke Venable, Marco Villegas, and Kyle Young. Whew! I don't know how they are all going to fit in!

A bunch of exhibits at Box 13, 7 pm, Saturday, September 8,  2012. Shows by a bunch of artists at the Harrisburg location, including Karl Erickson, Andrew Falkowski, Kristy Peet, Christopher Tuttoilmondo-Holmes, Karen Brasier-Young and Benjamin Terry, whose paintings I recently saw and enjoyed in Dallas.

A Gallery Retrospective: 21 Years of Fine Craft at Goldesberry Gallery, 6 pm, Saturday, September 8, 2012. Oliver and Nancy Goldesberry are retiring with a retrospective show. A sale will last until December 24th. Goldesberry has been one of my favorite galleries for years, and their retirement will be a loss for the art scene and a big loss for the fine craft scene in town. If you don't make the opening, check out the sale--there will be many fine pieces available. But not the Virginia Scotchie piece above--I bought this one a few years ago from Goldesberry.

Fringe Festival Weekend 2 at Super Happy Fun Land, Bohemeos and Frenetic Theater, various times, Thursday through Sunday, September 6-9. After you've been to the openings, sit down and let dancers, actors, comedians and musicians entertain you. This weekend, I'm looking forward to The Knocking Within by ANIKAI Dance Company, John Cage: Happy 100th by George Heathco and Luke Hubley, and Crawling With Monsters by The Sleepy Border Town Insomniacs, among others!

And the thing is, this just scratches the surface. Check out Glasstire and Artshound for much more complete listings--and have a good weekend!

(And of course, if you have an opening or an event you'd like mentioned, please feel free to describe it in the comments. The more the merrier!)