Blogging ARTlies -- October/November 1994

Robert Boyd


Things changed a lot with the third issue of ARTlies.You can see it right away with the cover--where the first two issues had been Emigre-influenced design orgies, suddenly we get a cover that has the casual DIY look of a zine. And Wade Chandler, who had been the executive director for the first two issues, was out, replaced by board member (and artist) Benito Huerta. He explains the drastic changes like so:

Artlies has changed! We have adapted in order to survive. We have cut back our production costs. We have slashed our advertising rates. We will publish an issue every two months. The writing has become the focal point of Artlies. And we are here to stay in order to critique, to raise and discuss issues, to engage the community in a dialogue, and to question everything. Why question everything? So that we may uncover any flaws in our virtues and discover any virtues in our flaws. We refuse to be a paasive memeber [sic] of a consumer society. And we challenge you, the public, to become active in our community and with this magazine.

I don't point out the typos to make fun of ARTlies (people in glass houses and all), but rather to point out how ad hoc this whole issue feels. The whole issue feels like it was put together over a weekend. There is no "design" as such--the feature "Hustling" credited to the Green Hornet is a single-spaced, full page of type (no columns) and as such is a very uninviting read. Page numbers were hand-written.

Nor is the editing very good. "La Cordillera Anamorada" by Donald Calladare manages to fill an entire page about a show called "Poison/Amor" without mentioning the names of the artists or the venue. (A little Googling tells me that it was a show at the Blaffer by Terry Allen and James Drake.)

So ARTlies seems to have devolved into a kind of blank state with this issue--no design, no editing, just writing. That doesn't mean that it's a bad issue--there is an interesting article discussing Project Row Houses (which debuted that year) by Lynn Curl, some interesting reviews including a group show curated by Aaron Parazette and a show by Perry House (coincidentally, there was a Perry House solo show and a painting exhibit put together by Aaron Parazette in 2012--the more things change...). There was a vicious dissection of the Colquitt Gallery scene by Chris Ballou which included this gem "The only thing awe-inspiring [about the work in the galleries on Colquitt] was the magnitude of boredom: tropical tourism at Lynn Goode, tired modernist geometry at Davis/McClain, competent doctor's office paintings at Hooks-Epstein, and clever one-liners at New Gallery." There were scene reports from New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. And there was a very strange piece of fashion prognostication which included paper dolls.


Art by "X-Acto"

The article, "Forecasting Spring 1995," was by Peter Doroshenko (and the paper dolls were credited to "X-Acto"). Doroshenko is now the director of the Dallas Contemporary after having worked at the Pinchuk Art Center, the Baltic Center for Contemporary Art and the CAMH. (He is currently embroiled in a controversy over selling donated artwork on eBay for insultingly low prices.)

Blogging ARTlies -- March 1994

Robert Boyd


Art Lies #1 -- 19 years ago

About a year after I began blogging about art, Houston's only print publication on art, Art Lies, collapsed. I only read the last few issues, and I can't say I was a huge fan. But it was obviously important--a whole magazine devoted to art published in Houston! I knew it had been around for a while. And the thing about a magazine is that while it's being published, it's journalism. But once it's been published, it's history. The first issue of Art Lies was published in 1994. This is quite interesting to me personally, because I wasn't in Houston for the majority of its existence. I have a vague idea at best of what was happening in Houston as far as art goes in the 90s and early 2000s. But now, thanks to the University of North Texas, I can get a glimpse of what was happening then. They have archived Art Lies electronically, and now it's accessible to anyone with an internet hookup.

So it occurred to me that I could read through this archive and educate myself a bit on this era in Houston's art history. And as long as I'm doing this, why not blog about it?

The first issue of Art Lies was published in March 1994. It's not a meaty publication--24 pages total. And it's all black and white. The "executive director" is Wade Chandler and the editor is  Don Carroll, two names I don't recognize. It has a board of directors, which suggests it was a non-profit right from the start, and the Board includes a few familiar names (Dan Allison, Margaret Bott, Benito Huerta).

The look is anchored its time--when the eye-crushing deconstructive typography of Emigre-enthralled designers. Fiona McGettigan is credited as the art director. In retrospect, it feels unnecessarily baroque, and in the case of an interview with Gael Stack, hard to read.

The issue started off with a bang--a manifesto by Dave Hickey. There were reviews of a performance by Jim Pirtle, shows at the CAMH and the MFAH, and a weird and slightly pointless dig at Coagula. There is a review by Donald E. Calledare of a show at the MFAH, Speaking of Artists: Words and Works from Houston, that hilariously neglects to name a single artist in the show. There are two reviews of Texas/Between Two Worlds at the CAMH. Chris Ballou's is unimaginative and mostly congratulatory. Harvey Bott actually questions the curatorial intent and is a bit more critical of the art--and his writing is far more eccentric.

One of the wistful things about reading an old publication like this is that some of what they write about is gone. There is a review of a show by Kelli Scott Kelley, for example. She's still around, but her gallery in 1994, the Lanning Gallery, is not. What happened to it, I wonder?

There was a degree of "Hey, gang, let's get together and put on a show!" about Art Lies with this issue, but you expect that when a publication is starting. And it seemed quite professional (unlike, say, The Great God Pan Is Dead). And while none of the criticism seems especially blistering, they weren't uncritical boosters either. It was a good start.