Yeah, Once in a While I Still Look at the Shit

My blogging habits are disappointing, at best (to indicate how disappointing, I should mention that I started this post a week ago). I should be out there, trackin' down that Houston Art World (still, in my mind, an oxymoron)and pronouncing judgment in my usual erudite and articulate fashion. But am I? Heck, no. I'm sitting in front of the TV, allowing young tads like Sean Carroll to blog their brains out and show what a slug yours truly really is.

But hey, I do look at art once in a while, and, on even rarer occasions, I write about it. And I actually left the compound not one day, but a mindboggling two, specifically to see some shows. I think I should receive some kind of award. So here we go! Yippee.



On Friday night I saw Aaron Parazette's show at McClain Gallery, which was eye-popping fun. Sure, you think about your eyeballs popping out of your head, and the last thing you think is 'fun'. Ha. Me Funny. But so much of Aaron's work does revolve around exciting things (surfing) and cool things (surfers), while the vibrancy of the colors, the rather wacky effect imparted by the jumbled-up letters (which spell out words I generally don't understand, anyway, as I don't know surfer lingo), and the tiny pinstripes of color edging each letter all add up to a pretty powerful visual impact. And the work looked great at McClain gallery--it had that white cube thing going, but with a bit more warmth (is it the windows?) than I've seen in a really slick space in a while. If whatever brainiac who desiged the gallery had thought about parking, well, things would be perfect over there.



Next, I hustled over to the Station Museum to see the AES + F exhibition. One of my friends (whose opinion I trust--a rarity, indeed)told me that this Russian collective's work was her favorite thing at the last Venice Biennale.

Well, shucks, I don't know what spins the wheels of them thar furriners, but this exhibition left me, for the most part, as cold as the corpses that were featured, with fancy clothing fotoshopped upon their dessicated hides, in the front gallery of the exhibition space. As I mentioned, this portion of the exhibition was a series of life-sized (perhaps a bit smaller) photos of corpses with fancy clothes put on them. They were exhibited in these glowing light boxes. I was kinda bugged by the whole concept. OK, fine, there's this rotting post-mortality sporting worldly goods. Wow, what a concept. Why didn't somebody from Tales of the Crypt think of something so gol'-danged cool? Oh. Yeah. He or she did. All they really needed to do to slam-dunk a heavy-hander like that would have been to make it a two-person show with Sharon Kopriva.

I have to say, too, that knowing the whole thing was done in Photoshop kind of made it worse. Now, don't get me wrong--it would be bad no matter how you slice it. But the infinite capabilities of Photoshop made the whole thing irritating. I mean, why not do something even cooler with Photoshop? Like make a dead lady with a face like a kitty-cat?

Whatever.

And then there was the seriously annoying, pedantic video. Complete with a score as melodramatic as something out of "The Ride of The Valkyries", this piece of overly pixelated slop was just tiring. Of course, the pixar-type imagery of big, evil, technological things choo-chooing and boom-booming and operatically crash-crashing through the landscape just had to be paired with a sub--oh, I'd say "plot", but you'd have to have a plot to have a subplot--of youths of different ages, creeds, and colors about to do nasty violences upon one another with big bats and knives and swords. Of course, the "real" people look oddly unreal (which I'm sure was the point), but I found myself wondering why, with all the makeup and digitization with even the real people, they didn't airbrush out one fellow's rather troubling acne.

And the operatic, laborious yet cloying, dramatic movements of the actors just added to the heavy-handed quality of the piece. OOOOOO! Violence bad! And here comes the evil choo-choo train, representing evil, insensitive industry!

I think I would have preferred, in the middle of all of this high-handed pomp, a gum-chomping Robert Duvall sauntering on-set, claiming that he loved the smell of napalm in the morning.

One part of the show I did really like, however, was a circular room featuring portraits of adolescent girls. The wall text reported that half of the girls were violent killers, while the other half were just regular-old Teen Beat readers (I can't decide which is more disturbing). The photos themselves were really crisp and nice, and I think I spent 20 minutes in there thinking, "Oh, that one over there, with the purple eyeshadow? Maybe she's the one who hacked up her Uncle Theo! No, wait--too obvious! Maybe it's the one with no makeup and barettes...No, maybe it's..."

Whoever the killers were, it didn't matter. I was fully engaged. And if they did happen to Photoshop these images, which I didn't think they did, they pulled it off without their typical, cheap-shot, Wagnerian drama.





Finally, I swung by for the final day of Katie Pells'"The Best That I Can Give You And Less Than Half of What You Deserve" in Lawndale's mezzanine gallery. I have to admit, I have a rather soft spot for Pell's combination of optimism, cynicism, and whimsy. Beautifully rendered blue and white pastel skies were framed by rather weird charcoal renditions of leering and grinning forest creatures. There were many scenes like this with wide, mirrored frames (not quite sure about those mirrors--they were very clean and square, whereas I think they might have been more effective as baroque and ornate)
on the side walls, but the best piece was the large wall mural, with a few mounted forest creature drawings scattered at the sides (does that make sense? they were standing up). One huge disappointment for me was that I erroneously assumed that, like many of the people who showed up at the opening, I would be able to get my picture taken in front of the mural. I like being part of the art. Dammit. That'll teach me to leave town for art openings. All in all, though, I think Pell's one of the more clever women artists I've seen. She's always full of surprises. Whee!

Well, that's my dated report. Most of the shows are closed now. I'm in NY for a while, livin' la vida Brooklyn. So if I run across anything that I can be ultra-bitchy about, I'll be sure to talk about it. And, seeing as how the Whitney Biennial opens in a few days, and all of the revolting art fairs open at the end of the month, I don't see how I'll be able to avoid it.

Another Wonderful Way to Waste Hours on the Web

James Westcott, of the online mag Art Review asked me to mention the publication in my blog. Normally, I would blow off such a request, but I really do like this site. There's all kindsa crap on it, from written reviews and artist vids to an artist registry and forum. It's nicely designed (but what the fuck would I know about design? I'm about as qualified to talk about the quality of design as I am to talk about the characteristics of fine wine. Do I like it? Does is taste better than a tumbler full of Boone's Farm? Let's just say that my scope is relatively limited.)

One thing that I really love on this site are the man-on-the-streets video art reviews. There's one by James Kalm on the Luc Tuymans show at David Zwirner that is just great. It's like, "Hey, I just hopped off my bike and here I am at this gallery, and here's what some critics have said, and here's a bunch of out-of-focus and wobbly footage of paintings and people at the opening!" I really do like that. I think all art coverage should be like this.

Also, if you do go to this video, pay attention to one of the opening attendees--a seriously bottled blonde wearing a dress that clasps at the neck and exposes all of her back down past the waist. Some serious butt crackage goin' on there.

If you're like me and spend far more time surfing the net than is recommended for the health, I think you'll find something here to amuse you for so many hours you will forget that you could be doing your own work.

Billy Sullivan @ Texas Gallery

I'll admit that I'm a bit too biased to be looking at art like this. Karen Kilimnik, Elizabeth Peyton, Alex Katz, Billy Sullivan. I mean, who really cares about artists who portray their friends while they lounge around the living room or on the patio furniture? I guess I do. This collection of acrylic and oil pastels on paper is pretty cool. From the near-psychedelic pig to the rather creepy-lewd portrayal of a couple of fellows with too much swarthy body hair and gay man mustaches squiggled in. It's nice stuff. And the Joel Shapiro work in the main gallery isn't bad, either. But who can get excited about that when you've got a portrait of somebody (man? woman?) with a weird helmet of black hair?

2008, year of the crank

There. I've done it. I've removed myself from both MySpace and Facebook. I've decided that I'm just too old and crotchety to be involved in things that are hip and network-y. Even blogging is starting to make me feel like a pederast.

I realize that doing this may well rob me of an opportunity to find out about a cool band, hook up with a gallery that will certainly transform my lackluster career into that of an international superstar, or meet the hipster of my dreams. No matter; what's done is done.

I assume that most people who know me know where to reach me. If Karen Kilimnik, John Waters, Gloria Steinem, the Coen brothers, David Bowie, Christian Bale, Jane Campion, Jon Stewart and/or Stephen Colbert, Judy Davis, Will Ferrell, Reese Witherspoon, Harry Shearer, or that little fat kid from Bad Santa go wondering about where I've gone and want to find me, I'd appreciate it if one of you would direct them to the 'contact' section of my website.

Happy New Year!

i think she died of boredom, lenny

i've been pretty depressed lately. it could be the holidays.

but i'm probably just depressed because i haven't worked in such a long time. i had to have carpal tunnel surgery on my right arm on the 20th, and i've just been sitting around. at first i thought it would be no big deal, so i got up and started doing a bunch of things, but then i fell down and landed the way one does when one breaks a fall--palms forward, and i fucked it all up. then i waited a while, and decided that it would be ok to do stuff with my fingers, but then i really strained my hand, so i just gave up and devoted myself to a solid 12 hours of TV a day. ah, the law & order marathon...yes, at any time of the day, in some part of the world, there is a law & order rerun being televised. i find myself saying things like, 'well, let's run down his LUDS and see who he's been calling in the last 48 hours' or 'let's check with the ME; i think she said that it's a subdural hematoma, and that the entrance wounds were caused by a 6 inch serrated blade.' i think i've said that before. forgive me for recycling schtick.

you would think that'd be a gold mine for some kind of art project, but my instincts tell me no, it's just a gold mine for dead brain cells.

i've also become an expert at the infomercial: would you like to hear about the virtues of the 'bender ball' or 'mighty putty'? i've got the lo-down on all of 'em. it's a damned good thing that i'm too lazy to get up off the couch and get my credit card. and even though i have absolutely no problem with my weight, i'm now thinking that i should start taking the alli fat blocker, eat frozen lean cuisine meals, drink special k diet water, and get a case of slim-fast.

i'm also pretty sure that my life has no glamour, since it's nothing like a bailey's irish cream or amaretto di saronno commercial. those people look like they're having such fun! and i want to hang out with that black british spokesman for tanqueray, tony sinclair. (this is how bored i am: i googled tony sinclair because i kept thinking, 'am i supposed to know who he is?' and found out that he's a fictional socialite created by the company ad folk) everybody in those ads is laughing with his or her head thrown back as if he or she is having the time or his or her life! my life looks nothing like that, dammit. i want to drink some island rum and find myself on the streets of manhattan wearing a business suit and flip-flops. bacardi, take me away.

as you can see, my arm's finally healed up enough so that i can type with both hands, even though i look like i have a big teddy bear paw. i think that from now on, i'm going to do public service announcements for artists: 'kids, you may think that all of that intricate detail and those nervous lines made with excessive force are cute and original, but you'll pay later! stick with expressionism! or maybe a lazy-man's pollock (you don't want to be bending down as much as jackson did--a real recipe for back strain). come to think of it, just hire somebody else--someone with a strong constitution--to do the work for you. save that arm!

this message has been brought to you by the disgruntled and regretful artists coalition.

Pointed, Poignant Sightings

OK, I know this is petty, but I was on the 610 loop today, and I saw a minivan-vertisement for Hooters, and there was a pink breast cancer awareness ribbon plastered onto the back. I'm still freaking out about it. Sorry. Had to get it off my, um, groan, chest.

There's Only Thing Wrong With These Excursions

I flew into L.A. this past weekend, got to rent a swwweeeet convertible Mustang, visited with my friend Maya. Then I drove up PCH to Ojai (fictional home of TV's Six Million Dollar Man) to drop in on a show at Nathan Larramendy Gallery. I'm in the show, and since I'll do just about anything to get out of town, I decided that would be a good excuse to go. Well, let me assure anyone who wants to drop in on a group show just to hang out that, unless you're into standing around awkwardly, you're making a huge mistake. What was I thinking? Not that the people who showed at the opening weren't pleasant; I'm seriously considering moving in with Steve and Celeste, parents of Allison, the new gallery intern. But, since I wasn't into standing in front of my own work as if on a lecture circuit, I spent most of the time either a) whining on the phone to Maya, pleading with her to let me come back and stay with her; or b) sit behind the desk counter trying to stay out of peoples' ways.

Let me make this plain: this is not to cast any aspersions on Nathan Larramendy and/or his gallery. It's actually a great space, and Senor Larramendy is a prince. After the opening I was invited up to Casa Larramendy, an amazing ranch in the Ojai mountains, where Brad served us a delicious meal and I got to meet/hang out with Brian Storts, curator/director of Queen's Nails Annex in San Francisco (and his cool lovely wife Rachelle). I don't run into many people with such crazy, intense energy as Brian; subsequently, it's not very often that I get all excited talking about art.

But there I was, all havin' a time talking, looking up at the stars in the crisp, black Ojai night. The next day, I took a different route, down through the mountains, hair blowing in the wind from my rented Mustang, listening to Engelbert Humperdinck at full blast...

It was all perfect, except for one thing. That damned art opening. It made me recall another recent trip, that to Marfa. That was a great trip, too, except for one thing. The art. Gotta remember to cut that stuff out of an otherwise good trip...

Oh, Me and My Trenchant Keyboard

The other night I ran into my friend Paula Newton, who's the education coordinator at the Contemporary Arts Museum here in Houston, told me that she and a few other folks at the CAM had read my rather caustic review of the Kelly Nipper show, and that they were all cracking up. Then she mentioned that Toby Kamps, the new curator at the CAM and the curator of the Nipper show, had read it as well. She didn't mention that he was laughing, too. And darnit, I forgot to ask.

As the neurotic, insecure, but still latently ambitious ass that I am, I had the impulse to run up to Kamps when I saw him and say, "I'm so sorry! I'm so very sorry!", but I refrained from doing so, as I wasn't really all that sorry. Oh, perhaps I'm a bit sorry that he read it. I always go around thinking that nobody reads this thing, and then I'm always unpleasantly surprised by someone who walks up and snarls, "So...you thought my installation of bat guano was shit? Well, fuck you!"

And there is that latent nice girl in me who sort of believes that if you don't have anything nice to say, you should simply keep it to yourself. But then where would that leave me? What would I say? I hate just about everything!

Ah, well. I'm doomed to be the kid at the back of the class flipping paper footballs and making snide remarks, only to regret my actions in Principal Dresler's office.

Well, normally when stuff like this happens--like when I find out I've offended someone, or if my mother reads my blog and gets upset, I go back and delete the post. Sometimes I even delete my whole blog. Look at how far I've come! I can snigger in public with only a smidgeon of remorse! Now all I have to do is worry that I've offended a curator and wonder if I should stop polishing my "SuperBestSuccessfulArtistInHouston--Maybe Even the World!" trophy...

A Bunch of Stuff That Irritates the Shit Out of Me

I was going to write about a bunch of stuff that irritates the shit out of me, but then my computer got really fucked up and i almost lost everything that I'd been working on for 2 weeks, and, frankly, the ordeal took all the starch out of me and the whole idea of writing about A Bunch of Stuff That Irritates the Shit Out of Me seemed kind of petty.

Hopefully all of my rancour will be saved for the next art exhibition I see. One can only hope.

Never Underestimate the Timelessness of a Waters

Poster by John Waters
I went to Marfa, TX, this weekend, for the annual art-fest.


With the exception of a rainstorm on Saturday, unfortunately dampening the annual bar-b-q that takes place in the center of town, the weather was amazing. None of this godawful Houston humidity. I realized, while driving, that the weather in Houston of late has felt a lot like being smothered in a damp, musty Army blanket.


I think I permanently damaged my poor lil' truck, Bandit, but the drive was so cool. I sped along thinking, "Rocks!", "Hills!", and "Omigawd, driving 115 miles an hour is so great!"

I took the above photo while driving because I was really amused by whatever it said on the back of this motor home. Unfortunately, I don't remember what it is now, but I know it was something like "Player Hater II". I swear to God.


Marfa itself is beautiful, serene. And I was soooo lucky, since I got to stay at my friend's house and didn't have to worry about flopping on an air mattress (which probably would have been ok--my friends Bill Willis and Alexia Bonomi pitched a tent on top of a barber shop on San Antonio St., and they looked like they were having the time of their lives), or scrambling for a nonexistent motel room.


And it's always fun scoping out the locals--especially these kids painting horse models. The little girl was very informative about their project, something about Dia de los Muertos, and asked me if I wanted to take their picture. I half expected her to charge me after the shutter clicked.


And who could pass up this lovely bit of graffiti? Especially one so tasteless as "I'm not drunk, I have cerebral palsy"?

But I don't know about all that...that...art. Sure, the whole Judd/Chinati thing. I love a good several series of silvery cubes as much as the next guy. But when they open up all of these other casitas to show Donald Judd's early paintings hung alongside the furniture he designed, well, I'm a little less than inspired. The paintings are pretty, well, derivative (as much early work can be). And when I wandered through the house and looked at the various furnishings, I thought, Well, that semi-upholstered chair over there is nice. I wonder if he did that? I wonder if he did that modified table over there?

Turned out that no, Donald Judd didn't design any of those things that looked like something you might actually want to sit on. But that thing over there like something out of an Abu Ghraib prison but with a fluffy mattress resting on top? There's your Judd.

Next year, I think they should exhibit Judd's underpants. Of course, considering that Donald Judd's whole life was minimalism, he probably didn't wear any. But, naturally, somebody would decide to display that. And then if some clueless yokel wandered in and said Hey! Where's the beef? The art world smug could just snigger at that person's lack of training.

That's what led me to think that, unsurprisingly enough, the seams on the Marfa art scene were clearly being strained. And those seams are on a pair of size 3 fuschia polyester pants, sported by a size 24 woman, and boy, you can see every cellulite-ridden ripple.

It's just too much, and too little of it is spectacular, with the exception of the Giganto-Judds. And out in the middle of nowhere like that, I want spectacular. Don't get me wrong: there really is a lot of art out there that isn't bad, but it just doesn't seem like anything one should be running into in the middle of, well, nowhere, to see. Huge concrete blocks occupying the middle of a field for no good reason? Yes. Regular ol' shit you'd see in some hung in some commercial gallery on? Nah.

There were, of course, quite a few things that stuck out. I was in the Camp Marfa show at Fort Russell, so I'm not going to talk about the actual exhibition. But I was really amazed at the Fort itself. Aparently, German POWs were held there during World War II, and the prisoners busied themselves by painting the murals on the walls.



One thing that blew me away was a pair of galleries on Highland St. One had Warhol's camo Last Supper, as well as these other huge pieces. It was great. Completely unexpected--walking in from the heat in a tiny town and running into something you'd see in the Menil. And the space was nice, too. And no, I don't remember what it was.



Unfortunately, in the space next door, owned by the same person, was this mess by Maria Zerres, a show called "Nine-Eleven":

I don't know if this artist was trying to do some kind of recreation of Guernica or what, but I really hated this stuff. It was such a disappointment to go from all of those huge wonderful Andys to all of those huge horrible--oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria? Leave as quickly as possible.


Having gotten that bit of crotchety complaining out of the way, I guess I should talk about some of the other stuff I saw. Some good; some, well, eh.
I like a lot of Erika Blumenfeld's work, which was nicely displayed in some gallery next to Ballroom Marfa. I wouldn't think I'd be a sucker for a bunch of time-lapsed photos, but they are incredibly beautiful and painterly, and the works clearly demonstrate the artist's passion for her subject matter--western light. I think that, after several showings in Marfa, Blumenfeld has moved there and continues to document sunrises and sunsets in an unusual manner. If the thought of a Marfa sunset makes you want to puke, it's only because I've improperly described the work. Go to the website.

I also liked the work of Peter Voshefski, below. His series of wooden "books", all with whimsically depressing titles and partial text, were witty and very well-crafted.


I also liked quite a few of his paintings, which reminded me a bit of Nina Bovasso's earlier works with his use of color and whimsicality, but in a more modest scale.

Christine Olejniczak's exhibition Gun Blasts and Glass Bullets, curated by Jeff Elrod,at The Marfa Book Co. was a bit of a disappointment for me. I was introduced to the artist outside the book store before I saw the show, and I was pretty enthused, since she told me about the glass bullets she had made, and how she was 'packing glass'.

I was a little underwhelmed when I got in there, though. Each of the glass bullets she had made was girded, mid-casing, by black metal, a few inches from the wall, as if in flight. But here, again with the fucking minimalism! The bullets themselves were very pretty, but the way that they were displayed took away from their effectiveness as objects. And, being displayed against a wall painted off-white, it was hard to make them out.

Perhaps that subtlety was Olejniczak's point, but it wasn't working for me. I wanted more. More, I tell you---more, more! There's an episode of Law and Order where the assistant D.A., to make a point about gun violence in America (those of you who don't know me should know that I have the TV on in my studio a lot of the time, and since I don't really want to watch the shows, I play shows that I don't have to look at, like stuff on Comedy Central and reruns of Law and Order. Due to these programs being run ad nauseum, I often find myself saying stupid shit like, Well, if you want to find out who he's been talking to, you should check his LUDS or, That subdural hematoma looks about two hours old), pours boxes and boxes of bullets out on the table in the courtroom. It was a beautiful pile, indeed. I don't know if it would have even been possible for the artist to make that many glass bullets, but I would have loved to see thousands of them piled in the gallery.

Olejniczak's pencil drawings on raw wood panels, seeming abstracts of literal blasts of impact (god, that's awkward) also came off as a bit under-realized. There was one drawing that I really liked in the show, and I think I liked it the best because it was the most gestural and abstract.

At Ballroom Marfa was a show called Every Revolution is a Roll of the Dice, organized by Bob Nickas. I can't decide whether it should have been called, The Revolution has Been Televised, and You Missed it When You Got Up For That Pepsi, or, more simply and concisely, Huh?

Nearly everything was a disappointment here, especially the black sand in the front gallery and the white sand in the back, each functioning as a carpet for the various scuptures. One of my friends mentioned that the installation. especially in the back gallery. looked like something you'd see at Blue Star. No offense to Blue Star, of course. It's just that an exhibition with Carol Bove, Haim Steinbach, and a parade of other art stars should be a tad more substantial.

But what disappointments most of those art-rockers proved to be. I remember a time, long ago, when a Wayne Gonzales painting really interested me. No mas.

This swimming pool ladder sculpture by Joan Wallace was nice, and the only piece I liked in the show-- although, of course, it looks like crap the way it was photographed.

Out in back was this stuff. Kind of fun, but reminding me a bit of an old lady's back yard full of hummingbird feeders.

At the bottom of the flyer for the show, it reads: Ballroom Marfa is a dynamic, contemporary cultural art space that provides a lively intellectual environment where varied perspectives and issues are explored through visual arts, film, music, and performance.

I guess I missed that part. There was a show in their space next door, exhibiting all of their past posters, where people could pull their own silkscreen poster prints. That looked like fun. Maybe even dynamic.

Off the beaten path at 2d gallery, I felt my usual rage against Minimalism completely subside. This is a really great space, the owner has great taste, and the art is displayed really well.

Here, Gloria Graham has taken funeral kerchiefs, made light lines upon them, and turns them into subtle, Agnes Martin-like works.
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I also loved these works by David McDonald, although my crappy photography doesn't do it justice at all. It looks great on the gallery website, and I suggest you go there.

Due to a back injury aggravated by 10 hours of driving, I missed a lot of stuff that I would have liked to see. I am embarrassed to admit it, but I felt shitty, had to go back to the hacienda to rest, and missed the opportunity to see Mark Flood's show, as he was a resident at Chinati. Shame on me. What a drag it is getting old.

More Sugar Coating, Please

I went to the opening of the Kirsten Hassenfeld Dans la Lune exhibition at the Rice University Art Gallery the other day. I think that much of the experience can be summed up by the following: I was standing around in the gallery, yakking with my friend Patrick Peters, who had his nine (ten? who can tell with these alien beings called offspring?) year old, Anna, and two year old Sophie in tow. Patrick pointed to one of the enormous white lanterns suspended in the space and said, "Look, Anna: everything here is made of paper."

Anna scrunched up her nose, looked very close at the piece and said, "That's not paper. It's styrofoam."

She was referring, of course, to the fome-cor from which the piece was constructed. Patrick and I said, "Good point."

A few minutes later, Anna said, "I think Sophie poo'd her pants."

Now, I saw one of Hassenfeld's pieces at the second Greater New Yorkshow at P.S. 1 a while back. It was this pretty, ornate thing, covered with curlicues and scrolls, and it looked much like a wedding cake suspended from the ceiling, and it was probably about 3' high and a foot and a half or so wide. The detail and the obvious amount of labor put into this project was certainly impressive, but it moved me not. Seeing other pieces of her work, constructed of paper, with diamond-like facets, all in frosty white, I would think, "OK. I think I get it. It's real girly, and I generally like that...but what's the fucking point?"

I guess with the other works I've seen, the labor itself is enough to hold a certain amount of interest. And it does play on all the girlish obsessions: wedding cakes, diamond engagement rings, syrupy sweet furnishings laden with ornate scrolls.

But I think the size really bugs me here. There doesn't seem to be any really good reason for it. And the feel of the installation mimicked, in some ways, the
Eminent Domain exhibition by the designer team White Webb that was recently shown at Rice Gallery. When things that ornate are tiny, they become precious. I am amazed by the intricacies of the miniature, by the craft. Whenever I go to the Art Institute of Chicago and visit the Thorne Miniature Collection, I'm transported. It's obvious that I'm not the only one--judging by the glass in front of each of the tiny, period-accurate rooms, a jillion snot-nosed kids have left their appreciative boogers and fingerprints as evidence of their fascination.

But it's my belief that you can't just blow something up--as Hassenfeld and White Webb have done (and I grant you that the White Webb installation was not designed for the same effect--it just has that Whoops! I just fell down the rabbit hole! thing going)--and expect the same magical effect. I think that the only way that an artist can maintain that level of awe on a large scale is to put the same amount of intricate detail that he or she would put into the laboriously crafted smaller pieces, and overwhelm the viewer. Tara Donovan's insane installations pull it off. And Stephen Hendee's work a few years back at the Rice Gallery, while constructed solely of tape and fome-cor, really created an experience. Dans La Lune doesn't do that. I'm thinking that if I go back at night and the lanterns are lit, the piece will convey what it doesn't in daylight.

But I'm uncomfortable with large scaled work that doesn't hold up upon close inspection. And I'm uncomfortable with large scaled works that seemingly have no reason for being that big. Of course, there's always that magical 'rabbit hole' effect, where we can swing our arms and skip and believe we're at a tea party with ribbons streaming from our starched linen frocks, but when we near the magic lanterns and discover that, indeed, they're only styrofoam, it seems the bubble has burst. And we're left standing with a toddler who's just messed her pants.

Attn: Shameless Self-Promotion Dept.

Well, I have many various and sundry and prickly and irritated things to say about the art and art events I've been privy to lately; however, I thought I'd apprise you all, my faithful Whinybabylanders, of recent doings. What kind of fake art journalist would I be if I didn't?

First, since Mark Flood and I will be opening at Devin Borden/Hiram Butler Gallery on Saturday, October 13 (Flood is in the main gallery), I decided that it would be a good thing to have my website updated a little bit. (Thank you, James Seaborn and Jason Herbst).

Second, and I don't know if anyone read of this or remembers it, but a while back I was asked to help find some art to show on the walls at the new location of
Jenni's Noodle House. I thought to myself, "Oh, this'll be easy. This will be a good opportunity for some under-exposed artist." So I sent out a huge call, and in two weeks, I got a ton of responses, but they were really the wrong kind of responses. I don't know how my emails trickled down to every painter of children and kittens and every photographer of lilies in bloom, but I found myself inundated. I eventually found the work of painter Sandra Skipwith, whose work I like a lot, and we finally put it up.

But my main question was: "What the fuck? Why can't I find some ambitious slacker to make cool graphic work and hang it proudly in the noodle house?" Oh, in my day, when we used to walk to art school through the snow, living on dried lint in our dimly-lit garrets, we would've been proud to hang our work in a heavily trafficked establishment! What is wrong with kids these days?

So, disgusted, I decided to put my own work in there. Dammit, if you want anything done right...

Well, we just installed a suite of six drawings in the noodle house today, and I like them a lot. So if you're out, ravenous for udon noodles, and near the corner of Shepherd and Alabama, check 'em out. They're fabulous! Another triumph!

Booster Shot

My alarm goes off at 5:30 every morning. God knows why; there’s no place I need to be. Much of the time, I lie there, floating in and out of sleep, the informative sounds of NPR wafting through my semi-consciousness. Sometimes, I don’t actually get out of bed until 8 a.m.

This morning at 5:30, however, upon hearing the words “art”, “Vinson and Elkins Law Firm”, “Mayor Bill White”, "Houston" and “world class art world”, I popped out of bed, even though, as usual, my back and ass really hurt.

Listen, I love the blog format. Why? Because I’m not accountable to anyone. Fuck the factual verification department. Whatever I think I hear in some foggy haze is solid enough for me. And dammit, it’s good enough for the Whinybabyland reader.

Anyway, I’m lying there listening to Mayor Bill White say something about the Houston Arts Alliance and our “world class art world”, and I’m thinking: “Houston. World Class Art World.” Isn’t that an oxymoron?

OK, before I start bashing, I want to say that I love the Houston Arts Alliance. I once, like many, many Houston artists, received a grant from them, showed in their 125 gallery, and I’m forever in their debt. But a few years ago, don’t ask me when because time is a big fuzzy blur for me, I remember that some dickhead trotted his ass down to the state capitol and helped change the requirements for what one could constitute as fundable art here in Harris County. It became harder to get those grants. Artists applying for the grants suddenly had to spin a bunch of bullshit in their applications so that jurors would see that their art would tie in with big business. Even more than they had to before. It's called the "heads on beds" factor, meaning that if Houston artists wanted to get their paint-spattered little hands on public money, they would have to prove, basically, that their art would somehow promote tourism in our fair city. I was pretty thick, but then it was explained to me. Hotel rooms. Tourists' heads on fluffy mint-laden pillows. Heads on beds.

The whole notion makes me wanna puke, and I'm not blaming this on any non-profit organization that's trying to dole out money. The Houston Arts Alliance wants to give money to Houston artists. It's just that a bunch of asswipes who wouldn't know a Basquiat from something their dog shat out are in charge of saying who gets what.

Of course, artists who apply for the grant still get the money, but, like I said, they have to spin a bigger web of bullshit. Oh, my art deserves funding because it's good for the community! My art deserves funding because it's going to show people what a glorious city Houston really is! My art deserves funding because it's beneficial for the children!

I actually think that Houston is kinda glorious, in its own way. Driving back from the dog groomer at 7 a.m., I saw the Downtown skyline bathed in a pinkish, hazy glow--perhaps a result of early morning dew, potential oncoming tropical storms, and car exhaust. It was beautiful.

And I like living here. I can do my work without having to live in a dumpster. There are plenty of advantages to being a working artist here, and there are a lot of really great artists living here. But it chaps my ass to no end to listen--even though it was only partial listening--to some jerk politician talk about what a glorious, shining bastion of art we have. It made me think of the "Houston Proud" booster campaign that went on a few years ago. I'm Houston Proud! Say it loud!

With the exception of a few shows and a few art spaces, the Houston art world is a bit like Loehmann's. Oh, it's great quality, and at a great price, but let's face it, it's not hot off the runway. And it also irritates me when politicians talk like that because, on the whole, what they see as Houston's gleaming art world is not really Houston art at all.

Just a few years ago--and again, don't quote me or check on this as accurate--Houston actually got a budget for public art. A few times I was asked (and God, don't ask me why--I think it was that I was the only artist in town who was for certain not going to apply for this) to sit on juried and advisory panels for public art. The first time, we interviewed applicants who were pitching proposals for a Midtown space. There were about 6 finalists, some from Houston and some from around the country, and the job--and I don't think it's actually been put into motion yet--went to the Art Guys. I don't really have any problem with the Art Guys getting the gig--they put together a dynamic presentation and have a lot of public art experience.

But therein lies the rub. None of the other Houston artists had much experience in public art, and why would they? There was never a budget for it before, and, unless an artist was doing the kind of stuff that the Art Guys had been doing for the past twenty years, there was hardly a way to show that, despite their various levels of competence, they could handle a big funded job. The Catch-22 of public art.

Like I said, the Art Guys have been doing this stuff for ages. And their first projects were performative and done on a shoestring, but after several years their gigs went legit. Harrell Fletcher also started doing random public art on a shoestring. No one would give him money, so he basically made up projects on his own, installed them surreptitiously, documented the projects, and went back to the funders and said, "See? I do have experience!"

I also sat in on a panel to meet and discuss the work of an L.A. artist whose proposal had been chosen for downtown. And no, I don't remember his damned name. I'm sure he'll do a fine job. The shots I saw of the other cities he'd worked his magic on looked fab. But this guy has been at the public art game for years. Everything was slick and operated by advanced technology and led screens and blinking lights. How the fuck would a Houston artist begin to compete with such a pro? And why should the dudes with the money gamble on somebody who's been dicking around with cardboard or clay when they've got Ironman over there guaranteeing results?

Of course, there are well-funded opportunities for Houston artists. There are the airports, libraries, public works buildings. But it still grossed me out to hear the mayor, as well as a representative from a huge law firm, laud the art community here when the odds are they wouldn't know the art community here if they saw it.

Oh, my rage against the Man. My rage against the Machine. So very dated. So very tired. It's just that I don't want art that brings in tourism. I don't want art that's good for the children. And I'm getting sick of seeing art that operates on a platform of community service. Go ahead, make some fucking art. Make some good fucking art. And then, at the end of the day, if you feel like it, go out and do something selfless, something purely altruistic. But for God's sake, don't call it art.

You'd be frightened, too.

I just recently started to go to art events and openings again, and they're just as much glorious fun as I remembered them. Amy Sillman's paintings (Suitors and Strangers) at the Blaffer look good. A lot different than the stuff I generally associate with her work. Big, bold strokes, in contrast to her usual style. I used to like her work in the same way I like cute, precocious little children--Oh, Tammy! And is that spot over in the corner where all the villagers go to market to get the food that will make them strong? Not that they weren't good paintings; I always really liked them. But they were very playful, the product of an isolated, idiosyncratic individual. Now they kinda remind me of late Manet or DeKooning in their loose manner. I like these, too. The colors are amazing. And, as with the earlier work, one gets the sense that this is an artist who, as Sillman mentioned in a panel discussion at Rice years ago, is engaged in deep play. Little Amy's growing up.

Also went to Maya Schindler, Will Henry, and Hilary Wilder's openings at Devin Borden/Hiram Butler Gallery . I'd love to comment on the shows here, but unlike some art writers here in Houston, I have problems writing about exhibitions where I show my own work. Call it conflict of interest. Call it sheer terror that Hiram will come after me with his horde of bees. Whatever. Everything there looked fabulous. Another triumph!

But speaking of triumphs, I actually went to an opening of CAM Houston Perspectives 158: Kelly Nipper (Curated by Toby Kamps) last night. Oh, sordid events had kept me away for so long. You know how it is when something shitty happens and every time you go out you're convinced that people are looking at you, talking about you, and just plain hating your guts, when, in fact, no one was ever looking at you, talking about you, or bothering to hate your guts. Damn. It makes you feel so special when you imagine that you're universally vilified; how does one go about feeling unique when one finds out that people are really just thinking about reruns of Scrubs?

I don't know about that show, though. When I listened to Nipper talk (by the way, I really like that name! nippernippernipper!), I realized that, while some of the images hung in the gallery were kind of nice, there would have been absolutely no way of knowing any of the reasons for why the work is what it is, or why it has any significant meaning, without reading a tome the size of the Yellow Pages. I'm dumb. I need my art to say what it has to say right there, right in front of me. It's not that I don't find Nipper's scientific research and theories interesting; it's just that if she weren't there to talk about it, I'd just think I was looking at a few printed images. There is a trio of white-framed images on the south wall that are very beautiful from a distance. When you get up close, though, they're all grainy. So no beauty, no craft, no apparent significance. I was a bit dumbfounded.

There was a video of an apple that Nipper mentioned had been, in previous exhibitions, quite largely projected. For some reason, they chose not to do this at the CAM, and I wondered why. Would size have given it more impact? I dunno.

Kamps and Nipper did an ongoing dialogue during the gallery talk, which, of course, was quite illuminating. Kamps mentioned a few times that his interpretation of the work was more pedestrian, that he chose to focus on the "sexy" elements, while she emphasized the science and research. I, like Kamps, tend to read things in a humanistic manner, and if I'd become interested in Nipper's work, I probably would have focused on the sensuality of the movements of the body that she describes. However, neither the sexy nor the scientific seem to be apparent in this show. Like I said, I'm too dumb for most of this shit.

One thing that struck me while going through the gallery--and this thought has struck me quite a few times before--is how impossibly ugly that space is. Really bad feng shui.

Finally, though, I was freaked out by the video projected in the one darkened room, An Arrangement for the Architect and a Darkroom Timer. Nipper put two strangers, a young man and woman, in very close proximity to one another (one person noted that another person had noted that the fact that the two were strangers was bullshit. The second-hand possible mis-quote goes as follows: "Strangers? Those two have been fucking for years!") And they didn't really seem like strangers. If they didn't know one another prior to the video, then surely they must have seen each other at some grubby pot party at a fellow grad-art-school party.

But anyway, that wasn't my problem with the video, which bathed the figures in red light to simulate a darkroom, and was punctuated periodically by a loud darkroom timer. Nipper says that observing these two, their body language, the way in which the woman tended to shrink in the presence of the man, was a prolonged examination of human nature. We don't normally, she said, get in each other's 'spaces' like that. Well, that's interesting enough to think about. North Americans are especially known for their hefty 'space' requirements. We wouldn't be a nation of Hummers if we weren't.

However, this video thoroughly creeped me out for one reason, and a petty one at that. Nipper says that the woman was rather cowed by the man after a period of time. But if you look at the man, how can you blame her from shrinking away? I haven't been so grossed out by a guy since Sean Penn's portrayal of Matthew Poncelet in Dead Man Walking. What woman wouldn't be cowed by this menacing, greasy stringbean?

And am I so totally out of the loop? Has the mullet made a return to contemporary fashion? I recently wrote about mullets here on WhinyBabyLand, but I perhaps erroneously assumed that the 'do was, thankfully, a thing of the past. Am I wrong? Has the mullet made a return to the world of the contemporary coif? Tell me it isn't so. Looking at contemporary art and fashion just makes me realize how much of a luddite I truly am. It just makes me want to stay at home, hunker down on the couch, and eat a can of frosting. Not healthy at all for body or mind. The art, not the frosting. Or is it the other way around. I'm so confused.