Pan Recommends for the week of August 22 to August 28

Robert Boyd

Here's most of what's opening up this weekend in Houston's art scene in these last few weeks before the fall season.

THURSDAY


painting by Emilio Reato

Argentine Art in Houston curated by Andres Bardon, featuring Ladislao Kelity, Nubar Doulgerian, Sebastian D'Amen, Monica Shulman, Luis Altieri, Alejandro Parisi, Emilio Reato, Franca Barone, Maria Paula Caradonti, Alicia Chaves, Antonia Guzman and many more, at Spring Street Studios, 6 to 8 pm. I don't know much about this show but it looks interesting.



20Hertz: Bill Arning Presents "Sad Bastard Music, C'est Moi", 7:30 pm at CAMH. A lecture by CAMH director and former rocker Bill Arning on "sad bastard music," such as David Bowie, Lou Reed, Patti Smith, The Buzzcocks, Pulp, Belle and Sebastian, Xiu Xiu, and Perfume Genius. What this has to do with visual arts, I don't know but who cares? This is some of my favorite music!

FRIDAY

 
Marcelyn McNeil , Untitled (speed), 2010 , Oil on panel; 74 x 71 x 1" -- this was in the 2011 Texas Biennial

Texas Biennial Invitational : Christie Blizard, Marcelyn McNeil, Tom Orr and Brad Tucker, curated by Michael Duncan and Virginia Rutledge at Lawndale Art Center, 5 to 8:30 pm. This is a little confusing--this show isn't part of the Texas Biennial, but features four artists previously selected for the Texas Biennial. So I guess this is kind of a spin-off?


Susi Brister

Fantastic Habitat by Susi Brister at Lawndale Art Center, 5 to 8:30 pm. Some of these photos may feel like modern updates of Cousin It, but overall this looks like a very beautiful if somewhat unnerving suite of images.


Cary Reeder, Jaundiced View, 2013

Now, What Was There? by Cary Reeder at Lawndale Art Center, 5 to 8:30 pm. Cary Reeder paints beautiful, stripped-down images of the charming but endangered  bungalows in the Heights. Wouldn't it be ironic if the upper-middle-class burgers of the Heights bought them to decorate their new McMansions?


Susannah Mira's Water Tower (2012) isn't going to be in the show, but it looks really cool!

Room Divider by Susannah Mira at Lawndale Art Center, 5 to 8:30 pm. We got a tantalizing taste of Mira's work in the Big Show, and now we will see what a room-full of her geometric assemblages look like.


Picasso brand donuts from the Menil/Fiesta project

The MENIL/FIESTA Project: Ten Years of a Curious Painting Assignment At the University of Houston at Inman Gallery, 6 to 8 pm (up through August 24, so don't procrastinate!) UH Painting professors Aaron Parazette and Gael Stack have, for the last 10 years, been sending their students to the Menil and to Fiesta Mart in order to synthesize their impressions into one painting. This is a show of some of the best results of this assignment.

SATURDAY


Alex Luster's video of the Montrose rollerblade dancer

Houston Is So Hot! featuring Ivete Lucas, Tish Stringer, Bill Daniel, Chris Nelson, Alex Luster, Stephanie Saint Sanchez, Madsen Minax and more at the Aurora Picture Show, 7:30 pm. I don't know about you, but sitting in an air-conditioned movie theater is about my favorite thing to do in August.


Jonah Groeneboer, SUN / MIRRORS, video still, 2009, 22 min

THE DISLOCATED CENTER OF THE MATERIAL WORLD by Jonah Groeneboer at the Galveston Artist Residency, 6 to 9 pm (on view through October 19th). I hate it when there are simultaneous art openings in Houston and Galveston that I want to see. Tough choice! But this one, which includes video, painting, installation and a sound piece, will be up for a while while the videos are Saturday night only... So this one might have to wait until next weekend.

Transitions, Glad and Sad

Robert Boyd

Jeff Millar

 
Jeff Millar and Bill Hands, Tank McNamara, December 1, 2012

If you grew up in Houston in the 70s, you probably were aware of Jeff Millar, The Houston Chronicle's witty movie reviewer. He has died, aged 70. I think he was an influence on me in a small way--my unserious writing style probably has something to do with reading Millar's reviews as a teenager. Millar also was the writer of a very witty comic strip, Tank McNamara (illustrated by Bill Hinds).


Web-based artzine ...might be good is folding. ...might be good had a large readership, from what I have heard, but no reliable source of funding. (Unlike The Great God Pan Is Dead, they paid their contributors,which is probably why they had so many good ones. But expenses must be matched by revenues.) ...might be good was classy and serious, if a little dry. It wasn't there for your entertainment, but for your edification. They wrote about their subjects with rigor and seriousness. And losing ...might be good really sucks.

Idea Fund Winners

 
The Bridge Club received an Idea Fund grant for The Trailer, a mobile performance work

Fortunately there are reasons to be happy, especially if you are one of the Idea Fund recipients. The winners are The Bridge Club – Art and Performance Collaborative (Huntsville); Erin Curtis (Austin); Bill Davenport (Houston); Esteban Delgado (San Antonio); Everything Records / Robert Hodge and Philip Pyle (Houston), Madsen Minax (Houston); Ryan O’Malley, Joe Pena, Dr. Amber Scoon, and Jack Gron (Corpus Christi); Stephanie Saint Sanchez (Houston); Ethel Shipton and Nate Cassie (San Antonio); and Walley Films – Mark Walley and Angela Walley (San Antonio). Some of these winners are quite familiar to me, but most are artists I've never heard of. But the projects sound cool--The Underground Art Tunnel at Retama Park sounds like it will be worth a road trip to Corpus Cristi, and I really want to see Tia Chuck once it gets made. Congrats to all the winners!

PG Contemporary

I was bummed when Peel Gallery closed, but after several months of pop-up galleries, that space is going to be occupied (permanently, we hope) by PG Contemporary. PG Contemporary started small on Milam and recently expanded into a larger space on Milam. But I suspect this opportunity to be on Montrose next to Barbara Davis, Anya Tish and Wade Wilson was too good an opportunity to pass up. She is mounting her first exhibit there, opening tonight at 6 pm.

Rejoicing in Rejection - Salon des Refusés 2011 at M2 Gallery

by Dean Liscum

Whenever you have 404 artists submitting a total of 972 works of art to adorn the walls of the Lawndale Art Center, the realities of time and space dictate that somebody's gonna get left out. This year the Lawndale staff chose Larissa Harris, a curator from Queens Museum of Art, to make the hard choices. She selected 121 pieces of art from 73 artists. The rest got rejected.

For the second year in a row, Emily Sloan decided to turn rejection into redemption and hosted the second Salon des Refusés. She invited artists who didn't make Lawndale's The Big Show 2011 to turn defeat into defiance and exhibit in her Salon des Refusés 2011 show at M2 Gallery. As the curator of the show, Emily was not that picky. The only criteria she imposed was that artists had to provide a rejection slip from The Big Show.

Here are few rejections that I'd cover my walls with. (The photos of the work are worse than usual because of the lighting. Apparently, rejection is easier to take when experienced in romantic lighting.)

Taking on Big Oil in Houston may be a Big No.

Fresh Seafood with Black Chunky Sauce (detail)
Lim Chung
Acrylic on canvas

 Perhaps a victim of the anti-war and gophers sentiment that pervades the country.

Gopher
Kim K.
Mixed media

An ominous mix of pastels, childhood, and dark forebodings.

Remember Me
Reema Houwari
Oil on canvas

Gator me.

Alligator
Chris Lyerly
Mixed media

Textually appealing.

Night @ Pine Ridge (detail)
Jane B. Honovich
Acrylic / mixed media

 Excuse me while I have a Matisse moment.

Flowers (Blue, Gold) with Frame

Sondra Chambers

Acrylic polymer, paper on clayboard

Don't you just hate it when you're spending a little quality time in the forest wearing only your birthday suit and armed with your favorite chainsaw and some one asks if s/he can sketch you in crayon?

 Impel the Spirit to Build (detail)
Kevin Cromwell
Crayon on paper

Why don't all cars have this as a color package option?

Untitled
Marty Arredondo
Automobile paint, metal

The ultimate home theater love seat.

Video Couch
Stephanie Saint Sanchez
VHS cassettes

I'm a sucker for both stained glass and black and yellow.

 Flores VI from the series, Fragmentation (detail)
Wayne Ward
Acrylic on canvas

I'm guessing the curator had the same experience I did. Poured her beer in the bowl and then saw her soulmate when she tried to suck it up before it all drained out.

Untitled
Sarah Whatley
Digital print, wire

The artist says Heaven. I say Firmament.

Heavens
Demetre P. Grivas
Digital print

Although the subject's not, I'm in the mood for impasto,thickly loaded brush strokes with multiple colors a la Frank Auerbach (thanks to Robert Boyd for pointing this out).

Her
Saralene Tapley
Acrylic on canvas

Some works are better left untitled. I enjoy everything about this except the title.

Men Smear
George Bibb
Acrylic on canvas

It bears noting that although Emily Sloan provided a venue of redemption for those rejected, even though she herself was not. The Big Show includes her video work, Don't Tell My Parents.

Quit Goofing Off!

I don't usually publish calls for work, but this one is so awesome I had to put it up.

For The Man... The 9 to 5 Show
Curated by Stephanie Saint Sanchez

Gallery 1724 is seeking clockwatcher, peon, surf, butcher, baker,
candlestick maker, johnny paycheck artist types who have the audacity
to keep creating even after they have clocked in! This is a show
exclusively for artwork created while at work.* Visual, photo,
sculpture. Video. *you must be able to document that you were at work
at the time of creation*

Please send
project proposals by APRIL 22 to Chicanalaundry@yahoo.com
Selection notification APRIL 26
Installation dates MAY 12&13
Show Date MAY 14-JUNE 25

Questions?  Call Stephanie at 281-701-3452

Please feel free to share this with anyone you think may be interested!

--
__________________
Gallery 1724, Contemporary Art Salon
1724 Bissonnet St. (between Dunlavy and Woodhead)
Houston, TX 77005

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