Review

Live is mixed with staged to explore rehearsal, mimicry, and self-representation in an immersive, theatrical ambience.

Crystals, brain scans, gems, abandoned swimming pools, and Antarctica are just a few things Biggs grapples with at the Blaffer Art Museum.

This Friday, Houston audiences have the rare opportunity to journey into the nocturnal underworld of late-60s Tokyo in the experimental queer film that influenced Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange.

Paul Kremer of Great Art in Ugly Rooms has been working on making his art less virtual. Now, under Mark Flood's tutelage, he's getting his hands dirty: painting, and painting big.

Together the two shows seem to constitute a kind of zeitgeist. The meaning comes through and the mystery remains intact.

The show is a colorful whirl of precise graphic drawings, and maybe it’s my deep aversion to trendy shapes and colors, but these works feel too commercial.

Shouting at the gate attracted the attention of the artists Heath West and Michael Bhichitkul, who cranked open the portcullis and let me in.

Two artists collaboate on a two-layer cake of significance, ripe for icing.

Japan was in full-blown post-nuclear Godzilla mode during these years, and while Motonaga is more subtle than that, these paintings aren’t sweet.

I asked Robert Earl Keen why he loves the movie. He immediately cited its understatement. “So much is left to the audience’s imagination. It allows one to feel like a participant.”

Whether the work is silent or screaming, it is clear that co-curators Max Fields and Joe Joe Orangias want us to engage with performance from women.

Through this snapshot of his oeuvre to date, Falsetta’s trajectory feels much like his paintings: a mixture of planned and spontaneous moves.

Walking through the show is a distinctive physical experience. One has to move around treacherous-looking sculpture and be buzzed out by the odd and inescapable lighting.

Signals is an interactive video installation where you send messages to the artist via Morse code. I was tempted to just call him.

A quirky set of domestic snapshots blotted out with Jello, goo, fat, or baby teeth. These tactile, psychological fillers could merely be humorous play, but tend to read as potentially profound and personal.

Storm has a distinct visual language with which he interprets his misery. His sense of ironic martyrdom helps things along.

Full of painterly witticisms, Kerl's work demonstrates the hallmarks of good painting: an acknowledgement of its history and a formal playfulness.

Sortor becomes a producer of meaning instead of just a passive consumer. Her work here shows the pleasure of improvisation. 

Tomlinson carries a notebook with him at all times to capture the “cognitive dandruff” and “exfoliations” of his mind, a humble and lyrical way of describing the permutations of an active and prolific thinker.

After the closing of so many art spaces in Austin in the last couple of years, perhaps it’s a sign of health that shows like Tennison’s can exist at a place like ATM.