Art

Thrive at Diverse Works Friday the 14th

2008-11-11T14:54:00.000-08:00

Curated by Mary Ross Taylor, Thrive includes work by 16 notable artists from Houston, including Lauren Kelly (who is featured in a ton of shows throught Texas this month), Ellen Berman, Suzanne Bloom, and Charles Mary Kubricht, to name a few. Organized in conjunction with the conference "Gender, Creativity and the New Longevity" at University of Houston, this exhibit and accomanying programs are a co-presentation of DiverseWorks and the Women's Studies program at University of Houston.

DiverseWorks
1117 East Freeway
Houston, TX 77002
Phone: 713-223-8346

DEBRIS: You and I should meet.

2008-11-06T12:06:00.000-08:00

by Buffalo Sean
You and I should meet. I’m writing this on October 20th. You are reading this on or around November 4th. If every anxiety that is tearing me up today continues unabated, please come find me at Ben Taub. I’m addicted to the news. I can’t sleep and I drink a lot of coffee. I feel like Tweak from South Park, really. No amount of calm and soothing tea and progress is able to squash the horrible aches and pains of my hysteria. Tell me what happens. No, no, don’t, I’ll find out myself. This is horrible. It’s exciting.

Politics, culture, time, space and entertainment aside, there are a good art shows that should be fun this November. Rice Gallery is letting Michael Salter create a giant styrofoam robot; the Museum of Printing History an exhibition by aboriginal Australian artists from Mua Island in the Torres Strait and The Station Museum has contemporary work by Iraqi artists in exile. As Houston grows by leaps and bounds there are art spaces opening everywhere. The two newest opened in October, Optical Project at 11th and Studewood in the Heights and =SKYDIVE= (the name comes with wings), just stop on the ninth floor and knock on 907 before you head up to Skybar (3400 Montrose Boulevard). Optical is showing Brit painter Maggie Hills through November, while the Dive= has an LA exhibit about sprawl through two weeks after the votes are counted (I’m freaked out about the context you reading this in right now) and the day before Thanksgiving A.J. Liberto of Supreme Court death metal band “Penultimate Justice” will curate the next show. But what about old things, you say? Well, The Museum of Fine Arts has a new Rembrandt. The Menil has 75 Max Ernsts for a festival of mid-afternoon acid tripping on the distorted memories and mesmerizing hallucinations of a mind going though international and personal trauma. You can always drive out to Katy and see all those terra-cotta guys if you need something older and crazier.

Well, it will be nice and cool in the afternoons in November, and it may be very lovely where you’re at, I just don’t know yet. I know I’ll be out on November 22nd for the Artcrawl on the eastside of Downtown (artcrawlhouston.com). It’ll be a nice, cold day and I can walk in and out of buildings, take a bike ride, sit on street corners and take pictures. Until then I’m not sure if I may melt my insides with bile or suffer a massive aneurysm. Well I hope the Phillies win. And a couple more good people too.

DEBRIS: Black Eye

2008-10-06T12:30:00.001-07:00

by Buffalo Sean

Burning through a twelve pack of beer by candlelight or a bottle of vodka in the dark was par for the course on September 12th, 2008. Waking up the next day would be hard no matter what you had done the night before. A storm the size of Texas, literally, passed over Houston and took Galveston’s Bali Room along for the ride. A cargo ship’s engines broke down off the coast, and the MV Antalina floated adrift in the Gulf battered by hundred mile-an-hour winds. Gasoline shortages began to spread through the South, reaching North Carolina and Virginia. By the next week 30,000 people far away in Quebec lost power due to the storm. If you’re reading this I hope that your power has turned back on. If not then go call Centerpoint Energy again. You just need to be a little *forceful*… Defy Bill White. Return to the streets (whether they’re lit or not) and get back into a groove. If you don’t know where to go let me drop a few hints for ya.

Friday, October 3rd at 2337 Bissonnet put your vodka drinking skills to the test with some artists from Saint Petersburg at Caviart Gallery. 8 o’clock throwdown! Same night, same time, Bohemeo’s at 708 Telephone Road in the East End will present 1930s short films by Len Lye and an early 60s work by Jim Henson- Time Piece. Saturday and Sunday at 7 pm Charlie Chaplin kills his rich wives over and over at the Museum of Fine Arts, spilling blood in Monsieur Verdoux so that his poor family can eat. Sunday is free day at the museum too! The MFAH has provided public urinals with bright red targets on them.

October 11th, the Farmer’s Market at La Strada kicks things off at 9 am; the Westheimer Block Party will rock out with cocks out from noon until late at night. Look for performance and installation art spreading throughout the Montrose neighborhood around the intersection of Westheimer and Taft. Satin Hooks will be all up in Numbers- I’ll sure as hell be there! The Menil Collection will have New Mexican Pueblo Indian dancers performing by The Rothko Chapel reflecting pool at 1 pm; Da Camera offers performances at the Byzantine Fresco Chapel Museum, Cy Twombly Gallery, and The Menil Collection from 2:30 to 4:00 pm and a jazz performance on the deck of The Menil Collection Bookstore. On the same day Gallery Row, at Richmond and Kirby, will have their latest round of exhibits of view for closing (instead of opening) parties from 6 until 8 pm.
Drag your ass out of bed on Sunday the 12th for D.R.U.M. at Discovery Green, perfect for daytime drinking and riding bicycles through downtown. Looks like the Texans will be trying to field dress the Dolphins that day, so make sure to get out before the show starts at 3 pm to avoid drunken football fans. If Houston potentially losing to the worst team in the NFL last year isn’t depressing enough for you, just wait for Thursday, October 16th, when the Holocaust Museum will screen Shmal'tsovniki: Bounty Hunters in German-Occupied Ukraine at 7 pm. Like most typical Holocaust Museum fare, this one will make you hope that the human race was wiped off the face of the earth. Bring popcorn!
Ready to die yet? No? Well then The Rothko Chapel has the cure for what ails you, as the suicidal minimalist expressionist gets the star treatment from his own son, Christopher Rothko. Think he might swing the pendulum the other way? Be a little joyful and carefree? Sorry, but this guy has been editing his father’s morbid philosophy for the last decade- check it out in print form in The Artist’s Reality. Chilling. Lecture begins at 7 pm, a half-hour before Über-serious U Theater of Taiwan will be at the Miller Outdoor Theater in Hermann Park banging drums and acting all dramatic and shit. There’s a lot of good stuff going on, and I hope to see you out at the Block Party. As long as the power comes back on I’m happy.

DEBRIS: Honey Pot

2008-09-08T16:37:00.001-07:00

by Buffalo Sean

Seeing a lot of attempts to eviscerate the Lawndale Art Center for this summer’s Big Show makes me happy. Go ahead, talk about it! Complain that worthy artist were left out, and how below-grade artwork made it in. Scrutinize, criticize, ridicule and spit on others. Anyone whose work was in the show will call you out on your territorial pissing. They may even cite a few inaccuracies in your story, note contradictory statements out of context or stake their own claim to relevance. Maybe you guys should just blog about it you know. If everyone forgets your little drunken rant at Boondocks then where do you go? The dude who wrote “quite possibly one of the most horrific group shows I have ever seen” squandered his chance to elaborate, why should you? Positive and negative it all goes into Google, the modern melting pot- since this century isn’t any closer to national reconciliation. Sharpen your boots and bludgeon your eyes, y’all. Start something and unless you’re in the street slingin’ wheatpaste you’re not doing enough. We can’t hear you.

Why don’t you take a shot at taking down the Psychedelic Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich store front facades at Lawndale this month? Mary Magsamen and Stephan Hillerbrand would appreciate it. These two have been pumping out video and experimental work for the last decade, a husband and wife duo with a penchant for transcendental smoothies. If you’re actually into that kind of stuff, take a whack at Judith Cottrell and Alex Lopez’s minimal sculpture and shaped canvasses. How the hell can minimalism survive in the 21st century? could be your title. Come on, take it. It’s free.

Whatever you do don’t even think of criticizing (Re)vision by Shannon Duncan. What could you have to say about documenting the destruction of history in Houston’s inner loop? Are the mementos of crushed livelihoods not heart wrenching enough for you, you heartless bastard? Anyway, she’s already got you beat to the interwebs, having documented twenty-two zip codes worth of territory already at communitywalk.com/revisionhouston. Besides, she has tons of Polaroids, and that’s cooler than school. All exhibits on view through September 27th at 4912 Main Street. Lawndale is open Monday through Saturday during the day until 5 pm.

The school of thought that keeps capitalism percolation is democracy. We can always pull on them bootstraps to even out the playing field right? Well the same thing goes for elections and electives y’all, and art is a smoky back room game if there ever was one. Want to learn, grow and evolve? Get writing. Take pictures. Learn a little HTML. It’s not so hard and it’ll always be there for ya. In fact I am hooked up intravenously to electrical currents 24-7 that give me painful shocks if I forget to post something on the internet every three minutes. It really hurts and I want to kill myself, but at least I’m ahead of the curve, right?

Understanding Poverty | Opens September 12th at Diverse Works

2008-09-04T15:00:00.000-07:00

by Omar Afra
Ben Tecumseh DeSoto says he likes to bring to light the “broke and the broken.” Well, the number of those that fit this category has grown disproportionately in recent years in Houston and the rest of the country. Gifted photojournalist DeSoto revisits this exhibit that he initially did in 1992 at Diverse Works. He has been studying the phenomenon of homelessness in Houston for some 20 years and his photography shows a marked insight. He began in 1988 by building a relationship with two homeless Houstonians, Ben White and Judy Pruitt. DeSoto’s experiences with the two allowed him to document their incredible stories of hope and sorrow while “exposing the self-perpetuating cycle of poverty, trauma and hopelessness that afflicts thousands of citizens living in the shadows in America’s cities.” This dynamic has no doubt changed here in Houston with the continued lack of attention to homelessness here, the sudden influx of thousands of Katrina refugees, and municipal policy of criminalizing the homeless.
“The streets of Houston have been a regular “beat” I worked with my camera,” says DeSoto, “and I want others to see what I’ve seen, and understand what I’ve come to understand, the role of the trauma in magnifying the drama of poverty.” DeSoto’s populist “punk” aesthetic comes through in his work to exemplify such drama. With his work will be hand written interviews with Ben and Judy, ‘work-in-progress’ film shorts, and a light installation made from negatives with artist Sarah Watley Ayers. The Project has become a joint effort and collaborators include DiverseWorks, the Houston Endowment, Que Imaging, and others including the photography subjects.
This will the first show in the new season for Diverse Works and precedes by just a week a night of musical performances by Jana Hunter, Lesser Gonzalez Alvarez, and Wicked Poseur on September 17th.

September 12 - November 1, 2008
Opening Reception: Friday, September 12, 2008
6-8pm
Curated by Clint Willour
www.diverseworks.org
1117 East Freeway

DUAL Opening 8.29.08

2008-08-14T12:26:00.000-07:00

Opening August 29th at Aerosol Warfare
Friday, 7 to 11pm

New DUAL!

Red Bull: Can of Bullshit

2008-08-04T09:49:00.000-07:00

by Buffalo Sean

Now it doesn’t bother me that they cost twice as much per ounce as any other energy drink. Or that they have introduced a new and legal high to America. No, it bothers me that Red Bull decided to throw their bullshit Art of the Can in Houston.

Haven’t heard of it? Seen the billboards of bauxite pterodactyls? Or their web ads with a shiny tin cowboy boot? Hmm… then you must not be one of the five hundred artists who submitted to the exhibit. Pardon me while I tell those artists FUCK YOU YOU GOT HOSED. Excuse me, but I had a feeling one of them might read this and I couldn’t resist the urge to publicly insult someone. If you are sitting next to someone who entered the show tell ‘em for me. Their ridiculousness is only eclipsed by the willingness of advertisers to use, exploit and degrade you. Three things strike me as particularly stupid in this endeavor, an artist’s willingness to forgo one’s judgment of materials, the inestimable monetary cost of the project and the complacency and triviality of the artworld.

Materials, malleable objects and ideas, are explored through trial and error and practice. Conceptual artists screaming in a dark room go through the same shtick as a watercolor artist painting on a Sunday afternoon. Exploring materials, finding what you like to work with is a big part of artistic identity. Warhol had silkscreens, Rauschenberg had ink transfers and Oldenburg had cloth. Robyn O’Neil has pencils, Bert Long has ice and the Art Guys have their bodies. Why would you limit yourself to a prescribed, corporate material? Barring an intensely enlightened group working together for a very long time I would not believe an exhibit of one material could ever be justifiable. The fact that the show looked like a high school hallway on parent’s night was unavoidable, but shame on you guys for getting duped into thinking this could ever be worth it beyond that navel-gazing moment of delight that comes with being included. On the team.

By the way, in getting on this team, how much did you guys spend on those cans you’ve woven into dragons, moustaches and the Statue of Liberty? Didn’t think about it did ya. Or maybe it just blew by; you were so high on fructose syrup and guarana. No entry fee for the exhibit? What a crock of bullshit. It’d cost you $200 to construct a spaceman out of your product’s encasement. Maybe it only cost a hundred bucks to cover that guitar in $4 eight-ounce cans. It’s kind of like usury. Does it seem stupid to enter yet? Or would you like to hear about Arthur Vaisvilas’ piece? The hapless son-of-a-bitch drew The Ramones wearing Red Bull t-shirts as they rock out in a stilted colored pencil attempt at thankfulness. Unless you’re in high school Arthur, you should be punched in the face. You might be big so I’m not gonna do it- but The Ramones deserve better. The oodles of cash Red Bull throws around all over the country on fun, stupid shit is reprehensible if you’re not having fun, but if you’re part of the crowd you may feel some sense of elation, like there’s something new happening and you’re in the thick of it. Shut the fuck up. It’s all the caffeine.

The jittery feeling you get sometimes, when it seems like there is a comprehensive, wide-ranging spectrum of artists out there and possibilities for advancement; that means that someone should back over you with a truck. Don’t assume that those collectors and critics at the opening spell validation. I am terribly surprised at the ability to bend over backwards and lower their standards that many jurors demonstrated, as well as the media outlets and even well meaning artists. Oh, I mean that I’m so surprised that they can do that when there is money involved. Did that slip my mind? Woops. As one juror stiffly said; “don’t take it so seriously, they’re not artists.” I was staggered. I kind of hoped that they were artists. I kind of believe that they are, even Arthur, and they shouldn’t have to go away when the money leaves. The kvetching that went on when the Hunting Prize patronized to artists sent the community into an uproar, but no one takes this seriously? Damned bull, I would have preferred a pinewood derby or an air show, and this will not do. At least it has proven that corporations have an extensive reach in the artworld, and to resist it is futile. I’m not drinking a can of that shit. I’ll drink the Kool-Aid.

Last chance for Red Bull Art of Can

2008-07-23T10:28:00.000-07:00

Well, we all know you can't step over a pile of shit lately without hearing about Red Bull Art of can or a related event. Our own site here is splattered with their links and the city is abuzz with the hype. The exhibit ends this Friday and it it your last shot to see all the creations. Nonetheless, let us know what you liked, how you feel about whether this uber-corporate event has been overdid, or whatever.

ArtStorm to Host Green Drinks at Beaver's on July 30

2008-07-23T10:22:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, July 30th, ArtStorm will host a Green Drinks Night at Beaver's. Every Wednesday throughout the summer, Beaver's features a happy hour featuring drink and appetizer specials from 5-10pm, $4 appetizers, $3.50 beer and $5 cocktails.

25% of all proceeds from the special green drinks and appetizer menu will go to ArtStorm. Support visual art in Houston! Come and meet the friendly ArtStorm crew that keeps enthusiastically bringing you the work of innovative artists, live music, and fun, art-inspired events!

Beaver's Icehouse
2310 Decatur Street
Houston, TX, 77007
713.864. BEAV (2328)
www.beavershouston.com

Estadounidense

2008-07-02T14:16:00.000-07:00

To the rest of the world the word American must sound a bit disingenuous. The application of a blanket term to what we regard as a country and many regard as a mindset takes us further from equality- both within our own culture and to the rest of the world. Identity politics are a big distraction, and for now right-wing politics use the word American as their own personal bludgeon. I may not want their America, but I do want the word back.

Montrose wants it back for their Pride Parade, as if the Stonewall riots weren’t American. The black cowboys who marched through downtown on Juneteenth want the word American back, as if the Buffalo Soldiers weren’t American. First generation immigrants who rallied at Guadalupe Park on May 5th want la palabra too. As if their sons and daughters in the military aren’t American.

In a year ripe for change, in the middle of a hot summer, in a city in transition, in the depths of the reddest red state, we look for ways to call ourselves American. Barreling through a recession without a dip in housing prices or a drop in average speed on the freeways it is still impossible to ignore the ugliness on the horizon. America doesn’t mean relentless consumption and callous wastefulness; it only meant that to the 20th century. Energy is our business here in Houston, and without an evolution we may be looking to Copenhagen or London for our center of power, in more ways than one.

Two Houston curators are now stepping into the fray with timely shows that reexamine Americana without Modernism. It’s a curate-off! The Old, Weird America and Neo-Hoodoo delve into the collective past that we learn as children and recycle as adults. Today, for the first time in my life, an America without a political party may emerge- and these exhibits play on our collective education and culture with a knowing hand. Whether your last name is Cruz, Uzokwe, Naseer, Fitzgerald or Butler digging up the messy innards of American life is not as easy as describing our differences or how we have been horrible towards each other.

The integrated, interwoven fabric of American society has at its core a sense of entitlement straight from English law, but the roots of American society are West African and Scotch-Irish. Two peoples oppressed by the iron grip of the British Empire defined the temperament, cuisine and folklore of an emergent American culture, coming together three centuries later as rock and roll. As peoples from across the globe have emigrated from their homes to America they adopted the ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ mentality so thoroughly, it was thought that the great melting pot knew no bounds.

Our past century of hate and destruction that began and ended with Modernism may now relent; we may be free from cruel logic. We have no illusions of parity and no rules to rail against. At the Contemporary Arts Museum (1000 Montrose Blvd), The Old, Weird America teases folkloric implications out of contemporary, market-driven artwork. The results are supremely nostalgic, and even if their presence here validates the backroom manipulation that oppresses the American people their touching inclusion in an art museum reminds us all of how we do contribute to the moneyed class’ playthings. The ironies of post-modern artwork allow for the realities of America’s dirty past bleeding through even if they are contained in sanctified sarcophagi. Curator Toby Kamps has truly tried to create something worthwhile out of the glad-handing art industry.

At the Menil Collection (1000 Alabama) another curator new to town, Franklin Sirmins, tries his hand at divinizing American history with Neo-Hoodoo. Tailored more toward African religious themes, the artists included in HooDoo are hopelessly entwined with other cultures and a sense of abandonment in the same way that all Americans struggle. Even if hackneyed trite like Jean-Michel Basquiat makes it into the mix, there is more than enough careerists like William Cordova to provide the show with a revenue stream and critical acclaim. Reaching out to Latin American artists may give the curator reason to believe he is thinking differently than The Old, Weird America, but it simply points of Kamps deficiencies in including Hispanics in America’s “old, weird” period. The adaptations of Central American and Caribbean cultures to scarce materials may be attributable to their country of origin without a historical compass, but their struggles mirror those of poor Americans as well as new immigrants across the globe. Treating an ethnicity as particular and unique is a typical folly in our divisive times, as well is the commoditization of folk rituals and themes once they are mimicked by an artist with a higher education.

Both shows rely on illustrative work that narrates rather than demonstrates, but in all they are a good reflection of why it may be our heritage on the Left to be American too. As the artworld spirals into obsolescence it is first-rate to see the institutions of the 20th century point our way out of the degrading elitism of art and toward our own forgotten past.

-Buffalo Sean

Creature Comforts

2008-06-21T11:14:00.000-07:00

ArtStorm’s newest board member Eli Sebastian Brumbaugh presents the Houston premiere of Toronto-based artist Deforgeo and fresh and imaginative work by a new generation of Houston artists in this summer’s Creature Comforts. The exhibition features the contemporary stylings of Deforgeo, Lisa Marie Godfrey, Rene Cruz, Shane Hillman, Jacob Calle and Brumbaugh himself in ArtStorm’s second show in its new location. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, July 12, 2008 from 7 - 10 PM, and the work will be on view through August 9, 2008. The reception will feature live music from Los Angeles’s art rockers Hard Place, and the local sounds of The Young Mammals, Wicked Poseur and News on the March.

July 12th to August 9th 2008

ArtStorm
4828 Caroline St.
Houston, TX 77004

A walk with death

2008-06-13T15:35:00.001-07:00

End Game - British Contemporary Art from the Chaney Family Collection was the perfect Friday the 13th walk through. Curator Alison de Lima Greene called it the "iconography of demise." Walking past an item that looks like a kitchen implement, only much larger and called Marble Slicer, Greene mentions that a small version would be used to slice, say, tomatoes or a hard boiled egg, but that this device's cradle looks like the size of a child. A print journalist in the crowd, an older women, shudders.
The various pieces on display on the main floor of the MFA Houston's Law Building fall into the category of the Young British Artist movement and feature works from the last decade. Of particular stunning interest is the macabre tone of many of the items.
Nothing would better illustrate the grotesque nature of art than The Model Village of the Damned by Jake and Dinos Chapman. Mixed Media may be its genre but deliriously twisted is its calling. The scene consists of plastic toy figures in various scenes of brutal violence surrounded by shrubs with vultures on telephone poles. There are massive amounts of severed heads and even a few humanoids with multiple heads taking part in the carnage. All of this is sealed in a glass case and you have to walk around each side to fully take in its regal sense of slaughter.
Speaking of carnage, that term is the title of another striking series from the artist Damien Hirst. Walking across the expansive floor on the raised first level at the MFA one is able to slowly adjust their gaze and focus on large works. From ten yards the Hirst piece, The Card Players - The City looks like a beautiful large stained glass window. When I got close the panes of glass were actually butterfly and moth wings. Next to that is Carnage, an assemblage of flies and resin on canvas. Carnage, from across the room, looks like a huge chunk of asphalt. There are 22 works of art on display in this exhibition and all of them will leave their mark on your psyche. But in a grinning skeleton kind of way; a wry smile on your way to transcendence.
Another Hirst piece catches my eye. It's a bull heart with a dagger though it, held in a Perspex box with a five percent solution of formaldehyde, and titled Sacred IX. Start the tongue (in cheek) wagging now.
- Michael Bergeron

Lisez moins, vivez plus.

2008-05-19T14:17:00.000-07:00

Read less, live more.

I visited the Art Car Museum on the day that Robert Rauschenberg died. The whole world had seemed grey for weeks. Time was getting me down. May 1968 was forty years distant and the revolution that swept youth culture for the boomer generation seemed hollower than ever. The moment that was stolen from them, when McGovern lost to Humphrey and he handed the country to Nixon will never come back. Students around the world could not stop the war in Vietnam despite taking over universities in Paris, New York, Mexico City and Tokyo. Nevertheless, this historical moment became the “end of history” as humanity plunged into desensitizing technologies. Today Postmodernism, for any philosopher with a beating heart, has become a pandering sophism in its middle age. It isn’t about any sort of logic for me as I write this, just about who I know and why, and I am beginning to believe it has always been that way.

Coasting down the rail road crossing I passed the red gas station and the silver building, parked on some broken concrete and turned off the engine. The rain fell in light waves, the truck felt like a tin drum. I reached in my pocket for a pen, searched the seats for one, and checked the glove compartment to no avail. The only implement I found was a blue inkpad and a rubber stamp with two cartoons that said “Merci”. I was there to leave something for Tom Jones, tragically cut down by a drunk driver after the art car parade.

I brought eleven yellow daisies and one that had been dyed blue and glued with sparkles. The guy at the shop wrapped them in green and orange, which seemed weird. When I arrived there were a few people on the side of the road standing around a collection of flowers and fruit. Photographs, letters and ribbons covered the chain link fence on Heights Boulevard. Before I left the cab I held the waxy orange paper and stamped it “Merci” several times.

The loss of Tom Jones, a curator at the Art Car Museum, is a heavy burden for Houston. He sure knew a lot of people, but the news of his unfortunate fate reached far beyond his personality. Many who did not know the man should be sad to be deprived of the opportunity. I cannot say I had known him well, but he was a pleasure every time. With the temperament of The Big Lebowski and a slew of projects under his belt Jones knew where he stood and made no excuses. Art, cars and art cars had been in his life since the founding of the museum in 1988, and earlier in the decade he was a part of the Urban Animals, working with the Lawndale Art Center and others to create the city’s underground art scene that thrives today in a myriad of storefronts, galleries, warehouses and street artists. Irreplaceable, Jones is remembered by many and is an inspiration to anyone out there with a sense of worth beyond monetary ambitions.

The loss of Robert Rauschenberg, two days after Jones’ terrible accident, is a turning point in interpretation of the second half of the 20th century. In a long and storied career the Port Arthur, Texas native who survived Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Conceptual Art, Neo-Expressionism and the 21st century never could be pigeonholed and thus never passed over. His continual artistic evolution reacted to his personal life. He collaborated in dance, performance, print, design and public sculpture with many big names in other fields. His continual successes made him an influential figure to generations of East Texan artists who identified with his expressionist style and eccentricity, as well as his conflicted reactions to his Christian roots.

I stood on the side of the road in the rain. I thought about two people I never knew so much who meant a lot to me as I felt ever more hopeless about politics and reason. My blue ink “Merci” stamps were already beginning to run. I borrowed a red lighter from a Star Pizza waitress and lit two sticks of incense in the pile left in memoriam. Photographs, toys, oranges, cards and letters, biker memorabilia, beads, candles and flowers lined the sidewalk.

Art Car Parade Photos...

2008-05-19T14:13:00.001-07:00

For those of you who missed the Orange Show's Art Car Parade last weekend, our buddy David Collins sent some great photos our way. Check em' out!

Ghost of a Facade

2008-03-24T16:34:00.001-07:00

It's that time again for another show at the old Jefferson Davis Hospital (Elder St. Artist Lofts). This time it will feature new works I've been sitting on for the past couple months and others that are still in the process of being completed. I'm hosting this event as part of the 3rd Annual Inner Art Corridor Open Studio Tour and hope to see you there!

Please visit InnerArtCorridor.com for more information.

Grandma take me home

2008-02-16T21:12:00.000-08:00

A photo exhibit consisting of fairy tales, grandmothers and elevator girls holds more than your interest. This exhibition practically grabs you by the collar and demands reciprocal appreciation. That would be due to the extreme beauty and visionary insight afforded by the images on display.
Miwa Yanagi: Deutsche Bank Collection contains major pieces from this Japanese photographer who can easily be divided into the distinct Fairy Tale, Grandmother and Elevator Girl series. This collection is currently on display at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston until May 4. Most of the photos are wall sized. In other words you could drive a Datsun into one.
Of the three arrays of Yanagi’s photos the elevator girls perhaps don’t exist in out culture. Maybe they do if you replaced elevator girl with cheerleader or Hooter’s server. In Japan elevator girls wear white gloves and dresses color coordinated with their respective corporate parent. A companion video Kagome Kagome utilizes the narrow spaces of corridors of commerce to comment on these well-groomed lasses. Yanagi has frozen images of these young ladies in a fetishistic blur of blues and reds. By contrast the grandmother series uses young models that were told to write what they would be in 50 years. Taking their responses Yanagi then staged tableaux and digitally altered the faces to reflect the wages of age. One of the centerpieces of the show depicts one grandmother in the sidecar of a motorcycle traveling along the Golden Gate Bridge highway, her dyed red hair waving in the wind and her diamond tooth catching a ray of the sun.
In sharp contrast to the blazing color and life affirming nature of the other two chapters of Yanagi’s photos, the fairy tale series presents carefully staged poses in rich black and white that practically beg the viewer to conjure unpleasant images. All of the stories resonate familiarity with their titles – Rapunzel, Snow White, The Little Match Girl – yet their staging, involving mostly young girls and masks, makes you shudder to consider the consequences. The gallery is dark and in the middle stands a tent suspended from the air so that if you stand in it people outside can see your feet. About six or seven people can fit inside, and when you breech the flaps of canvas you realize you are watching a video. The video shows the point-of-view looking outside from inside a tent and onto a horizon of sand dunes.
Welcome to the world of Miwa Yanagi, a place where fantastical landscapes merge with subconscious desire.
-- Michael Bergeron

Where Clouds Disperse

2008-02-10T22:38:00.000-08:00

When artist Suh Se-ok, in his 70s, introduced his exhibit to a group assembled at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston he spoke softly. Suh Se-ok also paints with a large brush. In fact the bamboo brush he wields in a video seen as part of the Where Clouds Disperse exhibit is nearly four feet long, and the bristles laced at the top are bound lamb hair.
Large mulberry or rice paper panels painted by Suh Se-ok in a calligraphy style surround the viewer both as serious art and as a kind of representation of abstract figures. The video shows him in his studio itself a work of art, a country house with many windows for sun and surrounded by trees and brush for solace of the soul.
The exhibit “continues the museum’s initiative to bring emphasis to Asian art,” remarks MFAH director Peter Marzio. In fact last December the MFAH opened a Korean gallery in the museum’s Law Building that houses artifacts from Neolithic ceramics to Buddhist art from the Three Kingdoms period. Marzio points out that Korean art is more expensive than comparable Asian pieces from the same era in Japan or China because there is less of it. Whenever Korea was invaded throughout history the conquerors would sublimate the Korean culture.
There is a “thunder when the artist puts his brush to the canvas” concurs museum curator of prints and drawings Barry Walker about the various images of Suh Se-ok. Many of the works bear the same name; no less than 23 are titled People. Then there’s Two People and the signature piece Where Clouds Disperse where the brush strokes seem to move in from the edges to the clear void of the middle. An X may be a stroke of ink but more likely it is a person as indicated by hints of irregularity in the form of the crossed stroked. Maybe it is even us looking back at our own image.

Houston Street Art

2008-02-07T08:26:00.000-08:00

Flickr - Houston Street Art Collection

For the past couple of years I've been documenting the Graffiti and Street art around me here in Houston, TX. I originally started this because everything seemed to disappear or get buffed so fast. I'm not sure why the City of Houston is so adamant about fighting such a petty crime. Especially when I can personally point out dozens of more severe infractions occurring in this city.

Anyway, before I get into a rant I should just stop now and get back to the point. These have been a private collection of sorts but I'm finally getting back around to editing them all and sharing them with the world. I hope you enjoy what you see and that it inspires you to create!
I'll do my best to keep up with the pace of these dogs.

Be sure and check out these gems and also be on the lookout for my collections of street art in other cities which I'll be uploading in the near future.

Or Just Click Here

2008-01-28T16:20:00.000-08:00

Art Storm looks through owl eyes

2008-01-16T22:57:00.000-08:00

This Saturday, January 19, 2008 a reception for Dig Me Up From My Grave…Friends by the artist owleyes, will be held from 7- 10 PM at Art Storm in the Heights.
A collective operating out of the Heights at 807 Mathis. a quiet and narrow street a few blocks from the Calvacade exit off I-45, Art Storm started out late last year as an art space for local artists, established and emerging and unrepresented. Currently based out of Chicago, owleyes grew up in Houston and graduated from HSPVA in 1995.
From the Art Storm press release comes the evolution of this exhibit: “As the first stage of the Dig Me Up From My Grave…Friends, the artist re-visited the massive collection of printed materials that he had amassed during the past twelve years. owleyes started to process the nostalgia of these materials and alter the images. The next stage of the project was actualized in October of 2007 at Show Cave Gallery in Los Angeles when owleyes was invited to have a show by a virtual friend. He finally met many virtual friends in person and discovered that they had created a sort of family. Continuing the project at ArtStorm in Houston is another step toward making the artist’s virtual realty his true reality.”
ArtStorm has a website (www.artstormhouston.com) and a phone 713-802-0472. Regular hours are Thursday through Saturday, 12 to 5.

Debris December

2007-12-07T09:09:00.000-08:00

DEBRIS: Kill All Elves
Buffalo Sean

December, like all great disasters, comes with a promise of new beginnings, hope and goodwill. When that promise starts in October through asinine Best Buy commercials and glitter and glam displays at Walgreens, all I want to do is hang myself by the fireside before Thanksgiving is even here. For all those who feel like the holiday season should be drowned along with that new Disney movie and Rudy Giuliani; cheer up! The Ballad of Sexual Dependency photography exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (running through February 12) is a haunting document of addiction and depression, squalor and sadness set in New York City before the Republicans had a chance to scrub it clean that will bring your holiday cheer back down to earth. Nan Goldin ran away from her home at a young age and grew up in foster care all over the east coast. At 20 she had her first exhibit examining the gay and transvestite communities in Boston. In the punk and new-wave vibe of New York she found the vibrant but disturbed hard drug culture of the Bowery, where she focused her attention on relationships in snapshots of bedrooms and hotel rooms. Most of her subjects in The Ballad of Sexual Dependency were dead by the 90s, victims of violence, AIDS or drug overdoses. Her work was recently seized by the British authorities when it was exhibited as part of the collection of Elton John in London. Critics have lambasted Goldin for making heroin use glamorous, and she has credited her photography with saving her life and helping her through the traumatic life she has endured. Happy Holidays! I hope you drown in the punch.

The brooding paintings of Angela Fraleigh and the enigmatic, silly-ass sculptures of Michael Jones McKean will be on display though the month at Inman Gallery (3901 Main). These two former CORE Fellows at the Glassell School came through Houston on their way to the big top, and they have been exceedingly successful since they left the bayou for greener pastures. Fraleigh’s emotional life is played out in tearful embraces and wild-eyed terror as lush and realistic figures hemmed in by thick, dark brushstrokes and bleeding drips of oils. Her protagonists, always her own visage, are informed by her life journeying from a trailer park in New Jersey to Yale and beyond; following the heartbreak and fear that her eyes show forcefully pleading to the viewer a deep reading of feminist and feminine dichotomies may produce a shudder in all but the most hardened misogynists.

After the Young Republic’s Friendzgiving at the Joanna Gallery (4014 Graustark), look for a hallucinatory exhibit of paintings and installations by Jeanne Cassanova and Reggie Rechuba. These New Orleans transplants have kept their candy-coated exterior through Katrina and losing a lot of their former lives only weeks after moving to Houston to try their hand at breaking into the Houston scene. Catch their brand of post-pop decadence from December 1st through Christmas, and if your Mom likes thinking about the Toxic Avenger covered in puff paint or monsters popping out of her head then bring her too.

Artcrawl has got a Posse

2007-11-09T10:49:00.001-08:00

Spend a day wandering the warehouse district this November 17th for the 15th Artcrawl in Houston. There is a myriad of artists participating, and no definition or denunciation can really hold true. Really, there are over 150 artists- it’s impossible to pigeonhole this bunch.

I’m sure you’ll see the American Consumer Consortium riding the busses between warehouses; Natali and her performance pieces have ended in “Louis Vuitacos” and black pepper taste tests before. Poets from all over town will be out at Atelier Jacquinet, the represented include Houston Community College, University of Houston Downtown, Art Institute of Houston, Women in the Visual and Literary Arts, and poetry magazine Panhandler Quarterly. It may be impossible to get out of CSAW and not be impressed with Whitney Riley, Elaine Bradford or Kathy Kelly, three new residents who have taken to the old hulk of a building.

Elder Street Lofts sic The Jefferson Davis Hospital is opening up for studio visits and exhibits for Artcrawl, after the drubbing at the hands of the Houston Press a few months ago Derek Shumate, Doomsday Wrestling, Iskra Ivanova and Shu Latif have more than just their tiny corner of the world to overcome. Here’s something though, have you seen the Jefferson Davis Hospital since they cleaned it up? Wouldn’t it be a trip to go there for the first time since Brad saw a ghost and you heard gunshots in the woods? During the daytime? Besides, the perfect view of downtown from the front steps in worth the extra mile.

Lisa Marie Godfrey and Ellen Orseck are up north at the Foundry now, Leila Dallal will be across the street from CSAW at Kap & Suzie’s Place, and stalwart gearhead and art car builder WT Burge is heading up the new fabrication workshop and studio space M.A.N.

Visit ArtCrawlHouston.com or call 713.229.9760 for more information. There’s too many new people and new places to say you’ve seen it before. You haven’t.

Surfing for Block Party Pics

2007-10-19T07:10:00.000-07:00

I found some good ones!

Bobby Hankinson : Chronicle

MyCityRocks Houston

tomatowithbasil

B~Kay

B~Kay

B~Kay

pixeltopia

nadnuk

nadnuk

mr. waldo

mr. waldo

mr. waldo

Rick Bros.

Keith Dotson
Classic- 1982 Westheimer Street Festival

Keith Dotson
Classic- 1982 Westheimer Street Festival

Overgrown! October 13th!

2007-09-17T14:55:00.001-07:00

DEBRIS: Dan Freeman is still a Spook

2007-09-07T10:25:00.000-07:00

by Buffalo Sean

The fall season is big time this year, and it kicked off early with the blockbuster navel-gazer Red Hot: Asian Art Today at the Museum of Fine Arts. With the Chronicle giving collector Robert Chaney (no relation to Dick) blowjobs in print, attendance has been up; I hope the same is true for sales at the eight or so galleries the museum encouraged to dive into contemporary Chinese and Japanese art. Unfortunately lacking the collusion of the MFAH show, Nexus Texas at the Contemporary Arts Museum puts Texans at the fore- hopefully they’ll sell some work down the road because of the show. The buzz is hot around El Franco Lee II, a University of Houston graduate who paints scenes from Houston rap and basketball folklore with a flat, naïve style and an almost religious reverence; both T.I. sucker-punched by Lil’ Flip and Big Moe sippin’ on some syrup in his Escalade are deified by this rising star artist.

Another emerging talent is having her first solo show this fall, as Lisa Marie Godfrey moves into the limelight with an opening September 14th from 6-9 pm at Domy Books. Godfrey draws copious amounts of ghosts, piles of intestines and landscapes all in her endearing, lilting lines and soft pastel watercolors. Stop by the bookstore on the corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy to find out about their upcoming movie nights too!

On September 8th from 6-9pm the new exhibit at the Blaffer Gallery of University of Houston arrives, look for French artist Jean Luc Mylayne and his gigantic photographs as he focuses on Fort Davis, Texas in a new series- his first American solo exhibition. Also on display, Amy Sillman’s oil on canvas works attempt to make a case for ‘painterly’ paintings by channeling Cezanne and German Expressionism.
Over at Rice University, the gallery continues to stay a step ahead of the rest of the city with innovative installation artists. September 27th their latest exhibit opens; a stunning collection of translucent paper sculptures by Kirsten Hassenfeld. Referencing giant droplets of water or the onion domes of Russian and Arabic religious architecture, Hassenfeld brings her experience seducing collectors and curators at the Armory and NADA art fairs to Houston in her largest installation to date.

Lessons From Below, a take on the Menil Collection’s large holdings of art, focuses on juxtaposing ephemera from the civil rights movement with African tribal art, Native American Hopi masks and figures and one of Warhol’s Mao silkscreens. Art collective Otabenga Jones has scoured the treasure troves of the museum in search of divisive racial politics “to mess wit whitey.” Weekly classroom sessions will focus on politics, poetry, racial identity and hip hop. Opens Thursday September 13th, classroom events will continue through October and November.