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'In Katrina's Wake' 'In Katrina's Wake' By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin Like after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the post-Katrina times have seen various artistic responses to both the initial catastrophe and its lingering -- and devastating -- aftermath. But that kind of creative effort begs the question: Who has the authority to do the artistic speaking? Blanton curator Annette DiMeo Carlozzi gets it right with "In Katrina's Wake," on view in the museum's Workspace gallery through May 25. There's no creative carpetbagging here. Instead, Carlozzi, who for several years was executive director of New Orleans' Contemporary Arts Center, lets those who know first-hand do the speaking. Really, what Carlozzi has cleverly done is less of a collection of artwork by New Orleans artists meant to be a sweeping statement about the catastrophe than it is a portal through which visitors can begin their own journey through the creative reactions. Specific artworks are certainly featured. Willie Birch's suite of charcoal drawings, "Going Home," seems like hand-rendered snapshots of the storm's immediate and horrific aftermath in the style of expressive cartoons. And Dawn Dedeaux's breathtaking 12-foot-by-12-foot "Hurricane Suite in Nine Movements" -- with its nine swirling mounds of broken glass (two tons of it, actually) arranged in hurricane-like forms and resting on lightboxes -- is stunning, eliciting gasps from gallery viewers. But there's so much more to artistic activity than the production of discrete works of art. There are civic discussions and community involvement, youth workshops and public art. And that is as effective -- if not perhaps more -- than a single artwork in responding to the social and spiritual concerns of a community dealing with tragedy. Hence, Carlozzi has set up a large table in the center of the gallery filled with binders that document all sorts of creative endeavors, such as a writing project by city schoolchildren, going on in post-Katrina New Orleans. A computer on the table allows for visitors to browse a Web site (accessible publicly through www.blantonmuseum.org) featuring links to the work by exhibit artists and others including New Orleans' Ashé Cultural Arts Center, an African American cultural organization, and the Transforma Project, an artist collective that focuses on community development. An iPod plays radio interviews Dedeaux began to record in the confusing weeks after the hurricane. A monitor features a film about artist Jane Napoli's "Floodwall" project, in which she collected more than 600 drawers from the sodden debris of the city's neighborhoods, carefully recording the address from which she retrieved each one. (She continues to work on a database that document the drawers, the homeowners and their stories at www.floodwall.org.) Sometimes the most compelling creative efforts just don't fit inside the confines of a typical gallery. With "In Katrina's Wake," Carlozzi offers a smart alternative. |
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Myth Steps Austin Chronicle Friday, April 4, 2008 The Vegans are dancing! Not just any vegans, mind you. These are the capital-"V" Vegans who inhabit the artwork of Trenton Doyle Hancock - the bony, white mutants with oddly shaped heads and bulging, bloodshot eyes who have been at the heart of a sprawling, mythic tale recounted in dozens of drawings, paintings, and sculptures over the past decade. In all the time that this East Texas native has been building their narrative, they have existed only in stillness and silence. But for the first two weeks of April, the Vegans - Sesom, Paul, Bow-Headed Lou, Baby Curt, Shy Jerry, Anthony, TB, F-Shine, and Betto Watchow - along with other key elements in Hancock's surreal saga - the Mounds, the Darkness Babies, and the goddess Painter - will rise off the painter's canvases to become moving, breathing characters in a new ballet. This original dance is the brainchild of Ballet Austin Artistic Director Stephen Mills, who approached Hancock about bringing his work to the stage and engaged compositional wunderkind Graham Reynolds to provide its score and sounds. Together, the three set out to translate the dense, fantastic chronicle of the black-and-white Vegans, their discovery of color through the priest Sesom, and the fateful repercussions of that act from still life in two dimensions to motion and sound in three. The result, Cult of Color: Call to Color, premiering this week, is the culmination of a three-year collaboration. Much of the work of that time is documented in the Arthouse exhibition "Cult of Color: Call to Color: Notes on a Collaboration," showing through April 27 at the Jones Center for Contemporary Art, 700 Congress. But the three principals also discussed the project in a program at the Arthouse headquarters on Saturday, March 22. Excerpts from the talk, moderated by this writer, follow. Austin Chronicle: Trenton, you first started drawing this epic of good and evil as a kid. What were some of the influences on it? Trenton Doyle Hancock: The first character that I came up with was Torpedoboy, and that was around the fourth grade. I was looking at a lot of comic books - Spider-Man, Superman. That stuff was really important to me, as it is to most little boys at that age. For me, it was a way to escape, not being very sports-oriented. AC: At what point did the mythology start? Hancock: The idea of building characters that I could call my own, masses of them that related to each other, started in high school, because at that point, I started to think about my future, and what am I gonna do when school is over? And I thought I'd draw comic books. I didn't think anything about painting the mythology, but then someone said, "Why don't you try it?" AC: Stephen, Arthouse Executive Director Sue Graze calls you the catalyst for this collaboration. Do you have an interest in contemporary art? Stephen Mills: From the time I was young, I was interested in art. I became interested in contemporary art after having become friends with Sue and visited this huge art community here in Austin, which wasn't so large way back when. I've been here 20 years, and I've seen the art community grow tremendously over that period of time. I became aware of Trent's work from a show in 1998, so I've known about him for quite a long time. AC: What in his work spoke to you? Mills: With Trent's work, it was impossible to just walk by and say, "Oh, that's a painting." You had to stop, and you had to look at it, and you had to get into it, and you had to question it. It's not often that a person who's not a visual artist spends 30 minutes with a painting, and that's what I found myself doing. I knew that there were more layers to the work than what I was seeing, and I wanted to know more. That's what makes art good. AC: When you began to consider the idea of a collaboration between dance and visual art, was Trenton's work one of the first you thought of? Mills: Actually, it was the only one I thought of. There's a history of choreographers having artists create costumes and backdrops and things like that, but I wasn't interested in doing that. I really wanted to be able to make a dance that embodied what it was the visual artist was talking about. And that was going to require something with narrative. And the complexity of the narrative in Trent's work was what drew me to it. I came [to Arthouse] to talk to Sue about artists, but I really only wanted to talk to her about Trent, and when she brought it up, the conversation stopped. It wasn't much of a dialogue. "Can you call him ... now?" AC: Trenton, what was your reaction when you heard there was this guy who wants to make a ballet out of your paintings? Hancock: I thought, "Cool." I had no idea what that meant or how much interaction I would actually have, but I knew I had tons of material that could be translated. Sue Graze: You might not remember, but you said, "I've been waiting for something like this." Hancock: At the time, I had been thinking about how I could move my paintings from a gallery space on to something else. I was looking for a new format. I had just embarked on a book project that was going to be pretty large, but I was looking for other landscapes. AC: Had you considered animation as a way to get this mythology in motion? Hancock: Early on, I'd been influenced greatly by animation and paid attention to animation. Part of my mission statement as a painter was to figure out a way that I could separate what I do from moving pictures. How do you take a static medium and fuse it with movement? I was very careful not to have my paintings look like cartoon cels. There had to be more to it than that. I put the idea of animating my work on the back burner for a long time. It's only been in the three years that I've been working with Stephen and Graham and seen how the ballet was put together that I'm beginning to think, "Now it's time." Recently, I've met some interesting young animators, and I'm going to get them to teach me everything they know. AC: Stephen, is it fair to say that you perceived motion in Trent's work? Did it seem difficult to take those works of art and translate them into your medium? Mills: Truthfully, it didn't seem as though it was going to be a challenge at all. And then it proved to be a huge challenge. In the paintings, there's so much movement. Each one has a story, and some of those stories are epic. But once we decided what the story was going to be and who the characters were, I started to investigate how these characters might stand, how do they walk, how do they interact with each other, what sort of communications do they have between one another? Do they have their own special language, and what is that? And what I found was that the work is based on this one particular character, Sesom, and his disciples. And they're Vegans, so they're white, and they're a little bony ... [laughter from the audience]. His words, not mine. Anyway, as I went to the paintings to gather that information, I found that usually there were not drawings of complete Vegans. There would be a hand or a foot or a back or a face but never one completed one. So I could never come to any conclusion about those questions. Which was frustrating but also liberating, in the sense that since there isn't a background for it, I can decide for myself how they might do that. AC: You're talking about a mythology that's been developed over 10 years. How do you condense all that into a ballet the length of an hour? Mills: Normally what happens in my process of making a narrative work is I decide what the scenario is, I decide what to keep and what to get rid of, and I decide how linear the story is going to be. In painting, it doesn't have to be linear. Trent could work on this story for a while, drop it, move on, and pick up the story from the middle, if he wants, and work backward. But it can't happen that way in dance. You don't have words. You can't stop and say, "What he's saying here is ... ." It has to make sense gesturally. So I was really dazed and confused and didn't know what I was going to do. I went back to Trent and said, "What part do you want to tell?" So really Trent decided what it was going to be. And after deciding that, we brought in a dramaturge, John Lee, whose job was to make a theatrical, linear story out of [the material], which he did very successfully, dividing it into two acts and 11 scenes. And that's when Graham became involved. Graham Reynolds: As we've been talking about, Trenton's world is an ongoing one, and he's been working on it for however long and will continue working on it, but our piece is going to start and end, and you can't assume that the audience is aware of the previous existence of these characters and is going to be around for the next chapter. So it's got to function as a chapter for Trenton but a whole story for us. That was the trick when we worked out Trenton's first scenario. It was so open that it felt episodic, and I think that was part of the going back and forth, part of the collaborative process. Part of what John helped us do was make it serve as a complete work on its own, outside of the context of seeing Trenton's other work, but also not close the book on the story, so its world would continue in Trenton's work after the ballet. Hancock: I was very pleased. It definitely feels like my universe. There wasn't a lot of compromise, just a few things changed here and there to make it feel like it's at the end but still have the feeling that it could go on, too. Reynolds: It was tricky messing with this world that had existed for so long, intruding in it and adapting certain things. Trenton was generous with letting us change details of the mythology here and there. Hancock: There was only one moment where I felt, "Okay, this is feeling too Disney-esque." I said, "Nope. Can't go there. Too happy." AC: Graham and Stephen are both used to collaboration, as that's the nature of the performing arts, whereas we think of the visual artist as working alone. Did you have much experience with collaboration before this? Hancock: Not in terms of my professional art career. Definitely working on book projects, that's a collaborative process. Growing up singing in choirs and playing drums in incarnations of bands, I understood what it meant to compromise and collaborate. But the painter goes into the studio alone and comes out alone. Mills: It's true that when I go into work, I have to be collaborative with the 20 people standing in front of me, or work would not get done. But as our process went on, the success of it came from the fact that we were all so intrigued with each other's worlds. I studied musical composition, but I'm not a composer, and I so enjoyed going to Graham's house and listening to the music and his ideas about layering the sound design on top of the music. It's really a brilliant score. And I'm not a visual artist either, but it's really cool to go to Trent's studio and watch his work in progress. I think we had that mutual respect for each other, and that's what is needed for any collaboration. AC: Did any of you feel like you were out of your comfort zone, and how did you deal with that? Reynolds: Actually, I felt more comfortable in this collaboration than I've felt in almost any other. Dance is a little easier than theatre or film, in that there's no dialogue, so there's no competition in the sound environment. So we're able to collaborate, but at the same time, our territories are so clearly defined. In theatre or film, as soon as those territories start overlapping, one starts pulling against the other. Hancock: Since I was in charge of a lot of the visual content for the piece, I was on the phone with maybe three or four different institutions all the time and having to travel to different cities and work with crews of people that were in charge of putting these props together. It was sort of weird and daunting having to manage all of that. I had lots of help, but it was paramount for me to be on the spot, dictating what color goes here and what goes there, working with literally hundreds of people to get all this stuff done. So that was different from being alone in the studio. But I think it was a real good thing for me to learn, how to manage projects. Mills: In my work, I don't have to ask Tchaikovsky's permission for anything, you know what I mean? I don't have to ask Stravinsky's permission. But working with an artist who's [living], it was like I was co-opting the intellectual property of another artist, and that's a very tricky situation and one that has to be dealt with very sensitively. And Trent has been fantastic about it, but that was my challenge. How would Trent want these characters portrayed? This is his world. How would he want it portrayed, and what is the best way for me to go about doing that in a way that is respectful to the body of work but also raises it to the level of being a theatrical experience? AC: What are some of the challenges you faced in this project, and how did you overcome them? Reynolds: One of the first challenges was the playful nature of the characters and the colors, and how playful and brightly colored to make the music. I chose not to go down the bright, playful road so much. They may be bright and playful, but they're substantive characters with a lot of dark qualities. I wanted it to feel like a fully realized world, so I took the characters very seriously with the music. So the battle scenes sound like people are getting hurt and not like a cartoon battle. Hancock: For me, it was learning my place in the meetings. I supplied the story; I have the visual information from the paintings. But not knowing how Stephen worked, not knowing what it takes to put the music together, I didn't know how hands-on I should be. So things were abstract to me for a little while, and I felt like I was there to say yes and no and answer these guys' questions. Reynolds: When these guys came in every few weeks to listen to what I'd come up with, it was the opposite of most film and theatre experiences, as far as getting notes. With film and theatre, you get seven people in the room, and one's a producer and one's a director and one's this person, and this person says, "I think it should be faster," and this person says, "I think it should be slower," and this person says, "I think it should be a little funnier," and this person says, "It needs a little weight to the scene," and they send you home, and you're supposed to make it faster, slower, funnier, and heavier at the same time. And these guys were all, "That sounds cool." Hancock: Yeah, I would come over and go, "That's awesome." And then I'd leave. Mills: My assistant would set up two-hour meetings for me with Graham, and I would go and after the first 15 minutes, "That's great," and we're gone. And then I'd have an hour and 45 minutes off. It was fantastic. AC: Surely there were moments when you worried about being able to pull it together. But was there a moment for each of you that made you feel like, "Oh, it is going to come together"? Reynolds: Mine was early. As far as multimedia collaborations go, I really enjoy dance, so [when someone called me from the ballet to set up a meeting with Stephen], I was going to say yes no matter what, but I hoped that it would at least be something I would be excited about. I didn't know what Stephen was going to suggest, and I wasn't familiar with Trenton's work at that point. So that was the moment of: Is this going to work? Then he pulled out Trenton's book of art, and I was, "This is going to work." I was pretty much fine from there. Mills: I had two. The first was when I heard Graham's first theme, the opening of the ballet. When you're making something new with someone you don't know, you're throwing it out there and hoping for the best. I had always wanted to work with Graham and never had the opportunity. Because of the epic nature of this, I just felt like he was the right composer. And when I heard that section, I felt that he was exactly the right choice, that Graham understood the nature of what this work was going to be. It was sinister, it was dramatic, it was hopeful, it was funny, and it was sinister. Graham got it, and I was so pleased. The other one was the day I saw all nine costumes for the Vegans standing in the costume shop together. It was a laugh riot, and I just knew that these characters were going to be right and the audience was going to have a positive reaction to it. Hancock: For me, it was coming over to Graham's that first time and actually getting to talk with you in your environment about the different terminology and the correlation between what you do and what the visual arts do, making sketches and laying down the foundation and building. And then actually hearing what you came up with, getting each character right, getting the theme right, having sounds embody their essence, I knew we were all on the same page. I always trusted Stephen and his vision after seeing his piece Light, so I've been excited about the project throughout, and each time something new was revealed to me, like pictures of the costumes or the final versions of the set-pieces, I'd get excited again. But I got the most excited when I got to come to a rehearsal and see how you interact with your dancers. It became very clear to me what you do and how you create. Being able to see the dancers become an extension of you was an amazing thing. Seeing what you had come up with for the movements for the characters, it crystallized for me that this thing is far beyond what any one of us could do alone. |
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'Ewan Gibbs: Pictures of Pitchers' By Amanda Douberley The work of British artist Ewan Gibbs reminds us that every drawing is essentially an accumulation of individual marks. Gibbs makes identical hash marks of varying weight, one in each box on a gridded sheet of paper. Add the graphite slashes up, and an image becomes legible. For his first exhibition at Lora Reynolds in 2005, Gibbs presented scenes of New York City as seen from the Empire State Building's observation deck. Similar work is included in his current show in the form of seductive urban nocturnes that translate his drawing practice into linocut prints. But the main attraction of "Pictures of Pitchers" is the eight drawings of baseball pitchers - each named for the city in which his team originates - that ring the front room at Lora Reynolds. Gibbs' work is based on photographs that he selects for their engagement of specific qualities inherent to the medium, including the way that photographs can capture an instant imperceptible to the naked eye. His pitchers are frozen in the moment just after each one has released the ball. They end up looking oddly like flamingos, balanced precariously on one leg while the other extends gracefully into the air. The pitchers' extreme, almost balletic contortion is surprising; yet odder still is the fact that each pitcher assumes the same strange pose, rather than this being the idiosyncratic posture it would seem to be. Therefore, Gibbs also takes advantage of the photograph's ubiquity, which allows him to select images of different players at discrete places and times that nevertheless all appear strikingly similar. In addition, the parallel poses mirror Gibbs' artistic process, which involves the repetition of similar marks over and over and over again. From the micro level of each gridded mark to the macro level of a glance around the room, this exhibition may be more about seriality, among other things, than it is about baseball. This observation prompts the question: Why baseball players? Does it matter what Gibbs is drawing? The answer, it seems, is both yes and no. By titling each work in this series with the team's home city rather than the player's name, Gibbs draws viewers' attention away from the player's identity to focus on the image. Gibbs' interest in perception leads him to select source images that highlight the photograph's ability to stop time and arrest a fleeting moment. By translating these images into painstaking drawings, he further slows time, taking weeks to finish each one. The viewer, in turn, is invited to take in the whole room or even each image at a glance, but one must come closer to see how Gibbs has made the drawings. At that point, the eye gets lost in the image as pure pattern and lingers over each mark, first scanning the drawing, then taking it apart, and finally putting it back together again. "Pictures of Pitchers" presents a paradox: The show may appear pretty bare and of minimal visual interest at first, but like so much minimal art, it is, in fact, all about the pleasure of looking |
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Exhibit spotlights 20 emerging Central Texas artists By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin Exhibits such as the Austin Museum of Art's triennial "New Art in Austin" beg for broad assessments. Just what does the work of these 20 emerging artists -- chosen from a pool of more than 250, all of whom live within a 50-mile radius of the Texas Capitol -- say about the state of what's new in visual arts in Central Texas? Everything and -- in a good way -- nothing too narrow and specific. After all, it would be foolish to think that there's any way a survey exhibit could be truly comprehensive. What "New Art in Austin" offers is a very selective snapshot of what's going on right here, right now. There are art world trendlets aplenty in "New Art in Austin." The good news is that those stylistic trends are being actively plumbed for everything they might possibly be able to do. The new craftiness -- the literal hands-on homage to the hands-on process of art-making that's been so popular of late -- is alive and well. But luckily, rather than the deliberately sloppy-for-sloppiness' sake seen too often, the craftiness here is sharp and savvy. Ali Fitzgerald's sprawling "Sad Little White Girl Goes to Boarding School" is part enormous, girly pop-up book, part white and metallic gold confectionery doll house or museum diorama. But look into its cut-out windows and sordid yet funny scenarios suggest an odd coming-of-age story. Who said paper dolls couldn't act out a bad dream? (For Fitzgerald's explanation of her work, along with videos of all the "New Art in Austin" artists, go to www .amoainteractive.org/newart inaustin2008). Then there's Stephanie Wagner's biting and hilarious comment on the over-production of mass culture. Toy dogs crafted from clay are decorated to baroque effect with bits of lace, fake flowers, fluttery fabric trim; then everything is embellished with shiny glaze in candy-colored hues. Twenty-five of the frilly, saturated doggies stand on pedestals in the exhibit. It's kitschy bric-a-brac meets the excess of consumer goods; Paris Hilton's lap pooch meets Marie Antoinette-inspired home crafting. And it's very witty. Also making a point well taken is Kurt Mueller's "American Dream." Especially in this day and age of the blogosphere -- with too many people spinning too many words and not saying much -- Mueller's interactive installation is hugely refreshing because it invites people to step up to the microphone and say something important. Specifically, Mueller invites anyone visiting the gallery to read aloud from a teleprompter as Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech scrolls. Interestingly, on several visits to the museum, nobody tried out Mueller's riff on karaoke. What's the matter? Too many people too used to hiding behind their online personas? Perhaps so. Shawn Smith also mines the digital universe -- another trend that percolates these days. He uses low-resolution images found online of nature and outdoor life -- birds, fish, taxidermy deer, a campfire -- and translates them into pixelated computer matrices, then re-creates those matrices using tiny cubes of wood to stand in for every pixel. "Re-Kindling" spills across the museum floor, a hand-made, brightly painted campfire still in perfect pixel form and perfect for our digital age. The clash of old and new, the rapid course of change and displacement, also occupies the work of Buster Graybill and Scott Proctor. But it's not the digital world these two wrestle with so much as the discord that results with our ever-urbanized world. Graybill upends an aluminum fishing boat, fills it with a bursting jumble of large inner tubes, then takes the boat and tubes and cantilevers them from the museum wall, letting them hang menacingly with a single yellow cord. "Come Along Johnny" is gorgeous with its sensuous cluster of inner tubes, rowdy with its in-your-face approach on conceptual art. Go, Graybill, go! Proctor, for his part, renders a sweet valentine to our rapidly changing city and the parts that are disappearing from our view. He built an exact replica of one of the museum's walls -- which are an imposing 24 inches thick -- then propped up one end of his wall with a floor jack to reveal detailed miniature wood frameworks of three tiny buildings. There's a whole unseen world inside Proctor's world. Really, there's a whole world out there being replaced by a new world we're creating. And if you think Austin's artists aren't reacting to all that change, don't worry -- they're on it. |
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That Was Then; This Is Now By Salvador Castillo In a recent conversation, it became apparent to me that I like cold art. Work that is slick and uses plastic, ink, water, computers, or lights will grab my eye. My aesthetic preference is probably best exemplified by Andrew Niccol's Gattaca, starring Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman. This film is able to look to both the future and the past while saying something about today in both visuals and commentary. It treats the sterility of theory, grittiness of reality, and the euphoria of transcendence in the way that good science fiction does. I like to throw around the term "sci-fi" as shorthand for this aesthetic. In the fall of 2005, the Austin Museum of Art opened the second exhibit in its new triennial, "New Art in Austin: 22 to Watch." Not only was it sci-fi; it reflected Austin as I understood it. The works shown reflected the diligence of the tech community, the stewardship of our landscape, and the excitement of redevelopment. Maybe Austin's art community wasn't as provincial and insulated as I'd thought. The optimism of moving forward was hopeful. Three years later, the forecast is slightly different. Austin is still holding anti-war protests, global warming is accepted even among skeptics, growth has succumbed to gentrification, and, although Austin is a relative oasis when considering national woes, it is becoming more of a challenge for artists to live and work here. Not all of the outlook is dire, though. The Blanton Museum of Art, the Mexican American Cultural Center, Salvage Vanguard Theater, Ballet Austin, and the Long Center all opened their doors to new spacious venues. More cultural organizations continue with expansion plans as well, among them Arthouse, AMOA, Zach Theatre, and Austin Children's Museum. Some things change, and some things stay the same, but have the artists in Austin picked up on either? The artists in this year's "New Art in Austin" still show an interest in the concerns evident in the 2005 version. Technology, preserving natural land, and real estate development are still a part of Austin. It may not be as sophisticated or interactive as Zack Booth Simpson's algorithmic projection of a pond, but Rebecca Ward's tape and video installation is just as playful and uses math to determine its proportions. By using the floor tiles as a unit of measurement, Ward applies vinyl in patterns that resemble blocks from the game Tetris and comfortably situates the projection in the niche provided. The influence of technology and how we view our surroundings is also present in Shawn Smith's work. His campfire sculpture is constructed from wood blocks painted to resemble individual pixels from a digital photograph. It has become a common complaint that today's artists rely too much on the photographic image to create. Smith takes this argument further by inserting the abundance of digital photography into the conversation. It's a little low tech for a hologram substitution, but you get the idea. Three years ago, both Ledia Carroll's rerouting of water from an outside fountain and Hunter Cross' Post-it notes tree addressed natural resources. This time around, Matthew Rodriguez and Raymond Uhlir express somber reflections on nature translated through children's television programming. Depicted in the form of nightmares, Uhlir's self-portraits place us all at the receiving end of nature's wrath. Bears, wolves, and other carnivorous predators enact revenge for man's encroachment on the wilderness, all in the vivid colors of Saturday morning cartoons. Rodriguez uses the earth itself to express dissatisfaction with man's effects on the environment. A mound of concrete rubble and a house in shambles are both anthropomorphized with simple frowning cartoon faces. A similar effect is achieved as a pile of blankets is given a face and arms with birdseed and decorative birds placed around it. This colorful Muppet maintains an amicable presence, but as it evokes a bag lady feeding pigeons in the park, it is pitiable. The Sesame Street-style of the work is strengthened by the resemblance of Oscar the Grouch to Christmas-tree character Briar Bush in the accompanying painting. Any perkiness from the colors is subdued when you play Beethoven's melancholic "Für Elise" on the attached music-box instrument. Austin benefits from a healthy economic outlook and continues to grow. In 2005, Heather Johnson's embroidered drawings and string installation of maps and Peat Duggins' drawings and installation of the mysterious architect's desk most directly discussed city planning and infrastructure. Now, Eric Zimmerman's intricate drawings contain both architectural elements and natural-looking landforms in graphite. Pools of colored ink contrast the controlled mark-making with an organic blob threatening to erase the image. The acknowledgment of the man-made over the natural transforms the inkblots into destructive oil spills. Scott Proctor uses some architecture in his discovery of a forgotten structure. By lifting a temporary wall, he reveals a previously lost framework for what looks like a dollhouse. This revelation of a hidden history within the museum's walls and the perception of oil spills make these works less objective than 2005's somewhere between here and anywhere and The Architect's Desk. Perhaps the question of objectivity is what differentiates the two latest versions of "New Art in Austin." In 2005, the colder characteristics were present because most of the work took a more theoretical approach and the use of "we" in their arguments: We can use technology for our benefit. We need to take care of our natural resources. We need to provide adequate infrastructure. Even though you can find some similar thematic concerns this year, the perspective shifts to a more personal view, and "I" becomes the subject: I like to use technology. I am concerned about what's happening in the city and to the planet. It is this personal perspective of the artists that contrasts with the older exhibit and gives this version a sense of a random spattering of ideas. With this change of perspective comes a sense of questioning, a little bit of trepidation, and maybe some conservative strategies. The ideas may seem separate, but a lot of the artists begin their investigations with themselves. Self-portraits have a strong presence. Photographer Sarah Sudhoff documents a very personal tribulation. It's a drastic event laid out very plainly: Sudhoff unflinchingly stares at the viewer as we watch her during different stages of dealing with cancer. The trio of photos leads you to contemplate larger issues of health, but they begin with the artist. Yoon Cho also works with her own identity. In Haircut, the loss of individuality through marriage was marked by a drastic haircut for herself and a small trim for her husband. Baseera Khan examines her cultural identity. She layers images, bleeds colors, and creates a muddy view emulating her bicultural existence. There is confusion as she tries to pull an identity from these surreal settings. Uhlir does a decent job rendering himself in cartoon format, but we must take Andrew Long's word that the abstracted shapes in Self-Portrait for Change is really a portrait. As each one questions who he or she is, the artists use their personal experiences to give us a more universal understanding. The Jill Pangallo and Buster Graybill pairing becomes a nice fulcrum. Where Pangallo uses herself in a colorful, inviting, commercial representation, Graybill is absent in a cold, industrial, threatening presentation. Pangallo uses her person, while Graybill uses only the scale of a person. As a performance, Pangallo's work depends on the surrounding props to substitute for the absence of the action. Witnessing the mime on opening night was an engrossing experience as the artist, made plastic with make-up, stood in a face-off against Graybill's looming inner tubes. The simplicity of Come Along Johnny betrays its effect and presence. Standing between the two was a test of your nerves. Either direction you faced, you could feel the presence of the other on the back of your neck. Those who don't use their faces at least use themselves as people in relation to their work. Graybill's sculpture is best activated when you stand in close proximity. Meggie Chou's hulking contraption dominates the room and is mechanical like Come Along Johnny. Even though industrial, its relationship is organic as it mimics a circulating cardiovascular system. The cut-paper works of Xochi Solis also look cardiovascular. No one calls them self-portraits, but the titles sound like snippets from a diary. As the Museum of Natural and Artificial Ephemerata, Jen Hirt and Scott Webel borrow four works from AMOA's permanent collection and pair them with displays of their own creation. Julie Speed's medicine cabinet and Willie Nelson's hair sample both use personal effects for added effect to AMOA's works. One of the most powerful effects comes from one of the humblest works. Kurt Mueller provides the intimidation of Graybill's Come Along Johnny compounded by history, race, and politics. Squeezed into a corner between the exit and the Family Lab stands a lone microphone. Speakers and a teleprompter nudge you to stand behind it and sing your heart out to the scrolling text. Almost nobody does. Mueller provides the text for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech, and somehow that renders voices mute. Your mind races and asks: "Am I allowed to say that? Do I have the confidence to perform? Will I be able to tackle the history of whom and what is being read?" Artist Teresa Hubbard of the 2002 "New Art in Austin," concerned with the marketability of the 2005 group, questioned the local support system during AMOA's Self-Portrait symposium three years ago. In 2008, the artists are exhibiting more saleable works in comparison to the large-scale installations that dominated the previous show. Paintings and works on paper are plentiful, as they were in AMOA's "New American Talent: 22" and Mexic-Arte's "Young Latino Artists 12" this past year. Does this suggest a conscious consideration of investment and return on capital? Or is it another example of these artists beginning their studio practice on the basis of "I"? Granted that paintings can and usually do come about in series, but when a large piece is offset by a group of small paintings, you can't help but think of the economics of art-making and -buying. Someone once told me, "You make the large stuff so you can sell the small stuff." With the boom in arts activity, there are bound to be buyers willing to acquire local art, right? But maybe the lack of space forces artists to create intimate-sized works. "New Art in Austin" paints a new picture of Austin. Instead of a beckoning into the future with idealized outlines and ambitious proposals, the 2008 edition is one on the verge of a newer civilization in which individuals bear the responsibility of guiding us through these changes. They break down our collective aspirations into warmer, more intimate conversations. They are like case studies. The artists become mindful of greater topics by questioning their relationships, and ours, to external forces - not always optimistic but moving ever forward. This exhibition may not be an exact representation of Austin art, but this is the Austin others will see. This is how Abilene, Houston, and San Antonio will understand Austin art. "New Art in Austin: 20 to Watch" is on view through May 11 at the Austin Museum of Art - Downtown, 823 Congress. For more information, call 495-9224 or visit www.amoa.org. |
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Cult of Color: Call to Color By Nikki Moore Interdisciplinarity: As with most anything, it seems you can either think, write, and talk about it, or you can experience it. Certainly, the lead-up to Cult of Color: Call to Color generated a lot of talk. In a recent interview, former Arthouse adjunct curator Regine Basha said that "one of Austin's strengths is that there can be different styles of cultural production. Here, projects like the recent Cult of Color: Call to Color that Arthouse is doing with Trenton Doyle Hancock and Ballet Austin can happen in a meaningful way. Unlike New York, where rigid boundaries and minifiefdoms still exist between disciplines, I think Austin - and the wide array of resources available here - makes it possible for artists to work across disciplines in innovative ways." In a panel discussion on the project led by Chronicle Arts Editor Robert Faires at Arthouse (see "Myth Steps," April 4), there was a flurry of interesting words on collaboration and boundary transgressions, not only from the internationally acclaimed Hancock but also from his collaborators on Cult of Color: Call to Color, genial Ballet Austin Artistic Director Stephen Mills and talented Austin-based composer Graham Reynolds. Yet on Saturday night, when slinking, smooth, shadowy characters opened the curtains onto an hour of electrifying art in motion, all the words fell away, and voices fell silent, save for the periodic laughs and cheers that the stage action evoked. For those of us who see a lot of stationary or 2-D art, there was something transformative in witnessing an artist's drawings become flesh and bone and then lose those boundaries via spot-on choreography, seemingly impossible motion, and immense physical beauty. From slithering floor slides to expressive leaps, lunges, and lurches, Mills' choreography defined each character in a body language beyond words. Set to music whose moody descriptions brought depth to a rainbow-bright stage, the experience was enthralling. But can I honestly say that nothing I'd read, thought, or spoken of could have prepared me for this? That is precisely what Hancock's storytelling might lead you to believe. Throughout the artist's narratives, which are riddled with dueling dichotomies (black vs. white, black and white vs. color, good vs. evil, etc.), false and simplistic rivalries between mind/body and thought/experience rage. As the evil five-brained Betto struggles against the simple and almost silly Sesom and friends, an old theme emerges: Color, procreation, and fertility need meat (body, flesh) to thrive against the calculating mind of the evil enemy. And as the production's clinching sinister climax reveals, the two can never, according to Hancock, blend harmoniously. For an epic that stresses the importance of color, its point of view is curiously black-and-white. Somewhere in Act II, the narrative becomes too heavy to carry its own weight, and the story overtakes experience instead of augmenting, clarifying, and informing it. This slip only slightly tarnishes the color and shine of this outstanding performance piece, however. In its best light, the need for flesh and body in art is brilliantly doubled in the performance, as Hancock's experiments in narrative, which drive his artistic production on paper and with paint, are taken on by the bodies of the Ballet Austin troupe to vibrant and vital, even sublime heights. In tandem, Hancock's playful and expressive costuming, scenery pieces, and his stunning 60-foot-by-17-foot backdrop, made in collaboration with the Fabric Workshop and Museum, literally set the stage for the breathtaking interpretation of Hancock's broader body of work by Mills and Reynolds. Notes on their collaboration, on display at Arthouse through April 27, point to Cult of Color as a work for families to enjoy together, document the making of an important work that raises the bar for Austin visual arts collaborations, and urge you to get tickets to the performance while you can, to take both the talk and the experience in for yourself in all its richness and complexity. |
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'Erin Cone: New Paintings' By Wayne Alan Brenner Keratotomy, angioplasty. The mathematical precision of lasers is often used to affect improvements to the eye, to the heart. People walking around - once blind but now can see, once afflicted by a faulty ticker but now like Secretariat with their cardiac vigor - enjoying what life has to offer years beyond when they otherwise might have been food for worms. One of these people walks into the Wally Workman Gallery to see what they can see. On the walls: new paintings by Erin Cone, Lubbock native, UT grad, current resident of Santa Fe, N.M. Portraits of women, rendered as planes of color and overlapping shadows yet instantly recognizable as women, as particular women, often in some simple yet stunning equation of balance with abstract shapes: a cube here, a rectangle there: an anchor, a catalyst. This is divine precision, each painting a revelation of composition and rendering. Our person living on time borrowed with technology moves from room to room within the Workman Gallery, enhanced pupils drinking in the light, marveling at the precision. It's not just the paintings themselves; it's the way in which they've been arranged in the elegantly spare surroundings, each portrait in a visual conversation with the others. On one wall, a pair called Gossip I and Gossip II: Each shows a woman with one hand partially obscuring her mouth, muting and directing what must be whispered speech, each gossip isolated in a field of color. Between these two, another portrait, Transition, a woman whose back is turned - as if to the rumors insinuated on either side of her. The gallery visitor continues through the space, entranced, staring openly at these flat, captured women and what they've wrought, via Cone's artistry, from the visible spectrum. Here is a portrait called Prescient, the woman's face obscured from the eyes upward by a solid block of color; it's eerie, unsettling, like a portrait of some precog from the worlds of Philip K. Dick. There, on the south wall, is a series of smaller paintings of pairs of hands arranged to present a variety of aspects: Reveal, Conceal, Shelter, Shift. And, everywhere, in the artist's meticulous acrylics, representations of humanity pared to its graphic essentials and framed within an austere matrix of shade and symmetry. Our miracle of medicine will linger before departing the gallery this day, will linger long among these precisions of Cone that, over time, affect improvements to the eye, to the heart. |
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Rare Perspectives Rare Austin Magazine In your own words, what is the definition of "art?" Art is anything that is created which embodies a personal expression, an interpretation of a person or thing, or a response to our time in history. Most artists' work reflects a combination of all three. Art comes in many forms. Describe how "art" relates to you and your profession. Art is a way to see the world through a different set of eyes or from a different perspective. I help my clients to enhance their environments, while in turn, giving back to their community by supporting local artists. How do you feel that you personally contribute to the art community? Having a gallery with a unique variety of artists provides people with yet another place to view art. They can then use this experience to determine what appeals to them. It also gives people the opportunity to purchase artwork, which they can then live with and enjoy. At the same time, they are supporting living artists, enabling them to make it to the next stage of their career. To sum it up, not only do I offer patrons artwork to purchase, I also help artists make a living. How well does Austin embrace the art community? Austin has been a community of artists supporting artists, which is tough because artists usually do not have the resources to support each other financially. However, there is an abundance of talent in this city, and now that the music and film scene have achieved national and international attention, the visual arts scene is attracting supporters from near and far. What are some of your favorite art-related activities here in Austin? The Blanton Museum, Arthouse at the Jones Center, AMOA, Umlauf Sculpture Garden and the East Side Studio Tour. Have you stumbled across any unique art "finds" here in Austin that others might not know about? Flatbed Press and Coronado Studios, two local printmakers that work with local, national and international artists. What trends in the art community are you seeing? More and more galleries seem to be opening each year, and the East Side has become a real artists' community. Where do you see yourself and your profession in 10 years? My hope is that the artists I work with continue to receive national and international attention, and their work is acquired and exhibited by an even greater number of individuals and institutions. |
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Rare Perspectives Rare Austin Magazine In your own words, what is the definition of "art?" Art is something that touches us on a personal level, making us appreciate the beauty of the world around us in a way that is otherwise impossible. Art means different things to different people, but it is always something that a person connects with and finds intriguing. Art comes in many forms. Describe how "art" relates to you and your profession. Art is our business, but it is our business because it is our passion. We try to expand the idea of what contemporary art is by featuring artists from many different backgrounds who create art in their own unique styles, and make that available to Austinites. How well does Austin embrace the art community? I think Austin's interests still lie primarily in music, but the art scene here is definitely on its way up. The involvement of the visual arts in many citywide events, demonstrates that Austinites really support visual artists and galleries. Who are the key influencers in the art community? Ultimately, Austinites themselves are the key influencers. The collectors dictate what kind of work they want, and the artists, in turn, are influenced by the spirit of the city. What are some of your favorite art-related activities here in Austin? B Scene at the Blanton, Art Outside, First Night Austin and of course, First Thursday in the West End. What trends in the art community are you seeing? One thing that seems to be consistent is Austinites' desire to "buy locally" by investing in local artists. Austin is also just naturally a very creative city, and people really respond to the originality displayed by our local artists. Where do you see yourself and your profession in 10 years? Hopefully bigger and better, still finding great contemporary art here in Austin and elsewhere for our growing community of collectors. |
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Rare Perspectives Rare Austin Magazine In your own words, what is the definition of "art?" Art comes in many forms. In my opinion, it is unfair to define "Art." Art is an expression of one's passion for something. Art is in the eye of the beholder. Art comes in many forms. Describe how "art" relates to you and your profession. My life has been filled with all forms of art for as long as I can remember. With an art collecting father and an interior decorator for a mother, my career as an art gallery owner was inevitable. I have a passion for works of art by the masters: from Rembrandt to Picasso. I also love exploring the transformation that has occurred in art and how the masters have influenced the work of living artists. How do you feel that you personally contribute to the art community? I not only help people acquire art, but I am determined to teach them about the importance of the art they are acquiring. My hope is to help my clients create collections — a legacy if you will — that they are passionate about. The idea behind collecting art is to keep it for a lifetime and pass it down to the next generation to enjoy. How well does Austin embrace the art community? Over the last eight years, I have seen tremendous growth in the art community here in Austin. We now have the new Blanton Museum, the Long Center for the Arts and galleries are working together to create art districts. Who are the key influencers in the art community? We are all the key influencers in the art community. Art does not become a part of our culture without our passion, appreciation and support. What are some of your favorite art-related activities here in Austin? West End Gallery Night, on the first Thursday of every month, is always fun to attend. It is always great to find live music in Austin on any given night. My kids love to go to the Children's Museum. Have you stumbled across any unique art "finds" here in Austin that others might not know about? Aside from spending most my time in my art gallery or attending events with my children, I enjoy the serenity I find at the Umlauf Sculpture Garden. What trends in the art community are you seeing? The art market is very hot right now globally, and with Austin gaining more national attention as one of the top ten places to visit or live, there seems to be a higher level of interest in our growing art community. |
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