Go Get the Butter (NSFW)

Robert Boyd


Clayton Porter, Trying Hard, 2012, multiple videos on three 32 in. TVs, time variable

Let's get the dick out of the way right up front. In the big downstairs gallery at Lawndale where the exhibit Staring at the Wall: The Art of Boredom is, you hear the words "work" and "hard" being repeated over and over, with slightly varying rhythms. Three 32-inch TVs are facing each other, so that their screens are mostly hidden from the viewer. That's where the sound is coming from.


Clayton Porter, Trying Hard, 2012, multiple videos on three 32 in. TVs, time variable

 Only when you get close and peek through the narrow slits between the TVs do you see erect penises (presumably artist Clayton Porter's penis) being pressed into soft sticks of butter. There are many things one could say to describe this, but "boring" is not one of them. That's the first clue that the title of the exhibit is not really about your boredom. It's more about what boredom unlocks. Being bored is an inducement to do something. For example, masturbation. And if mere masturbation isn't cutting it, why not press your dick into some soft butter? As The Waitresses sang, "It might not be better but I'll settle for different."

 
Clayton Porter, untitled (casts of melted butter), 2012, eight plaster of paris sculptures

Boredom here seems to be the inspiration for new work, a video installation called Trying Hard. And this apparently resulted in a series of little sculptures.

  
Clayton Porter, untitled (casts of melted butter), 2012, plaster of paris


Clayton Porter, untitled (casts of melted butter), 2012, plaster of paris

I had a discussion about these sculptures with a friend last night. He had two thoughts--first, as casts they seemed too perfect. He didn't believe that these were actual casts of butter that had been smushed by Porter's erect penis. He thought the technical challenges of creating such a cast might be too great. And there is nothing in the exhibit that states that what they are casts of the penis-smushed butter sticks--but everyone who sees them jumps to that conclusion. The other thing was that the sculptures were a way to turn this activity--pressing his penis into butter--into a salable object. He felt that detracted from the video installation, that the sculptures were unnecessary adjuncts. Perhaps so, but the fact that he could take this seemingly boredom-born activity and turn it into discreet sculptures is kind of impressive.

The thing about Staring at the Wall: The Art of Boredom is that Clayton Porter is everywhere. His work comes close to overwhelming the show. In addition to the loud dick piece and eight sculptures that seem to be associated with it, he has two more pieces in the exhibit.


Clayton Porter, Anal Patina, 2012, bronze, displayed with stationary bike and photograph, 11.5" x 12" x 2.75" (seat)

With Anal Patina, Porter made a bronze cast of his stationary bicycle seat and rode it naked for 650 miles. The patina (which I couldn't really see) was formed by his butt sweat. Boredom may have played a part (riding a stationary bike isn't exactly exciting). The piece is meant to "focus on the body," according to the notes. But mostly it elicits a laugh. In fact, one thing conspicuously absent in the show's notes (presumably written by curator Katia Zavistovski) about Anal Patina and Trying Hard is that they're funny. Porter is described as being preoccupied "with identity, sexuality and power relations." But the most obvious aspect of these two pieces, humor, is not mentioned.


Clayton Porter, Untitled (Sunlight Across My Face), 2012, video


Clayton Porter, Untitled Drawing (Self-Portrait), 2011, graphite and wax on paper, 9" x 11.5"

His last two pieces in the show are linked to each other. First is a pencil self-portrait--nothing special but well-executed. This is mounted on a freestanding bulletin-board-like structure. On the other side from the portrait is a projection, Untitled (Sunlight on My Face). This one is where Porter brings the boredom to us. This is, apparently, a video of sunlight slowly creeping across this portrait. It's only 19 minutes long, but I suspect no one watches the whole thing--too boring. I was reminded of Michael Snow's Wavelength, another film that few people watch all the way through unless they have to.

The boredom of the artist comes through in Chris Akin's work. Akin is a guard at the Menil Museum and apparently spends a whole lot of time looking at the floor. I can understand why. Standing in one place waiting for the occasional person to illicitly whip out a camera so you can actually do something must be excruciatingly boring. And the worn wood floors at the Menil are admittedly pretty interesting--I notice them every time I'm there.


Chris Akin, from the Menil Floor Drawing series, 2004-2006, metallic paint pen and pencil on paper, 2 5/8" x 4 1/4" each

Akin has taken his boredom and spun it into a body of work--drawings from 2004 to 2006, then collages from 2010 to 2012. Staring at the floors of the Menil has kept him artistically busy for years.


Chris Akin, from the Menil Floor Drawing series, 2010-2012, mixed media on paper, imensions variable

The pieces feel nostalgic, recalling cubist drawings and paintings as well as abstractions from the late 50s and 60s. In this way, they have a secondary relationship to the Menil through the content of its collection.

Another artist whose work references other older artwork is Jenny Schlief. She specifically references a well-known video by John Baldessari called I Am Making Art.


Jenny Schlief, I Am Making Art: After Baldessari, 2010, iPhone video, 29 seconds looped

The show catalog acknowledges that Schlief has humorous intentions. Taking Baldessari's dryly humorous video and replacing it with a baby with ants in her pants is funny. Apparently the link to boredom here has to do with the struggle of a parent to keep her child from being bored. But it could also relate to John Baldessari's ironic artistic statement, I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art.

Jeremy DePrez evidently kills time doodling on a scratch pad. One of his paintings in the show is based on this material.


Jeremy DePrez, untitled, 2012, oil on canvas, 52" x 78"

Boredom is not all that far from obsession. The need to fill the vacuum of time leads us to pointlessly repetitive acts like the careful filling of blank space on this scratch pad that DePrez has expanded and immortalized. Horror vacui also comes hand in hand with boredom. We clutter up our environments to stave off boredom.


Uta Barth, ...and to draw a bright white line with light (Untitled 11.1) (left side), 2011, inkjet prints face-mounted against matte acrylic, framed in painted aluminum frames, diptych--each panel 37 1/2" x 55 3/4"


Uta Barth, ...and to draw a bright white line with light (Untitled 11.1) (right side), 2011, inkjet prints face-mounted against matte acrylic, framed in painted aluminum frames, diptych--each panel 37 1/2" x 55 3/4"

Uta Barth and Seth Alverson both depict interior scenes (curtains and a chair respectively) which are related to the theme of the show via the idea that loneliness is related to boredom. I think this connection is weaker than what we see in the other works. At least it is for me. Sitting in a chair staring at the light as it plays across the curtains, catching dust particles in the air, and zoning out is not boredom. Being bored is feeling each second pass. Barth and Alverson's pieces make me think of those moments when time ceases to exist. I suppose the question is whether satori comes out of boredom or if it is a banishment of boredom. In any case, I feel these two pieces are closer to depicting a kind of satori than mere boredom. They have a gorgeous emptiness.


Seth Alverson, Chair, 2012, oil on canvas, 30" x 30"

Staring at the Wall: The Art of Boredom runs through January 12 at Lawndale Art Center.

Three Art Things To Do

I usually leave the art listings to people who are good at it, like Glasstire and Artshound. But here are three things that are not exhibits so they might be off your radar if you are looking for the latest openings, etc.

• First (and soonest): The Skydive fundraiser: The Future Is Now. This is happening Saturday, May 7, from 6 pm to 9 pm. Skydive is an art space that specializes in bringing in artists from out of town to show their work, do performances, and hang out with Houston artists (and kibbitzers like me). Your $20 cover gets you in to drink donated Lone Star beer while watching 15 to 20 performance artists doing stuff! Plus there's a silent auction (and you don't even have to be there to bid--you can bid online here.) Skydive is on the corner of Shepherd and Norfolk.

• The American Association of Museums is having their annual convention in Houston, May 22 to 25, at the Brown Convention Center. Unfortunately it costs a small fortune for a non-member to attend. But fortunately, you can attend by volunteering! You can sign up to volunteer here. Why would you want to attend this convention? Take a look at their convention catalog here--it looks totally fascinating.

• The Big Show is Lawndale's annual juried show, and I for one always find it interesting. Lawndale has posted the call for entries and the entry form. (The official entry dates are June 15 and 16.) I encourage any artist--especially young artists--in Houston to enter. I think the coolest thing about it is that the juror is always an out-of-town curator who doesn't know who's who in the local scene. You might not get in--it's kind of a crapshoot--but you have just as much chance as anyone else! 

Enter the Big Show

Last year I went to my first Big Show and was really impressed by the quality of the work I saw there. So artists, the next big show is coming up. Here are the rules for entry. Apparently this $30 entrance fee is new. I wonder why they have added it. I'm sure it will discourage some marginal, less committed artists, but it also may discourage some artists who just don't have $30 to spare for a crapshoot.

Still, $30 is not a fortune, so hopefully they'll see a huge number of entrants in a bewildering variety of media and styles.

My Favorite Bits of Lawndale's 30th Anniversary Show

Robert Boyd

The great James Surls spoke about the founding of Lawndale last week. The show that is up now doesn't try to encapsulate Lawndale's entire 30-year history. It is composed of work by six artists who have all shown at Lawndale within the last five years.



Elaine Bradford, Harry With Worlds on Top, taxidermy elk's head, crocheted yarn, 2009

Elaine Bradford has been a high-profile artist in Houston. (Readers might recall that I bought a photograph of hers earlier this year.) I like the piece above because in it I see strong echoes of Dr. Seuss. I didn't see that in her taxidermy/knitting works before, but now it seems obvious. Bradford is hunting and mounting Seusses.



Elaine Bradford, Little Ram, Tiny World, plastic ram head and crocheted yarn, 2009

Emily Sloan turned the columns in the main space in Lawndale into these giant lamps. (I am assuming these columns were already there--I never really noticed them before.)


Emily Sloan, Boudoir Lamps in Black, Red and Gold, four structural columns with fabric, steel, wood and paint, 2009

I have no idea what she is saying with these "lamps" but they look cool.



Seth Alverson, Woman Bending Over, oil on canvas, 2009

Seth Alversons paintings are admirable but cringe-inducing (at least the ones I'm reproducing here). I don't really want to look at that lovingly-painted cottage cheese, but can't look away. He should hope a museum gets it, because it's hard to imagine a collector hanging this on her wall.



Seth Alverson, Tits in a Window, oil on canvas, 2009

Or this (these?)!



Mark Schatz, A Map Drawn from Memory, Torn to Pieces and Thrown into the Sea, mixed media, 2009.

Little bits of landscape, looking like a cross between Google maps satelite view and a model railroad diorama, with huge iceberg-like chunks of stone beneath them, hung upside down. The inherently creative impulse of model railroaders, plastic model builders, and diorama-makers of all stripes is art-schooled here. I approve. I've loved dioramas since I was a little kid. Here's a closer view:



Mark Schatz, A Map Drawn from Memory detail, Torn to Pieces and Thrown into the Sea, mixed media, 2009.

There are other good pieces in the show by other artists. But these were my favorites. Lawndale may not be the wild, crazy, unafraid-to-fail, anarchic place it was when James Surls started it, but it puts on a good show.

Once Upon a Time at Lawndale

Last night, I went to hear James Surls speak at Lawndale. Surls was the founder of the institution 30 years ago. Lots of former students and cronies were present, as well as art lovers of all stripes (I saw the director of CAMH there). It was a standing-room only crowd.

Surls is almost 70, but he has the vitality of a much younger man. He speaks and looks like someone decades younger. Just imagine, then, what a dynamo he must have been when Lawndale started.

He's a modest person. He claims it was the right time and right place for Lawndale, and that he was just along for the ride. He refers to the founding of P.S. 1 in New York in 1971, and similar institutions in L.A., and says it was inevitable that something like that would pop up in the middle of the country somewhere. Probably so.

He had been teaching at SMU, and he proposed that they just buy a warehouse for that purpose. He knew they'd say no. So he comes to Houston, an art professor, no particular ambitions to try to get the university to buy a warehouse because, after all, he knew they'd say no--when the art department's building caught fire. It was uninhabitable. Fortunately, UH had another space. Schlumberger had given UH an old building out on Lawndale. The admin at UH was very apologetic about putting him and his students in this industrial tenement in the middle of a slum. Surls was all, "Please don't trow me in dat briar patch, boss!"

Of course it turned out to be perfect. Huge exhibition and performance spaces, studio space for many, many students (and random fringies). Surls described it as "indestructible."

And it was needed really badly at that moment. The major art institutions in the city had no interest in showing local art. (This was before Peter Marzio came to MFAH.) And, as Surls put it, the big boys in the performing and visual arts in Houston were deathly afraid of failure. They were afraid of putting on a show that left critics (or donors) asking, "What the fuck were you thinking." Surls saw Lawndale as a place where one could fail and it wouldn't matter. (Because Lawndale was indestructible--both physically, and as a no-budget experimental art space, conceptually as well.)

He told lots of great stories. Here's one--about Black Flag playing at Lawndale. He was used to getting in avant jazz bands like The Art Ensemble of Chicago or Sun Ra, but he had no idea what to expect from Black Flag. The show was what you would expect, with punks throwing beer bottles against the walls and HPD coming out in force to shut it all down. The next morning, he gets a call from the head of the art department panicking. The papers had reported a riot at Lawndale. A group of administrators from the University was on its way.

They had a rule--not always followed, but most of the time it was--clean up after a show right away. And they had done so. Remember, Lawndale was indestructible. Some sweeping and mopping and scrubbing were all it needed.

That morning, the big hall was being used by a local girl scout troop to award merit badges. So a bunch of little Hispanic girls in their nicest clothes and patent-leather shoes, their proud moms and dads also all dressed up (lots of ostrich-skin cowboy boots). This is happening when the posse from UH shows up. And they sat a while watching. Then they left. No chewing out, no riot act.

Surls did his own artwork there at Lawndale, too. He said this was considered a no-no, for a professor to be doing his work in view of the students. But he felt that students creating their pieces alongside older and more accomplished artists would have a salutory effect. Perhaps. Perhaps that's so when the artist has Surls' generosity of spirit.

Stuff in Houston started changing after Lawndale. Surls says Lawndale was a catalyst, but again credits the times and the flow of events. Diverse Works, a kind of more sophisticated, professional Lawndale, started five years after Lawndale. The Glassell School's Core artist-in-residency program began in 1982--and that was a way for MFAH to do something similar to what Lawndale was doing. "Fresh Paint,"" the MFAH's first big show of Houston artists, happened in 1985. Now we have things like Project Row Houses, Box 13, etc.

Surls doesn't exactly seem to approve of what Lawndale has become, but he is far too gracious to say it. His only verbalized complaint is that Lawndale is not longer the Lawndale Art & Performance Center. He saw performance as a key element. For a relatively traditional artist (a guy who carves wood with a hatchet to make sculptures), Surls is way into performance art, into conceptualism, etc. He namechecks Chris Burden and the Art Guys (not to mention Sun Tzu and Peter Drucker).

It was a really interesting and inspiring talk.