To The MAXX!!! What the F*ck Is That?

Takashi Murakami did the album art for Kanye West's Graduation, last night on 106 and Park the rapper said that he hopes his discs are worth something down the road- and he's betting on the album art by the Japanese otaku master to lift them out of the trash bin and into the art institution (judging by West's bombastic attitude, he may be aiming higher) Think he'll make it?

click HERE for Kanye West visits the Kaikai Kiki Factory.

911*6

Jerusalem 2012, Berlin

excerpt of Rua Minx Collaboration with AIDS 3D at Program, Berlin August 18th, 2007

Tuesday Morning Cartoons

Here's some Dawolu Jabari Anderson for ya...

The Diabolical Uncle Ben, 2005

2007

2007

The Smok’n Ethiopian, 2005

Negro Week, 2006

Frederick Douglas Self-Defense Manual Series,
Infinite Step Escape Technique #1: Hand Seeks Cotton, 2005

A Modern Patronage

This is a rare opportunity, the mounting of an exhibit involving the MoMA, MFAH, Centre Pompidou, and other institutions. The oddity here is that a vast debt is owed to the relatively demure Menil Collection; treasures donated by the deMenil family to leading museums were pulled for the exhibit from vast collections in vaults, in some cases ignored or forgotten by their owners. A Modern Patronage mobilizes the particular intricacies of the deMenil’s collecting practices and doubly serves as a measure of the type of works deemed proper to be donated to some of the world’s greatest art institutions. In situ, the show exists in support of a few works that stand head and shoulders above the rest. An innovative mix of tribal artifacts from around the world and mid-century Modernism, the exhibit contrasts the forms of a wide range of artworks, finding similarities in disparate sources.

René Magritte, The Empire of Light II, 1950
Oil on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Gift of D. and J. de Menil
(c) The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA /
Art Resource, NY. (c) ARS, NY

This Houston institution places their intimidating group of works in a darkened gallery, adding to the pervasive grey tone in the body of work and dampening the drama in the gallery. The first room focuses on Magritte, and while the viewer filters past a foreboding and solid Aztec standard bearer and a mystical stone figure, an Akwanshi from Nigeria, the stonework in the surrounding paintings gains weight. Just inside the second room of the exhibit hangs a painting by the mysterious German painter Wols. A simple figure is aggressively scrawled onto raw canvas in black and red, simple shapes delineating a mouth and eyes in enraptured shock. A member of a short lived and nihilistic group living in Paris in the ruins of the Second World War, the artist channeled a dark, violent energy during his short career, and is often ignored as a precursor to the emergence of Abstract Expressionism in New York. A notable loan from the MFAH, the sculpture untitled, by Lee Bontecou, is a standout expression of the artist’s depth of emotion in her inventive constructions; atypical for her era and foreshadowing artistic and architectural forms that have grown viable in the past fifty years.

Jackson Pollock, The Deep, 1953
Oil and enamel on canvas
Musee National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
CNAC/MNAM/Dist. Réunion des Musées Nationaux /
Art Resource, NY (c) ARS, NY. Photo: Jacques Faujour

The lynchpin of A Modern Patronage is a late Pollock, The Deep, on loan from the Pompidou Centre in Paris and unlikely to be seen on American soil again for decades. This large painting, once decried as a symptomatic failure of the late work of the Abstract Expressionist, is now resurrected by the Menil- the focus of an artist’s roundtable in July- as a powerful image worthy of praise. The work is flanked by other works by Pollock, earlier and later, owned by the MFAH and the Menil, along with an Asante vessel, a powerful Wols, Manhattan, and an early Rothko- notably different from the ethereal mood of later, more famous works on exhibit here and in other galleries of the museum.

Andy Warhol, Big Electric Chair (1967)
(not included in the exhibition)
137,2 x 185,2 cm, Collection Froehlich, Stuttgart

The fourth and largest room holds a blush of bright electric chairs, four paintings by Andy Warhol from different periods in his career including Lavender Disaster. The space is balanced by three large sculptures; two oversized Oldenburg sculptures in white, one an electric fan that dangles from the ceiling, the other a sunken drum kit, and a Larry Rivers sculpture with two pairs of female figures perpetually reversing the roles of dominance, satirizing Manet’s Olympia. Two models for Christo’s early works and their mock-up collage photographs are playful sculptures. As miniatures their absurdity is blunted by the reality that; yes, the artist did go around wrapping buildings in massive swathes of cloth. Coyly curated, the Menil Collection’s laissez faire attitude sells less books and tee shirts than the rest of the uber-branded museum world, but their prudishness can buy clout in short supply with those willing to look hard enough.

in the new issue- Artshouston

9-11

Mel Chin, 9-11 / 9*11, 2005-7

Free screening of Mel Chin's new movie 9-11 / 9*11 at the MFAH
tomorrow at 6pm. Free. Color. 22 Minutes.

" September 11, 1973: Santiago, Chile. September 11, 2001: New York City. The Chilean military coup of President Allende ushered in 17 years of autocratic rule that left countless victims of torture and more than 3,000 dead. The terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers of New York´s World Trade Center forever scarred the security of the American people. In this somber animated short, Houston artist Mel Chin tells a tale of two cities, a tragedy of two times, through a story of love and hope wrecked by overt and covert manipulations of power. Part of a global dialogue about the human impact of these collective traumas, 9-11/9-11 debuted at the MFAH as a work in progress in 2006.

"Following the screening, an exclusive live video conference will be transmitted from New York City and Santiago, Chile. Beginning at 7:00 p.m., the Houston audience will "witness" commentary and discourse from both countries. The real-time interplay will be projected on the big screen in the Brown Auditorium Theater. Citizens from two cities that were transfigured by tragic 9-11 circumstances 28 years apart will be given time for individual expression and recollection. The transmission will pause for a rescreening of 9-11/9-11 and return to a view of live bi-city audience response. The evening concludes at approximately 9:00 p.m. CST."

What'cha Been Doin'?

We are throwing a show for the Westheimer Block Party this October on Saturday the 13th called "Overgrown". We have 8 setups for 2D work on 2 4x8 panels flat panels set at a 90 degree angle, to be installed in front of Numbers and at the corner of Westheimer and Taft. As well, we will have installation and performance pieces surrounding Helios, Mangos, La Strada and Numbers and along Westheimer near the festival.

"Overgrown" is an installation and performance art exhibit focusing on the abundance of Houston grown, both technological and ecological. Artists living here in the city are constantly aware of the long reach of human construction and manipulation, as well as the organic effects of an overactive natural environment that seems to find ways to envelop and adjust to anything in its path.

We'll have a full list of artists by this Wednesday, September 13th.

Thanks!

buffalo sean

Drawing Everybody Down

Wooooo!!!!!! We won a game!!!

The Chron likes to toot Houston's horn, but their latest tangentially art-related article makes Paris look like buddies with the good 'ol boys in Texas. With an exhibit about rugby during the Rugby World Cup, the Quai Branly museum is looking for the same kind of viewers the MFAH was fishing for during the Super Bowl in 2004 with Houston Texans photographs and Gun Show exhibits.

masque fibres végétales, baguette polychrome, écorce battue, plumes, graines

Check out their site at the Quai Branly- it is usually a non-Western and tribal museum with their last show focusing on the Polynesian art of New Ireland... most of the Menil's large Polynesian pieces are from the same mountainous island... check out some New Ireland sculpture HERE...

Oh, and go Texans...

Necessity

is that really necessary?

I was driving down Allen Parkway, and the Large Spindle, 1969, by Henry Moore has a big trash can next to it. It's a small piece in that big field, but the only 'iconic' sculpture in the vista. I think I saw it in a Ford commercial once...

This won't make any sense in nine days

"Interview"

Cody Ledvina, Interview, 2007

Penny Rocket

by Norberto Gomez Jr.