This Weekend is Going to Be Bananas

This is the weekend of ArtHouston, a weekend where pretty much every gallery in town has an opening. Seeing it all it going to be a serious trek. The ArtHouston website shows thirty five participating galleries. I personally plan on seeing twenty five openings this weekend, not to mention several artists talks and the start of the Many Mini residencies at Skydive. (Not to mention writing my review of The Big Show, which opened last week.) But for those of you less crazy energetic than I, here are a few recommendations:

Friday
29th Annual Juried Exhibition at the Houston Center for Photography. This is sort of HCP's own Big Show. Last year's juried exhibition was excellent.
(plus you can't go wrong if you visit either the Main Street Galleries or the Montrose Galleries.)

Saturday
A Pixilated Bunch at Ggallery. This is a group show of emerging Houston artists, put together by Sapphire Williams, whose work has intrigued me when I've seen it.
Use Your Illusion at Colton & Farb. Curator Paul Horn has put together a very intriguing bunch of artists, including Daniel Johnston, Matt Messinger and Trey Speegle.
Lester Marks at New Gallery. This will definitely be one of the most talked-about shows, as self-aggrandizing collector Lester Marks exhibits his photos. I wonder how hard it was for him to find a gallery?
Visual Vitriol at Domy. A book launch  for Visual Vitriol, a book on punk rock visual culture (band flyers, I assume)  by David Ensminger (former member of Really Red and the Mydolls).

Sunday
Many Mini at Skydive. This is the week-long multi-artist residency. It has public hours listed--if you are really hardcore, you can show up at midnight Saturday night and stay until 8 am (if I'm reading the schedule correctly). Less hardcore folks can check out the residencies from 1 to 9 pm. (And, of course, Many Mini will be running all next week.) During some of these times, you will simply be able to observe the artist(s) at work, but some are real events--performances or relational artworks. Some audience participation may be required!

Say... You say you are interested in art? You have "ideas" and "theories" and "opinions" and even "judgments" about art? And you like to write? Well, there is no way that fellow blogger Dean Liscum and I will cover everything we see this weekend. So if you have the urge and you have the knack--drop me a line at robertwboyd2020@yahoo.com!

One of the Biggest Collectors in the World

So today I decided to stop by the new Deborah Colton Gallery location on North Blvd. near Rice Village. I walked into a huge gallery space with enormous pictures. A few moments later, a man walked up to me, shook my hand, and introduced himself as Lester Marks. I introduced myself, and he asked right away, "Are you a collector?" I was a bit surprised--I had never been asked that at a gallery before. If I had had time to think, I might have thought, is he sizing me up as a possible customer? Does he want to know whether it is worth his time to talk to me?

But I didn't really even have time to form a thought. I told him I was a collector on a very small scale (as both regular Pan readers know). He then told me that he was one of the biggest collectors in the world, and director of this gallery, and therefore he didn't need to make sales. He invited me to enjoy the art, explore the galleries, ask him any questions I might have.

It was a truly strange encounter! I have to admit, I thought Marks was kind of a loon. Who goes claiming to be one of the biggest collectors in the world? But it turns out he really is a big collector, perhaps one of the top 200 in the world. (I say "perhaps" because he was listed in the Art News top 200 in 2004, but hasn't been listed in their annual since--that said, I have no idea what the criteria for being on that list is.) A quick Google search showed that he is definitely a local art mover and shaker. It just goes to show that sometimes, when someone says something completely crazy, it might nonetheless be true.

Anyway, the art--they had multiple group shows going on, and I found it very jumbled and confusing. Some pieces were good, some didn't move me at all (blown up polaroids of Madonna, for example). Here was one piece I saw:



Guess who made this? Heh. (I had seen a Paper Rad video piece at Debrah Colton a few years ago, too, back when she was upstairs from David Addickes.)

This new gallery has tons of potential, but I think they will benefit from focusing on one or two artists at a time, and from being less scattered in their curatorial approach.