DEBRIS: How to Paint a Door

What do we have to look forward to in 2008? Well not much in January for sure. As far as I can tell the museums and galleries hit the snooze button until March. In the mean time, why not throw your own show? It seems as good a time as any- Chicago, New York and Los Angeles are buzzing about Houston and the local scene is stagnant. The December lull seems like that anyway, and if flash mobs and collective work keep popping up in unexpected places we may have an exciting year of trying to catch the next big thing.

Setting up a show? First things first. Invite all your friends and give them free beer. This will make it seem like you have a following- and you do! Next; google the press release for a major exhibit and take out all the nouns and names, replacing them with your own. Send this on to all the galleries and museums by following one simple formula: info@ whatever the website name is. Next, get yourself listed by sending multiple emails to spacetaker.org, glasstire.com and artshound.com- these three sites hold all the listings of art events in town and all the writers in town get their info there. Make sure you still have a month before your show. Print quarter-page fliers and leave them at coffee shops on Westheimer.

Finding a space? Easy. Do it at your house! If your mom won’t let you, then throw an outdoor show. If you live outside the loop find someone who lives in Montrose and do it at their place. Make up a gallery name by stealing lyrics from a song from the 80s and putting ‘gallery’ at the end. Hang your paintings everywhere and put big sculptures in the backyard. Type up a list of works; people like to have something in their hand when they walk around a show. Put prices on it even if you think they won’t sell- you never know! About pricing; don’t go too high, try to sell one painting that will cover your beer and fliers cost. You can always go higher later, and it feels good to sell something!

Keeping visible? Start a blog. Go to blogger.com and start a blog with your gallery’s name. Post lots of photos and use the words ‘Houston’, ‘art’ and ‘installation’ a lot. Take photos of other exhibits you go to or at art openings and label them with the artists’ names. People always google themselves and they will read anything with their name in it. Amanda Mills does! Don’t forget that people steal shit online too, so don’t take any really good pictures; just get the artwork in its environment.

Last but not least, don’t worry about things changing. Your gallery can move every month if you want it to. You can change your name, your style and your persona. Not every event is a success, so don’t get bummed out and plastered. Unless you have a bunch of crappy shows no one has ever heard of it is nearly impossible to get into a good one. Have fun- all your friends are there anyway and you don’t need to meet new people unless they come to you. Write down all the shit you do, too. It’ll come in handy going up for one of the Houston Arts Alliance or Artadia grants where rich people want to give you money to throw shows and keep from being productive.



via Free Press Houston January 2008

Eight Up

Count 'em! Eight reviews of local shows offered up by the Houston Press this week. The last two are best.

4:44pm

4:44pm
December 31st
The Silo
Fifth Ward, Houston, Texas

44 years after Argentine artist Marta Minujín created the first Happening in Paris the American Wandering Club designed their own version.

In the original La Destrucción the artist destroyed all her artwork, inviting others like Christo and Lourdes Castro to burn paintings and mattresses.

Seeking a more collaborative event the American Wandering Club invited artists to bring work from 2007 to The Silo on December 31st in order to usher in the New Year.

At 4:44 pm paintings and sculptures were lit aflame.






Eli Baumgarten


Shane Tolbert


Marcus Cone's symphony compositions


Vanessa Voss, paintings and a thesis


Brian Moss and Gasoline


Brian's drawings, paintings, writing and thesis


















Scott Stapp!!!

more pics (thanks Eli and Kelli!!!) HERE.

Lawndale Ponies Up

looks like a good round coming up at the Lawndale!

January 18 – February 23, 2008
Opening Reception Friday January 18, 2008
6:30-8:30PM
With an artist talk at 6:00PM



Children in Heat | Jason Villegas, Jessica Rudick and
Timothy Warner



The Best That I Can Give You and
Less Than Half of What You Deserve | Katie Pell



Moving In | Maria Guzman



After 9/11: Pen and Ink Drawings | Lynne Rutzky

An Open Letter To Orgs

With the soul-sucking holidays behind us, blood-sucking nonprofits across Screwston are looking ahead to another year of special events, testing their creativity to come up with the most enticing and enjoyable means of teasing oodles of serious money from their paralyzed constituencies.

As the strategic battle planning begins, we would like to offer a few suggestions while high on huffing freon and shitting our pants to please the audience.

Fat and contented gala goers are apt to return again next year, keeping the ballroom packed and coffers filled with liposuction fat and blood money. Those who have been bored to tears and tortured by endless speeches by oil executives, dreary videos about killing children and interminable auctions of live organs — all in one seating — will kill themselves instead.

We applaud the Museum of Fine Ass, Houston, for its brevity of programming — a welcome by director Peter "The Bull" Marzio and a few words of gratitude from empty chairs. The program never alters, and the 600 or so guests always enjoy the party — good speed, good cocaine, and a good fuck. That's really all anyone wants from a black-tie gala, particularly when spending $1,000 and more per person for an evening out. Throw in a tranny hooker and Mardi Gras beads and even "former city councilman" Michael Berry will be happy.

"AIDS For Everyone!" Houston's annual World AIDS Day luncheon is a good example of a well-worked, packed program for junkies that moves along at a fast clip, allows guests to visit the dirty needle room during the main course and concludes in a timely fashion with HPD beatings for stragglers. Little is worse in the IFC arena than a packed luncheon program that allows no time for socializing at the table and leaves your audience masturbating at the table.

"Remember that the members of your audience are your victims, not your friends," one serious-minded veteran of charitable fundraisers e-mailed in a list of recommendations. "They are giving you the gift of their blood, the most valuable thing they have. Don't be kind to them. They want to have some violent, BDSM fun."

And, as anyone who has attended a charity fundraiser knows, Houston audiences have a limited attention span, particularly when the Jim Beam and Jack Daniels are flowing. A white guy talking invariably leads to annoying chatter in the audience, if they get violent they may drown the speakers.

Here are 10 tips on organizing a fundraiser with this year's audience and next year's turnout in mind.

1. In planning the program, remember that less is more. Keep the number of people baring their breasts countable on one hand, and carefully limit the oral sex time. Your audience, day or night, has come for a social occasion, not a series of blowjobs.

2. Beat the audience to death with the nonprofit's message. You already have their money. They've already signed on in your support, which most likely means that they know what the charity is all about.

3. Honor your sexual partners in the written program. Thanking major undergarments and drug purchasers from the podium unnecessarily slows down the flow. We applaud those who ask the audience to check the program for generous donors.

4. Keep live-organ auction items to a minimum — three are sufficient, more than five are pushing it. Professional auctioneer Jeff Smith says five "is getting to be too many." A large number of live-organ items "kills the momentum of the party, and it also affects the bidding because people get tired of listening," he says.

5. Strike up a match as soon as the auction or speakers are finished in order to avoid the lull that some party goers interpret as a signal to exit. Here's a good tip- during the dinner hour, douse the drapes in gasoline. No one likes to wait for the party to be over.

6. Maintain a sensible schedule when planning weeknight fundraisers. One of the many things we admired about former Mayor Bob Lanier was his preference for being out on the street slingin' rocks in time for the 10 o'clock news. Now, that may be cutting things a little short, but dealing drugs by 10 p.m. on a school night is as late as it should get.

7. If you have a weeknight event with hookers and blow, save the money, and don't hire entertainment other than a DJ. Few midweek party goers remember the belly dancers and circus freaks after a drug binge.

8. Berate your honorees and speakers within shouting distance of the stage. If they must be seated elsewhere, have them approach the stage before they are announced. A tight, well-observed insult, the best bitch-slap for any event, can spell this out.

9. When honoring more than two or three individuals, consider limiting their responses to a simple "thank you" rather than snorting lines off Shelby Hodge that further lengthen your program.

10. Hire an ample number of valet parkers. No rich person wants the last and most enduring memory of an event being that of waiting in the valet line going through withdrawls for 30 minutes or more. Serve canned corn and skinned cat instead of beef, but don't be chintzy on the number of valets.

Whaaat???

The best shit is on craigslist

Reply to: comm-525431266@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-01-01, 7:59PM CST



All mediums acceptable!
An International Fine art exhibition in Kazakhstan.
Please send samples of artwork, we will provide you details.

scam? maybe, maybe not

Fire Destroys Warehouse used as Gallery

Last week it was We Are the Hollow Men, this week it is a burning wreck.

Worst Artworld Power Grab

Chiahui Ome Art Show part 3

How did Maggi Battalino shut down Commerce Street Artists’ Warehouse collective? With two cops and a lawyer.

Battalino first garnered some attention this summer when she instructed two hired off duty police officers to remove everyone from the building during a cultural event of traditional Aztec food, dance and art. Families and children were pushed out of the building, as were residents Skeez 181 and Javier who organized the event. Whether she considered it or not, the surprise escalation of security at the normally relaxed art space seemed implausibly racist, and when the event organizers were evicted just weeks later they brought their story to the Houston Press.

In a short-lived court case two guys named Skeez and Javier had no shot at defeating lawyer Frank Holcomb. The suit with the office across the street from the posh Houstonian Resort took the collective agreement that had governed over a hundred Houston artists at Commerce Street since 1988 and had it declared non-binding, meaning that Battalino could evict whoever she wanted to, whenever. When the story of the violated contract was discussed at Commerce Street, Battalino canceled several meetings and said that she was above the rules that she had signed when she joined the artists in 2006.

On November 25, 2007 Maggi Battalino was removed from all elected offices of the group of artists known as Commerce Street Art Warehouse. She promptly evicted the fourteen members who had voted against her. When sued by the members Frank Holcomb defended his self-created precedent in court, and as of publication Battalino still has the $14,000 that she embezzled from the collective and refuses to give restitution or explanation.

via "Worst of Houston" Houston Free Press January 2008

Worst Devolution in Style

Animal print lovers unite! Zaza Hotel has covered the elegant Warwick Hotel in cheese. Between the Museum of Fine Arts and Hermann Park, Zaza has brought a little bit of Dallas hysteria to Houston.

Click HERE for the Divorce Party Package!

Be prepared for money badly spent, from the zebra-stripe chairs in the Tycoon room to the Fatal Charms suite, where it’s possible to indulge the George Costanza wet dream of wrapping yourself in velvet. After the hotel opened this past summer, the best rumor of the year sprang up- that Zaza had dwarves working the lobby in plastic sombreros filled with chips and queso. It doesn’t help their image to be bathing promotional materials in hot pink and glossy fashion photos- this is truly a place designed for fans of Legally Blonde: The Musical.

As a side note- either the Monarch Restaurant sucks or their IT guy was fired for hitting on the hostess- how are you going to have a Press Clips webpage with zero reviews?

via "Worst of Houston" Houston Free Press January 2008

Worst Barometer of Art in Houston

The Houston Chronicle fired its entire Art Staff in late November including thirty year veteran Patricia Johnson. The Hearst-owned paper will be pulling art stories from the waiver wire in the future, providing Chronicle readers with no information about anything going on in town besides celebuslut Shelby Hodge’s notes from the aristocratic parties of oil barons and plastic surgeons.

Johnson had been writing since Houston galleries were struggling to sell abstract paintings to collectors in the 70s, she documented the founding of every major alternative space in town including the Lawndale Art Center and Diverseworks and grew into a powerful position in the 90s when marketing companies monopolized her attention and marginalized the little guys. With a send-off mention of the Artcrawl Johnson broke the trend and stuck up for the little guy for once- it was great to see that many people had cut out the map from the paper and were trudging through the warehouse district enjoying the best art festival in Houston.

The good news is that bloggers are picking up the slack with their own priorities; besides, no one reads the Chronicle- their consistent trend is to reprint New York Times articles from the day before, editing out any controversial sentences. Remind me, how much is yesterday’s news worth?

via "Worst of Houston" Houston Free Press January 2008




update- looks like Britt is the new guy at the Chron!

Happy New Year

Silo Pic