The Big Show 2011, part 3--Funny Ha-ha or Funny Weird

by Robert Boyd

(This is the third part of a long review. It stands alone, but feel free to read part 1 and part 2.) Generally speaking, sculpture was not dominant in the Big Show. Whether this reflected Larissa Harris's taste, or the general work submitted, or the considerations of space (you can display more flat art than three dimensional art)--or some combination of the three--I don't know. But there was some sculpture, and some of it was pretty striking.


Jesse A. Kantu, Soul Mates, toy rabbits on wood stretcher bars, 2010

Jesse A. Kantu plays with the definition of sculpture a bit. With Soul Mates, the artist uses one of the key physical elements of a painting, the stretcher, as part of a sculptural object. A stretcher is the wooden structure over which canvas is stretched prior to painting.


Jesse A. Kantu, Soul Mates (detail), toy rabbits on wood stretcher bars, 2010

The cute little toy rabbits are tiny--from a distance, they look like insects crawling on the stretcher. I found this piece cute, and was pleased that in a show that seemed to celebrate painting, that there was one piece that made fun of painting.

Generally, the sculptors in the show had a light touch. If "big colorful paintings" was the dominant theme of the Big Show, a major sub-theme was "somewhat humorous sculptures".


Shannon Duckworth, Untitled (cube), floppy disks, wood, Plexi and screws, 2011

For instance Shannon Duckworth's Untitled, where he makes a kind of Rubik's Cube out of old floppy discs. Floppy discs are pretty much an obsolete technology, so what do you do with all these billions of useless pieces of plastic? At least some of them can be art. (Interestingly, Stephanie Saint Sanchez made a couch out of old VHS tapes that didn't make it into the show--she showed it at the Salon des Refusés .) I suspect we'll see sculptures made out of old iPods in coming years.



Brent Kramlich, Post-Op #1, 2, and 3, aluminum wire, paraffin wax and human hair, 2009

Brent Kramlich is the kind of artist I expect to discover at the Big Show. He teaches at a middle school in Katy, and probably that full-time job keeps him from being highly involved in the local art scene. This is the art scene's loss, because apparently he is creating some interesting, very weird, slightly disgusting art there in Katy. Post-Op #1, 2 and 3 look like bits of nasty tissue that have been removed in surgery.  The use of human hair in them is gives them an extra squirm factor. They are tiny sculptures, easy to overlook in a gallery full of large paintings, but they pack a punch. They are literally visceral. Of course, I can't help but be reminded of Jasmine Graybill's life-size sculptures of mold which were included in the 2009 Big Show.



Noah Edmundson, E. F. and G. Firearms Mfg., steel, wood and found objects, 2011

Noah Edmundson's E.F. and G. Firearms Mfg is, of course, a giant revolver. There's always something kind of amusing about a radically out-of-scale sculpture. Claes Oldenburg realized that giant versions of more-or-less commonplace items would produce childlike delight in viewers, and I'm sure many viewers felt the same looking at this piece.But given the vintage of the gun (old), it made me think of signage--particularly 19th century and early 20th century signage. A dentist might have a giant tooth hanging in front of his office, for example. And E.F. and G. Firearms Mfg. might well have an enormous six-shooter hanging over their entrance.


Maria Smits, The Adoration of the Dogs (foreground), mixed media, wood, plastic and plaster, 2011, and New Madonna No.4 (background), mixed media, plastic, glass, resin and plaster, 2011

Maria Smits is continuing in the vein of sculpture that we recently saw at her solo exhibit at Lawndale. That exhibit featured a large, multi-part drawing that was a play on Jan van Eyck's Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. Her version was Adoration of the Mystic Dog. That exhibit also featured an enormous sculpture of a dog that was partly made with cling film. She used a similar material (tape?) here. The figures are bound and obscured by their wrappings. If the wrappings were gauze, one would imagine them as injured. But wrapping them in plastic is more sinister. Not for nothing, David Lynch had Laura Palmer's body wrapped in plastic in the series Twin Peaks. But if we think of it as tape, we can see it as holding the sculpture together--a much more positive interpretation.

So much for The Big Show 2011. As much as I covered in these three reviews, I barely scratched the surface. I strongly recommend making a trip to Lawndale to see the rest. And if you aren't going to be in Houston any time soon, Lawndale has most of the show up on their Flickr page.

Maria Smits at Lawndale

Robert Boyd

I got a preview of this exhibit when I saw Maria Smits' life-size drawings at Mother Dog Studio during Artcrawl. But nothing prepared me for the gargantuan installation at Lawndale. The exhibit is called The Adoration of the Mystic Dog, and is based on the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb by Hubert and Jan van Eyck. Hubert began the alterpiece, and after he died, Jan finished it. Adoration was an early Renaissance masterpiece, but it still belongs to the medieval world--it was completed in 1432, decades before Columbus crossed the Atlantic, Luther defied the Catholic Church, or Copernicus published his heliocentric model of the solar system. (There was a great piece on the Ghent Alterpiece and the difficulties of preserving it in a recent New Yorker.)



Hubert van Eyck and Jan van Eyck, Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, paint on wood panels, 1432

Maria Smits stated purpose is to "question the importance of the role of Christian religion in our current culture," but what one will notice about her work is how 20th-century it feels. Specifically, how much like German expressionism her drawing seems.Her work doesn't exactly feel post-modern--at least the drawn component doesn't. (The sculptural part--well, you'll see.) It feels "modern" in the sense of "Modernism." And Modernism was in certain ways about challenging old beliefs and verities--and doing so without irony.



Maria Smits, The Alterpiece, charcoal and oil bar on paper, installation, 2010

To give you an idea of how large this is, I had to take the photo in three parts. There was no other way for me to capture the complete image. The figures of Adam and Eve have dog heads (as do the other figures in the work). The work looks dark and gloomy. This is in no way inconsistent with Christian art, particularly that from Northern Europe. But in Smits' case, she provides a simple symbolism for us:

Dog=God
White=Black
Shadow=Light
Night=Day

She spells this out in her artist's statement. In van Eyck's time, though, symbols in visual art were commonly known by viewers. Flemish and Dutch painting has an entire extra slayer of meaning that is not instantly perceived by modern viewers. Furthermore, contemporary artists, if they have symbols in their work, don't usually tell you the meanings--they expect you to figure it out (or not). But Smits seemingly wants you to be on the same footing as a 13th century churchgoer from Gent, who walked into the cathedral, saw the van Eycks' altarpiece, and easily read the symbols contained within.

The weird thing about it is the dog heads. I can't claim to understand the thinking here. The one thing that comes to mind is that "dog" is a palindrome of "god," but that seems a slender premise for such a large piece, especially when you include I think so I exist.



Maria Smits, I think so I exist, styrofoam, wood, 2010 

The title is a restatement of Decartes' famous humanist idea "cogito ergo sum." It was this kind of thinking that challenged the God-centered medieval universe that was painted by the Van Eycks. The sculpture, recognizably a dog, is monstrous though, both in size and form. It seems not like a cool Enlightenment repudiation of religion, but--again--a modernist scream of terror in a postmodernist form (an assemblage of wood, styrofoam, and plastic). The sculpture is simultaneously majestic and terrifying, a rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born.

But Smits dogs are not all terrifying or vicious. Maybe that is the point of using dogs. They are ambiguous. They can be wild, mad, dangerous, or they can be cute, loyal, lovable. The dogs in The Adoration of the Mystic Dog seem like the latter sort.



Maria Smits, The Adoration of the Mystic Dog, mixed media on wood, resin, 2010



Maria Smits, The Adoration of the Mystic Dog detail, mixed media on wood, resin, 2010

The prayer rails, by the way, are completely functional. I tried them out.



Maria Smits, The Adoration of the Mystic Dog detail, mixed media on wood, resin, 2010

So in the end, what is Smits' show all about? It's the kind of thing that could be used by demagogues to stir up anti-art passion, as we are currently seeing with the dreadful situation with the censored David Wojnarowicz video at The Smithsonian. The same people behind that could easily accuse  Smits of creating anti-Christian art, of engaging cheap blasphemy, épater le bourgeois. But that's not what is going on here. No one works this  hard for such a trivial result. So while I am having trouble intuiting Smits' meaning, I don't doubt that that meaning is worth stating because the means of stating it are complex and profound.

WHAM and Artcrawl 2010 part 2

After I left WHAM, I came over to the Elder Street Artist Lofts. The first piece I saw there that I liked was this sculpture by Jonatan Lopez.

Jonatan Lopez, Redeemer, found steel and animal bones


This piece recalls Vessel States, the installation Lopez did at Project Row Houses last year. But the level of craft displayed here is higher. I don't know if this reflects a growth in Lopez's abilities, or if it's just a result of the demands of the piece itself. Still, the use of headless bodies and chains is common in both works--and equally spooky. One thinks of prisoners or slaves, as well as s&m imagery. (I remember an interview with Leon Golub where he admitted that in order to create his searing images of interrogations, he often referred to S&M magazines for poses. And horrifically, this association came around recently with the stomach-churning photos from Abu Ghraib.) Removing the head does several things. It dehumanizes the image, but it also in a way classicizes it by making us recall sculptural fragments from Greece and Rome. It is suggestive of horrific violence--a dismembered corpse. I don't know if Lopez is influenced by Golub, Goya, the Marquis de Sade, or the Chapman Brothers. I am disturbed looking at Redeemer and Vessel States, and that's good. This kind of work is probably something Lopez should continue to explore.

J.P. Hartman, Vatican (Past-Present-Future), assemblage, 2005



J.P. Hartman was someone whose art I had seen before at The Big Show. His work is all brightly painted assemblage and sculpture, usually with a socially-aware or political point. Some of the politics are simplistic--messages like "Republicans are bad" or "G.W. Bush is a rat" are common. That's the difficulty of doing political work in a visual medium. Hans Haacke can pull it off without producing mere propaganda, but not too many others. That said, these assemblages are great. They have a real funky energy to them. They were on display in this crowded apartment (it's misleading for Elder Street to refer to its apartments as lofts--as far as I can see, none have high ceilings or open plans). One thing he did that was cool was to place them on bright red plinths. Obviously J.P. Hartman is not a "white cube" kind of guy. Visual maximalism seems to be his approach.

Naz, performance piece (title?), woman in a wood and glass box, 2010


I went to the Houston Foundry next, where I saw Naz--who I think is a U.H. student. This was another piece that made me uncomfortable. Girl in a box, imprisoned and on display. She wasn't doing a Laurel Nakadate deal--she wasn't showing off her body--but she was attractive, which accounted for part of the discomfort. How can I, a 47 year old hetero man, not feel like a creep looking at her (and taking her photo)? So, good piece. Mission accomplished.

Haden Garrett, A New Sculpture for Artcrawl, mixed media, 2010


Haden Garrett is a sculptor whose work has been displayed at Poissant Gallery in the past year or so. This photo is only part of the installation he did in this narrow hallway. I like the cartoon hands coming out to me.

David Graeve, big weird photo balloons


David Graeve has a studio at The Houston Foundry, where he fabricates beautiful melted glass sculptures. (At least I think he has a studio there--he had a lot of stuff on display). But the things he does that I like best are these big balloons.


Then I crossed the freeway and checked out the galleries in the McKee street neighborhood.

I don't know why, but I liked this crumbling abandoned building with its aggressive graffiti at the corner of Rothwell and Hardy.

Chris Cascio, two paintings


There was a show in the old Temporary Space (RIP) space featuring work by James Burns, Christopher Cascio, and Nick Scott. I had seen Cascio's work before at Lawndale--really big collages. But I like these paintings of his better--deadpan recreations of old stereo equipment ads. Very nostalgic for a guy of my generation.

Alex Wilhite, various paintings


In the cacophony of paintings that I saw in one of the studios (can't remember the name), Alex Wilhite's mostly white canvases were a visual oasis. Rough-hewn and austere, they struck me with their beauty. Wilhite had a sign up telling people he was deaf, and asking them to tap him on the shoulder if they wanted to speak with him. These painting ironically made me think of white noise.

Jimmy Houston, Poor Ol' Rufus, oil on iron skillet


Jimmy Houston had a bunch of humorous, cartoonish paintings that I liked a lot. His work reminds a little bit of Bob Zoell's--not so much in style but in manic lowbrow energy.


Mother Dog Studios always has pretty amazing stuff for Artcrawl, which makes sense given that they are the ones more-or-less behind it. Someone there--I don't know who--had this huge area that he was letting teens and children paint in. Update: I've been told this is the studio of Mitch Samuels, aka "Grystar."

Then there was a dog-oriented exhibit that included these pieces by Maria Smits:

Maria Smits, from left to right: Adam, Mother Maria, G sus, Mary Magdalena, Eve, pastel & charcoal on paper, 2010


These drawings by Maria Smits seem very closely related to the show she has up currently at Lawndale. I like the striking, muscular drawing, even if I don't quite get the dog heads. (Full disclosure: I own a small Maria Smits drawing.)

This guy was standing guard at the entrance of the dog show. I don't know the artist, though.


Greg Budwine contributed these beautiful dog portraits. I love the old fashioned magazine illustration style on display in these paintings.

Greg Budwine, Ruffles, acrylic, 2010

Greg Budwine, Domino, acrylic, 2010


I also like that for a show of art that was a little more cutting edge that whoever put this show together thought it worthwhile to include these highly illustrational pieces. Budwine has great technique and in these and other pieces, he takes sentimental subject matter and gives it a weird little twist with his idealized portrayal.

Mother Dog Studios honcho John Runnels was part of the dog show. He had several pieces that were like this:

John Runnels, part of Bayou Beauties; the way some women walk the dog, inkjet on paper, 2009

Ladies, if you want to have John Runnels photograph you in the nude walking your dog along Buffalo Bayou, send Runnels an email at motherdogstudios@earthlink.net.

Runnels also had a room full of interesting work, including models for his Buffalo Bayou Park entrance and a bunch of work made of cigarette butts.

John Runnels, cigarette chair, chair with cigarette butts

Runnels is always worth looking at. A crazy artist, a lover of naked females and the word "fuck," a protean imagination--he always produces interesting work.

John C. Runnels, House of Bausch (A Danger to be Safe in), graphite, Chartpack letters on tile and wood, 2010

One last Runnels. He is a capable drafstman as well as being a great assemblagist and conceptualist. I love the feel of this piece--the perplexing drawing with its combination of Clovis Trouille and Walt Disney's Lady and the Tramp--with it's equally perplexing collage elements. It makes for a mysterious, beautiful whole.

After Mother Dog Studio, I went over to the hardy & Nance Street Studios. I was pretty bushed and I wasn't seeing a lot of stuff I liked--but maybe if it had been my first stop, things would have been different. I was suffering from art fatigue (as you, my readers, are probably suffering right now). But I did like the childlike, minimal paintings of Celeste Tammariello.

Celeste Tammariello, Untitled: Overlap, silkscreen, latex print

That's it for this year. Next year I think I'll start from the Southeast corner of Artcrawl and move roughly north and west. That way I won't poop out before I get to El Rincon Social and Aerosol Warfare.

Recent Acquisitions from Several Artists

This is a "catch-up" post for a bunch of things I have gotten in the past few months (!) that I haven't written about. The big one is a page by Jaime Hernandez.



Jaime Hernandez, Bob Richardson page 2, ink on bristol board, 1995

This is not the most spectacular Jaime Hernandez page (which is probably why I could afford it). But it is an elegant example of his work. This is from a story called "Bob Richardson" which features two full pages of Maggie getting slapped in the face by everybody she has ever known, a dog with a telepathic link to Isabel, and a low-level traitor named Boyd (!).

Back on September 18, The Joanna had their "gala," in which I came dressed as Pan. They had an art raffle, which they set up the same way that Box 13 did theirs earlier in the summer. Because the raffle tickets were really cheap, I ended up winning three pieces of art.



Molly Gochman, Red Truck (from Lullabies), inkjet print mounted on aluminum, 2010



Emily Link, Prime Ordeal Ooze, watercolor, ink, graphite and glitter on paper, 2009



Jessica Ninci, untitled (detail), watercolor and ink on paper, 2010

I didn't know much about Molly Gochman, Emily Link and Jessica Ninci when I won these. Gochman is highly regarded enough to get big public commissions and to be featured in that massive Texas Artists Today book. Jessica Ninci is currently a student getting her BFA at UH, and she was part of a group show ar the Joanna earlier this year. And I've seen Emily Link's plush heads in various venues, including some that are up at Box 13 right now.

PictureBox is a really great small press art comics publisher, and like all small presses, they are chronically having to figure out how to pay for their projects, particularly those that are large and expensive. I can tell you from personal experience that the lag between the expenses on a publishing project and the revenue is a long time, and for a small press, that can spell bankruptcy. That's why so many small presses try to get grants for specific projects because it moves the revenue stream forward in time.

For a pair of books, PictureBox did something innovative to move that revenue stream forward. Two Fort Thunder alumni had books in the works, If 'n' Oof by Brian Chippendale and Powr Mastrs [sic] #3 by C.F. (the pen name of Chris Forgues). If 'n' Oof was an especially ambitious (and expensive) book to print--800 pages long. So they put out word that if you bought these books up front--way in advance of publication--you would get some free artwork by C.F. and Chippendale.



Brian Chippendale, Murderer, Coyote, Trickster, Fool, Hero, ink and marker on paper, 2010



Brian Chippendale, untitled, silkscreen (?) 119/130, 2010



C.F., untitled, silkscreen (?) (unnumbered), 2010

The grey areas in the C.F. silkscreen (if indeed that is what it is) are actually silver ink.

Yesterday I stopped by P.G. Gallery to see the latest exhibit, and I noticed there were still some Gabriela Trzebinski slats available from an earlier show. Since they were only $30, I went ahead and bout two.


Gabriela Trzebinski, American Thunder (from the Matatu Sticks Project), acrylic paint on recycled wood, 2010


Gabriela Trzebinski, Voice of the Ghetto (from the Matatu Sticks Project), acrylic paint on recycled wood, 2010

Now you might ask yourself why I got these. American Thunder I just liked because it made me think of Bob Segar and Dodge Ram Pick-ups. As for Voice of the Ghetto, people have often said to me, "Robert, even though you are whiter than Dick Gephardt and are a known fan of both The Decembrists and Belle and Sebastian, you are truly the voice of the ghetto."

Finally, I went to the opening last night at Box 13 and they had another raffle. This time, you didn't get to choose the art that you won. However, there were no rules against trading. That's how I ended up with this:


Maria Smits, untitled (?), ink and pastel on paper, 2010 (?)

Maria Smits is a Dutch artist who has somehow landed in Houston. She has a show opening November 19 at Lawndale. And I'm afraid my photo utterly failed to capture the extremely delicate pen and ink work in this piece.