Happy Halloween From Superstitious

Lake angel's sad world of dysfunction and neglect

A morning story.

Look! I'm being exploited in death!

Ugh. The Chronicle has really got to stop with THIS kind of bullshit. If they do not want to write either critical articles or local fluff pieces at least refrain from parading shit as shinola. In a Borders bookstore no less- the show is also concurrently at a store in Westfield, NJ and a mall in Palo Alto, CA.

Friday Morning Cartoons

Here's a little DUAL for ya!

the gift tag reads: A Special Gift From Dual.










Don't forget about Tesla or we'd all be in the dark...

Almost a Clean Sweep

Rear View Mirror, 2005

No not the Red Sox, Michael Bise! Congrats on selling out nearly the entire show at Moody Gallery!

Wanna Get in Free?

Volunteer for the Lawndale's Gala Friday and get in free to booze it up!

lawndaleartcenter.org/

Lawndale still needs volunteers for Dia de los Muertos on Friday! Here are some of the shifts available:

Auction Monitors: 6 - 9 PM
Bartenders: 7:15 - 9:30 PM
Door/Auction Checkout: 7:15 - 9:30 PM

Contact Mat Wolff (mwolff@lawndaleartcenter.org) or Dennis Nance (dnance@lawndaleartcenter.org) if you're interested. It's a great way to attend if you're too poor to buy a ticket. And, heck, you're supporting one of Houston's most awesome art establishments!

Check it Out!

freakin' kayaker.

Nice article from the Chron HERE about John Runnels' public art in downtown, stretching from Sabine Street to San Jacinto. Bizarro ending though...

"The overlook is a great place to get a unique snapshot of today's city
with turtles and waterfowl swimming below,
humans sleeping under the overpass,
the county jail looming across the water
and the traffic on San Jacinto roaring past."

What the fuck was that?

Drunk Rice Kids and Kelly Nipper provided by KTRU

Bigg Badd Bruce

Best part of the new Bruce Nauman show at the Menil? Fishing for Asian Carp, 1966. Now that's some funny shit.

Bruce is showing fish in Germany too!

DEBRIS: Mashed Potatoes

Houston Center for Photography (1441 Alabama) has been active and upbeat lately; they had a rare mention in Artforum in an ad associated with their Anne Senstad’s Light Always Writes in Plural. This November Michele Grinstead and Nancy O´Connor hit hard at Texas’ role in national politics with their installation Immigrant Memorial Site, composed of photographs and video capturing a truck stop in Victoria, Texas where 19 illegal immigrants asphyxiated while trapped in the back of a truck bound for Houston. The other half of the show doesn’t keep up with the vibe though, as Carlos and Jason Sanchez deliver photoshop-happy compositions lacking just enough space to be not considered accidentally bad. Delivered in oversize gigantic format the images reference back to advertising language- from whence they came.

Anyone out there like porn? Well I guess I should rephrase that, anyone out there like gay porn? Well y’all can get your fill of the enigmatic Tom of Finland (he really was from Finland) and his scandalous subject at Inman Gallery (3901 Main) any day of the week. One part Disney, two parts sadistic sodomy, the place for his work- in the gallery or in the porn store- has never solidified. From softcore submitted to magazines to Nazis fucking, you should be guaranteed to get a rise in an art gallery for once.

Spend a day wandering the warehouse district this November 17^th for the 15^th Artcrawl in Houston. There is a myriad of artists participating, and no definition or denunciation can really hold true. Really, there are over 150 artists- it’s impossible to pigeonhole this bunch. I’m sure you’ll see the American Consumer Consortium riding the busses between warehouses; Natali and her performance pieces have ended in “Louis Vuitacos” and black pepper taste tests before. Poets from all over town will be out at Atelier Jacquinet, the represented include Houston Community College , University of Houston Downtown, Art Institute of Houston, Women in the Visual and Literary Arts, and poetry magazine Panhandler Quarterly. It may be impossible to get out of CSAW and not be impressed with Whitney Riley, Elaine Bradford or Kathy Kelley, three new residents who have taken to the old hulk of a building.

Elder Street Lofts sic The Jefferson Davis Hospital is opening up for studio visits and exhibits for Artcrawl, after the drubbing at the hands of the Houston Press a few months ago Derek Shumate, Doomsday Wrestling, Iskra Ivanova and Shu Latif have more than just their tiny corner of the world to overcome. Here’s something though, have you seen the Jefferson Davis Hospital since they cleaned it up? Wouldn’t it be a trip to go there for the first time since Brad saw a ghost and you heard gunshots in the woods? During the daytime? Besides, the perfect view of downtown from the front steps in worth the extra mile. Lisa Marie Godfrey and Ellen Orseck are up north at the Foundry now, Leila Dallal will be across the street from CSAW at Kap & Suzie’s Place, and stalwart gearhead and art car builder WT Burge is heading up the new fabrication workshop and studio space M.A.N.

Visit artcrawlhouston.com or call 713.229.9760 for more information. There’s too many new people and new places to say you’ve seen it before. You haven’t.

At one point it was clear where we were...

THIS Artshouston map of art spaces in Houston is especially funny for its unreadability, we have too much art in downtown to see! Look at Clear Lake out there, clear as day...

A Primer

Considering art writers in Houston most people who could name any at all would begin with Kelly Klaasmeyer of the Houston Press and maybe Patricia Johnson of the Chronicle. Dig a little deeper and people with a sense of humor mention Bill Davenport; people without one may bring up Christopher French. Anyone who gets a hold of the Texas art criticism magazine ArtLies (usually spelled with a quirky ! instead of an i) may be able to pick out John Devine or newby Garland Fielder. Overly familiar patrons of the Menil Collection may know the work of curator Michelle White, and the same goes over at the MFAH (across the street from the CAMH) with Margo Handwerker. Troy Schulze has been ruffling feathers as the #2 guy for the Press. CORE Fellow Meredith Goldsmith hasn't been in town for too long- but we hope she stays. Last but not least, Evan Garza has been publishing madly in English and Spanish- and on glasstire.

Not that this list of links is comprehensive, but I hope that it is illuminating.

If you aren't familiar with any of these writers, please take a moment to click on the last paragraph and check out some of the various opinions and styles in Houston; then vote for you favorite!!!

Internationally Known, Locally Fresh

International Discoveries
October 25 - December 8
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 25, 6-9pm

CLICK HERE for more information

FotoFest creative directors chose nine artists for the exhibition, some of the best work they have recently encountered in their travels.

The exhibition’s artists are Chan-Hyo Bae (South Korea), John Chervinsky (U.S.), Kelly Flynn (U.S.), Roberto Fernández Ibáñez (Uruguay), Jesús Jiménez (Mexico/London), Lydia Panas (U.S.), Przemyslaw Pokrycki (Poland), Diego Ranea (Argentina), and Alessandra Sanguinetti (Argentina).

Alessandra Sanguinetti, The Necklace, 1999

"Chan-Hyo Bae's work reflects his feelings as an Asian immigrant in the West. Lydia Panas examines her family and community. Alessandra Sanguinetti profiles the relationship of two young children as they grow into adulthood. Diego Ranea takes an unconventional and abstract view of landscapes. Kelly Flynn's look at sexual iconography and gender roles is serious and funny. Przemyslaw Pokrycki documents rituals from birth to death. John Chervinsky's scientific schemata reflect his career as an engineer. Roberto Fernández Ibáñez addresses nature and the seasons through the pairing of haiku and equally poetic photographs. Jesús Jiménez brings a sense of play to the camera. All of these artists show serious attention to their subjects and a decidedly contemporary aesthetic."


Lydia Panas, Tatiana, 2005

Michael Bise- Death in October

Calling an exhibit that is filled with the images and demeanor of death Birthday is more than a little ironic. Check out the Moody Gallery exhibit HERE- but it is missing the best piece, a 15 foot drawing of a funeral service with pews filled with everyone the artist knows. Gael Stack, Aaron Parazette and Rachel Hecker are easy to spot.

Thinking about death and fucking too...

untitled, 2007

julia's parents are out of town, so we burned things

1. Defining space
= separation from American house and create my personal space

2. Putting TV and DVD
= Preparation by placing common electric machine

3. Watching DVD about reforming home
= Implication of my activity and referring to the tile of the piece

4. writing poem based on the DVD
= consuming the content of current topic, preserving tradition with modernism

5. cooking rice and putting red plum on it
= representation of my country’s flag

6. Writing Buddhism chanting
¬= One of religion that we have and also to worship for the dead and any kind of life going to decease

7. Eating rice and red plum
= Consuming my own culture by me who left my country for certain period of time

8. Worshipping for Shinto god
= Another religion to maintain social order or controls mythology and superstition

9. Burning the Buddhism chanting
= Worship for the deceased and sending the chanting for the dead who no longer exist in this world

10. read poem aloud
= Presentation of my thought about transition between tradition and modernism or cultural relationship between people and home, and etc…

ASS

i think that's a Peruvian mummy...

Picking on Dallas

Look like Texas to you?

How can I not? First off there is the ludicrous Bearfire Resort; then there is their logo, ripped off from Survivorman, and exposed HERE.

Best Westfest Pic Ever!

Dude. Nice Style.
pixeltopia

Weak

These pieces of crap are all over University of Houston and the internet too...

What makes Dr. Pepper think that they can ask for free art
from latino artists so they don't have to ask their
white graphic designers to mangle an ad campaign?
(sabrosura= tastiness)

"you could win a cash prize if your art is reduced to part of the
2008 Dr Pepper Hispanic Marketing Campaign"

Are latino and hispanic interchangeable? I don't think so...

Up Right Now, Skullage!

Lawndale's Dia de los Muertos exhibit of retablo tins is open for business today (no one else is open on a Monday); check it out before the $40 a pop gala and auction this Friday!

Tijuana Dia de los Muertos altar

Scrappy

As museums fill in the gaps in abstract expressionism's history we have gotten shows in town proclaiming the ascendancy of minor or forgotten painters. Terry Gilliam sauntered his way through town last spring (the rumor is more people came to the museum and shot straight downstairs for Robert Pruitt's solo exhibit) and now we will be graced by Mary Heilmann and her "deceptively simple, even offhand, approach to painting". What do you think of her paintings? Are they worth the attention? HERE is an article from 1993.

GRAFFITI, 1998


Joaquin's Close Out, 2006


All Night Movie, 1991


Sunday Morning, 1987


21st Century Fox, 1998

Heilmann's work was last in town for the POPulence show at the Blaffer Gallery. Her All Tomorrow's Parties exhibit (HERE) in Vienna is a good approximation of what the CAMH show might look like.

photo by sweety billy

Bashed by Bill! The Free Press Block Party takes a licking HERE.

Go West Young Man

Fort Wayne, Indiana native Bruce Nauman got to Cali as fast as he could. Within two years of completing a master's he had signed with dealer Leo Castelli and it was all a downhill slope to canonization from there. Listed in 2008 as the #1 living artist by artfacts.net, Nauman beat out Rauschenberg and Gerhard Richter for the arbitrary crown presented by a website. His most famous quote? Taken from the 60s neon sculpture Window or Wall Sign:

"The true artist helps the world by revealing mystic truths."

A Rose Has No Teeth: Bruce Nauman in the 1960s
Menil Collection
Opens Wednesday, October 24, 6:30 – 8:30 pm

Join the Menil for better than average wine and Lynn Wyatt's company this Wednesday for a chance to consider why this thinly veiled symbolist gained acclaim riding the wave of a dealer who shaped our postmodern artworld.

Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, and William Wegman 60s videos on the lawn; free screening in the Menil Park on Saturday, October 27, 8 pm.

For Those About to Rock

The post that was here did not ruin the performance, I just wanted to pique interest. No details, just hot air- but I will bend to the will of others, no problems HERE.