DEBRIS: Fire It Up

Kathy Kelley, Sketch for Suckling is Continuous, 2007

Man, performance art is kind of taking off. Look out for pillow fights, photo ops, water gun wars and street art coming your way in Montrose. Oh yeah, watch your bike, too. New art collectives Bootown and The Bench are fixin’ to use youtube and myspace to go under the radar and screw with the status quo. New ventures are coming out of the woodwork, last fall’s darlings the Joanna Gallery and Artstorm are popular enough to warrant visits from the Contemporary Arts Museum curators and Glasstire writers. The sky is the limit for upstarts and deviants- get out there and play!



The city is awash in photography and film, with everyone getting ready for the Fotofest Biennial March 7th. Check out the hub of the festivities at Vine Street Studios for a late night from 8-12 pm where a survey of Chinese photographers will take over the massive converted warehouse or sneak into the Meeting Place at the Doubletree Hotel Downtown where 350 photographers will be grilled by nearly a hundred reviewers. Good luck guys! Leave the pics of dogs in tutus at home! For the film nerds out there, you can still throw your hat into the ring with applications due for the Fotofest SWAMP Short Film Festival this February 29th; email swamp@swamp.org for more information. Screenings will be in April at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.



On February 9th a new city park will open at the corner of White Oak and Houston Avenue along the north edge of Buffalo Bayou, please join the BBAP in unveiling Kathy Kelley’s Suckling is Continuous installation. Constructed out of used tires and industrial debris, Kelley’s work looks like the polluted bayous of Houston have spawned hungry babies looking to suck the life out of wandering souls. Perfect for the intersection of the Heights and 5th Ward.



Photographer William Christenberry will be on more than the lips of every photographer in town, his emotionally grounded documentation of Southern living is currently on view in the Vivid Vernacular show at the Menil along with fellow big names Walker Evans and William Eggleston. Upping the ante, Moody Gallery will open an exhibit of photographs of Alabama and Mississippi February 23rd. Flickrheads better get their shutters to Kirby for this one.


from the Houston Free Press Issue 88