Report from Austin part 4: See Recovering Beauty at the Blanton Betore It's Too Late!

by Robert Boyd

The title of this post says it all. But I'll elaborate a little. Sometimes, a group of artists get together in a certain time and place and something magic happens. Writer/artist Jorge Gumier Maier was put in charge of a small artists' space, the Rojas Gallery, at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. He did something quite unusual for this time in art history--he wrote a manifesto called "The Rojas Page: Avatars of Art." He outlined what he opposed--conceptual art (a "sterile, mistaken practice") and "stomachism" (art that punches you in the stomach). He was for an art of "pagan hedonism"; art that was "sacred" and which "eludes pretensions." (Funny that I should be writing about this in a blog called The Great God Pan is Dead.) Whether or not you agree with Maier's manifesto, the art in the show reflects it very well.

Personally, I have long been fascinated with the Argentina. It started back in the mid-80s when I picked up a volume of stories by Jorge Borges. This lead me into the rich world of Argentine literature. Visiting Buenos Aires in the late 80s, I discovered Argentina's amazing comics--artists like Quino, Carlos Nine, Max Cachimba/Juan Pablo Gonzalez, Alberto and Enrique Breccia, Francisco Solano Lopez, etc.) I tried to learn about B.A.'s art scene in those few weeks, but it was hard for an outsider with bad Spanish to know where to start. In any case, I arrived there too early to see the Rojas Gallery. And for the most part, these artists did not establish international reputations. This also fascinates me. That an artistic movement can basically come into existence and achieve a very high level without anyone really knowing about it. Gumier Maier writes that for the first few years, only one critic ever reviewed their shows. It speaks to the possibility of truly local scenes developing. In our wired world, this is a pleasing thought.

This exhibit is only up through May 22. If you happen to be in Austin in the next three days, make a point of seeing it. Here are some of the pieces you will see.



Omar Schiliro, untitled, plastic and glass elements with light, 1991

Omar Schiliro was a jewelry designer who started making these extravagant lamps when he was diagnosed with HIV. AIDS haunted the Rojas Gallery, which lends a disquieting edge to the otherwise sunny, joyful exhibit. Perhaps these artists embraced joy because their existence was so uncertain.



Jorge Gumier Maier, untitled, acrylic on carved plywood, N.D.

Elegant curves and arabesques typify much of the work in this show. Gumier Maier specifically is riffing off the more severe concrete art of earlier generations of Argentine and Uruguayan artists with these playful pieces.



Cristina Schiavi, Cinto Rosa, zinc with enamel, 1997

More curves, and the color pink, which was important for these artists, as seen in this piece by Cristina Schiavi. Gumier Maier, who was a gay-rights activist and writer as well as being an artist, wrote, "Pink is the color of daydreams. [...] pink has been all but prohibited from appearing on flags and emblems. Stranger to contingencies, silly and vulgar, it knows no modesty. [...] This is why, as a result, pink has become the faggot color par excellence." (from "The Tao of Art." 1997).



Fabio Kacero, untitled, wood, foam rubber, vinyl fabric, stickers, plastic, and PVC, 1994

That said, one didn't need pastel colors to produce work that fit right in, as the pieces by Fabio Kacero demonstrate.



Beto de Volder, untitled, acrylic and markers on canvas, 1994

Beto de Volder's cartoony pornographic paintings are amongst the first you see when you walk into this exhibit. They kind of dare you to continue, but they are so wacky and unthreatening that they likewise invite you in. That said, I wanted to show this one, de Volder's version of an Argentine flag with a busy, sexy cartoon Buenos Aires superimposed on it. It seems to sum up the whole project.

A Brief Note on The Art of the Steal

I watched this movie last night in bed (Netflix streaming video and an iPad are a deadly combination). It's a well-made, passionate documentary, and if you want to see how to do a hostile take-over of a non-profit, The Art of the Steal lays it all out for you--and it's not pretty.

The basic story is this. Albert Barnes, a pharmaceutical tycoon from Philadelphia, built one of the most amazing personal collections of art in the 20th century. His work consisted largely of paintings by Renoir, Cezanne, Picasso and Matisse. He had a great eye. But he was also a misanthropic egomaniac. Feeling dissed by the Philadelphia downtown establishment (particularly Walter Annenberg), he decided to shun them and build a museum for his collection in the suburb of Merion. This was really just a hop and a skip from downtown Philadelphia, but Barnes also made it very difficult for anyone to see this collection. It was only open to the public a couple of days a week, and you had to write for an appointment to see it. Merion is a well-to-do suburban area, and the Barnes was smack in the middle of a residential neighborhood.



Barnes died in 1951, and as this movie explains, the foundation sputtered along for quite a few years following his every whimsical port-mortem wish. But there were people in the world who thought this collection of some of the world's greatest masterpieces should be more accessible. The movie makes clear that these people were bad--they were only interested in the money increased access would bring. Around 1990, they started conspiring. People in municipal and state government, big local foundations like the Pew Charitable Trust, trustees at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (which always envied the Barnes collection), and Walter Annenberg set in motion a long-term plan to take over the board of the Barnes Foundation. They succeeded and managed to get Barnes' will overturned in order to move the collection to downtown Philadelphia, where it will be installed in 2012.

Now the tricks they pulled were underhanded. But the problem with the Barnes is that it was not a good institution. The Barnes went out of its way to make it hard to see the art. Many of the talking heads speak of Barnes' vision and the betrayal of that vision. Here's how I see it--Barnes' vision was born of his misanthropy and resentment, and I don't really see why treasures that should be part of the common heritage of mankind should be hidden away just because the rich guy who owned them said so in his will. I look forward in 2012 or 2013 to visiting Philadelphia and checking out the work. I'll gladly be one of those tourists who are sneered at in this movie.

But maybe, just maybe, I'll have to go out to Merion to see it. The descendent organization os Barnes' pharma empire, Argyrol Pharmaceuticals, is promising to try to save the Barnes from moving. It seems like too little, too late, but you never know!

Report from Austin part 3: 83 Austin Artists to Watch

by Robert Boyd

The Hybrid Arts Summit was held in part at the Austin Museum of Art, which was at that moment was exhibiting New Art In Austin: 15 to Watch, a group show which the museum hosts every three years. I was in town for the Summit, so I took the opportunity to check out the show. Afterward, I decided to pick up the catalog. I noticed they had the previous three catalogs (2002, 2005 and 2008). Curious, I picked up all four catalogs. I packed them away and carried on with the activities of the day.

Later in the day, I was talking about the Austin scene with Salvador Castillo, and he offered the theory that Austin is not a very congenial place for artists because there is not a very big collector base there. I countered that Austin certainly had its share of rich folk and well-off professionals--the prerequisite for a good collectors community. His theory was that there wasn't a long tradition of collecting in Austin the way there was in Houston. He wasn't the first person who had put forth a version of this theory. Art Palace moved from Austin to Houston basically because it was too hard to run a successful commercial gallery in Austin.

I don't know enough about the Austin scene to know if this lack of collector support is due to an inadequate appreciation for art locally or if it's a simple game of numbers (Houston is four times larger than Austin, after all). There seem to be several commercial galleries there (I count something like nine), and while no one starts a gallery with much hope of getting rich, they are businesses and the idea is to sell enough to cover your expenses with a little left over at the end. So either the gallerists in Austin are delusional and headed for bankruptcy or else they are successful-- or at least scraping by.

So you're an artist in Austin, and you're not too bad at what you do. Will Austin support you? I'm not talking about making a living exclusively off your art, nice though that would be. I'm talking about providing you with the means to live which should include being able to sell at least some of your art, hopefully to Austin based collectors. (As an aside, in a panel discussion on Regionalism that was recorded for Glasstire, Christina Rees said that Houston collectors collected the work of Houston artists to an unusual degree. I can't really compare Houston's collecting habits to other cities, but I do know that most Houston galleries--even the blue chip ones that show lots of out-of-town art--show at least some Houston artists. Maybe that's a problem for Austin artists. Perhaps Austin collectors are looking to New York or London or elsewhere for their art.)

With the four New Art In Austin catalogs, I had the raw material to make an educated guess at how well Austin supports its artists. If you were an artist who was selected for the 2002 show, were you able to sustain a career in Austin? Or did you have to move away? On one hand, Austin is a relatively inexpensive and highly congenial place to live. On the other hand, art by Austin artists is so lacking in buyers that Art Palace moved to Houston.



Matthew Gutierrez, After-During I-V (detail), acrylic on four canvases, 2001 (from New Art in Austin 2002)

So I decided to try to find out where the artists in the 2002, 2005, and 2008 exhibits were now. Were they still making art? Were they still in Austin? Out of the 65 artists in those shows, about 39 seemed to still be in most recently in Austin. The phrase "most recently" is important--of that 39, not all of them had been mentioned in Google-accessible sites recently. For many, the most recent mention was in 2009, and Matthew Gutierez, who was in the 2002 show, hasn't been heard from since 2002 as far as I could tell. If we look at each individual show, we get this result:

	Still in Austin	Not in Austin	% moved
2002 Artists	11	11	50%
2005 Artists	15	9	38%
2008 Artists	13	6	32%

So over time, artists move away from Austin more and more. But this could possibly be said of artists anywhere, particularly young artists. And that is one feature of the New Art in Austin exhibits--they feature emerging artists for the most part. Many of the artists are recent college graduates, and some are even still in school when they are selected for the shows. So they live in Austin because they studied there, but life--in the form of career, marriage, family, etc.--may pull them away over time.



Mark Schatz, Pastel Crash, crashed car, polystyrene foam, and interior house paint, 2002 (from New Art in Austin 2002)

Many move because they have gotten teaching jobs elsewhere. Mark Schatz, (2002) for example, first moved to Houston and recently moved to Ohio to work at Kent State University. Of the artists that have moved away, at least five are teachers/professors. (Please keep in mind that all these stats are somewhat fuzzy. They represent the best information I could get through Google.)



Hana Hillerova, Swarm, installation with cardboard, plastic, paint, digital prints, 2004 (from New Art in Austin 2005)

So of the 26 that moved, where did they go? No particular surprises here. Seven went to New York. Five are in the Houston area. The rest are scattered to the wind--but often to college towns like Bellingham, WA, Cambridge, MA and Ann Arbor, MI. (None to Dallas or Fort Worth, as far as I could tell.) Two of Houston's best known artists were in New Art In Austin shows--Hana Hillerova and Robert Pruitt.



 Robert Pruitt, Great Scott, Iz She a Theef?!, conte crayon on butcher paper, 2001 (from New Art in Austin 2002)

All that said, a majority of these people are still in Austin, and as far as I can tell, a majority of the Austinites are still active artists. Austin is a great place to live, so even if it's hard for an artist to make a living there, these 39 stalwarts are making it work for themselves somehow.

One question I'm left with is this--is this rate of artist-exodus typical? If you took a random sample of youngish artists who exhibited in any other city in 2002, 2005 and 2008, would the results be much different? Do more artists leave Austin than other places? I don't know, so I am loathe to suggest that it is harder for an artist in Austin than in any other city.

However, I think it's true that if the collector base in Austin was larger and more willing to "buy local," that would give artists more of an incentive to stay. I don't think there is any special virtue in "buying local" in art--collectors should buy what they like, wherever the origin. But there are good reasons for a collector to buy work from local artists--you get the opportunity to meet them and get to know them, which is nice, and their work is often quite reasonable compared to out-of-town artists. In any case, if I were an Austin artist, I'd want to cultivate the local collector community, and would have a vested interest in seeing it expand.

As for the current exhibit, Michael Bise savaged it in ...might be good.  He wrote, "What it does offer is a great deal of justification for artworks that, while not egregiously awful, seem a long way from meriting serious consideration in a museum exhibition." I can see his point, but that didn't keep me from enjoying some of the pieces. In other words, why should I care if something is museum-worthy if I like it? But his next sentence was this--"More than a few artists in the show take on projects of artists before them and find themselves outmatched." This does speak to the provincial quality of the work. It's just very hard to be original.



Santiago Forero, Hammer--Self Portrait, The Olympic Games Series, archival inkjet print, 2010 (from New Art in Austin 2011)

That said, I enjoyed some of the pieces. I had seen Santiago Forero's work at the Station Museum, where one of his photo self-portraits showed himself as a soldier. The three here depicted him participating in classic Olympic sports. The catalog text claims a lot for these photos, more than they can really sustain. But they have an uncomfortable power. Forero is a dwarf. To create these photos, he trained to be in top physical condition and had clothing appropriate for each sport custom made. But Forero can't be an Olympic athlete, any more than he can join the U.S. Army (minimum height requirement, 58 inches). So these photos are fantasies, and could be seen as bitter reflections on the worlds that are closed off to dwarfs. But at the same time, they look really cool. Forero really pulls it off--everything looks perfect, better than a real photo of an Olympic athlete would look.The expression of total seriousness on his face is completely convincing. And this just adds an additional layer to the viewer's discomfort. Here is a dwarf, dressed up to amuse us.



Ian Ingram, Our Koruna Muse, charcoal, pastel, encaustic, silver leaf and butterflies, 2009 (from New Art in Austin 2011)

In terms of sheer bravura skill, Ian Ingram's hyper-detailed portraits are completely amazing. But he's not attempting photo-realism. At least, that is only a side-effect of his ambition. On the contrary, he wants his work to be expressive. He attaches three dimensional objects to his paintings--butterflies, cloth, beads. These objects are real and layered on top of a realistic-but-constructed image. If this distinction is not important to Ingram, then why bother painting at all? Why not just take large-scale photographs? I think for Ingram, the end result is not the critically important thing--the process is. Now this is kind of a weird thing to say of a hyper-realist painter. For most of painting's history, what mattered was the image one ended up with. No one looking at, say, The Oath of the Horatii, would think that the main thing about this painting was the process--the work, mental and physical, that David did. (No one with the possible exception of David himself.) Thomas McEvilley would explain this as a separation of art and life--specifically, he would look to the way Kant divided aesthetics, ethics and cognition into distinct categories. McEvilley has written that this distinction began to break down with the action painters--where the process was right on the surface--and then with performance artists, who fused art and life. I think for many artists throughout history, the intense concentration of making a painting or sculpture was therapeutic (long before that word gained currency) and meditative. For artists, at least, art and life are not separated. I think this is the case for Ingram--despite the fact he is toying with hyper-realism, what is important in these paintings is the intense process behind them.


Debra Broz, Feeding, found ceramic objects, epoxy compounds, paint and sealer on a painted wooden stand, 2010 (from New Art in Austin 2011)

[Parallel] by Jesus Benavente and Jennifer Reminchik strikes me as a prime example of work that "take[s] on projects of artists before them and find[s itself] outmatched," as Michael Bise complained. This performance, in which each artist takes turns being a servant for the other artist, seems unsubtle, rehashed, and altogether lacking in fun. Another artist whose work is likely to remind one of earlier, bolder work by other artists is Debra Broz. This is also work where you might think--does it really belong in a museum? But in another context, it would have been fine. I think these chimeras are amusing and well-made. As works of art, they are slight but pleasing. And the craftsmanship is top-notch.

Nathan Green's work has been growing on me. I don't love it, but I'm starting to like it. I reviewed works of his in a show last year at Art Palace, and what I wrote then still applies. Green has a solo show opening at Art Palace this week, and I may use it to try to make a more involved evaluation of his brightly colored, highly-patterned painting/installations.

There is something inherently problematic about an exhibit like this. A Nathan Green solo exhibit, for example, has a strong unifying factor--all the work is by one artist. And if a curator is building a show from scratch, she may have a concept of a visual conceit or a subject that unifies the show. The excellent show at the Blanton, Recovering Beauty, is a good example. The artists in it were all veterans of a particular art space in Buenos Aires in the 90s, but even more important, they formed their own school. The linking concept behind their work (yes to beauty, no to conceptual sterility and expressionist angst) was really strongly reflected in the work itself. But you can't have a unifying concept like that in New Art from Austin. It has to be what the curators think is the best work being done in Austin by emerging artists, whether or not their work has any relationship with one another's work or not. Such shows are necessarily hodge-podges. There are several artists here whose work would be much better as a solo show in a gallery or an art space. Maybe this was what Bise meant when he wrote "seem[s] a long way from meriting serious consideration in a museum exhibition."

A Walk Through Walpugis Afternoon

by Robert Boyd

In previous posts, I showed you Jim Woodring's giant pen from the opening night of Walpurgis Afternoon, the exhibit I curated at Lawndale Art Center. The thing is, as cool as the performance was, the really cool thing is the exhibit itself--drawings and comics by Jim Woodring and Marc Bell. Today I filmed and narrated a walkthrough. Of course, this is no substitute for seeing the exhibit itself, which is open through June 4.

The ones that got away in April 2011 - Lyons, Conley, Saavedra, Perelli, Post

by Dean Liscum

During April, Houston had a lot of art that I wanted to write about but didn't due to nothing more than the lackadaisical nature of a dilettante. I have some minor guilt (probably Catholic in origin) about not getting to these shows, but it's mitigated by my belief that these artists will only get bigger and better and be back.

Here's my art penance to Giles Lyon, Tara Conley, Ed Saavedra, Keith Perelli, and Linda Post. It's replete with links to the artists' websites and the exhibitions if they have been posted online. If you didn't make these shows, indulge in a little artistic self-flagellation and then make pilgrimages to these artist\gallery sites. It will be a redeeming experience.

Giles Lyon's, "Psychedelic Cave Painting" at the Optical Project was on display from April 8 through May 7, 2011. These paintings are created in the tachisme style, which roughly defined is a form of abstract lyricism. These works are not only lyrical but full of many northwest coast art references.

detail of Untitled, 2011

detail of Untitled, 2011



detail of Untitled, 2011

 Tara Conley's Word for Word at Laura Rathe Fine Art Gallery was on display from March 26 through April 23, 2011.  In this series, Conley, who's always been both playful and clever in her sculptures, gets textual. I don't know if this is a trend or a tangent for Tara. Nevertheless, if you're textually inclined, I think you'll find these terrific.

I Need You To Be With Me, 2011

I Love You But..., 2011
(photo by Robert Boyd)

I'm kind of monogamous, 2011
and
I just want to go back to sleep and wake up last week, 2011



multiple works by Tara Conley, 2011

Ed Saavedra's Things Have Gone To Pieces at G Gallery was on display in April 2011. This show served as a de facto retrospective of Saavedra's mastery of multiple mediums and his many of political subjects.

20 Minutes to Blythe, 2009
Arizona map, cowboy hat (hecho en mexico), acrylic polymer

The Problem of Language, 2010

Flag, 2009
4.5 X 7 inches collage and acrylic paint on wood

Keith Perelli's Perforate at Nau-haus was on display in April 2011. I enjoy his palette but found the monochromatic, multi-layered works the most engaging.

Closing, 2009
Aquarelle Crayon, Mylar, Paper, thread, rivets, 31’ X 24”
(courtesy of Nau-Haus)

Opening, 2010
18” x 24” Monotype painting
(courtesy of Nau-Haus)

Linda Post's Wherever at Art Palace was on display from April 8 through May 14, 2011. This work celebrates the quotidian through photography, video, and sculpture. Her focus captures the beauty of things ranging from industrial design to the daily grind of chores. The video pieces use "movement as a sculptural medium" (I'm poorly paraphrasing Post), and portray the subject's everyday activities with a few surprises thrown in. The most engaging piece was a site specific video that was originally recorded in the space in which it was later exhibited. (Think of being in a room and watching a video of an activity that was performed in that same room.) It was re-exhibited at Art Palace. Hopefully, Post will do a site-specific video at her next show.

Wherever installation, 2011
(photo by Robert Boyd)

There, 2011
3 Videos on Tube Televisions
36" x 56" x 24"

Wherever Porfolio: III, 2011
Inkjet Print
8" x 12"

Teenage Kicks at the Houston Center for Photography

Teenagers are everywhere recently. At CAMH, where their art impressed me mightily. In Rania Matar's photos at De Santos Gallery, which got praise from Dean Liscum. Now Matar is part of a group show at the Houston Center for Photography called Teenagers: Portraits of Identity and Expression. This show has a bit more of an edge than Matar's solo show. Some of the work, including Matar's, is political. Some is unnerving. Don't mistake me--the work isn't shocking or transgressive. This is not a Larry Clark show. But the viewers aren't meant to be completely comfortable with the images.


Matar specializes in photographing teenage girls in their rooms. In this selection of eight photos, four of them are girls in the Middle East (Beruit and Jerusalem) and four are girls in New England. There is not enough information to draw conclusions (not to mention the small sample size). Some of the Middle Eastern girls seem fairly prosperous. But the biggest difference is how much stuff there is in the American girl's rooms, especially on the walls. This contrasts mightily with the most affecting image, Marwa 18, Shatila refugee camp, Beirut Lebanon 2010.



Rania Matar, Marwa 18, Shatila refugee camp, Beirut Lebanon 2010 from the series A Girl and Her Room, Archival inkjet print

She has a computer, but otherwise her room is so barren. This may reflect her status as a refugee women (probably born there--Shatila has been a refugee camp since 1949). The room has two beds, extremely close to one another. She may have a roommate (a sibling?). She is casual, connected to the world with her computer. But her room looks like prison cell--a rather feminine cell with pink walls and teddy bears. The American teenagers, in contrast, have a horror vacui. They tend to cover as much of their walls as they can.


Rania Matar, Helen Mei 18, Boston 2010 from the series A Girl and Her Room, archival inkjet print 

But putting lots of stuff on the walls isn't an exclusively American thing. Natan Dvir also photographed Middle Eastern teenagers, specifically Arab teenagers in Israel.


Natan Dvir, Dina (Jaffa, Jewish-Muslim) from the series Eighteen , Chromogenic print, 2010


With each of his portraits, he provides a detailed biographical statement from the subject. Dina writes:

I was born in Ukraine to a Jewish Russian mother and a Muslim Israeli father who met in medical school. I moved to Israel with my family at the age of five. My family lives in Taibe, a Muslim city in the triangle area that is heavily populated by Arabs. I didn't really like living there and felt oppressed as a woman in that culture. My mother could not work as a doctor and had to open up a boutique for brides. Boys and girls remain separated. There are hardly any places to go out. I was able to hang out with my friends only at our homes or in Jewish cities.


I joined the Communist Youth Movement, but everyone was always trying to prevent me from organizing activities. My parents encouraged me to leave Taibe and find a place where I felt more comfortable socially and professionally. I am now living in Jaffa in a collective of Arab and Jewish human rights activists and volunteer in various organizations.


I don't really care if I live with Arabs or Jews. I guess I kind of did that all my life anyhow. I appreciate people for who they are and have little regard for that kind of categorization. I am both jewish and Muslim; both Russian and Israeli. I can't be defined any way that makes you feel comfortable, but if you ask me, I would prefer not to be called any of the above.--I am a human rights activist.

But like an American teenager, she has a lot of stuff on the wall. We see images of Che Guevara above her, and a grouping of disparate images to her left.



Natan Dvir, Dina (Jaffa, Jewish-Muslim) From the series Eighteen (detail) , Chromogenic print, 2010

 We see fashion photos and a still from Amelie alongside a pointed Egyptian political cartoon. Her wall is her biography.


Natan Dvir, Ehab (Be'ine, Muslim) from the series Eighteen, Chromogenic print, 2009

Ehab's story is that of a soccer-mad Arab boy whose opportunities for playing at a high level are frustrated by politics. But his ambition shines through in both the text and in his defiant stance.



Alison Malone, Marshall, Age 14, PA from the series The Daughters of Job, Chromogenic print, 2008


These were the weirdest photos of the show. Alison Malone was a member of a Masonic organization for girls called Job's Daughters. She returned to the organization as an adult to photograph its members and record it as it slowly dies out (membership peaked in the 1970s). My first reaction was that this was some cult-like thing, but reading about the organization and hearing Malone's account of her project gave me a different perspective. (You can hear Malone describe her project by dialing 713-300-9919 ext. 5.) She sees Job's Daughters as one of the first groups that a girl joins on her own (as opposed to being in her parents' church or going to school), and training for adulthood in that the groups are self-organizing (although on a rigid pattern, as in all Masonic organizations). Perhaps Job's Daughters is dying out because all old-school voluntary organizations like the Masons are dying out (see Bowling Alone). 



Alison Malone, Fourth Messenger, Age 15, MN from the series The Daughters of Job, Chromogenic print, 2008


Malone also spoke of being attracted to the costumes and the ritual and the role-playing that went with being a Daughter of Job. The costumes are what is striking in the photos. I wonder if taking these photos and displaying them might not give Job's Daughters a boost? Or does membership in Job's Daughters depend on having an adult Mason sponsor you?


All the photos from this exhibit can be seen online, but it's worth going to the HCP to see the large, vivid prints--and in the case of Natan Dvir's photos, to read the statements by the subjects.





 

The Artist's Eye: Mari Omori on Northwest Coast Art

by Dean Liscum

On Sunday, May 1, 2011 at 3 p.m. I attended a presentation by the artist Mari Omori at the Menil Collection as part of their Artist's Eye series. On the first Sunday of every month, the series invites a local (read Houston) artist to talk about any works of art in the Menil's permanent collection or in a temporary exhibition that it hosts. Omori chose to discuss Northwest Coast Art in conjunction with the opening of the exhibition Upside Down: Arctic Realities.

Mari Omori at the Menil Library

Omori is currently a Professor of Art at Lone Star College-Kingwood. Her art combines eastern and western styles, (She was born in Japan and settled in the U.S. as an adult.) and is very process oriented. During the lecture, Omori covered the integral part that art played in the indigenous people's lives, commonalities and differences among the indigenous cultures, and the native people's fight against the European's attempt to suppress native traditions and force adoption of Eurocentric practices.

After Omori concluded her lecture (which I hope the Menil will post), she informed the audience that we had an assignment. Then she invited Joan Son, an expert at Origami to lead us in making a northwest coast art-inspired bird mask.

Joan Son performing an origami lesson

About 75% of the audience succeeded. I failed. After numerous retries with the same piece of paper, mine looked like a John Chamberlain sculpture.

Joan Son with a finished origami bird mask

After the lecture, the audience was encouraged to view the exhibition Upside Down: Arctic Realities, which is based on the work by Dr. Edmund Carpenter. A docent at the entrance insisted that I put booties over my shoes, which seemed silly until I entered the gallery. Then I saw, understood, and appreciated the precaution. The all-white installation is minimal, stark, and icily beautiful. If they give awards for designing and installing art, the team responsible for Upside Down should win it.