Robert Hodge interview on Houstonist

Check out Hodge's work tonight on 19th Street in the Heights at H Gallery (I think its a co-op) where he is opening his solo exhibit Turn Off the Radio. 7-11pm

There is a cute little interview with the artist HERE on Houstonist, check out Hodge's band Tha Fucking Transmissions HERE and come out to Westfest October 13th to see both his art and his music!

Hypocrisy Duo

Red-light cameras also snaring police... HERE

Politicians and Police!

Diction Police

sorry, but someone has to do it... from the University of Houston paper The Daily Cougar:

"We also recognize we need more resources in some of those areas,
so even though we got dedicated individuals, like financial aid
counselors at the Welcome Center, we know we need more,"
Dennis Fouty, associate vice president of Information Technology said.

Critical Mass

...meet at 6:30 Tranquility Park downtown. Rusk and
Smith. Ride out at 7:00. This is going to be the sixth
consecutive month we've been doing this (in Houston)
and we've been getting around 80+ people on the ride.
its a lot of fun and there's usually an after-event/party.

also...

Don't Leave The Loop, The Pigs Will Eat You

big pigger on big digger

There are over 2 million wild hogs in Texas and some experts say that the population will double this year. Texas A+M has a site up about making traps and other info. In an odd turn of phrase the VP of the TWA says "They're on a roll right now." Overgrown vegetation, no natural predators, lots and lots of crops to eat? I'm not leaving the loop anymore, they'll be all over Friendswood soon.

Honorary Texan

but me you have forgotten, 2006

Well, she's a Jersey girl who went to Yale and lives in Brooklyn, but anyone who hung out with Angela Fraliegh while she was a CORE kid down here in Houston would agree that she's as sweet as pecan pie and didn't take off her cowboy boots except for black tie. (that was too cheezy...) Anyway, Fraliegh caught some lovin' from Modern Art Notes for her work exhibited in Phantasmania at the Kansas City Kemper Museum of Art.

"combin[ing] the excesses of the Roccoco with
Tiepolo-esque cheesecake and big, wet, lush swaths of abstract painting."

I just got hooked up with some tickets to the Spacetaker Optiks Gala on Saturday! Are you gonna be there at Winter Street? Performances by Amy Ell, Daniel Adame, Audio Telepathy, Tyagaraja, The Orion Elapse and The Medicine Show. Proceeds go to developing the Culture Three Sixty-Five artist resource lab, hopefully a useful tool for Houston's artist community.

They're Watching...

Awesome! The coasts are paying some attention to little 'ol Houston...
average time on b.s. Houston ArtBlog site:

Los Angeles: 14:56

New York City: 11:58

Boston, Mass: 5:58

Portland, Ore: 16:22

Sweetness

Lisa Marie Godfrey, Gloomy but Goodhearted, 2007

Two new blobs about Houston shows- including Lisa Marie Godfrey at Domy! Check it out HERE.

Glorify

Apparently the Dallas Observer hasn't made a hush-hush deal like the Chron has with HPD about not glorifying graffiti. In the Big D they don't have the prettiest street art, but at least it gets some press!

Learn How To Write, Toys

uneducated slideshow of Dallas graff HERE.
via

They're coming...

It has been fun borrowing this Daniel Adame painting for the last month... I hope he doesn't come to take it!

on the wall with a cute little Jenny Schlief Goodnight!

DEBRIS: All I Want Is Everything

October brings the fall’s real meaty exhibits to Houston galleries and museums, between the explosion of spectacle in September and the blockbusters of November (actually this year’s November looks a little slim). Coming when Texas finally cools down for Thanksgiving, the Artcrawl “this is the Houston I miss living out in the Woodlands” in the warehouse district and a Claude Wampler “critics go on about glowingly without ever managing to put their fingers on what exactly she does” performance at Diverseworks look to be the best bets. New York photographer Nan Goldin’s photo essay The Ballad of Sexual Dependency at the Museum of Fine Arts will be supreme for photo nuts.

In the past twenty years Laura Lark and Mark Flood have evolved their practices drastically, riled most Houston art critics and curators, and lived well on top of their bad reputations. This October they will split the gallery at Devin Borden Hiram Butler Gallery Flood (who once fronted the band Culturcide) will display his recent ‘lace’ paintings which have gotten good press here and in Dallas. Lark will definitely have some portraits up, but I’m not sure if it’ll be pointillist realist or intricately detailed patterning- either way I know they’ve taken forever to make. Check out Moody Gallery this month too for Houstonian Michael Bise’s 17-foot long drawing and a few more for good measure in Tomorrow. (4520 Blossom St.) in the West End for what promises to be a gathering of “every drunk that’s ever been around art” and more.

All the ol’ hippies and bikers and punks who braved the original incarnation of the Axiom (2524 McKinney St.) will be out Friday, October 12^th for a full-on, two day reunion show. They’re bringing back members of dead horse and The Awful Truth among many, many others. The organizers are coy about where the show will be, so keep your eyes peeled. Since the Infernal Bridegroom Theater Company went down this might be the first event at the venue, but no one should expect it to go out so easily this time either (its first recorded death is 1992). Stop on down off Dowling to see what makes this hole in the wall in the middle of a burned out neighborhood so irresistible; then try to find the show somewhere else!

At the Art League Houston on Montrose they pick horses and ride them. Their Patron of the Year for 2007 is Gus Kopriva (of G Gallery in the Heights) and his wide ranging taste and enthusiasm as an agent of change began back in the 80s when the city’s non-profits were getting their legs under them, and continues today. This fall Kopriva brought an exhibit of Houston artists to Lima, Peru. It hangs in the National Gallery- ample space for the 62 artists he whittled the list down to. In the past decade the gallerist has made similar expeditions to Shanghai, China and Leipzig, Germany in addition to producing dozens and dozens of exhibits and catalogs for young artists- and old. October 26^th, 6-9 pm at the Art League this very, very tired man will curate an exhibit of buddy Wayne Gilbert’s sculptures and paintings- all made with his morbid medium, cremated humans.

Ever Been?

A good number of Montrose convenience stores play blasting amounts of techno at all hours of the day, but Pak's Food Store on Alabama is the king of random Indian house music at 2 am and 6 am. Grabbing some Bud Light can be a lot more exciting than it sounds some times, and the short film Dance des Fanatiques de Bazarette pays tribute to the dive with a good sense of humor. Directed by Sharad Patel, from the A/V Swap 2006! DVD coming soon...

"Ok so this place is not the cleanest, and it smells a little wierd, but you're guaranteed to have a memorable experience. There is always house music blasting, which goes pretty well I guess with the psychedelic murals. Also, the clientele is very colorful, you might get a little show with your beer stop. Pak's is my favorite corner store, I'll miss my grungy little quick stop when I move." -Kelly D.

$600 Million Greenbacks

Apparently we do some good business here in town, according the the Houston Business Journal.

Mayor Bill White sez:
"We want people 50 years or 100 years from now to talk about the explosion in Houston arts."

Will it happen?
"The study also found that the 9.2 million people who said they attended an arts and cultural event in 2004 was twice the number of people attending events related to Houston's three major league professional sports teams in 2005.

"The 1.6 million visitors to Houston who attended cultural events in 2004 spent $132 million in addition to the cost of their tickets, the survey found."

Article HERE.

Tuesday Morning Cartoons

a little Shawnimals for ya!

Free Hugs



















from the Shawnimals, Free Hugs show and workshops. Domy Books, June 2007

Over The Top

NYC stunt bikers recreate a Jackson Pollock; Artist Aaron Young sports a Texas tuxedo

THIS fare from Artforum seems appropriately baroque and ridiculous for today. Speaking of the hefty mag, check out the Texas Gallery ad for their Jean Luc Mylayne show, the only Texas gallery included in the issue. (let me know if I'm wrong!) I know they sold one of those photos- I hope the $45,000 price tag helped take a chunk out of the advertising budget!

Robots

Fri & Sat, Sept 28 & 29 at Midnight at the River Oaks Theatre

Triple Scoop

Oh boy. We're a little disconnected around here. During September there was one weekend with over 30 exhibits opening and slim pickings the rest of the month. While I don't think that's gonna happen again this month, there are 3 art festivals scheduled for the same day, October 13th. Silly.

BCAF- October 13th

WBP- October 13th

PRHFF- October 13th

The Bayou City Art Festival, Westheimer Block Party and the Project Row Houses Fall Festival will be rolling out the welcome mats and cutting into each other's audience unnecessarily. At least the differences between the two are pretty good; Bayou City Art Festival has a $10 entry fee and the art is mostly Texas craft fair and Holiday Inn style. Project Row Houses' has their own audience that is devoted to their 3rd Ward neighborhood. Westfest is lowbrow and high art- whatever that means- and they pick up all the delinquents and college kids. Maybe it'll be a nice fall day, when everyone can wander the city like they enjoy it... too bad there's no public transportation in Houston, otherwise we might be able to get from one event to the other without driving and parking (and maybe paying).

Know what would help? THIS crazy idea!

Wanna come back to my place...

In his new book Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan recounts his first date with NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell in 2004, when he invited the reporter back to his place to read an anti-trust essay he had written.

In response to Meet the Press' Tim Russert question "Are you in the habit of seducing women by asking them to come back to your apartment to read an essay?"

Greenspan's reply? Echoing a lovely old art joke, "I didn't have any etchings."


I bet it still worked!