Fresh from the Free Press

Untitled (Sisyphean Task), 2009

by Divya Murthy

While Devin the Dude performed on the main stage at Summerfest, Frank Olson, Johnny DiBlasi and Matt Keller were attracting a significant audience toiling away in the sweltering heat. While festival-goers tuned in, turned on and dropped out, at the top of the hill Olson and Keller endlessly repeated a performance piece referencing the unyielding absurdity of an endless chore.

Set under the shade of a tree and surrounded by teeming crowds, Untitled (Sisyphean Task), attracted onlookers, cheerleaders and catcalls. While one performer unsuccessfully attempted to move an old heavy television with broken wheels up a 12-foot ramp, another made lackadaisical loops around the structure. In case there was not enough emphasis on cyclical behavior, Keller and Olson both painted purple Os on their back; their sweat washed the paint down in rivulets. As they continually exerted themselves, jocks in polos and hippie girls in flowery dresses looked on, their minds spinning with circular humdrum. A video looped on the television, playing video of CDs spinning in the players, scenes from action films and screensaver-ish self-generating computer images.... READ MORE

Spread teh Word

(Annise Parker look-alike cop smashing PAL's performance piece, 2008)

DeluXX

Unique Artist Studio 1000 sq.ft. (Montrose)

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Date: 2009-09-06, 10:59PM CDT
Reply to: comm-jxjfe-1361878987@craigslist.org

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This artistically designed space is a stand alone warehouse at grade level, approx 1000 sq. ft. with carpeted stage, tiled kitchen (appliances included) bath, air conditioning/heating, walk-in closet; washer/dryer on site, off street parking, good lighting from large metal windows and privacy.
One year lease available for $850/mo. plus $400/deposit.

• Location: Montrose
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

(check the comments for the real scoop on this winner)

Tonight!

Lee Walton, Let's Push Things Forward, 2008

POKE!
Chris Baker, Curtis Mann, David Oresick, Marivi Ortiz, Brian Piana, Jon Rafman, Penelope Umbrico, Lee Walton
Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, etc.
6-9pm
Sept 10 - Oct 24
Fotofest Headquarters
1113 Vine Street






Wayne White
BIG 'LECTRIC FAN TO KEEP ME COOL WHILE I SLEEP
5-7 pm
Sept 10 - Oct 18
Rice Gallery
Rice University, 6100 Main Street

Ace Skates on Thursdays

Thursday, September 10
Begins at 7 pm
At The Catastrophic Theatre office
540 Sul Ross


A new work by Truman Phelps that will move you...LITERALLY. Ace Skates
on Thursdays chronicles a day in the life/existential journey of a 12
year old boy as he skateboards around his neighborhood. The audience
will follow Ace's route as each scene takes place at a different venue
within walking distance. How kick ACE is that?!

Written by Mr. Truman Phelps
Directed by Mr. Philip Hays
With performances from Mr. Jared Doreck, Mr. Salvador Chevez, and the
lovely Ms. Veronica Blanco

Performances are the last three Thursdays in September (the 10th,
17th, and 24th) and begin at 7pm. The show will start at The
Catastrophic Theatre office.

*IMPORTANT NOTE* One free popsicle is included with the purchase of a ticket.

Tim Roda, Untitled #61, 2005


Jaimie Warren, Dancing in the Late Night, 2008

Artist As Performer
Ok Hyun Ahn, Diane Ducruet, Kara Hearn, William Lamson, Robert and Shana Parke-Harrison, Christopher Pickett, Tim Roda and Jaimie Warren
6-9 pm
Sept 10 - Nov 5
Houston Center for Photography
1441 Alabama



Anthony Masullo, 4018, 2002


Anthony Masullo
6-9 pm
Sept 10 - Oct 28
Texas Gallery
2012 Peden St (behind River Oaks Theater)




Scorpion Child * Emeralds * Spain Colored Orange
starts at, like, 10 or something.
Rudyard's Pub
on Waugh



photo by Allison Hunter, included in IKE

HIWI: IKE
The Book (Signing)
7 - 9 pm
Domy Books
1709 Westheimer



Last day for Waymaker Gallery's Saving Sisyphus




Houston Lyceum: Eloquence
CAMH
6:30 pm
This lecture series revisits identical topics—but with a contemporary take—from Houston’s earliest cultural institution, The Houston Lyceum, founded in 1854 as a precursor to the first public library. “Eloquence” will be presented by Dr. Mike Fain, Director of the University of Houston Forensic Society.

Missed it!

Wednesday, September 9, 2009
2:00 - 2:30pm
Menil Park


John Evans is dead!!! Funeral will be filmed at Menil Park in Montrose at 2pm
Wear black, wear funk, freak it up!



About the movie:
3 years in the making, Honky Tonk Blood is a mochumentary / dark comedy about Montrose TX starring John Evans, Southern Backtones, Sideshow Tramps, Johnny Falstaff, 2 Star Symphony, The Flammin' Hellcats, The Hates, Scattered Pages, and many many others Houston artists... And YOU!

SOOPER Snooterday

SUPER SATURDAY!!! It's the Super Saturday Sale. Support young Houston artists. Have a couple of drinks. Super affordable work. SUPER ATTITUDES. Golf Cart tours of the Menil and Rothko!!!!!!!!

Even Weirder Bank Robber!!!

Now the bike riding bank robber was weird enough, but check out this fool who robbed two banks dressed like a space alien and lookin' like Frank Black ROFL

Behind the Times

Michael Stravato for The New York Times

Looks like Kate Murphy finally got out to see the recycled scrap houses Dan Phillips makes, 8 months after a flurry of publicity launched the Phoenix Commotion into the local consciousness. Since then the Bone House has burned to the ground and risen from the ashes. Well, even if New York is behind the curve, at least they have someone writing in Houston.

Michael Paulsen /Chronicle

From Lisa Grey's January chron article comes this great quip from Phillips:

“You know The Birth of Tragedy by Nietzsche?” Dan asks.

It’s another sentence I never expected to hear from a builder. I nod uncertainly.

“You know how he described the two strains of culture? There’s the Apollonian culture, where everything is crisp, tidy and perfect. And there’s the Dionysian culture, where everything is passionate and organic.

“If an Apollonian is hanging a picture, he gets out his level and his measuring tape and precisely centers the picture on the wall. If a Dionysian is hanging a picture, he takes the picture, holds it up to the wall, and goes, “Hmmm. Does this look about right?”

“Our building industry is entirely Apollonian. Architects pre-think their design, specifying these ideal materials and aiming to create these idealized shapes. They’re at a disadvantage. They work off in an office, drawing blueprints. They can’t get feedback from the materials and let the designs evolve.”

phoenixcommotion.com

Cuts Like a Knife

whadda you see?

Terri Sultan's move to Long Island really let down a few people in Houston who saw her as a big talent in a backwater town, but her debut curatorial action at the Parrish Art Museum (of a show that was critically lauded in Houston) gets a beatdown in the Wall Street Journal, completely deserved for the uselessness that is Jean-Luc Mylayne;

Just because an artist gets high on his own inflated oratory is no reason a curator has to participate in a folie à deux. The museum here neither serves a public skeptical about the opacity of contemporary art nor does Mr. Mylayne any favors by framing his modest, if persistent, achievement under crushing layers of grandiloquent ­hokum.

Complete with 5 dolla words, y'all :)
via WSJ

Blind Item

"In a scene that would most likely appeal to the Spanish Surrealist Salvador Dalí, several works attributed to him are currently on display next to a disheveled tie rack at a Salvation Army Family Thrift Store in a seedy industrial neighborhood [in Houston, Texas]. The pen-and-ink drawing, crucifix sculpture and set of six lithographs are laid out in a glass case among the kind of crystal and brass tchotchkes more typically found in thrift stores. The shelves are lined with black fabric stitched with the words “I ♥ Jesus” in gold."

via NYT
wtf?

The James Surls Lecture

Lawndale
August 27,2009









John Runnells, James Surls, Charlie-Jean Sartwelle



Keijiro Suzuki



ahem...







CAMH Director Bill Arning



Bert Long Jr.



B. Davis



Surls with Elaine Bradford's crochet over his shoulder



good crowd! canopied by Emily Sloan's "lamps"



Mike and Jack



Hana Hillerova and Howard Sherman



afterparty at B. Davis













Hi Aisen!

Louise sez:

The Artist's Eye: John Runnels on Twombly’s Rose Paintings

Menil Collection

Sunday, Sept. 6, 2009, 3 p.m.

Born near Hot Coffee, Mississippi, John Runnels received his B.F.A. from the University of Southern Mississippi. In 1985 he co-founded Mother Dog Studios, an alternative studio and exhibition space in downtown Houston. Runnels has worked as Co-Director of Buffalo Bayou ARTPARK, and with the University of Houston Sculpture Department and the City of Houston to establish an international
artist-in-residence program. He was commissioned by the City to design a series of text-based sculptures called “Portals” along Buffalo Bayou’s Sabine Promenade. Currently, he is working on a public art project for the City of Phoenix.