Last Saturday I was in San Antonio, and here’s what I saw:
Detail of Michelle Monseau’s Fuzzboxinstallation at Sala Diaz
Michelle Monseau’s Fuzzbox show at Sala Diaz might have been better at night. Monseau arranges wisps and balls of brightly colored lint on the floor and walls, articulating them with spotlights and a moody rhythmic soundtrack. The intimate disco ambiance was overpowered by the bright sunlight coming through the windows when I visited. The plain light of day emphasized the straggling extension cords and clamp-lamp fixtures rather than the funky lighting effects they might have created.
Rivane Neuenschwander, Scrabble (Palavras Cruzadas)2001, cardboard boxes, newspaper, peeled and dehydrated grapefruit, electrical tape. Dimensions variable.
Next stop was ArtPace. Julie Mehretu‘s paintings upstairs in the Hudson Showroom were head and shoulders above the three residents’ works. I admire the honest work that goes into these pieces; despite her success, and what I assume is intense pressure to produce new work, even Mehretu’s largest paintings don’t seem skimpy or hurried. Mehretu builds colorful nests of graphic language drawn from weather maps, architectural plans, and outright doodling. Emptied of the literal content that makes maps and plans fascinating, Mehretu’s marks are reduced to empty stylistic elements useful for making pretty pictures. Strongly reminiscent of Matthew Ritchie‘s baroque paintings, but without Ritchie’s elaborate patter about his works’ semi-coherent mythology, or their graffiti-referenced pretension of rawness. Mehretu’s calm and elegant abstractions suffer from insecurity about the ability of an abstract mark to carry weight, taking refuge in pseudo-meaningful mapmaking when a simple line, dot, splatter or splash would do.
Julie Mehretu
Shazia Sikander spent her residency producing a video version of one of her eastern/western mythological collages. Presented on a framed video monitor in a narrow hallway, across from an actual painting, the video painting mutates in real time, animated elements fading in and out, moving slowly side to side. Sikander’s painting is diminished in translation to video: the primitive animation adds little to the work, the delicate Indian miniature-style hand painting which has always been Sikander’s strong suit is lost, while the goofy Chagall-like exotica of her imagery remains.
Julie Mehretu (detail)
Typically, I’d love an installation of cardboard boxes, newspapers, and grapefruit peels, but Rivane Neuenschwander‘s piece overloads these lighthearted throwaway materials with vague social/nature/culture/ science/language meanings, which takes the fun right out of them. An engaging knee-high maze of cardboard boxes on a newspaper-covered floor could be a cityscape, playpen, or bowling alley, but instead, they’re an artistic statement. The de rigueur video installation that accompanies the piece is even less fun. I saw about twenty seconds of slow-motion footage of a giant soap bubble wobbling in the air, and left for lunch at El Mirador (722 S. St Mary’s St, (210) 223-3885), the best Mexican restaurant in southeast Texas.
Bill Davenport is an artist and writer and was one of the first contributors to Glasstire.
