Francesca Fuchs: Xmas Trees at Talley Dunn Gallery — Nov. 21, 6-8 p.m. 5020 Tracy St. Dallas, TX 75205.
Fuchs’ painting is quiet and unassuming. It can look homespun, like an outsider savant, or as carefully measured as an old master. Her paintings are somehow both barely there and emphatically present, taking the form of images that are ghostly and mundane, and asserting themselves into a metaphoric space between the realized and remembered. Nostalgia is a material for Fuchs, and so it’s not terribly surprising that the artist would create an entire body of work painting Christmas trees. Cropped and muted like old Polaroids, the trees offer Fuchs a perfect image to exploit her interest in the invisible complexities of everyday objects and the psychological distance between viewers and the objects of perception.
Bret Slater at Holly Johnson Gallery — Nov. 21, 6-8 p.m. 1845 E. Levee St. #100 Dallas, TX 75207.
It has been some time since we’ve seen Bret Slater around these parts. A few years ago he was one of the hottest artists going, before he decamped for his native New York. In the interim, he has shown at Morgan Lehman and Louis B. James in New York, and returns to Dallas with a new body of work. His painting has become richer, gooey-er, sweeter, and more animated. While his palette has always dabbled in the realm of graphic novels and action figure finishes, now he has veered into the playfully toxic. With gobs of glistening paint lavishly smeared on diminutive canvases, these paintings over-exert their object-ness — ironic icons that look like stoned eyeballs, digital characters, or imaginary critters from 1980s arcade games.
African Amedia (Closing) at the African American Museum of Dallas — Nov. 21, 6-9 p.m. 3536 Grand Ave. Dallas, TX 75210.
The artist Adu’s exhibition mixes video, painting, installation, and performance to explore the way African-Americans have been portrayed in media. Here’s the trailer:
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Cedars Open Studio at The Cedars — Nov. 21, 12-6 p.m. Various Locations.
Thanks to available warehouse space and favorable zoning, the Cedars has long been a home of artistic craftsman, from glass blowers to metal manufacturers to the kinds of artists who create enormous bowler hats. Ironically, that zoning is what helped to erode the historic neighborhood south of downtown, while the artistic presence is what is helping to fuel its neighborhood renaissance. In recent years, spaces like RE Gallery and And Now (which also has an opening this weekend) have classed up the ‘hood, which has become more of a neighborhood as it struggles with all the fun of gentrification. This is all a set up to make a simple point: even though the Cedars is still the funky, largely un-mapped, hip DIY community — replete with crappy streets, scary tumble down bungalows, secret coffee bars, and plenty of homeless — the days of a Cedars flush with industrial craftsmen are probably numbered. So go explore these artist studios this weekend before it’s too late.
Michael Corris: Emblems at Liliana Bloch Gallery — Nov. 21, 6 -9 p.m. 2271 Monitor St. Dallas, TX 75226.
Michael Corris’ paintings were on view last week during an opening at The Public Trust’s adjacent space, and they have been nattering at me all week. Most of the work consists of roughly sketched little scenes — painted illustrations — paired with swaths of paint, like a painter’s palette, at the bottom of the portrait oriented paper. They are simple images – a man reading a newspaper, a protester with a sign, a snippet of the Dallas skyline — but they hide little clues, tricks, and punchlines. Text is reversed, the palette is strictly monochromatic, the images make allusion to protest, bourgeois life, media or racial conflict. Corris, who was a member of the seminal art collective Art and Language, also tricks up his paintings in other ways, like additional text on the works list and a series of prints with enigmatic, but suggestive phrases.
It all suggests that Corris has found a clever way of using illustration, abstraction, and language to render a complex tangle of pressing contemporary aesthetic and political subjects — painting, abstraction, the art market, race, activism, etc. — into a subtle, provocative, and elusive works. They demand more time and reflection than this space allows. Just see the show. I know I’ll be going back.
Here are all the openings:
THURSDAY
Matthew Alexander: Light on the Landscape at Alan Barnes Fine Art — Nov. 19, 6:30-8 p.m. 3310 Fairmount Dallas, TX 75201.
Lorem Ipsum – Panel Discussion at Pollock Gallery — Nov. 19, 7 p.m. 3140 Dyer St. Dallas, TX 75205.
FRIDAY
House Party Theater presents Desire Caught by the Tail at Ash Studios — Nov. 20, 9-11 p.m. 3203 Ash Ln. Dallas, TX 75226.
SATURDAY
Keith Carter: Ghostland at PDNB — Nov. 21, 5-8 p.m. 1202 Dragon St #103, Dallas, TX 75207.
3-Artist Exhibition: Daniel Angeles, Krista Harris and Frank Morbillo at Craighead Green Gallery — Nov. 21, 5-8 p.m. 1011 Dragon St, Dallas, TX 75207.
James Gill: When the World Went POP! at Samuel Lynne Galleries — Nov. 21, 5-8 p.m. 1105 Dragon St, Dallas, TX 75207
Carle Shi: Shi Has Something to Say at Wall Gallery — Nov. 21, 5-8 p.m. 1529 Dragon St. Dallas, TX 75207.
Francesca Fuchs: Xmas Trees at Talley Dunn Gallery — Nov. 21, 6-8 p.m. 5020 Tracy St. Dallas, TX 75205.
Xiaoze Xie: Excerpts at Talley Dunn Gallery — Nov. 21, 6-8 p.m. 5020 Tracy St. Dallas, TX 75205.
Anna-Sophie Berger | Zak Kitnick at And Now — Nov. 21, 6-9 p.m. 1415 Beaumont St. Dallas, TX 75215.
Bret Slater at Holly Johnson Gallery — Nov. 21, 6-8 p.m. 1845 E. Levee St. #100 Dallas, TX 75207.
Billy Hassell: Compass at William Campbell Contemporary Art — Nov. 21, 6-8 p.m. 4935 Byers Ave. Fort Worth, TX 76107.
African Amedia (Closing) at the African American Museum of Dallas — Nov. 21, 6-9 p.m. 3536 Grand Ave. Dallas, TX 75210.
Lost Worlds at The MAC — Nov. 21, 12-6 p.m. 1601 S. Ervay St. Dallas, TX 75215.
Cedars Open Studio at The Cedars — Nov. 21, 12-6 p.m. Various Locations.
Michael Corris: Emblems at Liliana Bloch Gallery — Nov. 21, 6 -9 p.m. 2271 Monitor St. Dallas, TX 75226.
eternityest one at Conduit Gallery — Nov. 21, 6-8 p.m. 1626 Hi Line Dr. Ste. C Dallas, TX 75207.
Mysterious Muck at Circuit 12 Contemporary — Nov. 21, 6-10 p.m. 1811 E. Levee St. Dallas, TX 75207.
Jeffrey Dell + Jessica Snow at Galleri Urbane Marfa + Dallas — Nov. 21, 6-8 p.m. 2277 Monitor St. Dallas, TX 75207.
SkyPony Studio Open House at Valley View Center — Nov. 21, 6-10 p.m. 13331 Preston Rd. Dallas, TX 75240.
Harry Geffert – First Light at Cris Worley Fine Arts — Nov. 21, 6-8 p.m. 1845 Levee St. #110 Dallas, TX 75207.
Peggy Wauters: Tales from the Misty Fields at Ro2 Art — Nov. 21, 7-10 p.m. 110 N. Akard Dallas, TX 75201.
