Lawndale's Big Show has been the first line item on many a Houston artist's resume. It's the one time every year that Lawndale sets aside its curatorial authority in the name of supporting the community with a big ol' enveloping-and-not-too-particular bear hug. The idea is that the quantity over quality approach will hopefully give a boost to some good artists who are just starting out--and to be fair, many of the past prize winners include some of Houston's best artists. So it's kind of unsporting to pick on it. But damnit, can't this show be any better? The unavoidable truth is that when you go, you expect the quality to be mixed, to put it charitably. You just hope that too many dabblers and high school seniors who need to find something else to do with their lives didn't make it in, and that there will be a couple of decent showings from young artists who might have potential. And that's pretty much what this year's show delivers. Here's a sampling:

Geneva Gordon, Untitled, 2010, sheet metal

Is artist Geneva Gordon making a spanglish joke (Spanish speakers put an E before words starting with S, as in "espaghetti"), or is she commanding a stop to the electronic madness, (a la "e-commerce" or "e-tail")? Hopefully it's... probably the former?

 

Joel Hernandez, Carmelita, 2008

Jasmyne Graybill, Soap-cracked Fan-tail, 2008, sculpey and drain cup

Bexar Olivier, Panacea II, 2008, digital photo on lenticular lens

(This photo doesn't do a good job showing how the blobs of color hover over each other and move as you walk past.)

Hayden Garrett, Prescriptive Future, 2010, pine wood strips and vinyl contact paper

Hard to say what was going on with this piece, beyond the obvious: an old dude who's given up on inhibition posing with whatever audience member sticks his/her head through the bikini babe carnival plywood. Will the gent be on view during the run of the show, a la the go-go dancer in the Felix Gonzalez-Torres piece at the Menil Collection a while back??? You'll have to visit Lawndale to know for sure!!!!

Speaking of exposed flesh, there's a lot of it on view. What is it with the soft porn (all women, no men)? Maybe when the going gets tough, the tough reach for the boobage. One example subtly makes the connection between porn and the internet:

Joshua Bienko, Golilocks (Too Hot), 2009, oil on wireless keyboard

There's more Art Houston to come, all weekend long!!!

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What with the piles of shoddy painting clogging many art venues these days, it is a relief to see Darren Waterston's current exhibit at Inman Gallery. It's one of those rare instances when one needn't wonder whether it's oneself, or all those other people, who have got their heads so far up their asses that they wouldn't know good art if it came up and licked them. Waterston's installation is somber yet playful, crowded yet spare, dripping with import yet insubstantial. It's also beautifully executed. Indeed, if you are prone to nit-picking, Waterston has really left no nits lying about to pick — unless, of course, you cotton to shoddy painting.

 There's something here for everyone: clutterbugs and devotees of small, precious works on paper will enjoy Waterston's crowded salon hanging of framed and unframed works along one wall, interspersed with objets from his studio. 

Design-y minimalists of the Calvin Klein mold will appreciate the other end of the gallery, which is sparsely hung with three monochromatic large paintings on panel.

Finally, for the oddballs and lovers thereof: a plinth down the middle with four sculptures that look like sea creatures dipped in tar. (Obvious reference to current ghastly environmental disaster apparently unintended.)

They painted the walls a warm gray, which adds to the cozy wunderkammer feel. Speaking of which, the show evokes the Menil Collection at its most intimate and strange. And that's never a bad thing. 

 "Darren Waterston: Anatomies" is on view at Inman Gallery May 8 - June 19, 2010. 

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These snapshots are from Andrea Dezsö's show "Sometimes in My Dreams I Fly" at Rice University Art Gallery. The photos don't do the show justice: each window at the gallery has been transformed into a life-sized "tunnel book," with layers that recede from the viewer into a fantastical distance. This is old school special effects at their very best.

The show is on view until August 8, so you have plenty of time to see it. Just make sure that you do.

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"Leaps into the Void: Documents of Nouveau Realist Performance" at the Menil Collection is a show you won't see anywhere else in Texas, or most of the U.S. for that matter. There just isn't a collection with the same quirky focus on rare moments in the French avant-garde elsewhere in this country. 

The show's objects, almost all from the Menil's own collection, document the brief but important Nouveau Réalisme movement in France in the 1960s. It involved the artists Yves Klein, Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely, Martial Raysse, Christo, Mimmo Rotella and Arman, among others. This movement roughly corresponds to Fluxus (and to a lesser extent, Pop) in the U.S., and its most iconic performance is Klein's Le saut dans le vide (The Leap into the Void):

Not only does the Menil have original photographs of The Leap, they have a surprising 4 copies of Klein's one-day newspaper Dimanche, on view, as well as an actual roofing tile from the building in Fontenay-Aux Roses from which Klein flung his body. Dominique de Menil herself went to collect the tile, pilgrimage-style, and it remains in her museum's collection wrapped in the original paper napkin with her notes written on it. According to the show's curator Michelle White, this tile was the initial inspiration for the show.

Though Klein's is the most recognizable work in the small, 2-gallery exhibit, there are also wonderful objects by Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle. The large monstrous sculpture below is mechanical: its arms move and its mouth opens when the wheel turns, revealing a knife in its lower jaw.

(in the foreground)
Jean Tinguely / Niki de Saint-Phalle, M.O.N.S.T.R.E., 1964
Motorized assemblage: cast steel and iron, painted newsprint and fabric overwire; electric motor, plastic, rubber and plastic toys, fabric and twine
92-7/8 x 60-3/4 x 40 inches w/base. (88-5/8 x 60-3/4 x 38 inches w/o base)
The Menil Collection, Houston, gift of the artists
© 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

The antenna with the feather on Tinguely's kinetic sculpture below moves back and forth, picking up any radio frequencies in the air. White says the sound is similar to an FM radio when you move dial dial quickly up and down: bits of static, bits of voices, snatches of songs.

Jean Tinguely, WNYR No. 5 (Radio Sculpture), 1962
Motorized assemblage: electrical radio components, motor, Plexiglas and
feather
34 x 9 1/8 x 8 3/4 inches
The Menil Collection, Houston

These are some of the more obscure sculptures in the Menil's collection, and they haven't been on view in years. All the mechanical objects will be run sequentially for 30 seconds on the hour, every hour, from 12 - 6 pm for the run of the show.

In addition to these sculptures, there's a video of Niki de Saint Phalle's shooting performance in Malibu from 1962, which is groovy beyond words: the former model, looking like a Bond girl in a skintight white jumpsuit, takes aim at a white wall of objects, each of which is filled with a different color of paint. There are also a couple of splattered objects on view from other of her shooting-as-painting performances.

Niki de Saint Phalle doing her thing. [Internet photo]

Finally, there's an unbelievably groove-tacular video by Francois de Menil from 1966 that documents Hon, the giant Peter Max-esque sculpture of a woman that viewers entered through the vagina: 

Per Olof Ultvedt, Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely in front of "Hon" Moderna Museet, Stockholm, summer 1966 [Internet photo]

On the heels of last year's enjoyable "Body in Fragments," "Leaps into the Void" is another small gem of a show that showcases an interesting facet of the Menil's wonderfully idiosyncratic collection, and also illuminates a somewhat obscure moment in art history.  It's on view March 19 - August 8, 2010.

[FYI, here are some public programs associated with the show]

Saturday, March 20, 2010, 3:00 pm
FotoFest Gallery Talk: Michelle White on Harry Shunk’s Leaps into the Void
On October 23, 1960, photographer Harry Shunk’s camera captured artist Yves Klein hurling himself from a Parisian rooftop. The now iconic photographs that capture this moment are shrouded in secrecy. Join exhibition curator Michelle White for a gallery talk about Shunk’s photographs. Main foyer, The Menil Collection. Admission is free but seated is limited.

Sunday, March 21, 2010, 7:30 p.m.
Outdoor Film Screening
Yves Klein, la révolution bleue (France, 2006) Directed by François Lévy‐Kuentz Category : Documentary. France/2006/Betacam/colour, b&w/52 min/French
Lévy‐Kuentz’ “documentary fiction” is a remarkable introduction to abstract art through one of its most influential personalities. Yves Klein’s career lasted only eight years, from 1954 to 1962, but he managed to shake the foundations of modern art. This portrait, featuring unreleased archival material (including Klein's own films), examines the artist's meteoric career and the mysterious correlations running through his work. Co‐sponsored by the Consulate General of France in Houston and the Texan‐French Alliance for the Arts.

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