from the editor
This week, e-flux’s most recent issue and Anna Craycroft’s Subject of Learning/Object of Study at the Blanton continued to contribute to the current investigation of pedagogy and artists' pedagogical projects. With all the fresh words spilled on the subject, we'll wait until our next issue to add fuel to the fire. Sometimes, there is only so much of a topic one can handle at a time.
Claire Ruud is Associate Director of Fluent~Collaborative.
interview
Luke Savisky
By Katie Geha
Luke Savisky, New Works: Luke Savisky, Installation at the Austin Museum of Art. Photo: Jimmy Jalapeeno. Courtesy the Austin Museum of Art.
Pioneering Austin filmmaker Luke Savisky has a new installation at the Austin Museum of Art New Works gallery. ...might be good corresponded with him over email to discuss projected light, breaking out of the confines of the cinema aperture, and the music that sets the mood for many of his works. Certain elements of the installation may change over the course of the exhibition’s run, so readers who want to see the exact pieces we're referencing here should drop by the museum within the next few weeks. Also, take note: on April 28th, Savisky, in association with the City of Austin and the Fusebox Festival, will present an outdoor projection onto City Hall.
...might be good [mbg]: I was wondering what role the architecture of the gallery at AMOA played in the creation of the installation. It occurred to me that a lot of the objects were squares or rectangles, as was the light that was projected. Was this a response to the "white cube" of the gallery?
Luke Savisky [LS]: This installation and those formal rectangles became a kind of exercise in restraint for me. Over the last few years, I'd been projecting on snowy cliff faces, the water tower and recently, in huge ancient soaring cathedral guts laced with marble saints and giant gold-leafed blood-soaked crucifixes.
As with much of my previous work, my tendency for the New Works gallery would have been to try to visually or physically transform and expand the room to more of a seamless whole rather than four gallery walls each separated by doors. Luckily, rebuilding the room was not in the budget, because I realized fairly quickly that the transitions of passing from one mind space or dimensional space into or back from another had to be internal to the participant.
I wanted the simple transitional shapes to reflect the architecture, the situation, its confines and associations. I had worked with odd sculptured shapes and distortions of the regular 16mm projector frame, but for this more formal arrangement, I wanted something fairly direct, only slightly distorted. The 1.33:1 window shape wasn't it, and a wide "screen" shape was too directly associative, so for the North wall piece I flipped the projectors over on their sides and added anamorphic lenses, making a 2.66:1 vertical passageway, using the concentric frames to invoke a feeling of physical movement through the wall.
mbg: In your expanded notion of cinema how does the screen function?
LS: I've had a very stormy relationship with the constrictions of the frame, in painting and other traditional arts, film, video, architecture and now computers, always struggling to think of ways to burst out of it or distort it, shape it, expand it, transform it, multiply it or pass through it in some way. The confines of the cinema aperture and screen can be a prison, a grave, a window, a boundary, a convenient container for the mind of film makers, or a means of transformation, escape or transcendence, dependent on the context and your relationship to it. It could also represent a passage that in physics would be seen as a portal.
I've spent enough strange time with it that maybe it's drawn me all the way through, not to a fantasy land, but to something outside the frame itself, so that it feels like I'm looking back on it in a way. That makes pieces like this feel to me like a tribute or a reconciliation. Am I hearing the soundtrack to 2001? . . . maybe that's part of what Kubrick was referencing with the monolith (haha).
mbg: Can you explain the twirling cage in the center of the gallery? Is it also referencing the confines of the projected image?
LS: The trap/cage piece, like the motion picture screen, has strong associations to most viewers and definitely visually references the architecture and boundaries of the gallery and building it spins in, but its transparency and movement create more possibilities. The viewer is also charged with comparing the internally formed 3-D reality of the shadow to the reality of the thing itself.
mbg: I really like thinking about the idea that the cast of the projector light onto the screen could be read as some kind of prison--you called it a "convenient container for the mind of the film maker. " But it also strikes me as a type of container for the spectator. On the day I visited the gallery, it was family day and I spent a good hour on one of the comfy couches watching kids go wild in the installation. It occurred to me that participation, viewing and being viewed, sort of triggered the exhibition. Could you talk more about how viewer interaction and play became part of the installation?
LS: The gallery viewer is almost always held in a series of containers and expected to behave, right? How many times have you been in a video "installation" (usually someone's short film projected onto one wall in an empty room) and expected to stand or sit uncomfortably on a hard floor enduring a 20 minute DVD loop? And how often have you walked out of one of these before experiencing it fully? The point where the decisions the artist makes to structure a work meets the decisions the viewer makes in viewing it is the ticklish terror some artists avoid like the plague.
I wanted to present some options that aren't always present, some level of participatory freedom, ways into the piece and a way out of the usual mindset, stimulate some contrasting thought over time and a comfortable place to sit while experiencing it—a way to allow the viewer to project him or herself into the work. I was thinking of a "living gallery" idea where the couch is moved under the art instead of the art hung over the couch.
mbg: I know you've collaborated with a lot of musicians in your career as a filmmaker. The music in this installation really helped to create a sort of poetic mood to the act of seeing your ghost self projected on the wall. How did you pick this music? How does it interact (or counteract) with the projected light?
LS: The music in the installation will likely alternate between music by Stars of the Lid and The Dead Texan (the music you heard). Stars of the Lid is Adam Wiltzie and Brian McBride. The Dead Texan is Adam's collaboration with Christina Vantzou. The Dead Texan has a slightly airier presence that meshed beautifully with the formalized shapes, visual rhythm and domestic feel of this phase of the installation. SotL is more lush and expansive and may come into the mix later.
I've worked with Stars of the Lid since they first started playing live. I'm the third member in the shadows behind the projectors designing the visuals on their live tours and they've composed and sequenced the sound for a large number of my events and installations. When I listen to their music, it’s impossible for me not to start visualizing light, images, colors and shapes. There's been a mutual trust, admiration and implicit understanding since the beginning. It’s been ideal, really.
I've been honored to hear and to work with some amazing musicians and composers over the years here in Austin and elsewhere. I'm still daunted by how lucky I've been to witness such an incredible wealth of unique talent. All those experiences have deeply affected my artistic approach and growth. The installation felt right when all the pieces were working properly, but it feels complete when I push play on the CD.
Katie Geha is pursuing her Ph.D. in art history at The University of Texas at Austin.
reviews
Kyung-Lim Lee
Devin Borden Hiram Butler Gallery
Closed February 24
By Stacey Holzer
Kyung-Lim Lee, Red Circle, 2009, 24 x 36 inches. Courtesy Devin Borden. Hiram Butler Gallery.
Squares of wood assembled in a grid pattern form an irregular, graduated T-shape against one wall, impartial to the minimal space of the Devin Borden Hiram Butler Gallery. In this work, patterns from nature are drawn in pencil on a grid of squares, replicating the simplicity of a mountainous Korean landscape painting. Works on paper convey geometric forms that extend to the papers’ edges, filling the space with a colorful or monochrome playfulness. Images gesture to one another in a communicative fabric and materials articulate the physicality of form. Vivid pastel cross hatch marks and textures in some works combine with slickly painted surfaces and subtle images drawn on juxtaposed squares in others to yield a varied yet cohesive exhibition.
Artist Kyung-Lim Lee describes her work this way in the press release: “The subject of my work continues to be about the relationship between thought and image. An image drawn on paper can be of a metaphysical existence or an archetypal state of being. Drawing makes it possible to imagine such a time and space.” Lee’s statement is indicative of the idea that historical landscape painting in Korea held a “sacred” place above other forms of art that depicted human activity or humanity. Landscape depicts an expansive space for reflection that is still revered above images of daily Korean life. Organic forms in nature are discerned with a geometric order that is apparent in Lee’s work. The forms within it evoke magnified details of a larger schematic view of mountains or sky.
Kyung-Lim Lee, Circle and Ellipse, Violet and Red, 2009.
The largest work in the show is comprised of a small grid system with each a gray scale variation of an ellipse represented in each square. These ellipses float amidst a muddied charcoal background in a gradual progression from dark to light and light to dark. Layers of oil and wax create a slick background surface smoothly painted with alternate textures of graphite added atop depicting varied surface textures. Hand rubbed surfaces, patterns of light and dark, the artist’s delicate use of line and neutral tones, make this the most dynamic piece in the exhibition.
Having grown up in Seoul, Korea, Lee moved to the United States at the age of fifteen. In these works, traditional Korean landscape imagery combined with abstract geometry mark Lee’s journey from East to West. Modern Korean painters often step into the past role of a master, not only to conceptualize what has gone before but to experience the development of their own particular style. Lee’s work returns the formal elements of Korean landscape adding a sensual bold geometry that formulates her own modern expression. Playfulness, physicality and sheer beauty compel the viewer to further contemplation of thought and image in Lee’s work.
Stacey Holzer is a freelance writer, and publisher of VisualSeen.
Armory, Volta, Biennial: The Best Things
New York
2010
By Dan Boehl
Armory
Kate Gilmore, Still from Standing Here, 2010, Mixed-media sculpture with video, color, sound. Collection of the artist; courtesy Smith-Stewart Gallery, New York, Franco Soffiantino Arte Contemporanea, Turin, and Maisterravalbuena, Madrid. (Whitney Biennial 2010).
There was a high level of quality in everything at the Armory show, even in the ugly stuff. The whole place was so packed with art that it took me awhile to figure out how to look at it. But it turns out it works like a Tumblr page: keep scrolling until you notice something good. I marveled at the way the fair was a great equalizer of fairgoers. Whether a collector, gallerist, or art student, everyone stood in long lines for $9 sandwiches, sat on occasional stools or on the floor, and grabbed the ubiquitous 20X200 totes.
Philip-Lorca DiCorcia
David Zwirner, New York
The large photographs were on display, but I was attracted to the booth lined with Polaroid test shots. Most of the test shots were familiar from other exhibitions I’ve seen, but the images’ size evoked that intimate buzz that comes with finding a stack of yellowed photographs in an old house.
Francesca Gabbiani
Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin
Francesca Gabbiani at Lora Reynolds at the Armory. Photo: Anna Krachey.
Gabbiani’s work was some of the very best I saw in New York because it has a level of craftsmanship, beauty, and whimsy that I didn’t see very often. The papercut undersea collages attracted a lot of attention from fairgoers. While obviously intricate and detailed, close inspection revealed signs of human excess lost among the fish strewn reefs.
Vidya Gastaldon
art:concept, Paris
Gastaldon’s Blake-like colors and compositions had an updated psychodelic feel. In a better kind of myth-making, these, like the Dawolu Jabari Anderson comic paintings I saw later at Volta, made me want to know the whole story.
Anthony James
Nicholas Robinson Gallery, New York
James’ “Wall Mounted Birch Box” encapsulates the feeling of being at the Armory show. The rows of slightly crooked sticks mirrored into infinity felt like getting lost. Sort of like a sculpture of the perfect vision of the Internet.
Volta
My impression of Volta was that few of the galleries brought artists who took very much risk. Rather, throughout the fair, artists had put visible effort into making quotidian objects out of fine materials. I also noticed that most of the German galleries were showing downright terrible art. I wanted more knockouts from the fair as a whole, but everything seemed pretty quiet and unassuming. But here are the standouts.
Dawolu Jabari Anderson
Finesliver, San Antonio
I really like Anderson’s black cultural references mashed into superhero comic book covers. In a lot of ways the technique is easy. But placing Michael Jackson in a ring of zombie cops from the 60’s conjures an instant empathy with the pop superstar. In that moment, all I want is that he defeat his circling foes. A problem arises when I try to figure out the back-story, though. Where is Jackson’s Bat Cave, and who sleeps over at night?
Jennie Ottinger
Johanssen Projects, San Francisco
Ottinger paints monumentally simple scenes on small canvases. The stripped-down quality of featureless figures placed in familiar but uncommon settings (a jury taking an oath, at a banquet) connects to viewers in an iconic way. The scenes are recognizable, but have a ghostly feel like documents of a bygone family history.
Todd Pavlisko
Samson Projects, Boston
Pavlisko’s work gliztes pop culture, but in a sad way. I didn’t see the video of him nail his foot to the floor that put off some fairgoers, but the painting of Steven Hawking suspended in the fuselage of an anti-gravity aircraft reveals something about the power of individual imagination to transcend individual limitations.
Rafaël Rozendaal
Extra Joker/One Star Press, Paris
This was my favorite stop at Volta. Probably because I spent so much time chatting with the gallerist, Christoph Boutin and Anna, the attendant. I asked about all the URLs pinned to the wall, and Anna pulled over a laptop to show me www.newrafael.com. The Parisians were pleased when I told them I was familiar with Rozendaal’s work, and had spent some time clicking around his site, playing what I thought at the time were simple games. With his hybrid of webart, Rozendaal creates a gymnastic space that combines “public” Internet space and collecting (collectors may purchase the domain names of Rozendaal’s sites from the artist). Though I had never considered URLs as canvases before, I now see a simple connection. A URL sale is not unlike the auction of Sex.com.
Carrie Schneider
Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago
In Schneider’s video “Slow Dance,” a bartender watches as two dancing figures double. First the man is augmented by another man who slips into the first man’s sweater, embracing both the dancers. Then the woman is doubled. Maybe I am just drawn to sad things now that I am full-on thirties, but in “Slow Dance” the past stacks and multiplies with the sexual energy of the present darkening its door. I mean, regardless of what is happening in our relationships, we are always going to be thinking about something else.
Alexander Tinei
VOGUES Gallery, Frankfurt and Ana Cristea Gallery, New York
Tinei paints with a hipster/self-referential style that fails other artists because they are really interested in style and fashion. Tinie’s concern is painting, so his canvases make these vamps come alive by accenting the figure, not the style, in startling and beautiful ways.
Whitney Biennial
I expected more. The exhibition was reminiscent of my art fair experience. The mostly “blah” work was punctuated by a few moments of genuine surprise. I don’t think unyielding surprise is too much to ask from a survey of contemporary art, yet there were just not enough highlights for me to feel satisfied with the exhibition. Most of all, the biennial reminded that actions are exciting and ideas boring.
Kate Gilmore
“Standing Here” creates a gripping tension as the artist escapes a drywall rectangle by kicking footholds into its sides. I get the sense of that Hollywood tension created by the sound of the rising orchestra.
Roland Flexner
Mounted in small frames, Flexner’s drawings, which he makes using a modified Suminagashi paper dying technique, look like a series of landscapes. Up close, the landscape deteriorates into blobby abstraction.
Loraine O’Grady
“The First and Last of the Modernists” encapsulates culture with four simple pictures of Baudelaire juxtaposed with Michael Jackson. The work makes a sweeping assumption about wealth, fame, and artistic ambition. I really like this kind of ballsy sweep, which according to the label copy, took sorting through thousands of Jackson images to match the scarce Baudelaire images O’Grady had on hand.
Aki Sasamoto
I am not sure what to say about the “Strange Attractions” installation other than it felt like a crazy Crate and Barrel store in which I was watching myself interact with suspended housewares from the store security booth.
Robert Williams
Williams’ watercolors update single panel cartoons to create politically poignant monsters. In “Greenkatchina” a cactus shaped familiar poses as guardian of the desert. Greenkatchina implies an environmental message, but unlike Smokey the bear, Williams’ familiars threaten and attract like spaghetti western gunslingers.
Dan Boehl is a workshop fellow in the Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program. His chapbook Les MISERES ET LES MAL-HEURS DE LA GUERRE is now available from Greying Ghost.
Announcements: exhibitions
Austin Openings
Katy Horan
Domy Books
Opening Reception: Saturday March 20, 7-9pm
Lady Monsters is the title of Katy Horan's opening at Domy Books. Her work gives birth to fantastical creatures made of pattern and lace. Referring to ideas of femininity, Horan derives much of her inspiration from archetypes of folklore and history.
Jeremy Fish
Okay Mountain Gallery
Opening reception: March 13, 2010, 7-10pm
Jeremy Fish's artwork deals with the relationship of all things cute and creepy, and the balance between the two. The work tends to be narrative stories designed with a library of symbols and characters. In 2007 Mr Fish started a new brand called Superfishal, with the help of his loyal team of hard working gnomes.
Click here for information about the show.
Roy McMakin
Lora Reynolds Gallery
Opening reception: Wednesday, March 24, 6-8pm
Lora Reynolds Gallery is pleased to announce our second solo exhibition of new sculptures and photography by Seattle-based artist, Roy McMakin. The artist will give a public talk in the gallery on Wednesday, March 24th, at 7pm.
For this exhibition, In and On, Roy McMakin conceived four pieces that meticulously intermingle elements of sculpture and furniture. Each work imbues the artists distinctly minimalist tradition. Two pieces espouse found furniture with McMakin's own sculptures, a more prevalent practice by the artist in recent years. His photographic series, Net Making, also included in the exhibition, skillfully illustrates McMakins relentless attention to detail.
"THURIBLE" and "The The The"
Domy Books
Screening: Tuesday, March 16, 8pm
Domy Books presents two short films. THURIBLE is a film by Rusty Kelley that follows a young girl in her preparation and performance of an ancient family ritual. The The The is Austin-based Ryan Beltrán's feature film debut, co-produced by Ben Aqua and OK! FRESH. Click here for showtimes.
Austin on View
Desire
Blanton Museum of Art
Through April 25
See Claire Ruud's review in Issue #141.
Luke Savisky
Austin Museum of Art
Through May 9
AMOA's New Works exhibition series introduces fresh contemporary art by innovative Austin artists. The upcoming show will feature installation artist, Luke Savisky, who uses light and projection to explores ideas of perception, exposure, surveillance, and perspective. Click here for a video of a previous installation in downtown Austin.
Elizabeth Chiles
testsite
Through March 28
Taking compositions found within the landscape as a starting place, Elizabeth Chiles builds syntax out of the formal and affective relationships between darkness and natural light. Her photographs endow light with temporal and spatial presence—a visible presence that nonetheless gestures toward the imperceptible and ineffable. This handling of light transforms the everyday into something to be revered. In this way, the works in Book of Praise become an ode to a presence akin to that of an altar or inspired text, or what may be the aura of the sacred.
Kathryn Kelley
Women and their Work
Through April 15
Houston based artist Kathryn Kelley up-cycles and reanimates objects of urban refuse into large fleshy sculptures that often stand in the place of the self. The impressive scale of these pieces creates a theatrical position for viewers who are confronted with gregarious forms, or intimations of the shadowed self. Remnant inner tubes, doors, frames & windows morph & mingle in these ambitious works. Click here for more information about the show.
Austin Closings
Over
MASS Gallery
Through March 27th
MASS Gallery is pleased to present Over, a new collaborative installation created by Austin-based artists, Ilea Avalos, Andrea Bonin, and Megan Kincheloe. Over is the group's collective process of reconciliation between the desire to hold on to time, to remember, and time as an impersonal force. The artists use handmade plaster bricks to create larger structures that represent units of counting and the building blocks of memory. Avalos, Bonin, and Kincheloe share an aesthetic that involves both a sense of structuring as well as collapsing. The project is a meditation on the human process of resolving what ultimately might be loss.
Mark Johnson & Debra Broz
Pump Project
Through March 13
New mixed media work by Mark Johnson & Debra Broz. Fifth Business, definition: Those roles which, being neither those of Hero nor Heroine, Confidante nor Villian, but which were none the less essential to bring about the Recognition were called the Fifth Business in drama and opera companies organized according to the old style. This exhibition draws on the idea of the "cabinet of curiosities" - these two Austin artists use text and found objects to make intriguing work.
Denny McCoy
D Berman Gallery
Through March 27
Release features Denny McCoy as he continues his exploration of visual perception and the emotional and physical effects of color and spatial relationships.
University of Texas-Austin 2010 Senior Art Exhibition
CRL Gallery
Through March 13, 2010
CRL is proud to present an all-inclusive, salon-style exhibition introducing seniors from the undergraduate Studio Art and Visual Art Studies programs of the Department of Art and Art History. Come celebrate the art of these emerging visual artists as they launch themselves into the contemporary art world and beyond. Work on display will showcase the full range of media cultivated in the department, including ceramics, digital-time arts, drawing, metals, painting, printmaking, performance art, sculpture, and video art.
Houston Openings
Demetrius Oliver
Inman Gallery
Opening reception: Friday, March 12th, 6-8pm
In a series of photographs, an installation, and a sculpture, Demetrius Oliver explores the effects and potential meanings of reflected light. "Albedo", the title of both the exhibition and the sculpture, refers to the measure of how strongly an object reflects electromagnetic rays. Oliver transforms common objects (light bulbs, coal, a suitcase, and photographs) to evoke phenomena and metaphors of illumination. Both introspective and expansive, Oliver's practice investigates the cosmos, and our knowledge of the universal, from the vantage points of the artist's studio and the gallery space.
2010 Core Exhibition and Yearbook
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Opening reception: Friday, March 5, 6:30 - 8:30pm
The 2010 Core Exhibition features the work of current artists-in-residence Nick Barbee, Natasha Bowdoin, Jillian Conrad, Lily Cox-Richard, Steffani Jemison, Julie Ann Nagle, Kelly Sears, and James Sham II. Published in conjunction with the exhibition, the 2010 Core Yearbook includes essays by this year´s critical studies residents Regan Golden-McNerney, Kurt Mueller, and Wendy Vogel.
Anders Oinonen and Philip Vanderhyden
CTRL
Opening Reception: Friday, March 12, 6-8pm
CTRL gallery is pleased to present solo exhibitions of new paintings by Anders Oinonen & Philip Vanderhyden. Canadian artist Anders Oinonen is back for his third exhibition at CTRL with a new series of dynamic color-saturated paintings. The title of his exhibition, Sundogs, comes from the atmospheric phenomenon of the same name. New York painter Philip Vanderhyden is known for his seductive process-based color field paintings that hang like veils and appear like mirages of indeterminable depth. Gallery talks with both artists on Saturday, March 13 at 1pm)
MANUAL (Ed Hill and Suzanne Bloom)
Moody Gallery
Opening reception: Saturday, March 27, 6 - 8pm
Moody Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by MANUAL (Ed Hill and Suzanne Bloom), their first major collaborative exhibition since their retrospective was shown at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in 2004. MANUAL on books is a large selection of photographs from MANUAL's extended Book Project, a celebration, paean or praise of the "book." The exhibition is in conjunction with the FotoFest 2010 Biennial.
Eileen Maxson
Domy Books, Houston
Opening reception: March 13, 2010, 7-9pm
"Last summer, there was an ad on Craigslist offering a free, taxidermy wolverine. The catch was that the current owner considered it haunted, and stipulated "No questions asked." I started thinking, maybe there was some thing I could get rid of — some bitter toy stewing with bad vibes in the attic. Maybe this thing was the problem, and maybe I could pass on that thing to someone stronger.
So, buyer beware. I've scoured the closets, hard drives, pre-teen poetry, firefox history, and my best guess — is 1993.
The entire year of 1993.
Coincidentally or not, 2010 is a recycled, identical calendar to 1993. My Quantum Leap, Back to the Future fandom is saying that this is a cracked door, a chance for renewal.
Then, what I'm advertising is a haunted house, with the expectation of spontaneous healing :-S" —Eileen Maxson
Click here for more information about the show.
Allison Hunter and Kelly Richardson
DiverseWorks Art Space
Opening reception: March 12, 2010, 6-8pm
Installations by Allison Hunter and Kelly Richardson will be opening this week in Houston at DiverseWorks.
Hunter's Zoosphere is a transcendent installation of image and sound investigating humankind's relationship to the natural world. In her first ever immersive video installation, Hunter upends the power dynamic between the human and non-human animal within a dark, mazelike environment in which the man and beast co-mingle.
Richardson's flickerlounge: Twilight Avenger is equal parts sci-fi myth and forest fable, dreamy nocturne and dazzling special effect, Twilight Avenger begins with a fairytale-worthy image of a misty, moonlit forest clearing, inhabited by a majestic stag who emanates a luminous green vapor. Quietly grazing amidst the ambient chatter of other forest dwellers, our protagonist occasionally rears his head, shifting his gaze towards us.
Panta Rei
Box 13 ArtSpace
Opening reception: March 13, 7-9:30pm
In conjunction with FotoFest, Panta Rei is an exhibition featuring eleven photographers from Austin, Texas who meet regularly to share and discuss images. Panta rei, translated from the Greek, means "everything flows." Thought to be first uttered by Heraclitus, Panta Rei describes a worldview of things in constant flux, famously positing that one can never step in the same river twice.
Artists in the exhibition include: Ben Ruggiero, Susan Scafati Shahan, Leigh Brodie, Jason Reed, Mike Osborne, Barry Stone, Adam Schreiber, Jessica Mallios, Sarah Murphy, Anna Krachey, and Elizabeth Chiles. These artists utilize a diverse set of methodologies bound by their exploration of contemporary and historical practices of photography. All the artists live and work in Austin.
Click here to learn more about the artists.
Houston on View
Barkley L. Hendricks
Contemporary Arts Museum Houston
Through April 18
Best known for his life-sized portraits of ordinary people living in his urban northeast community of Connecticut, Barkley L. Hendricks’s bold portrayal of his subject’s attitude and style elevates the common man and woman to celebrity status. Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool is the first painting retrospective of the American artist, and includes over 50 works from 1964 to the present
Marfa Openings
In Lieu of Unity / En lugar de la unidad
Ballroom Marfa
Opening reception: Friday, March 26th, 2010, 7-9pm
In Lieu of Unity brings together artists from Mexico – citizens, residents and emigrants – who have sustained a curiosity about social relations in their art practices. Their focus demonstrates that the nature of existence is contingent not merely on the cognizance of being, but more so on the relationships between individuals and the collectives they form. Through varied perspectives on what it means to be together, these artists relinquish utopian ideas of unity. Instead they favor their own explorations of the underlying systems that influence everyday encounters, such as language, commerce, architecture, citizenship and social mores. The exhibition as a whole can be seen as a collection of responses to social dynamics as they play out in specific locations in Mexico, within the context of Marfa, Texas, and throughout their shared geographic and conceptual borderlands.
Participating Artists: Eduardo Abaroa, Margarita Cabrera; Livia Corona; Minerva Cuevas; Mario García Torres, Máximo González, Paulina Lasa, Teresa Margolles, Pedro Reyes and Tercerunquinto.
San Antonio Openings
Make-up
Unit B Gallery
Opening reception: Friday, March 26, 6:30 - 10pm
Make-up is defined as a substance used to enhance the appearance of the body or the effect created by the application of such substances. The artists included in the exhibition all use makeup similarly as a tool of exaggeration, whether their subject is sculptural, environmental or the body. They share an oversaturated color palette, often times indulging in elaborate pattern, decoration, and costume. Characteristic to these works is an undeniable handmade aesthetic where tape, poster board, house paint and cardboard all make their way into the adornment of their respective subjects or characters. Make-Up is curated by Okay Mountain.
IAIR New Works: 10.1
Artpace
Opening Reception: March 18
Artpace's International Artists-in-Residence program 10.1 presents new work by Buster Graybill (Huntsville, TX), Klara Liden (Berlin, Germany), and Ulrike Müller (New York, NY).
Malaquias Montoya
UTSA Art Gallery
Opening reception: Wednesday, March 24, 6-8pm
Globalization & War -- The Aftermath, works by Malaquias Montoya, creates a dialogue between viewer and painter, conveying the universal story of the consequences of power and war, which includes peoples of all cultures. This exhibition presents a mirror for viewers to see themselves in portraits that focus on the destruction of people's existence resulting in the uprooting of their lives, the result of displacement, and the loss of culture caused by corporate globalization and the tragedies of war. In each image, we see the human spirit at its most vulnerable point, in the shadows between obliteration, devastation and survival.
San Antonio Closings
John Smith
Sala Diaz Gallery
Through March 28
For Contemporary Art Month 2010, Sala Diaz welcomes London film and video artist John Smith. John will screen three different 90 minute programs anthologizing 20 films spanning his work from the seventies to the present, including his recently completed Hotel Diaries series.
Texas Exhibitions
Felix-Gonzales Torres
Artpace
Through December 31
In celebration of its 15th anniversary, Artpace presents the first-ever U.S. survey of 95.1 Artpace alum Felix Gonzalez-Torres' billboards in a yearlong, state-wide exhibition of 13 seminal works sited in Dallas, El Paso, Houston, and San Antonio. Major underwriting for this special exhibition is provided by the Linda Pace Foundation, with generous in-kind support from Clear Channel Outdoor.
Announcements: events
Austin Events
AMODA presents Digital Showcase at Club DeVille
Austin Museum of Digital Art
Saturday, March 13
Admission: $8 general, $4 for AMODA members
Once again, AMODA presents a Laptop Battle for our March Digital Showcase which will take place at Club DeVille. Eight local electronic musicians will compete against one another in a tournament style event. The winner of each match will be decided by a panel of judges based on emotional impact, originality, stage performance, and crowd response.
The show will also feature a live performance by 8bit musician Random (Sweden), a showcase of material from the FuturePlaces Festival by Heitor Alvelos, Anselmo Canha, João Cruz (Portugal), a live set by Pierce Warnecke (France), and DJ sets by Daetron Vargas (Austin).
Bookclub with artist Anna Craycroft
Blanton Museum of Art
Saturday, March 13, 2pmAdmission: Free with museum admission
Artist Anna Craycroft leads a special bookclub discussion for children and adults on books by Gregory Bateson, Paul Chan, R. Buckminster Fuller, and Bruno Munari. from the press release
Slide Jam
Blanton Museum of Art
Saturday, March 20, 2pm
Artists have 20 slides and five minutes each to introduce their work. Part of WorkSpace: Anna Craycroft. from the press release.
Artist Lecture: Tom Lauerman and Shannon Goff
Department of Art/Art History at University of Texas-Austin
March 23, 2010, 4:15pm
Admission: Free
Artists Tom Lauerman and Shannon Goff will be speaking about their work.
Tom Lauerman explores the overlap of sculpture, ceramics, and design. His work grows out of ceramic history, architectural modularity and experimentation with materials. He frequently works collaboratively, often as member of the Telegraph Art Collective . His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, most recently at the Clayarch Gimhae Museum in South Korea, the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM), the Peel Gallery in Houston and the Lemberg Gallery in Detroit. He is currently teaching at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
Shannon Goff is also a sculptor and member of the Telegraph Art Collective, and spent the last year teaching at the Rhode Island School of Design. In 2009, Goff exhibited in Beijing, China, the Zolla Lieberman Gallery in Chicago, and the San Jose Museum of Art in California. In the same year, she also had a solo show at the Swimming Pool Project Space in Chicago.
Click here to learn more about the lecture.
Gallery Talk
Blanton Museum of Art
Thursday, March 25, 12:30pm
With UT philosophy professor Kathleen Higgins on Desire. from the press release.
Station: A 24-hour performance by Senalka McDonald
2102B Greenwood Avenue, Austin, TX 78723
Friday, March 26th at 8pm to Saturday, March 27th at 8pm
Station. Left alone with the sounds of her day, barbed hopes and piles of provisions, artist Senalka Dyan McDonald will use her body as a means of communicating her place. How far can a forced truth take her?
Senalka Dyan McDonald is a visual artist and performer from Dallas, Texas and Panama City, Panama. She creates textiles, paintings, videos, photographs and performance pieces. Her work has been exhibited at Art Palace, Isese Gallery, and Co Lab Project Space, among others. She lives and works in Austin, Texas.
ATTEND: 2102B Greenwood Avenue in Austin, 78723.
Please join us anytime during this twenty-four hour period.
WATCH VIA LIVE BROADCAST at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/2412-station
Check the blog for more details: http://perform2412.wordpress.com/
Artist Talk: R.H. Quaytman
Blanton Museum of Art
Thursday, March 25, 5pm
R.H. Quaytman is a painter, and from 2005-2008, the director of Orchard, a collaborative, artist-run gallery in New York. Since 2001 she has structured her work as a "book of paintings," with the story unfolding via exhibitions, the paintings themselves, and the viewers' place before them. from the press release
Viewpoint Lecture Series: Thomas Levin and Carrie Lambert-Beatty
Department of Art/Art History at University of Texas-Austin
April 8, 2010, 4-6pm
Admission: Free
Viewpoint is an annual series of concentrated visits by leading curators, critics, and scholars who are involved in the diverse and multifaceted contemporary art world. This year’s invitees are Thomas Levin, a media theorist, cultural critic and curator whose work explores the intersection of aesthetics, technology and politics, and Carrie Lambert-Beatty, an art historian whose research focuses on art since 1960, especially performance and video.
Click here to learn more about the Viewpoint Series.
Announcements: opportunities
Call for Artists
Art Alliance Austin's International Architecture Competition
Art Alliance Austin
Deadline: March 26th, 2010
Art Alliance Austin continues a successful partnership with AIA-Austin and Austin Foundation for Architecture to solicit ideas for the Temporary Outdoor Gallery Space 3 (TOGS 3) competition in 2010.
Objective - The third annual Temporary Outdoor Gallery Space Ideas Competition (TOGS 3) enhances the global dialogue between art and architecture while offering emerging professionals in the fields of architecture and design the opportunity to garner international attention.
Purpose - This Ideas Competition generates innovative proposals for a temporary outdoor structure that will function simultaneously as an exhibition space and as an architectural exhibition.
Mission - TOGS™ challenges the visual and conceptual boundaries of the outdoor gallery space, transforming the open-air art fair experience into one that showcases the synergy between art and architecture and brings both to the public realm.
Click here to learn more about how to apply.
Future Generation Art Prize
Deadline: April 18, 2010
The Future Generation Art Prize established by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation is a worldwide contemporary art prize to discover, recognize and provide long-term support to a future generation of artists.
Artists around the world, without restriction of gender, nationality, race or artistic medium may enter the competition through online application.
20 shortlisted artists will be selected to show their work in an exhibition at the PinchukArtCentre (Kiev). These artists will be judged by an international Jury who will award one main prize and up to five special prizes.
The first prize will receive $100,000.
Click here to apply.
Call for Artists & Critics
Core Residency Program at MFAH
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Deadline: April 1, 2010
The Core Program awards one- and two-year residencies to highly motivated, exceptional visual artists and art scholars who have completed their undergraduate or graduate training but have not yet fully developed a professional career. Established in 1982 within the Glassell School of Art, the teaching wing of Houston's Museum of Fine Arts, the Core Program encourages intensive and innovative studio practice as well as the elaboration of an intellectual framework through which to understand that practice. Residents engage in ongoing dialogue with each other and with leading figures in art and criticism who are brought in as visitors.
Click here to learn more about the program and how to apply.
Call for Entries
Apexart Unsolicited Proposal Program
Apexart
Continuing our annual Unsolicited Proposal Program, we will accept 600-word, idea-based proposals for evaluation by an international panel of apexart associates (curators, artists, writers, philosophers). Submissions are reviewed independently, anonymously and without support material—they are evaluated solely on the strength of the idea. This year we are also accepting four images to accompany submissions. No mountain too high, no river too deep!
Previous curatorial experience is in no way required, and will not factor into the selection process.
The two proposals with the highest ratings will be presented at apexart in the 2010-11 season (September 2010 to July 2011). For those in or outside the field, this program is a unique opportunity to have a professionally mounted exhibition in New York City!
Applications are welcomed and encouraged from around the world.
Click here to learn more about how to apply.
Call for Participants
Oliver Herring and Fusebox 2010
April 29, 30 & May 1
Oliver Herring is seeking participants for a live performance that will take place between April 29, 30 & May 1 in Austin. Application deadline is April 10. The performance is co-presented by Arthouse and Testperformancetest, in conjuction with Salon 94 and Performa. Click here to learn more about how to apply.
Employment
Development Assistant for Arthouse
Arthouse at the Jones Center
Desired start date is April 1
Arthouse at the Jones Center seeks a Development Assistant to support the fundraising efforts of the development department. As Arthouse undergoes a major renovation and expansion, the development department seeks a new team member to bolster and support the increased resource needs. The mission of Arthouse is to create meaningful opportunities to investigate and experience the art of our time through exhibitions, programs, and commissions of new work. The Development Assistant reports to the Director of Development. A flexible schedule is required due to public programming and event engagements on evenings and weekends.
Click here to read more about the qualifications necessary for the position and how to apply.
McDermott Internships at Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas Museum of Art
Application deadline: March 26, 2010
The Dallas Museum of Art, through the help of the Eugene McDermott Education Fund, will offer eight paid internship positions—four in the Museum’s Education Department, and four in the Curatorial Department—all beginning September 7, 2010, and with a duration of nine months.
These internships are intended for those individuals who wish to explore a career in museum work. Projects assigned involve considerable responsibility and will provide opportunities for the contribution of individual work. Applications must be postmarked no later than March 26, 2010.
Click here for information on how to apply
Call for Artists
20 Zines in 2 Days
Domy Books
Friday, March 19 and Saturday, March 20, 2010 , 12-6pm
Winners! Press and Test Everything have teamed up to present 20 Zines In 2 Days! Join us as we attempt this whirlwind feat of making 20 completely different zines containing drawings, photos and collage in two short days during Domy’s WHAT BY WHAT-EVER. All content will be created on-site and all the zine themes will be determined by submissions. Anyone can submit an idea. Just send an email to: info@winnerspress.com with your name and idea for a theme.
Cultural Fellowships in Russia
The Likhachev Foundation
Deadline: April 12, 2010
The Likhachev Foundation (St. Petersburg, Russia) together with Committee on External Relations of Saint Petersburg and Fund of the First Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin (Moscow, Russia) announces competition for 2-week cultural fellowships in Russia (St. Petersburg) from August 23 till September 5, 2010 for American professionals in the field of arts and culture who work on projects related to Russian culture. Airfare and accommodation in St. Petersburg will be covered by the organizers.
Learn more about the application process here
Ox-Bow 2010 Artist Residencies
Ox-Bow School of the Arts
Deadline: March 19, 2010
In 2010, Ox-Bow will celebrate 100 years as a school of art and artists' residency. As part of the year-ling celebration, Ox-Bow will offer three artists two-week residencies during the early part of the 2010 summer session. Centennial Residents will receive a private studio, room and board, as well as a $1000 stipend to be used towards expenses. The residencies will take place in two-week shifts from early June until early July, culminating in an exhibition of all Centennial Residents' work in one of Ox-Bow's galleries. The exhibition will open on the evening of the 2010 Summer Benefit, which will serve as the kick-off for a year-long celebration of Ox-Bow's history and legacy. Centennial Residents will be asked to donate one piece of work completed during the residency to be auctioned off at the benefit. All those applying for a two-week residency will be considered for this award.
Learn more about how to apply here
Employment
Arthouse seeks Curator of Public Programs
Arthouse at the Jones Center
Deadline: March 31, 2010
Arthouse at the Jones Center seeks a dynamic and creative Curator of Public Programs to lead the organization’s staff in sharing the meaning of contemporary art with the public through a variety of programs, activities, publications, as well as collaborations and partnerships with outside agencies and institutions.
Click here to learn more about the position and how to apply
Call for Artists
Arte Nuevo: San Antonio 2010
Department of Art/Art History at University of Texas-San Antonio
Postmark Deadline: March 31, 2010
President Ricardo Romo & Dr. Harriett Romo & the Department of Art and Art History, The University of San Antonio, announce New Art/Arte Nuevo: San Antonio 2010. This biennial juried exhibition will feature the work of artists living and working- or with roots/raices – in South and West Texas. A print catalogue will accompany the exhibition.
Jurors
Malaquias Montoya, Artist, Professor Emeritus, Department of Chicana/o Studies and Art, University of California, Davis
Valerie Cassel Oliver, Curator, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston
Learn more about how to submit here
UT-San Antonio Satellite Space Call for Proposals
Satellite Space
Deadline: March 15, 2010
The UTSA Satellite Space is currently accepting exhibition proposals for the July 2010 - January 2011 schedule. Applications are due to the UTSA Department of Art and Art History by March 15, 2010.
Proposals are requested from guest artists and curators as well as the UTSA community. All proposals will be reviewed by the UTSA Satellite Space Programming Committee, and accepted applicants will be notified by April 1.
Click here to learn more about how to apply.
Dallas Museum of Art's Annual Awards
Dallas Museum of Art
Deadline: March 15, 2010
The Dallas Museum of Art's annual awards were established in 1980 by the Clare Hart DeGolyer Memorial Fund and the Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund to recognize exceptional talent and potential in young visual artists who show a commitment to continuing their artistic endeavors.
The Clare Hart DeGolyer Memorial Fund
Awarded to artists between 15 and 25 years of age who reside in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, or Colorado
The Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund
Open to residents of Texas under the age of 30
The Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Grant
Created in 1990 to honor the memory of Dallas artists Otis and Velma Dozier, who strongly believed in the enriching influence of travel on an artist’s work. The grant seeks to recognize exceptional talent in professional artists who wish to expand their artistic horizons through domestic or foreign travel and is awarded to professional artists at least 30 years of age who reside in Texas.
Click here to learn more about how to apply.
