New Acquisitions--Carrie A. Dyer, Jeff Forster and Marie Weichman at the Box 13 Raffle

Last night was the Empty Box fundraiser for Box 13. I knew it was going to be a raffle, and I knew there were quite a few artworks being raffled, but I wasn't sure how it was supposed to work. The way they did it was rather clever. The key was that a lot of artworks were being raffled. Dozens of pieces. The work varied wildly in style. So when you bought your raffle tickets, instead of putting them in one big bin, you actually chose the works you liked and put your ticket into a little box beside the work in question.



That way, you could be certain that you were buying a chance to win only works you like.


Kathy Kelley, our histories flow yesterday into tomorrow, tubes, bailing wire, wood, 2010

This was one of the pieces I selected, but I didn't win it (alas). Obviously, the more popular an individual piece was (and I think this one by Kathy Kelley was definitely popular), the smaller the chance you had of winning. But you could game this a little. You could shake the box and try to determine if anyone else had put in a ticket. If not, you could be virtually guaranteed to win that piece. That was not my approach, though. I bought a bunch of tickets (not out of a desire to win artwork, but in order to support an institution that I really love) and spread them to a variety of pieces that I liked. For instance, this photo:


Ben Ruggiero, Suspended Letter B, Austin, Texas, archival inkjet print

(I didn't win this one, though.) Or this pair of cuties by Jed Foronda:


Jed Foronda, Household Name, ink on paper, 2010

(I didn't win these two, either.)

The real fun began at 9 pm, when they started do drawings. It was a real Christmas-present opening atmosphere.



And in the end, I came home with four pieces. I paid a decent amount for my tickets, but the fact is that if I had bought any one of these pieces at a gallery, I would have paid more--much more depending on the piece. So for the many raffle winners, Empty Box was a bargain. I think this fundraiser is annual. For selfish reasons, I'd like to keep it small and intimate. But really, if you are a collector on a budget, it is well worth it to come out. And, as I said, what makes it work is the staggering amount of artwork contributed for the show. Houston artists support each other.

So here's what I got.


Jeff Forster, Object of Ceremony, wood-fired stoneware, 2009

You might recall Jeff Forster had a very interesting piece at Poissant Gallery a few months ago. That same piece is up at The Big Show right now. This aptly-named piece is very different, though.


Marie Weichman, Washclothes, stained porcelain slip drip fabric, 2008

I literally walked right by these at first. I though Weichman (an artist with whom I am not familiar), in a conceptual statement of some sort, had hung old chamois cloth and a pink rag. Then someone mentioned to me that they were ceramic. In a way, I had to ask myself why that makes a difference? This tension was, itself, attractive to me. So I dropped my ticket in and now they're mine. And I love them.


Carrie A. Dyer, descendants of the clouds one, digital print, 2008


Carrie A. Dyer, descendants of the clouds two, digital print, 2008

I liked these two pieces by Carrie Dyer. What appealed to me was the combination of digitally produced effects (which were fairly subtle) and hand-drawing. I know nothing about this artist (beyond what's on her website.) But one interesting coincidence--she is an assistant professor at Central Arkansas University in Conway--a town I occasionally visit for business.

The Empty Box was a really fun event, and I ended up with some really nice artworks. I'll definitely be there next year.

Who Deserves to be Sent to Art Jail?

 
Wayne White, Art Jail, 2010 (?)

The art world is full of shady characters... Who among them needs to go to Art Jail? Suggestions welcome!

Earth Art at the Apartment Complex

Robert Boyd

We think of Earth Art as being located in remote locations in places like Utah, Arizona, or New Mexico. But Michael Heizer has specialized in bringing earthworks into the city. You can see one in the north lawn of the Menil, for example, or most spectacularly in the engineering quad at Rice University--45 degrees, 90 degrees, 180 degrees (1984). You'd be forgiven if you wondered if Michael Heizer had been hired to decorate the Sun Blossom at Woodlake apartments on South Gessner Dr.



I've driven by this conglomeration of granite semi-cubes many times and wondered about it. The look like enormous slightly dissolved sugar-cubes, poured randomly from the sky. The occupy a space where one might normally expect to see a fountain or other landscaping. After years of being curious, I finally decided to ask.




So I stopped by SunBlossom at Woodlake and spoke to a woman working there. She told me that the property was owned by a Taiwanese woman, Leeshan Birney and her husband James. James apparently was the one who came up with the novel landscaping idea seven years ago. Prior to that, that space in front of the apartments had been occupied by a fountain.



When I was a kid growing up in West Houston, I was fascinated by rocks because there are no rocks here. They seemed unbelievably exotic! I loved seeing the rocks in the Natural History Museum, but just as much, I liked seeing the rip rap and shot rock used at construction sites and the granite seawall at Galveston. (Needless to say, as an undergrad at Rice in 1984, I was delighted when 45 degrees, 90 degrees, 180 degrees was installed on campus.) This pile of granite draws my attention in the same way as shot rock did when I was a kid.



And it definitely sets the SunBlossom at Woodlake apartments apart from the cookie-cutter crowd of apartments nearby. So Leeshan and James Birney, I declare that your granite cubes is one of the best examples of corporate plop in Houston. It looks great, it's fascinating, and it calls attention to the apartments in a good way.

Seth Alverson's Mistakes at Art Palace

Robert Boyd

It is a probably a mistake to compare Seth Alverson to Gerhardt Richter. Like Richter, most of his paintings are "realist" paintings. Like Richter, many of Alverson's paintings are based on photographs. Also like Richter, he is willing to paint an abstract painting occasionally. And both painters have strange, intriguing painting surfaces. So I guess there is a basis for comparison, after all.



Seth Alverson, Chair, oil on canvas, 2009

Alverson does really good fabric. You can almost feel the texture of this chair's upholstery.



Seth Alverson, Dress, oil on canvas, 2010

This weird clingy blue dress (on a body that should avoid clingy dresses) pops with hyperrealism from its faded, soft-focus background. But Alverson wants us to know that getting this effect isn't easy.



Seth Alverson, Mistake #1, oil on canvas, 2009

So what's the mistake? Was it that he was going to paint her face but messed up? Or was the mistake the decision to include her face? But what is truly bizarre here is that he displays the "mistake" canvas. Really, that makes you wonder if it was really a mistake in the first place. Is this what he intended?

The same can be said about this painting:



Seth Alverson, The Best of a Bad Painting, oil on canvas, 2009

Was there really anything else there? Or is this intentionally a picture of a hand emerging from the gloom. If this is the case, Alverson is playing a little conceptual joke on us. But if it's a painting where he really did paint out everything but the hand because it was "bad," well, displaying it is a really eccentric move.

That eccentricity is a real possibility.



Seth Alverson, Hole for Bad Ideas (ongoing), oil on canvas

This painting suggests that Alverson is filled with doubts about his own work. Starting over or blotting out most of a canvas would make sense for such a painter. If you look closely into the black area, you will see that it has been painted over and over. By describing it as ongoing, Alverson is implying that he continues to put bad ideas into the hole--literally painting them there. Maybe they will be exorcised from his life if someone buys the painting. (This painting made me think of Jackson Pollock's The Deep. A realistic version of The Deep maybe. But I don't think it was bad ideas that Pollock was putting into the hole.)



Seth Alverson, Self Portrait, oil on linen, 2010

If he isn't having us on, this painting suggests that Alverson's doubts about his art may be the least of his problems. The self-loathing here, the abjectness, is weirdly at odds with the bravura painting technique. Alverson is no clumsy paint-slinger.



Seth Alverson, Mop, oil on canvas, 2010

But he paints as if he were. The smeared substance here (paint? blood?) contrasts with the beautifully shaded walls. That white on white suggests a way out.



Seth Alverson, Grey, oil on canvas, 2009

Maybe this is another mistake, but maybe it's an approach that creates a peaceful image for the viewer (and painter), without highly contrasting values, without fabric, without bravura technique. Or maybe it's both. Maybe Alverson started painting something then decided--into the hole of bad ideas! And substituted this abstract cloudscape.

Of course, I am probably reading a bunch of things into the paintings that aren't there. They encourage that, though, so no apologies here. These paintings are on view at Art Palace until August 21.

The Other Big Show at the Houston Center for Photography

Robert Boyd

It seems like bad planning for a Houston art space to open their big juried show on the same weekend that Lawndale opens The Big Show (which I plan to review). But that's what the Houston Center for Photography did. The 28th Annual Juried Membership Exhibition opened July 9. (Another problem--give it a snappier name! Everyone remembers "The Big Show"; the "28th Annual Juried Membership Exhibition" does not fall trippingly from the tongue.) The show draws from photographers who are members of HCP. I don't know how big that pool is--it's pretty expensive to become a "photographer/member." Still, as this exhibit shows, people from all over the country join up.

The photos were selected by Hannah Frieser, director of Light Work, a photography institution in Syracuse, New York. Most artists had several images selected. Some were bravura examples of photography, really pushing what a camera can do to produce an image that makes a viewer stop. Some were more traditional photos--a place where the light and image were just right. Many were posed or had a scenario created for the camera. And quite a few depended heavily on post-photograph digital effects. Like this one:



Kurt Cobbley, Main and Texas, archival inkjet print, 2010

This photo is of the moment--for some reason, our culture is thinking a lot about post-apocalyptic scenarios. It is showing up in literature, pop fiction, comics, movies, etc. Sometimes the subject is thoughtful and meditative (The Road, Oryx and Crake), sometimes it is a thrill ride (various zombie movies). I think Katrina might be one reason why this theme has gotten so popular. We don't know what happened to downtown Houston in Cobbley's photo. Was this the result of some localized disaster--a Katrina-level event--or something that happened everywhere? Cobbley lives in Kingwood, a suburb far to the north of Houston, so maybe this photo represents a suburbanite's view of the city!



Danielle C. Head, Paisley, archival inkjet print, 2009



Danielle C. Head, Vegas, archivel inkjet print, 2009

Head is working in a way similar to Cindy Sherman. She dresses herself up, creates a different identity, and captures that alternate identity photographically. Her alternate identities in this series are men. Frieser writes that these are "sleazy men of dubious backgrounds." That's generally true, but not necessarily so with the man in Paisley. He seems like a meek little nobody from the 1930s. While Head obviously goes through a lot of trouble with the costumes, she doesn't go for total illusion. It still is pretty obviously someone dressed up. Little things, like unrealistic sideburns, jump out at you. She therefore brings a little theatrical alienation effect into the photos. That makes them ironic and amusing to see. The weird thing--and I hesitate to admit this--is that after seeing a bunch of personas and abstracting the "real" Head from them, I find her really attractive. (I won't attempt to psychoanalyze myself, but feel free to do so at home.)

A more traditional photograph is this one by Deborah Hunter.



Deborah Hunter, untitled #1 from the series Home Bound: Photographs from Taos, New Mexico, archival ink jet print, 2004

What I like about this photo is that there was a perfect moment and a perfect place to take it and make it beautiful. At any other time, if you were driving by, would you have given this construction site a second glance? It's inherently ugly, in fact. But Hunter makes it beautiful. In this way, Hunter is the opposite of Head, seeking epiphany instead of distancing.



Margaret Stratton, Li Long Street Night, Shanghai, China, archival inkjet print, 2009

This is one of two pictures taken with extremely distorting lenses that struck me. Stratton's picture is almost a stunt, showing perspectives of four alleyways at once. But what I liked about it is the detail. It shows a street that is not busy (who knows how late it is) but that is nonetheless alive. This one is really worth seeing in person (they all are, but this one in particular). Looking into each store, down each alley--there is a lot to see there.



Paul Greenberg, Jamak Daulat at Work, gelatic silver print, 2008

Greenberg seems to have used a similar technique as Stratton in this photo. It's part of a pair--the other shows Daulat with his wife and daughter at home. The contrast between the two is striking--the home, unlike the store, is spacious but spartan. It's as if Daulat decided, I work among visual clutter--at home I will rest my mind with modernist minimalism.



Irina Dakhnovskaia-Lawton, Stalin's Book, archival inkjet print, 2007

This photo doesn't quite work for me as a photo, but I am intrigued by the story implied. The ghostly Stalin, the red dripping background (blood?). What is going on here? Why is Stalin covering the woman's eyes? There is a powerful moment in Orlando Figes' book The Whisperers when a Antonina Golovina, the daughter of "kulaks," was visiting Shaltyr, the Siberian "special settlement" where she had lived with her family in internal exile in the early 30s. Another woman there mentions she had lived there and that she was a "Kulak daughter." Golovina, who had lived her whole life hiding her "kulak" origins, realized that she no longer needed to be ashamed and no longer needed to hide her status. For people like Golovina, this hiding away was one more toxic effect of Stalinism. For her children, it was as if the ghost of Stalin was covering their eyes about the lives of their parents and grandparents--victims of Stalin's purges.



Joseph O. Holmes, Hugo (Telephone), archival inkjet print, 2009

This photo is from a series called Custom Machinery, which consists of photos of machine shops in New York City. Frieser suggests these are dying business--no one gets machines repaired. They just toss them out and replace them. That is certainly true of cheap machines, like clocks. But not so much industrial machines. Machine shops of that sort exist in industrial neighborhoods in Houston and Lake Charles and any other city where the oil and gas business is big. But perhaps they are an anachronism in New York City. I like this photo because it seemed so perfectly composed while being completely realistic. The death of Harvey Pekar has made me think about depictions of work in art. The risk is a kind of sentimentality--pictures of exploited workers, noble miners, etc.--or a kind of advertising gloss--pictures of smiling people looking at documents, or high-tech looking assembly lines. This one avoids both those tiresome cliches. Even though I work in a well-lighted office very different from Hugo's cluttered machine shop, I felt a commonality with him.

This exhibit runs through August 22.

Kamps to Menil... What Now for CAMH?

In what passes for big news in the Houston art community, the Menil Museum, after an exhaustive international search, hired Toby Kamps to be its Modern and Contemporary Art Curator. Toby Kamps is currently the Senior Curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum here. Depending on where Kamps lives, he may find his commute either lengthened or shortened by a mile or so. You can read all about this move here, here and here. Here's a picture of Kamps by Bill Olive that I stole from the Chron:



So this is very exciting and all, but I have one question? What happens at CAMH? They are one curator short now. I suppose they will begin an exhaustive international search, working through whatever professional organization(s) curators have, as well as their own networks. I reckon they'll be looking for someone with an advanced degree (preferably a doctorate) and lots of practical curatorial experience.

I'm going to suggest to CAMH that they think outside the box. Sure, experience and education are good, but maybe what CAMH needs is someone with something else. Someone plugged into the now. An art expert who brings an expertise in modern electronic communication--a blogger, for example. But a blogger who knows a lot about art (yet has weirdly inexplicable and somewhat charming gaps in his art knowledge). Someone with whom, by hiring, they could save on relocation costs--important in these tight financial times! Someone unafraid to write about himself (or herself) in the third person. I think someone like that would be a brave, visionary choice for a new curator for CAMH.

Just my two cents.

Odds and Ends from the Art Houston Weekend

Robert Boyd

I have a lot to write about from last weekend--The Big Show at Lawndale, the 28th Annual Juried membership Exhibition at HCP, and several good gallery shows. But for now, here are some odds and ends from other shows.

I'm going to assume everyone reading this (in Houston) has been to Goldesberry Gallery. I haven't written much about them, despite the fact they regularly display art that I like--art that is playful, art that is beautiful, art that has unexpected and appealing textures and volume. It's a "craft" gallery. So lots of handmade things--lots of ceramics. But they have a very modern conception of craft. You can see this by noting how many Goldesberry artists were in the avant-craft show Not the Family Jewels. One of those artists is San Antonio artist Gary Schott. His work--completely handcrafted (he even made the wooden handles on a lathe)--requires viewer interaction, so I made this little video:

 

Over at Barbara Davis Gallery, I saw a bunch of pieces that looked a little like this when I walked in.




These are by Jay Shinn, and they initially made me think of Larry Bell's minimalist pieces with their tinted glass planes. But as I looked closer, I realized there was no glass in them.




The "shadows" were actually shapes painted right on the walls.



(Sorry I don't have the titles for the individual pieces.) So in reality, the piece consisted of the lightsource, the metal framework, and the painted "shadow" on the wall (which worked in conjunction with the actual case shadow of the metal framework). I don't think there is much behind these pieces, but they sure are clever!

Inman Gallery had a huge show spread over two galleries that consisted of portraits and portrait-like things. It didn't really cohere as a show, but neither did The Big Show. It's hard to do when you have a lot of different artists, and Inman had 35.

Still, a lot of the individual pieces were good. I always like Beth Secor's embroidery.



Beth Secor, Irish American Woman as Depicted by Alfred Hitchcock Presents, silk and cotton embroidery on cotton sheet, 2010

The thing that makes these look so cool (much much better in person) is that her stitches go in all directions--they feel almost random--and when you look up close, you see that the colors of the threads are often weirdly contrasting with the overall color of the area. These are pieces that are fun to look at up close--as well as from across the gallery.

"Fun" is not a word I'd use for Dario Robleto. Morbid, haunted, gothic--these words come to mind. Maybe just a hint of arid wryness leaks into the work. He had a small piece in the show.



Dario Robleto, Who Will Mend Your Phantom Limbs?, Excavated bullets from various wars carved into spools, hair salvaged from excavated lockets, homemade paper (cotton, passion flower), stretched audiotapes of the earliest recording of time (experimental clock, 1878), 10,000 year old flower caught in amber, carved bone and ivory, braided hair, lead coated rose stem, ribbon, mourning handkerchief, locket photograph, cast lamp black, resin, typeset, paint, 2007

You know, when Gallery 1724 announced they were going to host a Salon des Refusés, I was amused but fully expected it to be mostly bad art. The original Salon des Refusés (which was sponsored by the French Government!) famously included work by Monet, Manet, Pissarro and Cezanne, but also a bunch of second rate artists who couldn't make it in the regular Beaux Arts competition.

But in the end there were pieces in our own Salon that I liked. When you walked into the gallery, you saw this:




I don't know who did it, but right on!

Here's another one I liked.



Deborah Bright, Alice's Cat, acrylic, 2010

This wacky psychedelic imagery and maori-ish facial tattoos seem so at odds with the cool demeanor and realism of the cat.




I went by Rudolph-Blume where I saw Lane Hagood (depicted above in a really unflattering photo...). He told me that after he won the Hunting Prize, he thought he'd quit his gallery job. But a conservative financial instinct won out in the end.

OK one final photo. Laura Rathe Fine Art has the most over-designed interior I have ever seen. Here's the bathroom.




Square toilet!