Mirrors and Plexiglass: Recent Exhibitions in Dallas and Fort Worth

I’ll be Your Mirror at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, February 12 – April 30, 2023

There are many things to say about this show, but I’ll be brief: You would be hard-pressed to find another exhibition that features this much work in general, let alone this much work powered by electricity. The Modern has done a well-intentioned job at positioning a sort of chronology of the computer screen in art (the exhibition is organized by nine telematic “themes”); you will do a lot of staring at these screens, whether they display looping videos of an artist staring back (Petra Cortright), or live software reinterpreting your own visage (Huntrezz Janos). You will see computers and phones smashed, hundreds of thousands of photos, chatbots, and virtual karaoke. Sounds like a day in the life. 

Some of the work featured here can be referred to as “post-internet.” It seems that such an age and a term can only be used after an exhibition like this, where the different strategies employed in technologically connected, time-based, and digital media has been explored through decades, each one compounding on the last.

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CTRL+X: Composed/desCompuestos at Arts Fort Worth, March 3 – April 29, 2023

The graphic work (by Cande Aguilar) and the assemblage sets (by Gil Rocha) in this show echo the hardscrabble maneuvers of the artists in Texas. Having seen Rocha’s Laredo studio in January, it is gratifying to have his various scraps of electric signs, wooden cast offs, and metal wheels neatly collected into discrete works at Arts Fort Worth. Fellow Laredo resident Maritza Bautista curated both Aguilar and Rocha for this showing, which happens to be on view at the same time as Soy de Tejas, a survey exhibition of Latinx art at Centro de Artes in San Antonio.

The exhibition statement for Ctrl+X says that the two artists shown here have made use of found materials in response to Laredo’s condition as a place “Where few to no museums or galleries exist.” While I’m grateful to see this work here, where it has lighting, space, and viewership befitting its craft, the exhibition merely scratches the surface of what’s back home in the studio.

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Jay Chung: Reverberation at Arts Fort Worth, March 3 – April 29, 2023

Chung’s paintings offer a colorful perspective with figures that appear as apparitions, time warps, or glitches in the matrix, set in different scenes such as forest fires, pastoral settings, and evening gardens. Chung’s approach is playful and imaginative, and the paintings do not fall into the category of portrait work, but instead portray the brewing potentiality of existence. The multiple kinds of brushstrokes in his constantly transforming figures contrast with his carefully rendered backgrounds.

The work is centered around the human being and their inner self. The artist has traveled to refugee camps on volunteer trips in Greece and Bangladesh, spending up to three months at a time. When he returns, he chooses not to portray the harshness of the refugee camp experience, but instead finds solace in the idea that everything is energy, including the human spirit.

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Loring Taoka: Vs at Galleri Urbane, April 1 – May 6, 2023

Loring Taoka has returned to the gallery that showed their first plexiglass paintings, this time with a couple surprises. There are white-on-white impasto paintings in acrylic on birch panels, which are more stout than Taoka’s thin, clear paintings of geometric forms. Also shown are a series of Acid Tongue works, which are brightly colored fragments painted in gouache on paper. I enjoy seeing Taoka pursue the painting of transparent plastic, where his exploration of backlit color reveals wondrous results. Additionally, I appreciate the intervention of wood panel and paper here, which grounds Taoka’s work in abstraction to traditional media. Be sure to visit.

William Sarradet is the Assistant Editor for Glasstire.