issue
# 61, January 13, 2006 Austin, TX
I.
From
Watercolor Painting to Bronze Sculpture: Liz Ward's Aqueous
and Anne Wallace's GlorietaII. ...might be good Goes on the Road to Fort Worth and New York City for Rauschenberg, Picasso, Tuttle, Gauguin, Kiefer, Avedon, Murray and Kessler!
III. An Interview with Chris Erck of Finesilver Gallery
IV. Dr. Seuss at AMoA: Narrative or Nonsense?
V. Readers Write Back: A Letter from Hills Snyder
VI. Announcements: Helping Readers Keep Their New Year's Resolutions
I.
From
Watercolor Painting to Bronze Sculpture:
Liz Ward's Aqueous and Anne Wallace's Glorieta
Liz Ward Aqueous at Women and Their Work
On view through February 11, 2006
The word “aqueous” applies to both the method and the quality of Liz Ward’s watercolor paintings. (See above image.) The silverpoint drawings on tinted gesso that make up the balance of Ward's solo exhibition at Women and Their Work are equally fluid, though they neither drip nor bleed. Instead, the drawings glow dimly, as if each were backlit by a pure luminous source set miles behind their meticulously rendered surfaces.
Ward’s interest in abstract organic forms—complexes that read like magnified slides from a biology lab or aerial maps of archipelagoes—make Aqueous a cohesive experience. But in writing about the exhibition, an obvious division needs to be made between mediums. Ward works in two languages: silverpoint—a technique more readily associated with Dürer’s age than ours—and watercolor. Her watercolors, however, have an exceptionally rich range of tonalities. Ward's paintings sometimes look as though she has put down little mineral deposits of color, small but weighty and dense geological compounds, and simply allowed water to lap over them to create the composition. The penetrating blue epicenters in Minor Aquifers (Deep Blue) (2005) appear almost like inlaid lapis cores that have begun to emit their pigments into a green tea-toned river. As such, it is worth looking at her large paintings from a distance and then stepping in close to appreciate the minute choreographies of color and shape. Ward’s smaller watercolor paintings, which have an accidental, drip-like quality, are more colorful but less captivating.
The silverpoint drawings in Aqueous appear minimal next to the chromatic expression of Ward's watercolor paintings. Rivers and Waves (2002) is a particularly elegant example of the gradual tonal changes that take place in the field of tinted gesso behind Ward’s delicate structures of sliver lines. Like the best works in the exhibition, Rivers and Waves, gives form to ineffable qualities of life and motion. The drawing appears like a mathematical (though free hand) analysis of a sine wave or the fanlike underside of a mushroom.
An unfortunate aspect of the exhibition is that, in a gallery space called Women and Their Work, these evocative pieces take on connotations of femininity that might not be natural to them. Shown in a gallery with a gender-neutral name and agenda, the paintings probably would not have elicited so many of the “fertile earth” analogies that came out at the shows opening last Saturday night.
Anne Wallace's Glorieta
A permanent installation in San Antonio's Brackenridge Park
Walking through the woods in Brackenridge Park, on the compressed gravel path, the roundabout comes into view. A tree cast in bronze occupies the center– Glorieta.
Anne Wallace, the artist who created this outdoor aesthetic encounter, got shout-outs by critics at the recent Writer’s and Artists Exchange (the WAX conference) for her South Presa sidewalk installation. Like the sidewalk installation, which was embedded with neighborhood storytelling, Glorieta, is also informed by the history of its site. To cast her piece Wallace reclaimed a pecan tree that had collapsed in the woods and sliced it into rings. By balancing her bronze pieces on their sides and placing them inside the roundabout, they appear to want to roll away like bicycle wheels. Some rings are hollow from disease, creating irregular star-shaped absences that relate her work to the upended donut of another famous park sculpture—Isamu Noguchi’s Black Sun in Seattle. Lumps of limestone boulders lay in the circle nearby, lethargic counterpoints to the fallen tree whose pieces are now energetically en pointe.
The word “glorieta” is Spanish for “roundabout,” but also means “paradise.” With the help of architects from Rialto Studio, the firm commissioned to redesign Brackenridge Park, Wallace planted fragrant laurel trees at the circular intersection of paths, ringing the inner circle with trees that sprout fat pink blooms. She chose the tree for its name, Forest Pansy Redbud, a nod to the park’s status as a popular cruising spot for the local gay community. But these incidentals are lost on the average visitor who will simply notice the arrangement of natural elements and bronze sculpture. The installation will only improve as the trees bloom and their petals activate the air.
Liz Ward's Aqueous and Anne Wallace's Glorieta
Liz Ward Aqueous at Women and Their Work
On view through February 11, 2006
The word “aqueous” applies to both the method and the quality of Liz Ward’s watercolor paintings. (See above image.) The silverpoint drawings on tinted gesso that make up the balance of Ward's solo exhibition at Women and Their Work are equally fluid, though they neither drip nor bleed. Instead, the drawings glow dimly, as if each were backlit by a pure luminous source set miles behind their meticulously rendered surfaces.
Ward’s interest in abstract organic forms—complexes that read like magnified slides from a biology lab or aerial maps of archipelagoes—make Aqueous a cohesive experience. But in writing about the exhibition, an obvious division needs to be made between mediums. Ward works in two languages: silverpoint—a technique more readily associated with Dürer’s age than ours—and watercolor. Her watercolors, however, have an exceptionally rich range of tonalities. Ward's paintings sometimes look as though she has put down little mineral deposits of color, small but weighty and dense geological compounds, and simply allowed water to lap over them to create the composition. The penetrating blue epicenters in Minor Aquifers (Deep Blue) (2005) appear almost like inlaid lapis cores that have begun to emit their pigments into a green tea-toned river. As such, it is worth looking at her large paintings from a distance and then stepping in close to appreciate the minute choreographies of color and shape. Ward’s smaller watercolor paintings, which have an accidental, drip-like quality, are more colorful but less captivating.
The silverpoint drawings in Aqueous appear minimal next to the chromatic expression of Ward's watercolor paintings. Rivers and Waves (2002) is a particularly elegant example of the gradual tonal changes that take place in the field of tinted gesso behind Ward’s delicate structures of sliver lines. Like the best works in the exhibition, Rivers and Waves, gives form to ineffable qualities of life and motion. The drawing appears like a mathematical (though free hand) analysis of a sine wave or the fanlike underside of a mushroom.
An unfortunate aspect of the exhibition is that, in a gallery space called Women and Their Work, these evocative pieces take on connotations of femininity that might not be natural to them. Shown in a gallery with a gender-neutral name and agenda, the paintings probably would not have elicited so many of the “fertile earth” analogies that came out at the shows opening last Saturday night.
Anne Wallace's Glorieta
A permanent installation in San Antonio's Brackenridge Park
Walking through the woods in Brackenridge Park, on the compressed gravel path, the roundabout comes into view. A tree cast in bronze occupies the center– Glorieta.
Anne Wallace, the artist who created this outdoor aesthetic encounter, got shout-outs by critics at the recent Writer’s and Artists Exchange (the WAX conference) for her South Presa sidewalk installation. Like the sidewalk installation, which was embedded with neighborhood storytelling, Glorieta, is also informed by the history of its site. To cast her piece Wallace reclaimed a pecan tree that had collapsed in the woods and sliced it into rings. By balancing her bronze pieces on their sides and placing them inside the roundabout, they appear to want to roll away like bicycle wheels. Some rings are hollow from disease, creating irregular star-shaped absences that relate her work to the upended donut of another famous park sculpture—Isamu Noguchi’s Black Sun in Seattle. Lumps of limestone boulders lay in the circle nearby, lethargic counterpoints to the fallen tree whose pieces are now energetically en pointe.
The word “glorieta” is Spanish for “roundabout,” but also means “paradise.” With the help of architects from Rialto Studio, the firm commissioned to redesign Brackenridge Park, Wallace planted fragrant laurel trees at the circular intersection of paths, ringing the inner circle with trees that sprout fat pink blooms. She chose the tree for its name, Forest Pansy Redbud, a nod to the park’s status as a popular cruising spot for the local gay community. But these incidentals are lost on the average visitor who will simply notice the arrangement of natural elements and bronze sculpture. The installation will only improve as the trees bloom and their petals activate the air.
|
Women
and Their Work Gallery 1710 Lavaca St. Austin, TX tel. 512.477.1064 www.womenandtheirwork.org City of San Antonio Public Art & Design Enhancement Program www.sanantonio.gov/publicworks/pubart/index.htm |
II.
...might
be good Goes on the Road to Fort Worth and New York City
…might be good spent the first weeks of 2006 viewing exhibitions in Fort Worth and New York City. Here we’ve collected our thoughts on eight recent and ongoing exhibitions in some of these cities’ most prominent art spaces.
Stop 1: Gauguin and Impressionism at the Kimbell Art Museum
On view through March 26, 2006
We’ll begin with a blockbuster. Gauguin and Impressionism comes to the Kimbell Art Museum from the Ordrupgaard in Copenhagen and brings with it a rich collection of little-known early works by one of modern art’s most famous figures, Paul Gauguin. Despite the fine paintings and rare examples of ceramics, carved wood and marble sculptures viewers will surely delight in, Gauguin and Impressionism fails when it comes to making an intelligent contribution to our understanding of its central theme: Gauguin’s relationship to impressionism.
First, Gauguin and Impressionism (note the third word in the title) never provides a working definition of impressionism as a movement, style, span of years or group of artists. Impressionism is notoriously difficult to define, but without a clear understanding of what constitutes impressionism within the context of the exhibition, Gaugin’s relationship to it remains terminally vague. Second, the exhibition is structured around a bilateral model that sets up Gauguin as either an impressionist or a symbolist, never both at once. For the past twenty years, scholars of late-nineteenth-century art have argued that there are fundamental similarities between symbolism and impressionism. Since the paintings in this exhibition have ample visual evidence to support this view—particularly the emotive, non-descriptive color Gauguin employed circa 1880 in otherwise Pissarro-eque landscapes—it is unfortunate that these valuable questions take a backseat to the drama of Gauguin’s personal life.
To get a sense of the exhibition before you go to Fort Worth, check out the website: www.thelostimpressionist.com.
Stop 2: Anselm Kiefer: Heaven and Earth and Pablo Picasso's Vollard Suite at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
Anselm Kiefer: Heaven and Earth closed January 8, 2006
Picasso's Vollard Suite remains on view through January 15, 2006
From the Kimbell we crossed the street to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and saw a small show of Pablo Picasso’s prints (mostly etchings and dry points made in the 1930’s) for the French art dealer and publisher Ambroise Vollard (1867-1939). While there are a few interesting examples of Picasso’s minotaurs, blind and otherwise, in Vollard Suite, the exhibition was grossly overshadowed by the Anselm Kiefer retrospective, Heaven and Earth, that occupied 90 percent of the museum’s second floor.
Though we had been excited to see so many of Kiefer’s works assembled, the retrospective format of the exhibition did not do any favors for the works it contained. Seen side by side, Kiefer’s paintings began to seem formulaic. Works that had caught our attention when we had seen them hanging singly in museum collections were deadened when hung in proximity to other similar pieces. Kiefer comes out of this exhibition looking like an artist who is more interested in literary themes than artistic problems. Still, he manages to find a gritty, contemporary look—massive scale, aggressive materials and found objects—that affects many viewers.
Stop 3: Richard Avedon In the American West at the Amon Carter Museum
Closed January 8, 2006
The surprise hit of our Fort Worth visit was the re-exhibition of Richard Avedon’s In the American West. Though Avedon’s project was commissioned in 1979, his photographs still looked fresh—and not just because the fashions worn in these images have made a come-back. While we were familiar with Avedon’s project from its 1985 exhibition catalog, seeing the photographs in full scale transformed the images into exceptionally vital portraits. It’s not often that so many of the photographs in a series can create an instantaneous bond with their beholders in the way Avedon’s images of small-town farmers, drifters and miners do. There was also something special about seeing the works in the Amon Carter Museum, the organization that originally commissioned Avedon’s project. Documentary materials from the exhibition and recent interviews with the participants were unfortunately displayed in a separate area of the museum. But it was well worth crossing a few galleries of paintings and photographs to take in the textual component of a project that feels alive even after Avedon’s passing.
Stop 4: Robert Rauschenberg Combines at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
On view through April 2, 2006
A graying fixture on the New York scene once said that the only genius he had ever met was Robert Rauschenberg. Not surprisingly, walking past, around and practically into the 67 Rauschenberg Combines assembled for his exhibition at the Met is a staggering encounter. Almost a half-century old (the works date to 1954-64), the Combines don't show their age. Some of this is due to the collective force they accumulate in their group hanging. But more, the Combines’ presence amasses from Rauschenberg’s inspired gestures: the graphite marks sullying the pillow of his iconic Bed (1955), as well as the paint splotches that run over its quilted cover. Later, a necktie, a hat and a telephone directory, each dissolve the distance between themselves as objects, the canvas that supports them and everything else in the room. The show’s energy builds to a barrage of masterworks in the fourth room: Canyon (1959), Monogram (1955-59), Grey Wig (1959) and Coca-Cola Plan (1958), to name just a few. Unfortunately, the show cools markedly in the remaining four galleries.
Relying increasingly on conceptual and performative gambits, the late Combines lack much of the poetry, personality and layered intensity that makes their predecessors so compelling. Expanses of thin color, block text and the occasional wayward power cord empty the compositions. The ideas—time-constraint, seriality, viewer-participation—are radical, but are visually wanting. An exception is the show’s exit piece, Gold Standard (1964), a work created for the performance “20 Questions for Bob Rauschenberg.” Witty, brave, and stunning, Gold Standard consists of a Japanese screen covered with golden paint. His interviewer’s inquiries are transcribed and translated onto the screen, but are left unanswered.
Stop 5: The Art of Richard Tuttle at the Whitney Museum of American Art
On view through February 5, 2006
There is something abuzz about painting-sculpture or sculpture-painting—that hyphenated state between image and object that is being explored in so many exhibitions across the country. (See the reviews of Kiefer and Rauschenberg above and Murray and Kessler below). SFMOMA’s traveling show, The Art of Richard Tuttle, on view at the Whitney through February 5, re-maps this in-between territory while cataloging one of the most inventive and maverick oeuvres in contemporary art. Unassuming, daringly economic and oh-so subtle, Richard Tuttle carries the alchemist’s, if not the assassin’s, touch. Wall assemblages of cardboard, bubble-wrap, acrylic and enamel bloom before your eyes. His modest masterpiece, 3rd Rope Piece (1974) (a short cotton cord mounted low on the wall with three nails) shocks and charms. The show is an exercise in slow-burn attention and the pleasures of looking heighten with each new discovery.
Effectively, Tuttle has created a junk-drawer exploratorium about what art can be. This subversive attitude spills out into the installation. Colored lights, ceiling-bound pencil lines and messily painted walls each find their moment. Tuttle’s work wants to resolve itself within a narrow perspective-scale spectrum. Sometimes, to make a piece click, all one needs to do is locate this sweetspot. Done by Women, not by Men (1979), for example, a delicate, but sprawling light piece, is humorous up close, but caught from across the room it’s drop dead gorgeous.
Stop 6: Elizabeth Murray at the Museum of Modern Art
Closed January 9, 2006
Elizabeth Murray, a veritable Danica Patrick for the Soho set, looks good, challenging and imposing at her own retrospective. Frequently her color is a bit hard to take, as if off key. The seventy-five works on view at MoMA could benefit from a tighter chronological run and less bleeding between her various stylistic fits and spasms. But it all comes clean in the last room dedicated to her most recent work—bright color drawings and pieced-together canvases of various odd shapes and sizes. The work fits in somewhere between Keith Haring and Carroll Dunham, Philip Guston and Joan Miro. It's strikingly fashionable and seriously fun.
Stop 7: Jon Kessler The Palace at 4 A.M. P.S.1
On view through February 6, 2005
Jon Kessler’s cacophonous The Palace at 4 A.M. is an assault. Flashing televisions, welded aluminum, spinning cameras, blue screens and dancing puppets are networked from a central bunker to similar contraptions held in each corner of the room. Four wall posters picture the ruins of an Iraqi palace, the demonic heads of President Bush and Dick Cheney and a pornographic embrace. These lead to more monitors and machines, more views of flaming Humvees and the incised buttocks of the supermodel Gisele. The installation is something of a Combine for the 21st century: CNN’s control room meets the Surrealist fun-house from which the exhibition takes its name. It is a disorienting insomnia as the difficult-to-trace connections between image and object extend across the room. But a little investigation goes a long way and unraveling the logic becomes one of the show's pleasures. Topically, Kessler is on touchy ground as he toys with a blown-up political and superficial America. In his pointed media mess everyone is guilty and we're all to blame.
…might be good spent the first weeks of 2006 viewing exhibitions in Fort Worth and New York City. Here we’ve collected our thoughts on eight recent and ongoing exhibitions in some of these cities’ most prominent art spaces.
Stop 1: Gauguin and Impressionism at the Kimbell Art Museum
On view through March 26, 2006
We’ll begin with a blockbuster. Gauguin and Impressionism comes to the Kimbell Art Museum from the Ordrupgaard in Copenhagen and brings with it a rich collection of little-known early works by one of modern art’s most famous figures, Paul Gauguin. Despite the fine paintings and rare examples of ceramics, carved wood and marble sculptures viewers will surely delight in, Gauguin and Impressionism fails when it comes to making an intelligent contribution to our understanding of its central theme: Gauguin’s relationship to impressionism.
First, Gauguin and Impressionism (note the third word in the title) never provides a working definition of impressionism as a movement, style, span of years or group of artists. Impressionism is notoriously difficult to define, but without a clear understanding of what constitutes impressionism within the context of the exhibition, Gaugin’s relationship to it remains terminally vague. Second, the exhibition is structured around a bilateral model that sets up Gauguin as either an impressionist or a symbolist, never both at once. For the past twenty years, scholars of late-nineteenth-century art have argued that there are fundamental similarities between symbolism and impressionism. Since the paintings in this exhibition have ample visual evidence to support this view—particularly the emotive, non-descriptive color Gauguin employed circa 1880 in otherwise Pissarro-eque landscapes—it is unfortunate that these valuable questions take a backseat to the drama of Gauguin’s personal life.
To get a sense of the exhibition before you go to Fort Worth, check out the website: www.thelostimpressionist.com.
Stop 2: Anselm Kiefer: Heaven and Earth and Pablo Picasso's Vollard Suite at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
Anselm Kiefer: Heaven and Earth closed January 8, 2006
Picasso's Vollard Suite remains on view through January 15, 2006
From the Kimbell we crossed the street to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and saw a small show of Pablo Picasso’s prints (mostly etchings and dry points made in the 1930’s) for the French art dealer and publisher Ambroise Vollard (1867-1939). While there are a few interesting examples of Picasso’s minotaurs, blind and otherwise, in Vollard Suite, the exhibition was grossly overshadowed by the Anselm Kiefer retrospective, Heaven and Earth, that occupied 90 percent of the museum’s second floor.
Though we had been excited to see so many of Kiefer’s works assembled, the retrospective format of the exhibition did not do any favors for the works it contained. Seen side by side, Kiefer’s paintings began to seem formulaic. Works that had caught our attention when we had seen them hanging singly in museum collections were deadened when hung in proximity to other similar pieces. Kiefer comes out of this exhibition looking like an artist who is more interested in literary themes than artistic problems. Still, he manages to find a gritty, contemporary look—massive scale, aggressive materials and found objects—that affects many viewers.
Stop 3: Richard Avedon In the American West at the Amon Carter Museum
Closed January 8, 2006
The surprise hit of our Fort Worth visit was the re-exhibition of Richard Avedon’s In the American West. Though Avedon’s project was commissioned in 1979, his photographs still looked fresh—and not just because the fashions worn in these images have made a come-back. While we were familiar with Avedon’s project from its 1985 exhibition catalog, seeing the photographs in full scale transformed the images into exceptionally vital portraits. It’s not often that so many of the photographs in a series can create an instantaneous bond with their beholders in the way Avedon’s images of small-town farmers, drifters and miners do. There was also something special about seeing the works in the Amon Carter Museum, the organization that originally commissioned Avedon’s project. Documentary materials from the exhibition and recent interviews with the participants were unfortunately displayed in a separate area of the museum. But it was well worth crossing a few galleries of paintings and photographs to take in the textual component of a project that feels alive even after Avedon’s passing.
Stop 4: Robert Rauschenberg Combines at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
On view through April 2, 2006
A graying fixture on the New York scene once said that the only genius he had ever met was Robert Rauschenberg. Not surprisingly, walking past, around and practically into the 67 Rauschenberg Combines assembled for his exhibition at the Met is a staggering encounter. Almost a half-century old (the works date to 1954-64), the Combines don't show their age. Some of this is due to the collective force they accumulate in their group hanging. But more, the Combines’ presence amasses from Rauschenberg’s inspired gestures: the graphite marks sullying the pillow of his iconic Bed (1955), as well as the paint splotches that run over its quilted cover. Later, a necktie, a hat and a telephone directory, each dissolve the distance between themselves as objects, the canvas that supports them and everything else in the room. The show’s energy builds to a barrage of masterworks in the fourth room: Canyon (1959), Monogram (1955-59), Grey Wig (1959) and Coca-Cola Plan (1958), to name just a few. Unfortunately, the show cools markedly in the remaining four galleries.
Relying increasingly on conceptual and performative gambits, the late Combines lack much of the poetry, personality and layered intensity that makes their predecessors so compelling. Expanses of thin color, block text and the occasional wayward power cord empty the compositions. The ideas—time-constraint, seriality, viewer-participation—are radical, but are visually wanting. An exception is the show’s exit piece, Gold Standard (1964), a work created for the performance “20 Questions for Bob Rauschenberg.” Witty, brave, and stunning, Gold Standard consists of a Japanese screen covered with golden paint. His interviewer’s inquiries are transcribed and translated onto the screen, but are left unanswered.
Stop 5: The Art of Richard Tuttle at the Whitney Museum of American Art
On view through February 5, 2006
There is something abuzz about painting-sculpture or sculpture-painting—that hyphenated state between image and object that is being explored in so many exhibitions across the country. (See the reviews of Kiefer and Rauschenberg above and Murray and Kessler below). SFMOMA’s traveling show, The Art of Richard Tuttle, on view at the Whitney through February 5, re-maps this in-between territory while cataloging one of the most inventive and maverick oeuvres in contemporary art. Unassuming, daringly economic and oh-so subtle, Richard Tuttle carries the alchemist’s, if not the assassin’s, touch. Wall assemblages of cardboard, bubble-wrap, acrylic and enamel bloom before your eyes. His modest masterpiece, 3rd Rope Piece (1974) (a short cotton cord mounted low on the wall with three nails) shocks and charms. The show is an exercise in slow-burn attention and the pleasures of looking heighten with each new discovery.
Effectively, Tuttle has created a junk-drawer exploratorium about what art can be. This subversive attitude spills out into the installation. Colored lights, ceiling-bound pencil lines and messily painted walls each find their moment. Tuttle’s work wants to resolve itself within a narrow perspective-scale spectrum. Sometimes, to make a piece click, all one needs to do is locate this sweetspot. Done by Women, not by Men (1979), for example, a delicate, but sprawling light piece, is humorous up close, but caught from across the room it’s drop dead gorgeous.
Stop 6: Elizabeth Murray at the Museum of Modern Art
Closed January 9, 2006
Elizabeth Murray, a veritable Danica Patrick for the Soho set, looks good, challenging and imposing at her own retrospective. Frequently her color is a bit hard to take, as if off key. The seventy-five works on view at MoMA could benefit from a tighter chronological run and less bleeding between her various stylistic fits and spasms. But it all comes clean in the last room dedicated to her most recent work—bright color drawings and pieced-together canvases of various odd shapes and sizes. The work fits in somewhere between Keith Haring and Carroll Dunham, Philip Guston and Joan Miro. It's strikingly fashionable and seriously fun.
Stop 7: Jon Kessler The Palace at 4 A.M. P.S.1
On view through February 6, 2005
Jon Kessler’s cacophonous The Palace at 4 A.M. is an assault. Flashing televisions, welded aluminum, spinning cameras, blue screens and dancing puppets are networked from a central bunker to similar contraptions held in each corner of the room. Four wall posters picture the ruins of an Iraqi palace, the demonic heads of President Bush and Dick Cheney and a pornographic embrace. These lead to more monitors and machines, more views of flaming Humvees and the incised buttocks of the supermodel Gisele. The installation is something of a Combine for the 21st century: CNN’s control room meets the Surrealist fun-house from which the exhibition takes its name. It is a disorienting insomnia as the difficult-to-trace connections between image and object extend across the room. But a little investigation goes a long way and unraveling the logic becomes one of the show's pleasures. Topically, Kessler is on touchy ground as he toys with a blown-up political and superficial America. In his pointed media mess everyone is guilty and we're all to blame.
The Kimbell Art Museum www.kimbellart.org The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth www.mamfw.org The Amon Carter Museum www.cartermuseum.org The Metropolitan Museum of Art www.metmuseum.org The Whitney Museum of American Art www.whitney.org The Museum of Modern Art www.moma.org P.S.1 MoMA www.ps1.org
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III.
An Interview with Chris Erck of Finesilver Gallery
...might be good interviewed the elusive Chris Erck by e-mail in between his travels to find out what's in store for Finesilver Gallery in 2006 and to hear his thoughts about San Antonio's and Houston's art markets.
…might be good: Over the last year, Finesilver Gallery has been surrounded by an air of mystery, in part because the gallery took a hiatus in 2005. I hear the building is for sale. What's the scoop? Are there some exhibitions coming our way in the New Year?
Chris Erck: Finesilver will always be in San Antonio. Our concentration in the past year has been on art fairs and opening the new Houston location (3913 Main Street), so we only had three exhibitions in the San Antonio gallery—but that is still nine solo shows. The building is for sale, but as long as I am in the space we will continue to have exhibitions there. If the building sells to a user who needs the existing gallery space, Finesilver will relocate within the city, most likely nearer to downtown. We have a full exhibition schedule for Houston and San Antonio. Our first San Antonio exhibition of 2006 will be Mark Flood and Zane Lewis, opening February 17. After that, Rachel Cook from Diverseworks and Glasstire will curate an exhibition in April, and then a May solo exhibition by Texas favorite and international star, Chris Sauter. Despite having represented Sauter for more than three years, this will be his first solo exhibition at Finesilver.
…mbg: I know some major stuff has been happening behind the scenes, probably the biggest thing being the November opening of Finesilver Gallery in Houston. How do you see the gallery evolving in a new city, particularly one as schooled in contemporary art as Houston?
CE: The commercial side of the artworld has changed dramatically in recent years and galleries have to adapt. Art fairs have become such a major part of commerce that collectors are often side-stepping the gallery to save up for the fairs. In a way, the love of convenience in modern society has made it important to bring the gallery to the collector, rather than bringing the collector into the gallery. To a Dallas collector, it is much more exciting to fly to Miami and visit Finesilver at the fair than to come to San Antonio. We sell lots of work to Texans at the fairs! Houston is different because there is a larger collector base. It has had a contemporary museum for 25 years, so Houston collectors have a greater appetite for contemporary art. It's amazing—the doors that have opened because of the new location. Many artists who I have wanted to show for years were reluctant to show in San Antonio. But Houston is a different story.
…mbg: You've been to several International Art Fairs this year, like ARCO in Spain and Artissima 12 in Italy. Can you tell the rest of us landlubbers what goes on and how our local artists fared?
CE: An art air is basically a giant trade show. Our hope is to get exposure for our artists—to curators, collectors and critics. Hopefully we sell work too, but the fairs give so much exposure that the follow up is tremendous for months, even years. We featured Leonardo Drew at Artissima in November. It was his first exposure in Italy and he was really well-received. Since his work is virtually unknown there and he will be having a show in Siena in February, we wanted to introduce the work a few months early to pique the interest of the Italians. As a result of the fairs, Leonardo now has more exhibitions in Europe scheduled and potential venues to travel the mid-career survey of his work that Valerie Cassel is preparing for Houston’s CAM next year.
I learned many years ago that it was very important to show one or two artists in depth at an international fair rather than bring the whole stable. Most of the collectors at these fairs are seeing the work for the first time, so it’s important to give them a good feel for the scope of the artists' work. The first time we participated in Art Cologne I took work by all my artists. The booth looked great, but I think it was confusing to first-time viewers. We only sold one work—a great Jesse Amado tribute to Mondrian.
…mbg: You are fairly fresh off the plane from Miami where Finesilver took part in the invitational PULSE Art Fair, a new fair that ran concurrently with Art Basel Miami Beach Art Fair and the Armory Show in New York. PULSE has its own particular mission: to bridge young galleries with established ones, not to mention national and international artists. How did its twist on art fair elements play out and what did Finesilver bring to the party?
CE: The PULSE organizers are very smart. The fair was well curated with regard to gallery selection and it was widely proclaimed to be the best of the Miami fairs. By Sunday, near the closing of the fairs, dealers from the Miami Basel fair were coming to PULSE to see what the buzz was about. Our focus was on building international interest around certain Texas artists: Lordy Rodriguez, Chris Sauter, Jesse Amado, James Smolleck, Aaron Parazette, Zane Lewis and Virginia Fleck. We showed their work alongside some of our more international artists like Leonardo Drew, Erik Benson and Jason Rogenes. Works in our booth ranged from $500 to $70,000 and we created a very interesting dialogue between the artists' works that apparently translated well.
…mbg: How do you think San Antonio and Houston are doing in terms of encouraging a new generation of collectors. How do the two cities differ? What's our report card in your opinion?
CE: San Antonio is a wonderful place to live and an amazing place to be an artist, but the collector base is not growing. I think part of the reason is the lack of a true contemporary museum in the city. Blue Star and Artpace have certainly raised the awareness of contemporary art in SA, but we still have a long way to go. It doesn't do any good for either the gallery or the artists to show some of my artists in San Antonio because the work either sells outside of San Antonio (LA, New York, Chicago), or the collector doesn't buy because they already have work by that artist, or maybe they bought it directly out of the artist’s studio years ago.
…mbg: What sorts of recurring trends are you noticing in the art world? Is your professional divining rod sensing something particular as the next big thing in terms of media, subject or style?
CE: Art fairs are taking over. At one point, Finesilver was participating in ten fairs a year. With regard to media, there is a distinct evidence of the hand—whether that involves drawing or craftsmanship in the work.
...might be good interviewed the elusive Chris Erck by e-mail in between his travels to find out what's in store for Finesilver Gallery in 2006 and to hear his thoughts about San Antonio's and Houston's art markets.
…might be good: Over the last year, Finesilver Gallery has been surrounded by an air of mystery, in part because the gallery took a hiatus in 2005. I hear the building is for sale. What's the scoop? Are there some exhibitions coming our way in the New Year?
Chris Erck: Finesilver will always be in San Antonio. Our concentration in the past year has been on art fairs and opening the new Houston location (3913 Main Street), so we only had three exhibitions in the San Antonio gallery—but that is still nine solo shows. The building is for sale, but as long as I am in the space we will continue to have exhibitions there. If the building sells to a user who needs the existing gallery space, Finesilver will relocate within the city, most likely nearer to downtown. We have a full exhibition schedule for Houston and San Antonio. Our first San Antonio exhibition of 2006 will be Mark Flood and Zane Lewis, opening February 17. After that, Rachel Cook from Diverseworks and Glasstire will curate an exhibition in April, and then a May solo exhibition by Texas favorite and international star, Chris Sauter. Despite having represented Sauter for more than three years, this will be his first solo exhibition at Finesilver.
…mbg: I know some major stuff has been happening behind the scenes, probably the biggest thing being the November opening of Finesilver Gallery in Houston. How do you see the gallery evolving in a new city, particularly one as schooled in contemporary art as Houston?
CE: The commercial side of the artworld has changed dramatically in recent years and galleries have to adapt. Art fairs have become such a major part of commerce that collectors are often side-stepping the gallery to save up for the fairs. In a way, the love of convenience in modern society has made it important to bring the gallery to the collector, rather than bringing the collector into the gallery. To a Dallas collector, it is much more exciting to fly to Miami and visit Finesilver at the fair than to come to San Antonio. We sell lots of work to Texans at the fairs! Houston is different because there is a larger collector base. It has had a contemporary museum for 25 years, so Houston collectors have a greater appetite for contemporary art. It's amazing—the doors that have opened because of the new location. Many artists who I have wanted to show for years were reluctant to show in San Antonio. But Houston is a different story.
…mbg: You've been to several International Art Fairs this year, like ARCO in Spain and Artissima 12 in Italy. Can you tell the rest of us landlubbers what goes on and how our local artists fared?
CE: An art air is basically a giant trade show. Our hope is to get exposure for our artists—to curators, collectors and critics. Hopefully we sell work too, but the fairs give so much exposure that the follow up is tremendous for months, even years. We featured Leonardo Drew at Artissima in November. It was his first exposure in Italy and he was really well-received. Since his work is virtually unknown there and he will be having a show in Siena in February, we wanted to introduce the work a few months early to pique the interest of the Italians. As a result of the fairs, Leonardo now has more exhibitions in Europe scheduled and potential venues to travel the mid-career survey of his work that Valerie Cassel is preparing for Houston’s CAM next year.
I learned many years ago that it was very important to show one or two artists in depth at an international fair rather than bring the whole stable. Most of the collectors at these fairs are seeing the work for the first time, so it’s important to give them a good feel for the scope of the artists' work. The first time we participated in Art Cologne I took work by all my artists. The booth looked great, but I think it was confusing to first-time viewers. We only sold one work—a great Jesse Amado tribute to Mondrian.
…mbg: You are fairly fresh off the plane from Miami where Finesilver took part in the invitational PULSE Art Fair, a new fair that ran concurrently with Art Basel Miami Beach Art Fair and the Armory Show in New York. PULSE has its own particular mission: to bridge young galleries with established ones, not to mention national and international artists. How did its twist on art fair elements play out and what did Finesilver bring to the party?
CE: The PULSE organizers are very smart. The fair was well curated with regard to gallery selection and it was widely proclaimed to be the best of the Miami fairs. By Sunday, near the closing of the fairs, dealers from the Miami Basel fair were coming to PULSE to see what the buzz was about. Our focus was on building international interest around certain Texas artists: Lordy Rodriguez, Chris Sauter, Jesse Amado, James Smolleck, Aaron Parazette, Zane Lewis and Virginia Fleck. We showed their work alongside some of our more international artists like Leonardo Drew, Erik Benson and Jason Rogenes. Works in our booth ranged from $500 to $70,000 and we created a very interesting dialogue between the artists' works that apparently translated well.
…mbg: How do you think San Antonio and Houston are doing in terms of encouraging a new generation of collectors. How do the two cities differ? What's our report card in your opinion?
CE: San Antonio is a wonderful place to live and an amazing place to be an artist, but the collector base is not growing. I think part of the reason is the lack of a true contemporary museum in the city. Blue Star and Artpace have certainly raised the awareness of contemporary art in SA, but we still have a long way to go. It doesn't do any good for either the gallery or the artists to show some of my artists in San Antonio because the work either sells outside of San Antonio (LA, New York, Chicago), or the collector doesn't buy because they already have work by that artist, or maybe they bought it directly out of the artist’s studio years ago.
…mbg: What sorts of recurring trends are you noticing in the art world? Is your professional divining rod sensing something particular as the next big thing in terms of media, subject or style?
CE: Art fairs are taking over. At one point, Finesilver was participating in ten fairs a year. With regard to media, there is a distinct evidence of the hand—whether that involves drawing or craftsmanship in the work.
| Finesilver Gallery 816 Camaron San Antonio, TX 78212 3913 Main Street Houston, TX 77002 tel. 210.354.3333 www.finesilver.com |
IV. Dr.
Seuss at AMoA: Narrative or Nonsense?
Remember
When Storytelling Mattered? Tom Lea and Dr. SeussOn view at AMoA through January 15, 2006
On Tuesday afternoon, there was nary a child to be seen at Austin Museum of Art’s current show, Remember When Storytelling Mattered? Tom Lea and Dr. Seuss. Given its theme, perhaps the most striking aspect of the exhibition was its lack of creativity in preparing for young visitors. On both sides of the two-part show, the art was hung at the eye-level of an adult and the text type was small. The only nods to an interactive component were a couple of low tables strewn with books by or about the artists. In what comes off as an attempt to make this unlikely pairing of author/illustrators more palatable to adult audiences, the exhibition emphasizes Theodor Suess Geisel’s and Tom Lea’s fine art at the expense of their more acclaimed work in popular genres. What a pity: the show’s one example of Lea’s magazine illustration was more compelling than all his ponderous large canvases put together. Likewise Geisel’s energetic and elegant popular drawings from advertisments, political cartoons and his classic children's books are nothing if not exuberant.
While the Dr. Seuss traveling show felt slightly generic, AMoA did make use of some of Austin's local art resources— the complete Lorax papers from the LBJ Library and Tom Lea's works from AMoA's permanent collection. These supplements mitigated the prefab quality of the exhibition. (We should mention, however, that the exhibition was produced in part by Austin’s own Art on 5th.) But we were left wondering why this show couldn't have been organized around the priniples of color, rhyme and delirious surprise so familiar to the readers of The Cat in the Hat. An inviting, interactive environment would have better served the interest of both children and adults. Instead, this exhibition seems like a hedging of bets: children's work over-intellectualized (and shortchanged) within a frame of storytelling. For a museum that is trying to serve the entire community, would it not have been better to engage the works on their own childlike terms and let this excitement carry over to adults? Afterall the adults will have plenty of opportunities for more mature art viewing when Christo and Jeanne Claude's exhibition come to town on January 28th.
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Austin
Museum of Art
823 Congress Avenue at 9th Street Austin, TX 78701 tel. 512.495.9224 www.amoa.org |
V.
Readers
Write Back: A Letter from Hills Snyder
Dear …mbg,
Just saw …might be good and was reminded of the humbling experience that responses to Book of the Dead [the product of Snyder's Artpace 05.2 residency] brought and is still bringing my way. As the piece was nearing completion I began to feel lucky, fortunate, grateful...in short, I could tell something was going on. What I didn't know was the love it would bring (and some hate, just to be accurate, though in homeopathic doses). It began the night of the opening. I've never been hugged and kissed by so many people I hadn't known before. And the response from my friends well into the night; it just about made me cry. Max and Utah [Snyder's sons] were so into it. Max did some key work near the end with an energy and dedication that gave me peace and pride and Utah told me out loud he was proud of me. That pretty much clinched it—I felt like I was really part of something. It was the most satisfying post-gathering feeling I've ever had, but for the night Meg and I got married. Now, ya'll have brought some of that back in ...might me good.
I was glad to see Karen Mahaffy's Sala Diaz show mentioned. It was such a treat to discover and a joy to sit with for a long time. At Sala I'm like a blind Santa Claus in reverse—I love not knowing what the artists will do and getting to find out is like Christmas morning for a kid. Along with Karen's work I have to say Justin Boyd's show, Pulling a Folk Thread through the Ether Quilt, deserves a major mention also. If you missed it, be sure and stay tuned for the next variations.
One of my favorite experiences with art in 2005 echoes the opinion of many: Robert Gober. I'd never seen his work before and I have to say he's one of the only visual artists that really gets through to me in a deep, personal way. The high barred window with blue light behind was like Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc—spare and heart breaking. And his creepy side! Wow, it's like being 10 years old and getting the Brothers Grimm read to you by a baby sitter who would later be revealed as a pedophile. The other work in Houston that I found really interesting was Adrian Paci at the Contemporary Arts Museum.
Trisha Donnelly's Artpace project also got to me. Her work requires so much of you and this is something I believe in. For the viewers who bring skepticism, her diagram makes clear where the exit door is, but for those who are able to temper incredulity with faith, the rewards grow in admonishing returns. Anyone who was present for her demonstration knows what I mean. It was great having my Artpace residency book-ended with her show and Jon Pilson’s, who followed. Both are among the best Hudson Show Room exhibitions over the years.
In November, Teddy Cruz's lecture at Artpace blew my mind. The last thing I expected to experience was a visual/intellectual feast with humor. It restored my faith (at least for awhile) in the whole notion of serious presentation trips, which usually don't work for me other than to be a foil for side remarks and silly poems...
Finally, I must include two 2005 films that flipped my wig: Atom Egoyan's Where The Truth Lies and a little number called November, which left me with a feeling similar to something I hoped visitors to Book of the Dead might get. I'm keeping my description of it vague because I think the most important thing with any kind of work is for it to be open to individual interpretation. (If it doesn't feed your life, what on earth is it for?).
As for Egoyan, he, along with Scorsese and Shyamalan, is among the few directors of big movies that I look forward to with the same sort of anticipation I felt in the sixties as I waited for new albums by Bob Dylan, The Kinks, The Beatles and The Stones (also The Byrds, The Who and The Yardbirds…OK, I'll stop now). There was a period between ‘65 and ‘69 that was like no other, with revelations coming across every 6 to 8 months. Hitchcock turned me on in the same way, but earlier. These days I look forward to each and every Buttercup show too—there is very little that's more fun and informative than visiting the same band dozens of times. I'm always ready for new projects by Chris Sauter, Jesse Amado and Dario Robleto. I always wait for their work with tons of confidence.
So that's my belated “best of,” for what it's worth.
Kind regards,
Hills
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VI. Announcements: Helping Readers Keep Their New Year's Resolutions
New Year’s Resolution #1: Become an International Art Star/Curator/Critic by Applying for as Many Grants, Residencies and Calls for Entry as Possible.
If this is your resolution, then you’ve got four opportunities to get your work considered in the next few months… well, actually three or less if any of the following apply: you’re male, over the age of 35 or you don’t live in Houston, oh… and no chance at all if you’re a student. But, as is the case with most fortune and fame, there are always a few catches.
Women and Their Work is currently accepting proposals for solo show and curated exhibitions of Texas-based women artists who have not shown there in the past five years. Submit your slides along with the application, which can be found at www.womenandtheirwork.org, by March 10th. Dunn and Brown Contemporary in Dallas won’t be checking under your skirt, but age will count against you. D&B is accepting slides, et al. from artists 35 and under for their I:35 Biennial Invitational. Check out www.dunnandbrown.com for an application and guidelines for submission. Their deadline is February 28th. Artadia: The Fund for Art and Dialogue will divvy up a lot of money in their third grant season. The catch: you’ve gotta live in Houston. So, if you don’t, then start packing your bags and head over to Artadia’s website www.artadia.org for more information about how to apply before their deadline of February 15th. According to The Core Program’s website, www.core.mfah.org you must be highly motivated and exceptional to get a residency at this Museum of Fine Arts Houston-affiliated program. If you fit this description, update your CV and send off your slides, letters of recommendations and statement of intent by April 1st. New Year’s Resolution #2: Become Part of Central Texas’ Cultural Cognoscenti by Attending All Upcoming Openings
Austin has a whopping six openings in the next two weeks:
The exhibition On Others, opening tomorrow at Iron Gate Studios, brings together five sculptors to address how different experiences beget similar artistic products. Affinities generated across formal and conceptual lines are found in all five’s artists who each reflect on where they come from in their work. Lora Reynolds Gallery is starting off their new year with a solo show of work by Los Angeles-based artist Francesca Gabbiana. Wonderland will feature Gabbiani’s signature collaged and painted landscape as well as new works that take inspiration from the settings of horror films and real life tragedies, and the creepy aspects of popular children’s fiction and nursery rhymes. The show opens Saturday January 14th. Also opening this Saturday is The Greatest Secrets, a new installation at Art Palace by Austin local Ebony Porter. Compiling video footage from her travels across the globe, Porter offers her viewer a meditation on the celestial through an evocative play with light and sound.
Next Friday, Janurary 20th, be sure to catch the opening of The Gospel of Lead, a collaborative pairing of works by Dario Robleto and Jeremy Blake at Arthouse. Both artists will present recent trilogies of work focusing on the gun in American popular culture, history and mythology. Return to Arthouse again on Saturday, January 21st to hear Robleto and Blake discuss their works. Focusing on the physicality and textuality of a single word—compassion— with the aim of reassessing its meaning, Katalin Hausel weaves through all its permutations, meanings and associations for the text-based sculptures and installations that will be on view at the Coop’s Gallery 3. Katalin Hausel: Leaf will open on Thursday January 26th. Warthogs, snapping turtles and doe-eyed fawns are a few of the subjects that make appearances in Malcolm Bucknall’s drawn and painted portraits. Whether dressed in Elizabethan regalia or donning a cowboy’s chaps and hat, these and other animals are sure to give a chuckle. Familiars. Fiends. Funnies. Tread Thee Light Fantastic opens at dberman gallery on Thursday January 26th.
With all that’s happening in San Antonio in the next two weeks who needs to battle the crowds at First Friday to see art? Blue Star Art Space opens their season Thursday, January 19th with a quartet of solo shows. Ricky A. Armendariz, George Schroeder, Caprice Pierucci Taniguchi and Ansen Seale offer recent painting, sculpture and photographs. The work of Acharya Vyakul (1930-2000) of Jaipur, India has been described as “tantric-folk.” A painter, working across both popular and folk styles, abstract and figurative lines, Vyakul’s aim to represent the invisible manifests itself in a raw, interior art of elegance and violence—according to the press release sent out by Lawrence Markey Gallery, that is. Find out for your self by attending their opening on January 19th. The films, photographs and drawings of Amsterdam-based artist Arnoud Holleman presented in his Hudson Show Room solo exhibition at Artpace challenge the genre of portraiture by blurring the lines between documentation and fiction, reality and fantasy. Hear the artist speak about his work at the show’s opening on January 26th from 6:30 to 8 P.M.
New Year’s Resolution #3: Learn about Contemporary Art Topics Both Popular and Obscure by Attending Lectures, Talks and Other Events around Town
Art and math have more in common than one might think. We don’t quite understand what Hendrik Lenstra will be speaking about at his colloquium “Searching for Good abc-triples” at the University of Texas’s Robert Lee Moore building, Room 6.104, something about the radical “r.” But Bart de Smit’s talk in the Welch Building, Room 1.316 at 8 P.M on mathematics in the work of M.C. Escher’s The Print Gallery will strike just the right balance of art history and math and the perfect place for students from opposite sides of the campus to meet.
Raise your glass at the Austin Women & Wine 2006 Members Kick Off Party at Chez Zee (5406 Balcones Drive) on next Thursday, January 19 at 7 pm. Admission is $40 a person (sorry guys this a women only event) and includes live music, a raffle, doorprizes and an art sale. Why is this event being mentioned in …mbg? Because proceeds generated from the art sale will benefit Women and Their Work. Be generous, raise your glass and help this great Austin space out. In other Women and Their Work news: On Tuesday, January 17, from 7 to 9 P.M. the organization will present Show and Tell: A Digital Slide Jam. Artists Suzanne Koett, Laura Latimer, Theresa Marchetta, Michael Schiefke, Theresa Vargas and Sodalitas will be there for a digital presentation and discussion other their works.
New Year's Resolution #4: Have My World Rocked by Steve Prince.
With so many Steve Prince-related happenings this weekend, we at …mbg thought he deserved his own spot in the resolutions section.
In celebration of African American Heritage Month, Stone Metal Press and The Carver Cultural Center have teamed together to bring New Orleans-native, Hampton University professor and printmaker Steve Prince to San Antonio for two exhibitions, a demonstration and workshop and a talk. The series of linoleum prints that make up Prince's exhibition Urban Epistles are structured as an open letter asking its viewers to think about their responsibility to specific problems in America’s cultural landscape: representations of race, faith, education, to name a few. Urban Epistles opens at The Carver Theatre (226 N. Hackberry) tonight from 5:30 to 7:30 P.M. Catch Steve Prince again at a demonstration and printmaking workshop from 10 to 4 at Stone Metal Press Studios in the Gallista Gallery Complex (1913 S. Flores) before heading off to another opening of his work. He and Joanette Duncan are having an opening reception for their show, Worth Repeating II at Stone Metal Press’s Gallery (110 Blue Star, Building B, Upstairs—at the Intersection of South Alamo and Probandt) on Saturday, January 14 at 7 P.M. Finally, spend your last hours with Steve Prince back where you started; at The Carver Center for a gallery talk Sunday afternoon from 2 to 4 P.M.
New Year’s Resolution #5: Become an Avid Follower of Fluent ~Collaborative, …might be good and testsite.
Former Testsite participants Jason Singleton and Alejandro Cesarco both have projects opening in New York.
Superimposing found photographs of civilian casualties in Iraq with another set of photographs documenting pranks played on passed out drunks, Singleton’s project at Happy Endings, Pass Out Dead, is sure to elicit response when viewers confront the sick affinities between these decontextualized poses. Singleton’s project will be on view through the end of next week. We are also excited to see Alejandro Cesarco’s newest work at Art in General. Cesarco, collaborating with Argentinean novelist and poet Daniel Link, adapts the narrative voice-over of Marguerite Duras’ 1975 film Indian Song to consider modes of address, genres of text, narrative, translation and the way that meaning is assigned and displaced.
testsite will back on board this spring!
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Women
and Their Work
www.womenandtheirwork.org Dunn and Brown Contemporary www.dunnandbrown.com Artadia: The Fund for Art and Dialogue www.artadia.org Iron Gate Studios www.irongatestudios.org Lora Reynolds Gallery www.lorareynolds.com Art Palace www.artpalacegallery.com Arthouse www.arthousetexas.org Gallery 3 at the Coop www.gallery3atthecoop.com dberman gallery www.dbermangallery.com Blue Star Art Space www.bluestarartspace.org Lawrence Markey Gallery www.lawrencemarkey.com The Hudson Show Room www.artpace.org The Carver Center www.thecarver.org Stone Metal Press www.stonemetal-press.com Happy Endings www.happyendinglounge.com Art in General www.artingeneral.org |
Image courtesy of Women and Their Work.
Liz Ward, Minor Aquifers (Pthalo Blue), 2005. Watercolor on paper.
Liz Ward, Minor Aquifers (Pthalo Blue), 2005. Watercolor on paper.
Fluent~Collaborative
is a speculative non-profit initiative established to increase awareness
of new developments in the contemporary visual arts and the ideas and
issues that inform contemporary culture. We are a place where a critical
and creative mix of visual, media and performance artists join authors,
filmmakers, musicians, architects, poets and other diverse communities
outside of the arts to enable a new awareness and sophisticated discernment
of changing thought and culture around the world.
…might
be good is a bi-weekly e-magazine that covers contemporary
art
in Austin, San Antonio and beyond. Written with a critical eye and an
art-lover’s admiration, …might be good is an independent voice that
provides readers an avenue to engage with serious art in central Texas.
Look for us online and in your e-mail inbox every other Friday.
in Austin, San Antonio and beyond. Written with a critical eye and an
art-lover’s admiration, …might be good is an independent voice that
provides readers an avenue to engage with serious art in central Texas.
Look for us online and in your e-mail inbox every other Friday.
© 2006 fluent~collaborative. all rights reserved. view our privacy policy.
