Blue Star Arts Complex – First Friday

Holiday music courtesy of Boneshakers Bicycle Pub (featuring The Circle School & Blessed Sacrament Elementary, The Weetles).

Phillip King Exhibit “Four Decades with Colour” Dec 1- Feb 12, Main Gallery.  Sculptural and print work from the artist dated from the 60’s to today.  King has been a teacher throughout most of his life, including  posts at the Royal College of Art and the Royal Academy Schools.  He has also been a trustee of the Tate Gallery.  His work spans many different ‘styles’ of sculpture and serves as a brilliant dialogue about sculpture and art in general.

Philip John Evett Exhibit “Untitled” Dec 1-Feb 12, Middle Gallery and Gallery 4.  Also an educator for much of his career, Evett currently teaches at Trinity University.  Sensual and figurative sculpture.  Beautiful work, typically carved wood or cast bronze.  Click the link above for a great gallery of his work.

Harold Wood Exhibit “Levelland [Points of Scale]” Dec 1-Feb 12, Project Space.  Hard to give a short description of Harold Wood, or his studio/workshop/showroom/art gallery/complex ‘Harold J. Wood and Company LP’.  In essence they create environments.  Form furniture and paintings to some involvement in the complex computer driven equipment as well as old world traditional means of production.  They create an environment, without seeming to be ‘interior decorators’.  Instead there is nothing but art.  Go to the site and read the bio, it is amazing all by itself.

Also coming up soon at the Blue Star Arts Space: Blue Starry Night Holiday Sale.

The revised info for the event is now December 8^th, 2pm to 7pm.  There will be awesome work for sale here, fine art, decorative art, food and drink.

David Shelton Gallery

Also along the Friday artwalk trail will be Jane Lawrence at the David Shelton Gallery.  The samples available online of Lawrence’s work do this artist’s work no justice.  The illustrations I have seen are brilliant.  The architectural, figurative, formal and surrealistic abstractions involving the human form, machinery, insects and more are full of life.   Great gallery showing great work.

Luminaria 2012 – Update

The application to be involved is now available online.  Last year was amazing (see some images on Voices of Art Magazine) and as always, San Antonio will do it bigger and better this year.  There have been same changes, so go to the site and take a look if interested.

And because the internets need to be represented…

There has been some awesome work coming out of Flash Fiction coming out of the San Antonio Current.  The Flash Fiction section is run by Lyle Rosdahl who also is involved in the Postcard Fiction Collaborative, which is also something you should check out.

Check back frequently for updates and event info, reviews, interviews and other great San Antonio Art Events!

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One of the most intriguing aspects of this artwork was that it was created by the collective, Okay Mountan.  Artist collectives are created for a number of reasons, but generally their intent is to alter the relationships of power in the art world.  Self-described “as an artist-run alternative gallery space,”  the artists embrace a post-modern approach to resistance that is presentational rather than confrontational.  The statement of this would be:  This is what we want to do, and we are doing it on our own.  This approach does not preclude participation in mainstream venues, because the aim is to maximize opportunity.
It is only within the context of the mainstream museum that the economic value of a commodity can be subverted.  Libby Black recreates high-end designer products from Louis Vuitton, Kate Spade and Hermes, among others.  This type of mimicry is not new, because look-alike reproductions of these products is a big business even though it is illegal.  These reproductions are meant to fool the eye, and the uninitiated usually don’t know the difference between the real item and the copy.  Because part of their value lies in their ability to signify the status of the individual who owns it, it is important for some to know the difference between real products and fake ones.
It is clear that Black’s reproductions are fake and not intended to be passed off as the real thing.  They are made of paper, exhibit a rather clumsy craftsmanship and are not useable.  This may lead you to think that these fetishistic creations might be the provenance of a mad woman.  There is more to this than meets the eye.  It is the sign value of the objects that is significant in this collection.  Within the context (the museum) that the artwork is presented, the logos come to signify an ongoing  ‘critique of consumption’  by well-known artists such as Barbara Kruger and Shepherd Fairey.  It is this association that signifies that the artist is making an important statement conceptually, and can be deemed a valuable art commodity.   The artwork’s monetary value is directly proportional to its worth as an art commodity.  Ultimately, the artwork garners status and value equal to or greater than the designer originals.
Similarly, Conrad Bakker simulates high-end, mass produced,  mid-century modern furniture.  The originals were designed by famous architects and designers from the Bauhaus School in Germany specifically for industrial production.  His wood and paint constructions look like they could be the original prototypes.   Bakker imagines a slight instance of resistance at some stage between completion of the design and mass production, implying that the object would have retained a higher social and artistic value than a mass produced item.  Bakker relies upon a Marxist axiom that commodification destroyed the social value of the handmade object–and he wants us to recognize this.
Bakker romantically re-imagines and  encourages an instance of resistance in his viewers as they contemplate how value is derived for a particular object.  He positions his furniture copy next to a painting of an advertisement for the real chair, posing the question:  Which has more value, this reproduction or a painting of the original?

The question is moot, however, because it is the sign value of these objects that determines their economic value.  The real question here is:  what is the value of an instance of resistance?  Does the artist effectively create a moment of  resistance that will lead the viewer to actively resist economic, political, and ideological domination?
Kiel Johnson exactly replicates the structure of musical instruments without trying to cover up the materials he makes them with.  Throughout his career, he has created copious quantities of sculptures with cardboard, tape and glue.  Johnson sets up a conflict between our way of knowing a familiar object such as a violin and the way we make sense of the violin that Johnson presents to us.  The object subverts socially agreed upon significations, requiring us to consider new ways to make sense of familiar objects.
Kaz  Oshira’s artwork was the most disconcerting and unsettling for me.  I was so put off by the aesthetics of the pieces that I simply was not interested in them at the time.  The one piece that totally flummoxed me was the white kitchen cabinets hanging on the wall.  I have learned that his pieces are actually paintings on stretched canvas.  Within the context of this essay, they now seem to be the most representative of the type of subversion I have discussed.  His kitchen cabinets tip the world’s axis.
It is specifically this re-framing of knowledge that lies at the heart of political art.  Political art seeks to re-tell the fictional narrative that supports our culture and what we know as the “real” world.  This real world is continually being re-framed by politicians, economists, business, and……artists.  The struggle lies in what version of the fictional narrative will be accepted at any given moment in time.   The history of art shows clearly how this re-framing occurs, and also how it becomes a part of the general fictional narrative of our times.

Linda Lewis is a writer/artist living in Edinburg TX.

Azaceta’s Oklahoma 4 is a large wall-mounted assemblage made from acrylic and enamel paint, photos, found objects, tape, plastic fencing, metal studs on wood.  On the wood support, the artist painted an explosive abstract pattern and included images of a severed leg and his own somber self-portrait. Metal scraps refer to the ruins of the destroyed building, while attachments include objects that could have been found in the rubble—such as shoes, stuffed animals, a toy car, and a baby doll. The wreckage is further alluded to in attached photos of old and broken mattresses and flowers. Throughout the composition, these various elements are tied together with caution tape, normally used by police officers to keep spectators away from a scene of violence or disaster.
Azaceta has commented on his emotional response to the fact that so many children were killed in the explosion.

According to the artist:

“I saw on television the devastation of the building, the killing of so many innocent people and children – a lot of children! Seeing  toys, tricycles, stuffed animals, etc., scattered all over the perimeter . . . that was like a loud scream emanating from the wreckage. That made me start making works of art reflecting this horrendous act, with the hope of silencing that pain and creating compassion and visual beauty to counter such an innocuous act of violence against humanity.”

As a youth in Cuba in the 1950s, Azaceta witnessed shootings and bombings firsthand during Fidel Castro’s overthrow of the government led by Fulgencio Batista. Since moving to the United States in the 1960s, he has addressed many social themes in his paintings and sculptures. Most notable are works devoted to raising awareness about the plight of the Cuban “boat people” (who in the late 1980s-early 1990s attempted to escape from Cuba on rafts), the AIDS crisis, gang violence, and Hurricane Katrina.
In Plum’s installation, the artist addresses ongoing problems at the Texas/Mexico border.  Specifically, she has responded to the sad statistics regarding the numbers of women and girls who have been killed or have disappeared in Juarez, Mexico, across the border from El Paso. Many of the victims were raped, mutilated, and tortured, and little has been done to provide protection for the women of Juarez or to bring the perpetrators to justice. To represent the victimized women, Plum created monumental-scale black brooms that are knotted in the middle as a symbol for the cutting off of female energy.  To either side of these hanging brooms, she has placed metates—domestic implements for grinding corn, with a cast-glass Virgin of Guadalupe inserted in their centers, thus giving the overall presentation the appearance of a memorial altar.
Plum believes in the shamanistic and healing potential of art.

Reflecting upon the creation of Solidaridad, she has commented:

“I have come to look at the Rio Grande as an open wound. As a bicultural artist, healer, and activist I see this as an opportunity to bring awareness to these horrible acts of violence, as well as a healing or limpia.”

In addressing some of today’s atrocities through creative endeavor, Azaceta and Plum join the many artists of note—Goya and Picasso, for example—who throughout history have contributed emotionally charged or poignantly poetic commentaries on the issues of their day.  In so doing, they demonstrate the enduring potential of an artwork to awaken the apathetic, to stimulate the mind for reflection and discourse, and to confront with grace the socially relevant problems of our time.

David S. Rubin is The Brown Foundation Curator of Contemporary Art at the San Antonio Museum of Art.

The Joseph Bravo/Ron English @ IMAS; Background: X-Ray Guernica,digital print on vinyl, 12’x24’, 2011

Ron English entered the Valley of South Texas in full force and occupied the art community and its Art institutions, demonstrating his seditious creative spirit in three independent and simultaneous exhibits.  English’s approach is so pronounced that a distinctive, yet diverse, connect was witnessed within these three exhibits. South Texas College’s Visual Arts and Music Gallery presented the opening exhibition; the International Museum of Art and Science, (the most prestigious and experienced of the Rio Grande Valley’s Art establishments) presented the  next, and a new, friendly, inventive artist-run space hosted the third.

South Texas College presented English’s inventive satirical and subversive series of works that make a mockery of, and chastise, corporate advertising. English is timely, clever and ingenious with his observations that spank the hell out of their campaign jingles and tag lines. He targets immediately recognized corporate advertising slogans that seduce us with their fervent lies and deceit into believing happiness comes in a baggie, a bottle, or deep fried in lard and coated in sugar.

Ron English, Military Might. Digital print, 2011, STC VAM Art Gallery.

English’s brilliant propaganda of genuine reality changes a Miller Light Ad into a war protest poster. Utilizing the same font he changed the text of the logo to read Military Might, with a Jingle that sings Less Chilling and More Killing. And the small print warning at the bottom reads “Repeated exposure to violence may lead to psychological conditions such as post traumatic stress disorder. Veterans have a higher risk of homelessness and societal neglect after service. “ The beauty of the success of his parodies lies in the fact that they are humorous and accessible; we don’t shut down from their harsh reality, we see corporate advertising’s falseness and become enlightened by the veracity of English’s reality. His concern is to champion the rights of the common man, for compassion, empathy and fairness. True Patriotism often runs against the status quo and requires courage to question the reasoning behind many of the conflicts our country is in today.

He designed a poster with the likeness of a sneering insensitive Uncle Sam clad in a Red White and Blue suit, extending his arm with index finger pointing to a color gradient between dark brown and lily white, like a carnival sign that reads, “You Must be This Tall to Go on This Ride.” But in this version Uncle Sam was forewarning all passersby: You Must Be This Color to Enter the Country. (The gallery audience loved taking their picture next to this poster). English and his crew took the sign across the river into Mexico, set it up at the entrance to their Immigration and Customs Port of Entry and photographed Mexicans walking past the sign entering their customs office. And if that wasn’t ballsy enough he then set it up at the entry door of the Immigration and Customs office on this side of the river, again photographing Mexicans walking past the Snidely Whiplashesque caricature of Uncle Sam as they entered through the glass doors of the U.S. customs office. One can only imagine the perplexed and astounded stares this setup fetched. One of his crew stated, “Customs officials asked to see the work, gave it a worried frown, and passed us thru.” While in Mexico they heard the firefight that left six people dead less than ten blocks from where they had filmed. He then quietly traveled down the river toward Mission, and suddenly, the Border wall sported a Ron English souvenir – a Mexican and U.S. hybrid donkey, which due to its configuration, cannot function normally.  It is, in fact, necessary to participate in one of English’s secret art actions in order to appreciate how determined and daring he is.

While here in South Texas, English never let up; like a throttled wrecking crew he lectured, did radio, and T.V. interviews, filmed, photographed, shaved a horse, bombed the wall, and whether talking to a Diplomat or an art student, never lost his humble, gracious, interest in their creative endeavors.

Super-Sixed Ronald McDonald Piñata destruction at the artist’s space.

English’s event at the artist run space, Texas Naturally Surreal, was the climax of his triad exhibits. English examined the customs of our Border Nation and discovered one of our most popular symbols of established cultural entertainment, the piñata. He had several fabricated in the image of his most admired toys, Fat Super-Sized Ronald McDonald, Gas Mouse, Blue Bunny and his Mexican/American opposing headed Hybrid Donkey. Each was stuffed with appropriate materials that added effect to their meaning: Ronald was overfed with frozen French fries, and the others ballooned with red paint. This became a performance of surreal play, the collective of Artists Unanimous hoisted the piñatas, and English ceremoniously took the first couple of swings. The crowd cheered him on in a traditional metric Spanish chant of Dale, Dale Dale, in excited amusement at this violent theatre of bizarre piñata ballet, until a flood of colored body parts, seasoned with what looked like blood and guts, tumbled from the night sky and fell at their feet. English’s crew and the audience quickly destroyed two more piñata’s. Then he invited the audience back into the gallery to make ruin of the most prevalent icon of overindulgence, Fat Super-Sized Ronald McDonald. English handed the spiked staff of revolutionary reward to a svelte and attractive member from the collective, Artist Unanimous, to annihilate Ronald. She did so, swiftly with flair, showering the gallery floor with golden French fries leaving a shredded and tattered Ronald hanging from the ceiling. This aggressive performance mirrored the violence in our backyard – across the river in Mexico – and represents the hostile challenges we suffer because of our seemingly inept government, and consequential failing economy.

The International Museum of Art and Science, under new Director Joseph Bravo, presented English‘s tour de force exhibit, You Are Not Here. The title refers to the fact that only a few thousand people will visit the Museum to see the exhibit compared to the ‘tens of millions’ that drive past the billboards of English’s art that IMAS placed along the Interstate, plus the flux of English’s images on the IMAS website, links, art zines, blogs, news media, and you tube.

You Are Not Here – but you are here – the media is the extended information file format that English utilizes to reach beyond museum and gallery walls. IMAS set the standard for all three of the English exhibits. Bravo spent five days with English, researching his concepts, process and messages; the product of this interfacing labor is witnessed in a sublime selection and display of art. When entering the exhibit, visitors are immediately star-struck by the scale of the work – large billboard sized reproductions of his paintings printed on vinyl. The quality control English demands for printing is outstanding – it is impossible to identify these as digital prints until they are closely examined. No pixilation, superb resolution. The visual premise of these works mirrors that of a circus sideshow, English borrows beloved popular cultural icons such as Mickey Mouse, Barney, Ronald McDonald, Teletubbies and comic hero The  Incredible Hulk. In his piece, Mouse Mask Murphy, English parodies Mickey Mouse, who wears a gas mask, symbolic of warnings from our revered science community, warning of air pollution and it’s ozone destruction. But as a nation of unconcerned citizenry, we choose to disbelieve forewarnings of climate disrepair and air contamination, and corporate manufacturing refuses to curb its practice that worsens this calamity.  In the piece The American Infantile, a childish Hulk illustrates the intimidating expression of a child throwing a temper tantrum at the check out counter because mom won’t give in to his demands for candy. An immature child-Hulk is a clever representation speaking volumes about how we, as such a young Nation, wield our military superiority, often misguided with corporate interests manipulating patriotic discourse. The centerpieces of this exhibit – two takes on Picasso’s Guernica – are magnificent in size: 12’ x 24.’  In X-Ray Guernica English reveals what could be an under painting- exposing the skeletal carcass of each figure depicted. He simultaneously pulls Picasso’s epic horrific of the Spanish Civil War into a contemporary context of the Atomic age, making us see the piece as the fallout from an accidental Nuclear energy fail.  These exhibits demonstrate English’s genius as a multi-tasking Renaissance man; agitate-activist Ad man, conceptual artist, adept painter, sculptor, filmmaker and a surreal performance artist.

The collaborative efforts of IMAS and STC under the bold and spirited leadership of each (President Dr. Reed and V.P. Jose Cruz from STC, Bravo and Board at IMAS), took a risk inviting this controversial agitate-activist artist. This partnership proved itself daring and pioneering, raising the bar and creating an Empirical Order for future exhibits coming to South Texas’ art community; we look forward to more. Bravo! Dale!
David Freeman is the Editor of VOA

In Gary’s Sweeney’s Take a Chance, presented at Three Walls Art  Space, the artist has recycled local political signs, cutting out and arranging the pictures of the candidates.  In smaller signage, written in cut vinyl, are the lyrics of the 1978 ABBA song Take a Chance on Me. The song plays endlessly in the background, its lyrics are repeated across the gallery’s walls in an assortment of fonts made for Word.

With repetition, the political signage has its formula laid bare. Blue backgrounds. White serif letters. Most likely,  a star somewhere. A photo of a blandly attractive person. The signs may seem like nothing more than banal popular culture, but it’s also our current debased version of democracy. Though an empty pop song and uninspired political signs might seem harmless enough, what’s really going on is the work of a machine whose purpose is to limit your options. It’s a coercion to force a choice between pre-selected choices you would not have picked in the first place  – like the same fifteen songs that are on the radio. Sure, I’ll passively accept an ABBA song on the Classic Oldies station’s choice the same way I passively accept the whoever the Democrats select as the candidate.

I  was surprised when I saw the artist use the face of a candidate that I actually did the design for. I liked the candidate and wanted to produce work that was well designed,  instead of the other generally bad work. Although as soon as she won the primary, the campaign’s graphics were turned over to the political party’s machine to look more like what was being produced by everyone else with design as formulaic as an insipid pop song.

Sweeney is a master of re-appropriation. His most well-known works are public art, in the main parking lot of the San Antonio Museum of Art and at the Denver and San Antonio airports. In these pieces, 20th century lettering and signage are chopped up and reassembled and collaged.  Those pieces work because the scale of the signage and outdoor lettering work for large public spaces. Though the boldness and flatness of the pieces gave the space something of a closed  feeling, the size of the gallery space works fine for both these pieces and the message. The viewer walks in and takes in the color, text and sound experience in the small area for about the length of the song and it works.  I think at a public level, however, at the same scale in the outdoor environment  that  the source elements are designed for, it would be something more than what’s on the walls of the gallery. Free the signs, Gary.

Just down the hall from Sweeney in the Cactus Bra art space is Sabra Booth’s short film Slick. The animation is a retelling of the BP oil disaster. Booth finger-paints with oil and petroleum jelly. This way of painting, along with her stop-motion animation technique makes for a very visceral experience. Small finger marks rapidly push greasy, dark material in complex patterns. Hapless shrimp are couched in these complex gooey marks as they ooze material from their shiny bodies. The animation follows the animal’s journey from the ocean to the dinner table.  Clean graphic cutouts of a nuclear family sit around a dinner table, devouring the greasy seafood. The end of the animation promises another segment from this series. On opposite walls, Booth displays the props and actors that she used in her animation, along with elements from what looks to be the next monster movie chapter. They function best as DVD extras for a gallery show. They may not be fully realized pieces, but instead are an interesting look at what went into the making of the animation. Film and video can often be a sealed product, so it was interesting for the artist to open up her process to the audience.
With old techniques such as the stop-motion animation, finger-painting, and cut paper,  Sabra’s work has a deliberate down-and-dirty DIY appeal. It felt like a lot of whimsical ‘80s independent  animation, like Tom Tom Club’s Genius of Love or something more experimental out of MTV’s Liquid Television. Like Sweeney’s room, the piece is well-scaled to its small gallery space. The film is quick and graphic and people steadily cycled through the gallery, watching the film in its entirety. I have to say, I appreciate work that’s timed to a reasonable viewing time. When I uncomfortably give up on an interminable art video, all I feel from the piece is ashamed that I didn’t have the attention span to appreciate an artist’s 25 minute visual poem.  Slick is part editorial cartoon, part complex play of visceral gooey patterns,  and part fun animated funk.

Robert B Gonzales graduated from UT Austin with degrees in Philosophy and Art History. He is a critic, graphic and fine artist from San Antonio.

The first pieces that one encounters are two artful well-designed screen prints based on the packaging of jabon de leche de burro, or, ‘donkey’s milk’ soaps.  On the opposite wall, bars of soap are mounted like small trophies on dark wood. Lipstick stains and deep teeth marks dug into the soap are evidence of an undoubtedly unpleasant experience.  A red curtain separates this gallery space and a border cantina. Metal tables, dirty ashtrays, Mexican beers. A stage with a screen projects quotes of different people’s experience on the border. Some banal. Some troubling. On the opposite side of the gallery, tire tracks run across the gallery floor and up the wall, suggesting a quick getaway. Looking closer, the treads are made of the illustration of a distraught woman.

The subject matter of the sexual transactions that happen on the border is potentially perilous territory.  The artist is playing with very charged issues of power and control, magnified through exchanges of money and gender and culture. Landois is not strictly a performance artist, video artist, screen printer, or gallerist that specializes in installations; she just employs these investigative methods as part of a bigger study, as if formal exploration of the images would tease out a new knowledge about the subject. Quotes projected on the main stage document her interviews during the research stage of the project. The tooth marks on soap and tire tracks are almost forensic, showing the evidence of something that’s occurred. The built environment of the cantina suggests a diorama.

Not all of Landois’ work is as fully realized as others. I thought the built space wasn’t as developed as it could have been. What I saw was neither quite fully a museum display nor a re-creation that gave the viewer the experience of being in a seedy border cantina. Nor was it the poetics like some of the more successful individual pieces on the other side of the curtain. I’m not sure if the piece might have been more resonant if it had either pushed towards something more theatrical and appropriately set-decorated, or more abstracted. Without a performance, the environment was a container for the three videos and the space seemed to feel as if you were waiting for something to happen that didn’t.

The artist is strongest when this evidence, the traces of these interactions, becomes tangibly expressed in analogies. Her framed silk screens are beautiful and well composed, but its counterpoint, the bitten soaps are both more poetic and more primal, referencing a very visceral, very common childhood torture for being ‘dirty.’ It works as a metaphor, transferring the feelings evoked in this exercise of power and shame onto these sordid sexual transactions. Lipstick stains and bite marks mixed up the lessons of this vulnerable interaction in which both are dirtied in the exchange. The same for the tire treads – you feel a Tejano truck or farm truck plowing through terrain, forcibly pushing down the face of the woman in the mud. However, how these pieces succeed reveals where the show is lacking in other places. Landois’ previous work, especially her video and performance work, is powerful stuff. Neurosis and fears and preoccupations with cleanliness and ritual expressed in very honest ways that made me squirm. I wanted this show to consistently give me that charge. Given the extremely loaded subject matter and  Landois’  fearlessness, I wanted to be knocked out. I wanted them all to give me that lyrical darkness, that uncomfortable nerve ending that I know she can access and not all of the works reached that level. I hope that, like more ongoing investigations, more evidence can be collected as the artist moves closer and closer to the truth.

Robert B Gonzales graduated from UT Austin with degrees in Philosophy and Art History. He is a critic, graphic and fine artist from San Antonio.

What are politics other than what we convince ourselves to believe? What ideas do we sell ourselves? Walking through the current Texas Biennial exhibit at the International Museum of Art and Science in McAllen, I was drawn to a particular work by Thomas Murray and Donna Sweigart. Murray is a painter, musician and Instructor at South Texas College.  Sweigart is an Assistant Professor of Metals and Jewelry at the University of Texas-Pan American.
Several female dress forms, mannequins with strange adornment, stood in a single row. Directly behind them, on the wall, were an equal number of charcoal drawings of heads; men with perplexed faces. The mannequins were naked of fashion save some otherworldly neckpieces created from a specialized plastic for rapid prototyping. The heads were on plain white paper, competently rendered, floating ominously above and behind the grey, headless forms. What idea was being sold here? What connections were to be made?
Walking around and through the work, a rhizomatic eruption of associations came forth – headless bodies, bodiless heads. The leering white male, looming over the female shoulder. Expectations. The recent beheadings across the nearby border in Mexico. The collage of high and low technology (the necklaces were made using 3D printing, the heads with familiar old burnt sticks).  The mixing of media and technique, tradition and installation. The nakedness of the mannequin and paleness of the jewelry as if pensively waiting to be adorned with meaning beyond the decorative. The participation of my own body passing between the male gaze and the headless under-forms, between the two and three-dimensional, the illusion and the real.  All of these were indexes to potential meaning. I struggled to make connections.

Later, in a round table with the artists, Sweigart and Murray, both native to Florida, were confronted with the question of how had their art changed or been influenced by coming to the ‘Valley.’  His answer: that work need not necessarily be influenced by place; hers: how could it not? Disagreement. Politics. Who would sell whom which idea? The obvious tension in opinion was felt in the charged space of the collaborative work. The ideas were posed, yet left unresolved, in tension. What their work did sell me however was time. I lingered with the piece longer than all the rest, and it in turn lingered upon my mind. In its ability to engage the micro-politics of my own relationship to potential meaning, what I sell myself, the work is a success. My hope is that future works by this collaborative team will retain the same freshness of approach and meaningful openness without getting too bogged down in the sale.
Rob Kolomyski teaches painting at South Texas College in McAllen.

Weiwei Exhibit

Artistic Energy in Service to the State
Much of what we revere about our artistic heritage was created in service to centers of political power often to compel fear and foreboding for its enemies and servitude and adherence to a central authority by its population.  Scanning a panorama of architectural monuments over a 5,000 year period reveals many prominent examples. The common thread along this path is the vast human energy and creativity that was harnessed in service to the state or religious entity.  The artists and builders, however, were largely anonymous.
One ancient site of particular interest is the Parthenon, built in 447 BC in Athens, Greece. It has come to be regarded as one of the most beautiful buildings in the western tradition and is located in the place that inspired our concept of democracy.
Architecture, even in the modern world, remains a primary method of projecting political aspirations and agendas. The astonishing Bilbao Museum has as its intention to bring new economic life to the rebellious and poor Basque region in Spain, not to mention to enhance the aspirations of the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The Bird’s Nest Stadium, created by Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron for the Olympics, was vital in helping China to proclaim to the world that it has ascended as one of the worlds great powers.

WeiWei detail

Cultural Patrimony and Hegemony in the Modern World
After thousands of years of rising and falling centralized cultures controlled by an elite and often hereditary few, a vastly more complex social order emerged in the late 15th century. Collecting works of art (often remnants of ancient cultures) or the commissioning of works of art from competing, but established, artists and their workshops became the expected norm for the new upper classes. Artists began to come out of the clouds of anonymity and although few achieved the status of the very upper classes, many stood above the average person and a few came close to being politically powerful in their own right. Peter Paul Rubens is the artist best known as a master statesman who helped broker agreements and treaties among governments while at the same time successfully cultivating a wide range of patrons. Artists in this period essentially owed their living to being politically astute and finding a patron in the church, the government or with a wealthy merchant.
In Britain, for the upper classes, an educational tour of the European continent was considered vital, and bringing home great masterpieces and relics of ancient Greece and Rome was pursued vigorously. One of the most interesting such acquisitions occurred when Thomas Bruce, Seventh Earl of Elgin, British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire received permission to remove sculptures from the Parthenon in Athens. This was received with some controversy in England, but ultimately, the British government purchased these works in 1816 and placed them in the British museum where they remain to this day. Underlying this acquisition was a sense that the contemporary Greeks of the time were poor descendents of the greatly admired and highly cultured ancient Greeks. Lord Elgin felt it was logical to bring these works back to Britain where they would be understood, appreciated, and properly taken care of.

Joe Bova

The Art Spirit and the Democratization of Art
In the 17th century the little nation of Holland won its independence from Spain and soon became one of the wealthiest countries in the world with wealth shared more widely across its population than anywhere else. Their modest, but elegantly furnished homes, were soon filled with intimate paintings that, although often possessing underlying religious and moral messages, depicted and celebrated their possessions and scenes of everyday life.
In the emerging modern world, artists became more defiant of conventions and reflected upon the changing conditions of the world. Art for its own sake came to be an idea in its own right. The Impressionists discarded the old standards and created a kind of vibrant painting that remains the most in demand in terms of the contemporary market place and museum exhibitions. Post Impressionists such as Vincent Van Gough brought a deeply personal rebellious sense of what artistic pursuit was about and helped to create the stereotype of the artist as an impoverished and misunderstood rebel. During WWI, a group of artists who called themselves Dadaists challenged all previous conventions regarding the purpose of art and concept of beauty, forever shattering aesthetic traditions and helping set in motion what many see as the incomprehensible nature of modern art.

Elgin

The Government as Curator
The Tate Modern Museum in London is owned by the British government and is located in a former electric power plant. On the exterior there is a prominent sign that states “enjoy great art for free.” It attracts millions of visitors annually, many of whom are perplexed and baffled by the art and others, often quite young, who are mesmerized and deeply engaged in the exhibits. It is one of the ‘must see’ sites of London. This free museum seems to capitalize quite nicely on its essential hip-ness through the sale of objects in its gift shop.
On a recent visit to the Tate Modern, I had the opportunity to view the installation Sunflower Seeds by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. Mr. Weiwei played a significant role in the planning of Bird Nest Stadium in Beijing. Recently, the Chinese government destroyed Mr. Weiwei’s studio and, after warning him he would pay a price for his criticism of the government, he was abducted by the government and ‘disappeared.’ The Sunflower installation at the Tate occupies a space about as large as a football field and is comprised of one hundred million handcrafted ceramic sunflower seeds. Mr. Weiwei’s work incorporates multiple meanings drawn from his cultural background.  Sunflower seeds are a common street snack in China, that to him, represent human compassion, closure and friendship, among other things. The replica seeds were produced in the city of Jingdezhen, which is famous for its fine porcelain china.  The vast population of China is almost incomprehensible and this work seems to give some sense of the magnitude and overwhelming scale of its humanity. One desperately would like to pick up and examine even one of the individually made seeds, but that, of course, is not allowed. This over powering installation eloquently raises questions about our humanity and the relationship of the Chinese government to its people. It was his more direct written and verbal criticisms that caused his ‘disappearance.’ The art world, artists, and governments around the world are dismayed that this has happened. It has created an atmosphere of fear, foreboding, anger, and concern among all institutions that deal with China and particularly those that exhibit Chinese art. Most likely because of an international outcry Mr. Weiwei has been released, but still faces criminal charges and severe constraints.
In the United States our way of funding the arts is unique in the world. Most other nations support the arts with direct government funding and through bureaucracies headed by ministers who are government appointees. Only 13% of funding in America comes from government sources, and the beleaguered National Endowment for the Arts provides only 1% of that support.
There is, however, an enormous power exercised by government entities over the arts in an indirect way in our country. Government funding has helped stimulate private and business support through its power to legitimize art institutions. A strange paradox of the American political system is that this approach to funding essentially reinforces and parallels conservative political thinking. With such a tiny public investment, the free market is at play. It is easy to find most conservative politicians supportive of the tax deductibility of gifts to non-profits, but in the current democratic administration, there exists a conflicting desire to limit or curtail tax deductibility of such gifts. On the conservative side there is a belief that contemporary artists and museums often promote ideas that run contrary to public values and that in such cases public funding is not appropriate. The slightest hint of disrespect towards religion or challenge to military action, war, or apparent support of what some consider abhorrent behavior, such as being gay, can create an outcry. The very recent controversy over the Hide/Seek: Difference in American Portraiture exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution has caused substantial debate in the art world. The Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution G. Wayne Clough decided to remove a video from the show by gay artist David Wojnarowicz. He did this because Republican politicians and conservative critics felt that the artist’s depiction of a crucifix crawling with ants was anti-Christian. The highly regarded Mr. Clough made what he thought to be a wise and pragmatic decision in order to protect the already challenged and delicate funding position of the Smithsonian, which is highly dependent upon Congress. The art world and museum directors weighed in heavily and negatively towards the Smithsonian and Mr. Clough’s decision. In the background is a political tug of war between conflicting views of the two major political parties that bodes poorly for the future of public arts funding at this time.
Political turbulence in the art world has intensified on many levels in recent years. In the U.S. Native Americans have fought to protect their heritage and believe that their home lands and grave sites have been raided, and that museums and collectors have misunderstood and defiled their culture. Art that was stolen by the Nazi’s from Jews during WWII is now being sought out, and museums are supposed to search their collections to make sure they do not possess such art. Nations are seeking the repatriation of works they feel were illegally obtained and taken out of their countries. The Greek government is battling with the British museum in an attempt to have the Elgin Marbles returned to the site of the Parthenon; they have even created a special museum for that purpose. In the midst of this chaos, the America Association of Museums and the Art Museum Directors Association, along with governments and international agencies, have weighed in with debate and some conflicting guidelines and emerged with general agreement on what constitutes stolen art and guidelines for negotiation and restitution.

The Next Planet — Will Robots Care?
The stress of the apparent current economic down turn is causing additional political problems for the art world.  With huge deficits and funding cuts in every level of government, arts agencies are witnessing shrinking funding.  In some cases, state art agencies have been shut down, and art as a part of the curriculum in public education is being eliminated or curtailed in many parts of the country. This, of course, contradicts everything that has been learned about the vital role the arts play in learning and cognitive development. It also runs contrary to the recognition that economic success in the future is utterly dependent upon creativity and creative thinking. Despite the chaotic state of the current political realm and its relationship to art, a more optimistic case could be made.
Indeed, art has been stolen, destroyed or misinterpreted throughout history, and guidelines for justice and restitution make sense. There is also beginning to be an understanding that had art not been appropriated and moved across the globe, we would have even less understanding and appreciation of each other’s cultures and, that because of war, conflict, and natural disasters, if the art had only remained insitu much of human cultural patrimony would be lost. The recent war in Iraq showed how quickly things can be lost through theft and destruction. Breaking down barriers in strange ways never anticipated, the internet is creating opportunities for people to access art from the darkest recesses of museums and Curators will no longer be the sole proprietor of examination and evaluation of cultural patrimony, let alone government. Individual and crowd sourced interpretation is both fascinating and horrifying the museum world.
Although human beings are far from reconciling living together harmoniously, there is progress. The ‘Arab Spring’ in the Middle East has also been given momentum by the internet and is being called a hopeful sign that all pockets of oppression may begin to disappear. The fear, of course, is that it could go quite the other way. The nation of Saudi Arabia, which has a great deal to fear in this time of Middle East transition is building one of the most ambitious museums on Earth. It is known as the King Abadula Aziz Center for World Culture. It is monumental and in its own way is as intimidating as the ancient gates of Babylon. It, however, declares as its purpose “a community gathering place designed to serve as a focus for individual and collaborative learning and the open exchange of ideas.” One hopes that the women of Saudi Arabia will soon be allowed to drive their children to this museum.
We have not yet truly come to grips with our common humanity, but art, often swimming against the tide of the political body, has helped take us a great distance. Some artists have begun to reflect on a world of artificial intelligence, the ability to genetically engineer humans, and the possibility of hyper longevity. There is the emergence of an idea called ‘singularity’ that essentially says human beings are rapidly approaching a time when they will be able to transcend and no longer be tied to their biological existence.  This could create a place of true inequality and beings that are like us, but not quite us. Art as the furthest reach of human expression, when untethered by political oppression, may be our best chance to sort out our common humanity before this strange possible future over takes us.

Exhibit at The Blue Star Art Space

by David Freeman

Kyle Olson’s exhibit, ‘Its Rigged,’ at Blue Star Contemporary Art Space, demands that the viewer discard any notion that the title posted beside each piece in the exhibit describes the literal content of the art.  Instead, each title becomes a conceptually challenging extension of the work itself.  Olson’s art straddles the border between sculpture and installation.  The real content of his shear fabric constructions and plastic casts lies just below the surface, where a socio-political narrative is played out, almost imperceptibly, as the fragile system of life and personal liberty intersects the corporate industrial materials used to create the art.

The Olson exhibit becomes a dialogue between art and process.  Linking the disjointed pieces becomes a game that challenges each viewer to participate, to intuit the role of each individual piece in the cumulative impact of the installation.  The unique features of each work gives that piece its own identity, and yet, seen in the perspective of the total installation, each piece becomes a part that fits into the whole of the larger puzzle.

The narrative woven from this disjointed but interrelated collection of pieces deals surreptitiously with topical events.  Olson refers to our individual participation in war by using the visual metaphor of a house of cards – a fragile construct, a struggle that challenges our hand-eye coordination.  This house of cards, though built with great care, is then easily destroyed.  But Olson’s cards are cut from brass plate, their faces and suits then silk-screened.  This house of cards is not so easily destroyed or dismissed.  The cards are organized on a grid within a vitrine (what are you saying here???) along with castings made from distorted Styrofoam cups. The use of cups was inspired by an interview on Terry Gross’ Fresh Air radio program on N.P.R.  She was interviewing an Iraqi who had been incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay prison, a poet who was a  terrorist suspect.  With neither pen nor paper upon which to create his poems, this prisoner devised a plan to wager with the guards, betting them that the guards couldn’t turn a Styrofoam cup inside out without breaking it, but that the prisoners could do so.

The guards lost the wager every time and the prisoners got a pen and paper.  The prisoners could achieve this feat by pinching and crushing the cellular structure of the cup, thus making it malleable and flexible enough so it wouldn’t break when turned inside out.  This game or wager inspired Olson to speak about his interest in “cognitive dissonance,” whereby a cup can be either vessel or spill, mirroring the two extremes of guard and prisoner. The gaming pieces – the cards — are transformed by preservation and encasement within a glass case, which renders them nonfunctional.  Olson realizes such games are often evolve as a response to boredom.  They are an invention, the function of which is to combat tedium, to keep the mind occupied.  However, these game pieces, deprived of their original function, take on a new purpose as works an art, like specimens in a museum presented for both observation and contemplation.  Olson quotes Francis Bacon:  “Before art can have status it must first have a separation from the viewer.”  Olson plays off this by having his art objects behind glass but he then incorporates another rule to his game.   Signifiers, as art, raise the visual value of the chewed up wads of gum that make up the balls set on a court of circles demarcating the rule and measure of the game.

There are rules and interaction in any game.  There is negation – the players are literally negating or moving within a set of parameters on the surface.  Olson states that, “creativity is bound by negation.  When you lose your marbles the audience immediately knows and comprehends the rules of this interaction.” Olson isn’t a minimalist but he has fine-tuned his selection of pieces and rules, eliminating peripheral elements to focus the viewer’s attention on the most essential meaning of each member of the troupe.

Fabrication and construct, surface and content, concept and process; Olson’s monochrome surfaces work quite well with the stark metaphors he presents.  His casted tables, stitched fabrics, and turned pedestal legs are evidence of his skill.  The hand-sewn shirt, the gathered curtain and table cloth, the empty canvas frame are all sublimely produced but when one first enters the gallery space, the display as first perceived seems to set the stage for a canonical seduction.  There is a tasteful elegance, a refined brilliance, that has effervescence and a support that compliments a likeness toward a devotional oligarchy.  One experiences an aesthetic of devotional materiality from the lighting of the fabric pieces. The visual glimmer of light reflected deepens the allusion of requiem and analogues of sanctified ceremony.

Even his etchings are suppressed on matte paper and the sheen of the inks subtle color pressed on a vast expanse of emptiness all celebrate awareness of a subtle appreciation.

His piece titled “Untitled, Not Titled,” is a large fabric draped over an unfulfilled frustrated unstretched canvas frame. The front drape all but covers the bottom edge of the frame –revealing a beveled stretcher edge. The fabric is made of 3 panels; the middle section holds a beautiful repetition of folds or gathering. The folds are meticulously repeated- waves upon waves of cascading fabric – they brilliantly summon negation – another game of separating panels. Much like the concerns of returning the figure to his work through his creation of a shirt the fabric panels and folds make us notice balance and (fashion) even if it is suspended, covered, turned inside, out or encased, all lead to the rules of ‘being’.

David Freeman is an Art Professor at South Texas College

Performance/Installation, Brownsville.  Sponsored by Galleria 409.

by David Freeman

Susan Harbage Page recently presented a performance/installation work at the Brownsville River directly beneath the Mexico -U.S.  Gateway International Border Bridge. Galleria 409 was the patron and the community organizer for this event. The piece was a socio-political commentary protesting the border wall along the Texas Mexico border. Her concept was to also bring notice to the idea of a renovation of a historical Brownsville site – the implementation of the historical riverbank ‘board walk’ of yesteryear. The Border Patrol now are the only ones allowed accesses to the riverbank but Harbage Page wants to see a river walk utilized as recreational areas for the community much like that of San Antonio. The local community assistants separated into two groups and set out to manage and form the piece from both the Mexican and U.S. riverbanks. The workers filled hundreds of children’s inflatable inner tubes, strung them together and systematically fed them to the swimmer in the river, Harbage Page then symbolically swam out and united the tubes in the middle and completed the unification of the peoples border communities.

Harbage  Page also  designed and fabricated a Welcome Station out of debris and found objects from the riverbank, she setup a table with trophies and medals celebrating the crossing of the river by anyone coming over by water means. The trophies were store bought swimming and running models and she also had a hand written sign on cardboard that welcomed the participants.

There was a grand juxtaposition of extremes witnessed in the floating river piece once it was connected to both countries riverbanks. Often when you walk across the bridge you see people swimming across in tubes or just the head of person stealthily swimming with a raised arm full of his only belongings or a couple and their baby paddling rapidly trying to out run an approaching Border Patrol vehicle, this dramatic and sometimes tragic scenario played off a string of colorful kids pool inflatables is quite remarkable and the work spotlights a difference of lifestyles, freedoms and opportunities.

The foot soldiers of the Border Patrol were surprising accommodating only warning Harbage Page to never set foot on the opposite shore or she would be arrested, they even summoned their superior officer to witness the event but no one interfered with the performance.

Galleria 409 has presented several events either on the border wall or in direct contact with the wall and every time the men on patrol have been professional and courteous. Makes one think that even they see the wall as a waste of taxpayer’s monies. Harbage Pages art activism is a well received and noticed means of information and enlightenment. The work is directed toward a better understanding and hopefully a greater cooperation between two countries under siege but the ancestral commonality that is hard wired into the border communities is something that will take a great deal of diplomacy tolerance and consideration to rise above. We may all be in need of an inner tube  soon.