Keegan McHargue Wins TX Contemporary Award

by Bill Davenport October 12, 2013

mchargue3Portland-born, Brooklyn-based Keegan McHargue, whose colorful semi-figurative paintings are on view at the booth of Fredericks & Freiser, has been announced as the winner of the 2013 TX Contemporary Award. The $10,000 prize was announced at the TX Contemporary Art Fair at Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center at 2 p.m.

Jurors Bill Arning of Houston’s Contemporary Arts Museum and Rita Gonzalez of LACMA also chose Pablo Siquier, showing at Sicardi, and Susan Giles, showing with Mission, for honorable mentions.

17 comments

17 comments

rick October 12, 2013 - 21:40

thought this award was for texas residents

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Hattie Guffaw October 12, 2013 - 22:42

Well, at least the work is conservative enough to look like it’s from Texas. Kinda like a dull butter knife. This style was pretty much 10 years ago in Bushwick and there is much better there now. But truly, probably some board member of the TX Art Fair bought some of his work a few years ago when he was hot and needs the exposure to sell them off to some unsuspecting Texas art slobs who see it as a plus and will gobble up anything spoon fed to them as being “new”. Or he has a rich mumsie or dadsie who heavily donated to some “art” cause to make some administrators career, blah, blah, blah. Or maybe some “higher-up” just wants into his skinny jeans . . . you know how the art world is honey children. But seriously whatever! Congrats Keegee we are sure you were hurting and needed the cash. Congrats they love you darling keep it up!

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Cody Ledvina October 13, 2013 - 13:36

Do you think honey children come from a woman whose belly is full of bee’s?

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;) October 13, 2013 - 17:25

if talking trash on the internet had a prize u woudn’t win it but if you did would that bring you joy? ponder this while you make some of your own art work, and call your mother and let her know even though life has been a bumpy road your ok and you love her.

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P3ppppeR October 20, 2013 - 21:39

You would have done yourself a favor with just the “blah, blah, blah”
It’s been a while since we have had a good troll. What a treat!

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Dear Hattie October 13, 2013 - 09:40

Bitter much? oh wait, lemme guess…you’re an ARrrrrrttiiiiissst, the real kind,and no one “gets” your work obvs,
because you’re NOT SUCCESSFUL.
I bet YOUR work is too “real” or edgy for anyone to be able to handle. waaahhhhhhhhhhhhh

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Tony Falco October 14, 2013 - 12:43

State your name “Dear Hattie”. I imagine you’re either a friend of the Portlandia artist or a tough internet person yourself.

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Michael Miller October 13, 2013 - 12:15

These works are boring and conservative enough to please the people who awarded them the best of show, it reeks of mediocrasy and thereforth I can appreciate the artist needing the money, congrats to them but what a shame for this show and this city.

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Luna October 13, 2013 - 18:52

Keegan McHargue is a great artist! He truly deserves this award!

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Monica Seibert October 14, 2013 - 02:22

Is anyone paying attention to his use of color or the way the booth was set up? The palette hit me as strong as a Stuart Davis or Francesca Fuchs painting. His three pieces along with the other Tom Welsey’s provided great continuity, it was the most clean uncluttered booth and thankfully so. I loved the work and when I saw it I simply thought yes no wonder he won, it’s the best work here. Also just so people know he’s been make work consistently for the last 10 years just check his cv. He knows how to paint and create vibrant imaginative work and does so beautifully well.

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Hattie Guffaw October 14, 2013 - 09:17

Funny . . . wrote the above and then read this. Saltz has his ways. Here you go 😉

http://www.vulture.com/2013/10/jerry-saltz-on-arts-insidious-new-clich.html

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Robert Boyd October 14, 2013 - 12:33

That photo doesn’t do the work much justice.

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Robert Boyd October 14, 2013 - 12:36

That said, I love the spiteful remarks and argument because that’s what comments sections are for. I just wish people would put their real names on their comments. (And apologies in advance if “Hattie Guffaw” is, in fact, your real name and not some obvious pseudonym like “Cody Ledvina”.)

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Loli Fernandez (-A Kolber) October 15, 2013 - 08:53

This is fantastic! These comments border on “the personal”.Good for us! I think we are “learning” to debate from our politicians! …It was a good fair , not great, nor was the art great but, with the added charm of familiarity, for those of us living in Houston, Texas, since we know most of the Texan artists and galleries exhibiting there.

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M October 18, 2013 - 11:14

i really liked tallybeck’s gallery. they seem to have an eye for notable art which i found, well, enjoyable.

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P3ppppeR October 20, 2013 - 21:43

And who pays attention attention to Saltz after his appearance on Next Great Artist. That was a complete career disqualifier. Perfect mirror for this masked poo pooing poster.

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Max Fishko October 21, 2013 - 17:09

For the sake of clarity I thought I might make couple of points regarding the prize program, its structure and goals.

Gallerists participating in the fair are permitted to nominate one of their artists for the prize each year. They pay a nominal fee ($200) and are asked to provide a resume and statement for the nominated artist. This information is then relayed by us (the fair) to the participating judges. This year the judges were Bill Arning and Rita Gonzalez. The judges walk the fair Friday, looking at the nominated work in person, speaking to the dealers and on Saturday morning, inform us (the fair) of the winner. Texas Contemporary has no input on winners or runners up.

While the main incentive for a dealer to nominate an artist is to provide the artist with the $10,000 award (which goes directly from the fair to the artist) and to receive the free solo booth in the following year, there are other motivations. The reason we use one local curator and one curator imported from elsewhere is to A) expose local artists/dealers to a curator from out of town and b) expose artists/dealers from out of town to a local curator they might not otherwise know. In this very flexible and fast moving world, you never know what can come out of such an encounter.

In this instance, as with others, winning is not everything.

This program is intended to give back in both a financial and strategic way. It is our hope that the program continues to grow with the fair each year.

max

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