Pan Recommends for the week of November 22 to November 28

Robert Boyd

Not much happening this week what with Thanksgiving Holiday--but there are a few things we think you might be interested in.

FRIDAY

Black Friday, Phillip Pyle II at the Art League (as part of The Stacks), 6 pm, November 23. The Stacks isn't a traditional art show that remains more-or-less static throughout its duration. Instead, it's a series of residencies, and that means several opportunities for openings. This Friday, Phillip Pyle II shows us what he did with the shredded remains of stuff left over from the November 16 opening.

SATURDAY

The Drawing Room, Part 2 at the Galveston Arts Center, 6 pm [through January 6]. A group drawing show that features Debra Barrera, Jillian Conrad, Bethany Johnson, Laura Lark, Jayne Lawrence, Leigh Anne Lester, Katie Maratta and Neva Mikulicz. With weather so nice this weekend, a little trip out to Galveston would be ever so pleasant--and a lovely drawing show at GAC would be a nice capper!

{Form follows (Function} follows Form) follows “Function...follows Form." at Kallinen Contemporary, 7 pm. This is the perfect show to see on the way back from Galveston. As usual, Kallinen Fine Art is offering up an overstuffed show in their huge quonset hut, this time displaying art furniture. The artists include John Paul Hartman, Solomon Kane, Amerimou$, Gian Palacios-Świątkowski, Kelley Devine, Dandee Warhol, Chasity Porter and many, many more.

SUNDAY

Y. E. Torres and Erin Joyce: Raised In The Wild: Memories of a Bad Unicorn at the East End Studio Gallery, 6 pm [through November 25]. Don't much about this show, but it sounds in some ways like a sequel to Once there Was, Once There Wasn't, which Torres put on (with Lisa Chow) in August. Fractured fairy tales indeed.

BUT WAIT! The Pilgrims came to this continent and created Thanksgiving for one reason--so we could shop like maniacs on Friday. Now in recent decades this has become something of a bummer because parking lots are full and people brawl in the aisles of stores to get the last marked-down electronic thingumajig, and let's not ignore the folks who get trampled to death.

Sure you can avoid all this by staying home, but where's the respect for tradition in that? So I say, make Black Friday a day to buy art. Or slightly less black Saturday. Art is the perfect gift--it's highly personal and it's not mass-produced by exploited elves and buying art puts money in the pockets of artists. Plus, you are almost guaranteed not to be trampled to death by surging crowds of art consumers. Not all of Houston's galleries are open this weekend, but a lot of them are. I asked a few about their Black Friday (and Saturday) plans. Here's what they told me:

D.M. Allison -- open Friday and Saturday
Peveto -- open Saturday 2 pm to 5 pm
Catherine Couturier -- open Friday and Saturday

Redbud -- open Friday and Saturday
GGallery -- open Saturday

New Gallery -- open Friday and Saturday
P.G. Contemporary -- open Friday and Saturday

Anya Tish -- open Friday and Sturday

Art Palace -- open Saturday
Inman Gallery -- open Saturday
David Shelton Gallery -- open Friday and Saturday

Sicardi Gallery -- open Saturday
Gallery Sonja Roesch -- open Friday and Saturday
Darke Gallery -- open Saturday

(Is your gallery open this weekend? Let us know in the comments.)

Looking twice at Beautiful Freak /(and) Nature's Bastards

by Dean Liscum

(All images in this article are from the artist's website.)

Maybe it's just the lighting at Houston Arts Alliance's space125gallery, but when I approached Leigh Ann Lester I could swear that she had an impish gleam in her eye. As I asked her about her exhibition, Beautiful Freaks/Nature's Bastards, it only seemed to get brighter.

Mutant Spectre - Detail
Hunting Art Prize Winner 2011
Graphite on Drafting film, 2010, 33 x 41 inches

The show consists of renderings of plants in the form of sculptures, needle work, carbon drawings, ink and pencil drawings. From 10 meters away, it's could easily be mistaken for 19th century floral etchings or the obsessive compulsive homework of a botany student. It's when I stepped closer that I began to appreciate the incredibly minute detail and precision of each piece and the subtle biological incoherence in them.

Crocboleaparsempeustusgiaervivum  Zpnaluriaspetecttusduraorum Realized
Silk on Silk Embroidery, Antique Victorian Frame, 2008,
20" x 18"

Like a naughty, nerdy botanical illustrator Lester's very subtly blended different plants to create a series of Frankenflora as she refers to them in her statement for the show. As my eye travelled from flower to stem to flower, I slowly began to notice botanical disharmonies: completely different flowers on the same plant, different stalks and stems issuing from the same root system, various leaves from the same stem.

They're only subtle if you don't pay attention. I'm not a plant person and I could easily identify the incongruencies.

Imitatia perfecta 2.1 - 2.4
  Carbon paper on paper, 2010, 24 x 30 inches

Lester's Imitatia perfecta series furthers the theme of playful disunities. The visual format (carbon paper adjacent to traced image) indicates that these are identical, but the title states otherwise. I fell for it completely and had to look at the pictures twice to get it. And then of course there are the names, which are a Latin torture game in and of themselves, but botanist will recognize that all the roots are authentic. For example, Crocboleaparsempeustusgiaervivum  Zpnaluriaspetecttusduraorum.

The gleam in Lester eye might be attributable to the fact that she won the Hunting Art Prize for 2011. However, I think it's because she knows that in this game her work makes the viewer look twice.

The Hunting Prize 2010: Leigh Anne Lester

I'm a little late here, but I did want to mention a little something about the Hunting Prize. This year, it went to Leigh Anne Lester for this piece:


Leigh Anne Lester, Mutant Spectre, graphite on drafting film, 2010

These is a good interview with Lester at ...might be good.

I've complained about the Hunting Prize in the past, but as far as I can tell, there was nothing to complain about this year. In fact, it seems like the Prize has gotten better every year in the way it treats artists (both entrants and winners). And, perhaps most important, its choices for winners have all been pretty damn interesting, which is what you really want from a prize like this, right? So congratulations to Leigh Anne Lester, and a salute to the previous winners: Francesca Fuchs, Michael Tole, Wendy Wagner, Robyn O'Neil and Lane Hagood.