It feels like it’s been a long week! Brandon Zech and Christina Rees get a little meta, and run down their top five “Five-Minute Tour” videos of the past seven days.
“I can’t believe we’re already saying we have early, sentimental favorites.”
Note: Last week Glasstire launched a series of short videos, Five-Minute Tours, for which commercial galleries, museums, nonprofits and artist-run spaces across the state of Texas send us video walk-throughs of their current exhibitions. This will continue while the coronavirus situation hinders public access to exhibitions. Let’s get your show in front of an audience.
See all Five-Minute Tours here.
To view last week’s Top Five in which Christina Rees and Brandon Zech count down some ways to view the arts online, please go here.
1. Five-Minute Tours: Hillerbrand+Magsamen at Heidi Vaughan Fine Art, Houston
February 22 – May 9
“From a bedazzled Little Tykes car, to embroidered photographs to photographic blanket assemblages, Hillerbrand+Magsamen provide a mythological journey to explore what we do and don’t know, and ways to cope and connect in a tumultuous world through their devices.
“The exhibition ‘Devices: Then & Now’ showing at Heidi Vaughan Fine Arts, is an interdisciplinary project rooted in society’s ever-growing desire to exercise control over our lives through various devices. Consisting of photography and sculpture, this exhibition presents the collaborative family’s inventions and new functions for ordinary objects made from old toys, tin foil, insulation foam, packing blankets, recycled plastics, pins, and rhinestones.”
2. Five-Minute Tours: Caroline Doherty at CO-OPt Research + Projects, Lubbock
March 7 – April 30
“It is eight false flags. It is eight true flags. It is truth and it is post truth. It might be a lie.
“Made in response to the destabilization of truth in politics and media, the central work in this exhibition is a play on the term false flag, wherein an entity, such as a government, carries out an covert operation in such a way that it appears to have been carried out by another entity. The term originates in naval warfare, when a ship would raise the flag of an opponent, hiding its true identity before a battle. A false flag is considered a ruse de guerre, or ruse of war — an act of military deception. The term is also often used to support conspiracy theories.”
3. Five-Minute Tours: Jessica Fuentes at Fort Worth Community Arts Center
February 29 – March 28
“Whether working in photography, mixed media, or narrative writing, Fuentes’ work explores the concepts of time, memory, and repetition. Often these ideas are examined through the display of photographs using transparency or vinyl to layer, and consequently, distort images physically. In duo means two, the process and repetition of carrying out an idea over 14 years and across a variety of locations relate directly to the themes of her work. The images in this series capture pairings of everyday items from both outdoor and interior scenes. At first glance, the work seems to present the mundane coupling of objects. As a viewer spends time with the images, the repetition of paired items evokes the complexities of personal relationships.”
4. Five-Minute Tours: Cody Arnall at Nancy Fyfe Cardozier Gallery, UT Permian Basin, Odessa
March 5 – March 31
“Who’s Got a Price on Their Head investigates themes of personal and shared histories. Arnall examines the idea that humans are building their own destruction through a desire for power. He uses family stories regarding his grandfather who was a U.S. military telegrapher, and the shared experiences of the family with anger, alcoholism, and aggression. Arnall’s work reminds us that mortality is inevitable.
“Cody Arnall is Assistant Professor of Sculpture at Texas Tech University. He is currently an artist in resident at the Sculpture Center in Utica, NY.”
5. Five-Minute Tours: Adam Crosson, Amada Miller, and Britt Thomas at the Galveston Arts Center
January 18 – TBA
Three solo exhibitions at the Galveston Arts Center:
1) Adam Crosson’s exhibition, Haptic Recordings: The Body Eyes, emerges from the artist’s practice of exploring the Mississippi River and examines the results of intractable relationships with littoral spaces.
2) Amada Miller’s But then (again) is an exhibition of photographic and video work focusing on the celestial bodies that make seasonal appearances near our planet. Astronomers and scientists have spent centuries probing these mysterious portents, claiming everything from life-bearing origins to humanity’s destruction.
3) Britt Thomas’ Indian Spirit documents the Port Neches-Groves Indians high school football traditions and the community who keeps those traditions alive. The photographs take an observational approach to PN-G’s unique fusion of Texas football customs and Native American cultural appropriation that has existed in this community since 1925. The title, Indian Spirit, emerges from the name of PN-G’s mascot and reflects the community’s intense commitment to their motto of ‘Honor, Pride, Tradition.’
Honorable Mentions:
Five-Minute Tours: Prints by Flatbed Press at the Tyler Museum of Art
March 1 – May 31
“Organized by the Tyler Museum of Art, Lone Star Impressions II: Prints by Flatbed Press highlights more than 30 fine art multiples created in a variety of techniques from over the years. The exhibition heavily focuses on artists that live in Texas or have strong ties to the region. The show features works by John Alexander, Keith Carter, Luis Jimenez, Melissa Miller, Liz Ward, and Joan Winter, among many others.”
Five-Minute Tours: Katja Loher at Anya Tish Gallery, Houston
March 6 – April 4
“Unlike many video artists, Loher discards flat, rectangular screens and instead injects her films into more natural sculptural forms. The nearly seamless union of the technological and organic in the external construction of Loher’s works reflects the content of the fantastic worlds she creates, which explore the complex relationship between nature and humanity.”
