What They Are Saying About West Oaks Mall

by Robert Boyd

This weekend was busy--a new show at Lawndale, a big show at The Joanna, Art Crawl. I was curious to hear what Houston's artists thought about the potential West Oaks Mall art space. Here is my beer-fogged recollection.

Mark Flood was predictably skeptical. To paraphrase him, he said how can they expect to fill 22 Lawndales with art when they can't even fill one? He basically expressed doubt that Houston's artists and curators could step up, which is a concern that many people have expressed. He suggested that Sharon Engelstein might be able to fill the space with art that didn't get lost. However, despite his skepticism, he seemed willing to entertain the possibility of success, suggesting that if Dia Beacon could do it, maybe we could too.

Daniel Heimbinder came up with an idea for an installation that I frankly considered stealing from him. Air dancers.



Air dancers, aka skydancers, would be used to fill the interior space of the old J.C. Penney's. Hundred of them. The blowers would be so loud, it'd be like being in a jet engine. The spastic air dancers would have such frenetic, jerky motions, they could cause seizures. And as an installation, it would be an apt comment on the space itself, a mall on the desolate retail landscape of Highway 6.

At the Box 13 opening for Dutch Invasion, Paul Middendorf described being contacted by Sharston Plenge--the organizer of the West Oaks Mall art space--and being a bit suspicious at first. He wondered what Plenge, a Californian artist, was doing sniffing around Houston non-profits. (Mark Flood also wondered about the ulterior motive--but to me the ulterior motive is not hidden at all: Pacific Retail Capital Partners wants artists to help increase the visibility and desirability of West Oaks Mall. Their exit strategy is always to sell the property--that's the business they are in.) However, after Middendorf heard a first hand report of the space, he was more open to the possibilities and spoke of a similar large building that was handed over to Portland, Oregon, arts groups for temporary use.

Jonathan Leach instantly honed in on the problem of making effective use of 100,000 square feet. His suggestion? Sound stages for film and video students. Of course sound stages aren't cheap, but with two of the primary expenses--the building itself and the utilities--paid for, any use of the space is already heavily subsidized.

Rachel Hecker focused on practical issues. She said everyone has ideas about the space, so there needs to be a "think tank" or conference where all potential stakeholders get together and thrash out a plan. No one person or art organization can make this happen. Thinking about such a conclave, I can envision it having all the faults of committee-think (lack of boldness, conventionality, compromise that destroys any visionary thinking, sluggishness, jockeying for power, etc.). Making sure that a committee didn't succumb to group-think would be one of the big challenges. Hecker also suggested that the space be split between studio space/residencies and exhibition space. The former would guarantee that the building would be in constant use.

So Pan readers--what do you think should be done with 100,000 square feet of air-conditioned space in West Oaks Mall?

22 Lawndales

by Robert Boyd


It used to be a JCPenney's. Now it's for art

22 Lawndales. That's one way to think of the amount of potential exhibition space that has suddenly--miraculously--become available to Houston artists. Out on the far west side of town, where Westheimer and Richmond hit Highway 6, is a hard luck mall--West Oaks Mall. Just a little history of the mall. In July, 2003, it was acquired by Pacific Retail Capital Partners for $58 million. This mall has over a million square feet of retail, including 100,000 square feet in a free standing department store building that had been occupied by a JCPenney's up until 2003. In September, 2005, they sold the mall to a company owned by Edward H. Okun for $102 million. Okun turned out to be a criminal with a terrible sense of timing. In particular, malls have been in decline in the US for a while (which is not to say that there aren't lots of successful ones), that area of Houston has been in decline for a while, and just three years after Okun bought West Oaks, the U.S. economy collapsed, bringing his criminal real estate empire crashing down. The mall was foreclosed on and sold for $15 million (!). And guess who bought it? Pacific Retail Capital Partners. So when you think about it, they ended up with a mall and $29 million in the bank.

So they have with a seriously underutilized mall and a nice cash cushion. The mall may be a white elephant now, but with this cash in the bank, Pacific Retail is in the position to try something really innovative. Enter Sharsten Plenge, daughter Pacific Retail managing principal, Steve Plenge. She came up with the idea of using the old Penney's as an art space.

How it will be used is up for discussion. Plenge has been talking to local artists about it for a while, but it's still early days. And it has a lot of obstacles--West Oaks Mall is not exactly an art destination. (Although Houston hipsters might be familiar with it because of its Alamo Drafthouse location.) It's a long way from Montrose, baby. So to me, this means that success would be dependent on both attracting Houston's art people to make the 20+ mile trip out plus reaching out to the local community, which includes both rough-and-tumble Alief and ultra-suburban Cinco Ranch. But an equal challenge will be to artists and curators. This space is huge. That means that exhibits in this space will have to measure up to it. Your suite of pencil drawings won't cut it, nor will your one-person performance.


Some seriously big artworks could fit in this space

That's what I mean by 22 Lawndales. Lawndale has 4375 square feet of exhibition space--2100 square feet in the large John O'Quin gallery, 1100 in the mezzanine, 650 in the Grace R. Cavner gallery, and 525 in the project space. And Lawndale doesn't in any way feel small. Imagine the challenge of filling Lawndale 22 times over. All the alternative art space in Houston--Lawndale, Diverse Works, FotoFest, Project Row Houses, Box 13, Skydive, the Joanna and anything I'm missing doesn't add up half this new space. This alone could tilt Houston's artistic center of gravity severely to the west.

Houston artists and curators--put on your thinking caps! How will you utilize this astonishing resource? Sharsten Plenge wants to hear from you.