Top Five: September 22, 2022

by Glasstire September 22, 2022

Glasstire counts down the top five art events in Texas.

For last week’s picks, please go here.

A small-scale painting by Sirena LaBurn of three black grackles sitting on a cactus. The moon appears in the sky as the sun sets behind the horizon.

Sirena LaBurn, “Moonlight Grackles,” 2021, oil on panel, 10 x 10 inches.

1. Texas Emerging: Volume III
Foltz Fine Art (Houston)
September 10 – October 15, 2022

From Foltz Fine Art:

“Beginning on September 10, 2022, Foltz Fine Art will present Texas Emerging: Volume III, the third iteration of an annual exhibition featuring emerging visual artist of all disciplines from the state of Texas. In this third annual exhibition, aptly referred to as Volume III, Foltz Fine Art is proud to showcase six extraordinary, up-and-coming Houston artists: Rachel Gardner (painting/sculpture), Liz Gates (mixed media/sculpture), Sirena LaBurn (painting), Melinda Laszczynski (painting/sculpture), Douglas Welsh (painting), and Jasmine Zelaya (painting).”

Artist Justin Favela works with large sheets of orange tissue paper as he installs his new work "Revoloteo."

Justin Favela installs “Revoloteo.” Photo: Copyright of St. Edward’s University/Photography by Chelsea Purgahn.

2. Justin Favela: Revoloteo
St. Edward’s University (Austin)
September 1 – October 6, 2022

From St. Edward’s University:

“Nationally recognized Latino artist Justin Favela will create a new large-scale mural at the St. Edward’s University Fine Arts Gallery. Favela’s work examines the intersection of American Pop culture and the LatinX experience through transforming ordinary spaces into fantastical rooms filled with joyful color and texture.”

An installation by Tiffany Chung featuring an array of signs including common street signs and made-up signs.

Tiffany Chung, “Signs-Sites-Sights-Sighs.”

3. Urban Impressions
Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University (Houston)
September 16 – October 15, 2022

From Rice University Moody Center for the Arts:

“Join the Moody at the opening reception for Urban Impression: Experiencing the Global Contemporary Metropolis. Focusing on the overarching and shared aspects of urban life, this exhibition presents an international selection of artists whose works convey the rich sensorial phenomena of living in city spaces. From Rana Begum’s vivid, outdoor, site-specific sculptural installation to Mary Flanagan’s AI-centered work to Emeka Ogboh’s original craft beer, Urban Impressions demonstrates multiple ways in which artists interpret the landscape, built environment, technology, and cultural elements of a contemporary metropolis.

Featured artists also include Katsumi Hayakawa, Kahlil Irving, Lucia Koch, Julie Mehretu, Sohei Nishino, Robin Rhode, Seher Shah, Liu Wei, and Michael Wolf, as well as Houston-based artists Charis Ammon, Tiffany Chung, and Rick Lowe. Collectively, the works in the exhibition build on the longstanding artistic tradition of depicting urban life–notably by nineteenth-century Impressionists, early twentieth-century Expressionists, midcentury Situationists, and street artists of the 1980s–in ways that shape our collective perception of the city as an architectural and experiential phenomenon.”

A painting by Jeremy Biggers of a figure wearing a colorful multi-layered outfit with stuffed animal toys sewn onto the jacket. The person has bright orange hair.

Jeremy Biggers, “Defiant 001,” 2022, oil on stretched canvas, 72 x 96 inches.

4. Jeremy Biggers: Defiant
Daisha Board Gallery (Dallas)
August 20 – October 1, 2022

From Daisha Board Gallery:

“Defiant is about taking up space. Taking up as much space as necessary. For hundreds of years Black Americans have been asked to shrink ourselves and take up as little space as possible in an attempt to make others around us more comfortable. This ‘request’ has come in many forms, from deeming the way our hair grows from our scalps as ‘unprofessional,’ to critiquing the way we communicate with one another in public spaces as being “loud and ghetto”. It has even come in the form of internalized “anti-Blackness” by self-governing so that we appear to be as non-threatening as possible in an attempt to be seen as one of the ‘good ones.’

We have been taught historically in order to keep ourselves safe, we must not draw unwanted attention. Don’t be loud. Don’t be flamboyant. Don’t tell anyone you enjoy a hyper-niche anime series. Don’t rock the boat. We assimilate (even if in a small way). Refusing to acquiesce to make someone else feel comfortable is treated as an act of aggression. So in this way, choosing to wear your hair naturally, or making outlandish fashion choices, or generally being your unapologetically authentic ‘Black-ass-EXTRA-self,’ is an act of ‘defiance.’

Defiant is about owning our ‘extra-ness’ especially when it isn’t welcomed, and being ‘extra’ anyway.”

barrioPOP En Vivo y A Todo Color Laredo at Laredo Center for the Arts

5. Cande Aguilar: barrioPOP
Laredo Center for the Arts
September 2 – October 22, 2022

From Laredo Center for the Arts:

“Everything has meaning by virtue of its context. Likewise, most art is enigmatic when removed from its historical and cultural context.

It can take a lifetime to master learning to appreciate a single visual language and, like literature, it can require a lifetime of ardent dedication to learn to master the semiotics of multiple visual idioms.

But if one knows the history of Post-Impressionism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Neo-Expressionism, Mexican Arte Popular, Neo-Mexicanism, Nueva Figuración, Chicano art and the emergence of Street art’s Lowbrow aesthetics than one can recognize the artistic sources that provide context for Cande Aguilar’s visual idiom. If one is acquainted with the artworks of Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Leonora Carrington, Clyfford Still, Luis Felipe Noé, Willem de Koonig, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mel Casas and Manuel Miranda then one can appreciate the way in which Aguilar has drawn on the achievements of his predecessors to create his own syncretic aesthetic that is simultaneously aware of historic context yet uniquely innovative. His artwork has a highbrow intellectual sensibility but also a viscerally lowbrow gestalt which reflects an authentic cultural expression of the inherently syncretic Mestizaje experience along La Frontera.  ~ Joseph Bravo (art historian, curator & critic)”

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Jessica Diez Barroso September 22, 2022 - 10:15

This is wonderful! Laredo Center for the Arts is derp in my heart as I am a board member and to see it featured in here is just amazing! I had the pleasure of meeting Cande Aguilar at his opening and visiting the Ana Laura Hernandez exhibit as well. Both along with other artists we’ve hosted and feel very excited of the work we are doing in Laredo to keep Art at the forefront of top things to do in our city. Forming relationships with popular artists is important to us as we continue to invite them to be given tribute to by their hometown or nearby border cities.
Also, as a graduate from St. Edwards with my Major in Fine Art, to see a fellow hilltopper getting some very cool recognition here with his dimensional installation design mural. Congratulations to him! And to Glasstire, congratulations for your undeniable mission of keeping your subscribers interests at the highest scope of your information.
Thank You!

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