Exhibitions
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Austin Openings
Christine Gray
Okay Mountain
Opening January 16
Christine Gray explains, "In my work I look at the cultural mythologies that misrepresent nature and our relationship to it. I remake landscapes according to these fictions through both objects and painting, thereby adding to and revealing the fallacy of these representations. The sculptural tableaux I make as models for my paintings are theatrical, temporary situations where the real and imagined collapse into a space outlined by contradictory boundaries. Extraordinary outcomes are made feasible by the distortion of the everyday."
Loli Kantor
L. Nowlin Gallery
Opening January 5, 2010
Loli Kantor's documentary work portrays the disappearing population of Holocaust survivors and their lives within the vanishing shtetls of Eastern Europe. The exhibition's title, There Was a Forest, alludes to both the forest of the natural world and the metaphorical human forest of Jewish life, both of which have been placed at risk of destruction by the force of technology, industrialization and war. Kantor presents the work in two parts; one portion printed using the palladium process, and the other printed as vivid, highly saturated color pigment prints. (From the press release)
Austin on View
Lisa Marie Godfrey
Domy Books
Through January 21, 2010
Godfrey describes her new work thus, "I have been reflecting upon how I am a collection of experiences, memories and belongings. Through the telling of stories, I can create myself into a hero or villain, ultimately creating my own myths. Using my imagination, I am not seeking to distort truth but rather explore my ability to change the way I perceive an object or moment in time. Through these works I hope to engage with the everyday magic around me, as I once did in childhood."
Chill
dberman Gallery
Through February 6, 2010
Chill features luminous watercolors of melting icebergs by Cynthia Camlin, delicate drawings by Sara Frantz linking the grandiose landscapes of Iceland and West Texas, Jennifer Maestre’s undulating pencil sculptures inspired by sea urchins, Leslie Mutchler’s sculptural works merging utopian aspirations with the wild inclinations of nature, Raychael Stine’s buoyant and realistic dogs romping through realms of abstraction, Steve Wiman’s gracefully edited installations using the world’s flotsam, and Sydney Yeager’s tumultuous paintings which capture moments of instability and a dissolution of order. (From the press release)
Austin Closings
My Wicked Twisted Sense of Love
Women & Their Work
Through January 7, 2010
See Kate Watson's review in this issue.
San Antonio Openings
Katie Pell
Sala Diaz
Opening January 15, 2010
Katie Pell's installation describes some of her most keenly felt separations: those between herself and you, and those between herself only. Using her baroque drawing sensibility, love of audience intersection and interest in other people’s truly mysterious nature, Katie has used Sala Diaz to make a diagram of what has confounded her for some time. (From the press release)
Alejandro Cesarco
Artpace
Opening January 14, 2010
Alejandro Cesarco's diverse projects, consisting of photographs, videos, books and sculpture, address his recurrent interests in repetition, narrative and the practices of reading and translating. His exhibition at Artpace will unite the different components of a body of work entitled Index (2000-2008). Consisting of an alphabetized list of terms and ideas arranged as if indexing a specific publication, the works are both biographical and theoretical. The exhibition will also present a new film commissioned for the occasion. Entitled The Two Stories, it consists of the reading and telling of a story, with the two narratives overlapping one another. This will be the artist's first solo museum exhibition. (From the press release)
San Antonio Closings
New Works 09.3
Artpace
Closing January 10, 2010
These are the strongest end-of-residency exhibitions I've seen at Artpace in quite a while. Adriana Lara's video of San Antonio-based artists at work, which begins with an installation of bathroom appliances spelling out the word "ARTIFICIAL," may sound saccharine in description, but is quite poignant in person. Mario Ybarra, Jr., an artist known for his community-based projects, used the residency to literally "try his hand" at something different, drawing, with great results. In my book, Adrian Esparza takes the cake. His immense quilt draws on the strategies of Conceptualism and Minimalism to depict landscape outside El Paso. I'd like to see it installed at Chinati, where its conversation with the natural and social landscapes, as well as sculptures of Donald Judd, would be powerful.
Jillian Conrad & Moo Kwon Han
Unit B
Closing January 2, 2010
The sweetest moments in Jillian Conrad’s installation at Unit B are in the spatial relationships she establishes between objects. Three works in the series Wishing You Are Here each consist of a vintage postcard lacquered to the wall and a small modified concrete brick sculpture on the floor. Meanwhile, Moo Kwon Han's two videos are visual poetry with a healthy dose of humor, reflecting on life's constants, such as gravity.
Houston Openings
Jonathan Marshall: Double Vision
Art Palace
January 15 - March 6, 2010
Art Palace users in a new year in its new Houston home with new works by Jonathan Marshall.
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