Pan Recommends for the week of October 11 to October 17

Robert Boyd

All kinds of interesting events are on tap for this week. Here are just a few of them.

THURSDAY

Rem Koolhaas, "Architecture as a Global Practice," Thursday, October 11, 10 to 11:15 am, Autry Court, Tudor Fieldhouse at Rice University. Hurry--this is happening this morning! If you don't have a day job, this might be an interesting opportunity to hear the famed starchitect who is so freaking cool that he has "kool" in his name.

FRIDAY

Eye Candy featuring Felipe Contreras, Haden Garrett, Joyce Joe, Michael King, Lee Littlefield, Liza Littlefield, Elena Lopez-Poirot, and Randall Reid at Poissant Gallery, 4411 Montrose Special Events Gallery, October 12, 2012, 6 to 9 pm. Personally, I always welcome a chance to see some Lee Littlefield work. But what intrigues me is the location-not the old converted church that we used to see. Does this signal a permanent move? (An email to Poissant Gallery requesting information had not been responded to at press time.)

SATURDAY

Raid the Archive, Saturday, October 13, 2012 7 to 9 pm, Film Auditorium at the Rice Media Center. As someone who lived through the tale-end of this era (and saw the Ed and Nancy Kienholz show pictured above at the Rice Museum), I really miss it. I'm not sure what to expect from these films, but I like the idea that I'll be sitting in the same comfy theater where Kienholz showed me and my classmates movies 29 years ago.

The Power of Paint at Avis Frank, October 13, 2012, 6 pm to 8 pm. Lots of painting shows in Houston lately. What's up with that? Anyway, this show features work by 13 painters, including Ray Phillips, James Beaman, Kimber Berry and the gallerist himself, David Hardaker.

Well-Behave Animals with work by Daniel Anguilu, Eyesore, and Faviola Valencia at Cardoza Fine Art, October 13, 7 to 10 pm. I guess they're "well-behaved" when they show work legally in a gallery. Cardoza follows up his Give Up show with a show of three other prominent Houston street artists.

WEDNESDAY

 
Calvin Tomkins at the Menil, October 17, 2012, 7 to 8 pm. Tompkins was one of the first art writers I loved (along with the late Robert Hughes). I especially liked that his work was, at heart, narrative. He is more of a biographer than a critic. I recommend Bride & the Bachelors, Living Well Is the Best Revenge and Off the Wall: A Portrait of Robert Rauschenberg.

Mysterious North Houston Art Colony Discovered

by Robert Boyd



Independence Art Studios had an open house last weekend, so I decided to go check them out. They are on Janisch Rd. between Shepherd and Yale north of the Loop. The neighborhood they are in is Independence Heights. Independence Heights was a small town founded by black families in 1916 that got annexed by Houston in 1929. What is considered the neighborhood of Independence Heights is a little bigger than the original municipality. It's a part of town I've never really visited before, and I was well amazed when I did. When I discover art happening in Houston--particularly art that's been completely off my radar--I get excited. I knew Independence Art Studios existed, but I was very impressed to finally see it.



These are the studios. (You can't see it well here, but to the right is a big house. The lots on the streets in this neighborhood are enormous.) The studios are owned and run by the Cullar-Ledfords--Thedra Cullar-Ledford and her husband Stephen Cullar-Ledford. I didn't meet them when I stopped by, but I have a strong feeling for Stephen--he went to the Jones School for an MBA (as did I) and works for a natural gas E&P, as do I, and does an big art thing on the side! (Independence Art Studios for him, Pan for me.)

The studios are made out of old containers, and are quite roomy inside--long and thin, with a tiny loft space for storage. One artist, Jon Clark, lives in his space.



Jon Clark and Chasity Sophus Porter, who also has a studio there, posed for me. Clark had amazing piece of sculpture on the front lawn--another wooden nautilus shape.


Jonathan Clark, untitled, cedar and deckmate screws, 2011

Ok, I was pretty impressed by what the Cullar-Ledfords had done. They have a thriving art colony going! Check out their website. But as I mentioned, it was a neighborhood I had never really seen. So out of curiosity, I thought I'd drive around and see what else was there. So I went one block south to Martin St. and my mind was blown.


414 Martin Rd.

This nondescript house had a brilliant blue sculpture by Lee Littlefield in front of it. (I'm sorry I don't have a photo, but the photos I took were out of focus.) And their front yard was chock full of abstract sculptures.



The yellow sculpture looked like another Lee Littlefield, and it seemed like there was a third in the back yard.









This is an amazing collection of sculpture, and there's even more than what I've photographed! Except for the pieces that are obviously by Lee Littlefield, I have no idea who created these works. Can any Pan readers identify them?

But wait--that's not all. There were just as many sculptures in the yards of three houses across the street. I didn't get as many photos because the sculptures were further back in the property, and I didn't want to skulk around in case they were shoot-first-ask-questions-later types. But here are a couple of photos.





These sculptures appeared to be at the addresses 331, 331 1/2, 405 and 414 Martin St. I was curious as to who owned them, but I didn't think to knock on the doors and ask. So I thought I'd do the next best thing--look them up on HCAD, Harris County's internet accessible property database.

And what do you know--Lee and Eliza Littlefield live at 414 Martin Street. Those sculptures look like Lee Littlefield sculptures for a good reason! Someone named Brian Owens owns the property at 331 Martin, which has two really nice looking houses on it as well as lots of sculpture. His name doesn't mean anything to me, but he may be renting houses to artists there. 405 Martin is owned by Magdalene Boltz-Topp, who is also an artist. But that's not all--according to HCAD, sculptors Paul Kittleson and Carter Ernst co-own the property right next door to the Littlefields.

So with Independence Art Studios on Janisch Rd., and a whole bunch of sculptors on Martin St., I think we can say that this is a little hidden art neighborhood. And if it follows the pattern of other art neighborhoods like Montrose and Rice Military, in 25 years or so, it will be full of expensive townhomes. So my advice is to buy now--or at least take a drive over past the Littlefield's home--it's worth checking out.

2010 Group Show at Poissant Gallery

Another group show at Poissant Gallery, and like the last one, this one is quite good. Poissant has one big advantage over many other galleries in town--it's huge, and it contains several distinct spaces. In the front, there are two pieces by Jed Foronda, both using his excavated magazine technique.


Jed Foronda, Excavation #17, magazine, painted wood panel, 2010

There's nothing new here for him, just subtle variations on a technique he has already perfected. Foronda uses inherently colorful magazines like Artforum and Playboy, which help guarantee that each layer that is excavated will have lots of colors on them. But it might be interesting to use the same technique on a magazine of book where all the pages are white with black type. As it is, the works are all about the relationship with a colorful, irregular hole with the white, straight edge of the board. The sculptural aspect of it is important, but maybe not as important as the colors. But magazines fade, so these pieces will undoubtedly change over time. And in some ways, we might be at the beginning of the twilight of the printed magazine. How much longer will Playboy and Artforum survive as paper magazines?

The next room is the biggest. Poissant Gallery calls it the South Gallery. This is where they put the drawings and wood carvings of kayaking enthusiast Jason Makepeace. Makepeace is a highly skilled woodcarver who has show work at Poissant Gallery before, including some highly unexpected wooden sculptures of slinkies. This time around, he's carving scale model kayaks, but leaving the job partly undone.


Jason Makepeace, Half Kayak, hackberry log and paint, 2010


Jason Makepeace, Embedded Kayak, ash log and paint, 2010

I guess these pieces relate the modern kayak (or canoe), which is a high-tech manufactured leisure object which could only be produced by a highly advanced economy, to the origins of this mode of transportation--the dugout canoe, which is surely one of the earliest vehicles made by humans. There is also a cool contrast between natural and crafted here (it makes me think of Al Khazneh of Petra), and the small size of the kayaks calls forth images of toy boats, scale models that little boys love (I know I did). They are beautiful pieces.


Michael King, Night Clock, oil, wax and enamel on metal plates laminated onto MDF, 2010

Michael King did a pair of pieces, Night Clock and Day Clock. The combination of materials seems unusually complex given the minimalism of the pieces. But these aren't strictly flat-flat colored rectangles. It's hard to see from my photos, but there is a grid of each of the rectangular elements, and subtle variations in color. Think of Ad Reinhardt, another artist whose nearly monochrome paintings don't photograph well.


Michael King, Day Clock, oil, wax and enamel on metal plates laminated onto MDF, 2010

 What I can't figure out is why these two pieces are "clocks." But whatever, I like them--they look great.


Lee Littlefield, Big Mouth Tattoo, wood-vines and enamel, 2010

I love seeing Lee Littlefield's work, especially on the side of the road driving around Houston. This one is a little unnerving. It looks like one of those worms or fish that is all teeth and mouth--horrible alien eating machines. Contrast that image with the sunny colors. Nice yet creepy piece.


Devon Moore, Drift, industrial dye and acrylic lacquer on steel, 2008

I like this one by Devon Moore because of the way it looked like pitted, corroded industrial metal. But I was uneasy looking at it. It's the kind of piece one can easily see decorating the lobby of an office building. Artistic empty calories. A piece like this is nice to look at, beautiful even. But I am suspicious of its beauty. And I feel attracted to a piece like this, I understand the mistrust of beauty that many critics and artists express. But at the same time, I want to be receptive to beauty. And this piece, with its evocations simultaneously of corrosion and star fields, is indeed beautiful.