“In Plain Sight” at McClain Gallery
In Plain Sight at McClain Gallery, organized by Aaron Parazette, is an exhibition of 40 paintings by 40 Houston artists. Its essential premise, apart from a group photo-op, is that painting is alive and well, and the reports of its demise have been greatly exaggerated. Its thematic heft—principally offered by Frances Colpitt’s catalogue essay—follows [...]
MATCH Catches Fire: Former IAC Promised $6.75 Million in Funding for Houston Midtown Arts and Theater Center
The MATCH (formerly the Independent Arts Collaborative), has received a $750,000 grant from the Fondren Foundation, and has been promised $6 million from the Houston Endowment Inc. “Beyond grateful,” the nascent arts space also announced Mid-Main First Thursday on October 4, in which neighborhood restaurants, with an eye on future theater crowds, will donate part [...]
Sisyphean Marketing: Museum Tower’s Letter to Dallas
Dallas’ controversial Museum Tower began its uphill marketing struggle on Friday, with an open letter to “to our future residents, neighbors, art lovers and citizens of Dallas” in the Dallas Morning News. In the letter, the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System, the Tower’s owner, acknowledges the Tower’s glare problems saying, “it’s not uncommon for [...]
On Art, Economic Impact, and the Dark Side of Free Market Capitalism
Three things: 1. Amid the brouhaha following Paul Schimmel’s departure from MoCA this summer, Eli Broad was quoted in the LA Times as estimating the value of MoCA’s exhibits by the cost per attendee: Total cost of exhibition ÷ Number of attendees = cost per attendee Broad complained that some of MoCA’s shows had cost over $100 [...]
Feedback: Sonic Youth’s “The Sprawl.”
1988 was a rotten time to be a teenager. During the Reagan-Bush era, you had to put in a lot of work to hear something other than Bon Jovi. There was no internet, and the indie revolution in film and music and fashion and new media was still years away. A girl interested in [...]
TX Contemporary Spawns First Spin-Off: Pan Art Fair Set for Embassy Suites in Downtown Houston – Book Now!
Houston art blogger Robert Boyd of The Great God Pan is Dead is organizing his own art fair to coincide with the Texas Contemporary Art Fair on the weekend of Oct 18-21. The Pan Art Fair will be held in a suite at the Embassy Suites in downtown Houston, a hop skip and a jump [...]
A funny thing happened on the way to everywhere . . .
Photography’s long-sought after decisive moment is happening more and more online, as meta-photographers aim their sensitivities at vast databases of machine-collected imagery from Google and other sources. In The Nine Eyes of Google Street View, a review of Jon Rafman’s recent exhibition at London’s Saatchi Gallery, Marco Bohr equates the recognition of significant images in [...]
Art Star Dark Knight Returns: Flooding in Bushwick Basement
Texas legend (and sometime Glasstire contributor) Mark Flood, having just finished successful and controversial gallery showings in Manhattan, is set to take over a Bushwick basement, inaugurating the new Grimm Schultz Gallery at 313 Linden St, Studio B, Brooklyn, a former dogfighting venue. The all-blacklight exhibition of ultraviolet paintings opens October 5th. And there’s a [...]
New York Enacts New Art Gallery Anti-Sleaze Law
Michael Miller reports in Gallerist NY that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has signed a bill that makes it a misdemeanor for an art dealer to use funds owed to an artist from the sale of an artwork to pay for gallery operating expenses and creditors. The NY State Senate passed the bill in June, and Gov. [...]
Yvonne Domenge outdoor sculpture may be moved to Fort Worth
Mexican artist Yvonne Domenge‘s 13-foot abstracted yellow sphere, “Tabachin Ribbon”, could be heading to Fort Worth in the next few weeks. For the last year and a half, the carbon steel sculpture has been on temporary display at Chicago’s Millennium Park, along with three other outdoor sculptures by Domenge. The artist requested that when the [...]
“Mimi Kato: One Ordinary Day of an Ordinary Town” at Conduit Gallery
One Ordinary Day of an Ordinary Town, Mimi Kato’s current exhibition on view at Conduit Gallery, is a continuation of the hybrid digital landscapes she first presented at ArtPace in 2009. Kato takes subject matter and format from traditional Japanese art history and then creates stylized illustrations within the context of her contemporary world. [...]
A Study in Contrasts: Paul Thomas Anderson and Laurie Anderson
I ended my weekend by going to see the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie The Master. The film is broadly about a Scientology-like group in post-war America who believe, through processing, that one can uncover past lives thereby healing deep-seated pains. It’s essentially a story about control—who has it and who doesn’t. Anderson illustrates this [...]
Orange Show Announces Mother of All Garage Sales Saturday Sept 29
Houston’s famed folk art envoronment has a famed warehouse, full of stuff that they’ve been storing for many years, including building materials, warehouse equpment, tools, scrap metal, potential art supplies, gee gaws and incredible odds and ends. On Saturday, September 29 from 9am- 2pm they’re opening the doors to diggers, hoping to cleaning out the [...]
Register Now! Community Arts Conference Coming to Dallas in November
The National Guild for Community Arts Education, a 75 year old grantmaking and advocacy org, will be holding their annual conference in Dallas on November 14-17. The meet-up provides professional development and networking opportunities for staff, faculty, trustees, and teaching artists at more than 350+ arts education organizations across the country. The early (discount) registration [...]
Glasstire Texas Auction Announces Unbelievable Roster of Artists-Preview October 3!
Mark your calendar for Glasstire’s first annual Texas Auction! On Friday, November 2 from 6-9pm, Sara Friedlander a vice oresidnet at Christie’s, New York, will auction off a bucket of art from a truly outstanding collection of Texas contemporary artists to benefit the award-winning, decade-old Texas art website. The $100 a ticket event promises to [...]
‘Gallery Girl’ on “Gallery Girls,” Episode 6
This week I had the pleasure of watching ‘Gallery Girls’ with my parents. Any hope I had that they might find the show entertaining was dashed when the credits started rolling. Immediately, my dad asked, “Is it over?” and when I replied that yes that is usually what credits mean he blurted out, “OH THANK [...]
Glenn Bailey Fotofest’s New Literacy Through Photography Manager
Arts educator Glenn Bailey has joined Fotofest as the new manager of their acclaimed Literacy Through Photography program. Bailey, who has put in five years in the nonprofit sector in Pittsburgh and in Washington D.C. where he did school outreach for the Kennedy Center, and has a BFA in in Digital Arts and Photography from [...]
“Champion” Champions Local Film Industry in San Antonio with Help of City’s First $25,000 Local Filmmakers Grant
The first $25,000 Local Filmmakers Grant from the San Antonio Film Commission has been awarded to the feature-length family drama “Champion,” Directed by Kevin and Robin Nations and shot at the Land Heritage Institute on the south side of San Antonio. Actor Lance Henriksen, who has “played a lot of good guys and bad guys” [...]
Houston Fine Art Fair Exceeds Some Expectations
According to the official press release, the second annual Houston Fine Art Fair (HFAF) exceeded its organizer’s expectations: “12,000 attended, millions of dollars changed hands. Over 2,000 works, from 500 respected artists, were offered from 80 galleries representing 12 countries and 34 cities.” Despite more mixed, and less fact-filled anecdotes about the fair’s performance from [...]
Oh snap! SNaFu at Oliver Francis Gallery
Despite all that’s wrong in this society it’s the responsibility of the new artists to occur. The explanation that the times and the society are bad is pointless. Probably they’ve always been and the issue is whether too bad or a little better. The reason for doing nothing is always wrong. There is also the [...]
