The 2011 Texas Biennial kicked-off in Austin, Houston, and San Antonio (the three venue-hosting cities) on April 9, but this weekend the state-wide art exhibition comes to Dallas with a series of shows opening at the biennial’s participating organizations.
The first is an exhibition at the office-sized Free Museum of Dallas, which will open an intriguing text and visual dialogue – nine Texas artists creating art works inspired by selections from Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges’ book Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War, or Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. From the release:
These publications present powerful critiques of US society and foreign policy in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001. Through their imaginative and often oblique response to the analyses presented in these books, these Texas artists demonstrate the many ways in which image and text can interact above and beyond a conventional understanding of illustration.
The second show is the Gun and Knife Show at Centraltrak, which received a preview during the Suite Art Fair. ICentraltrak’s show, a tongue-in-cheek send-off the infamous gun shows that dot the state nearly every weekend, features sculptural work that takes co-opts the iconic forms of America’s favorite toy to amusing and sardonic effect. For more on that show, check out the piece Jerome Weeks’s packs over on Art & Seek.
Finally, perhaps my favorite of the local participating organizations is the RJP Nomadic Gallery, the brainchild of Richland College’s Ryder Richards, Lubbock’s Jonathan Whitfill, and Piotr Chizinski. In the video below, you can see how their gallery is a pop-up space in as literal a way possible. The RJP showed in Austin for the opening of the Biennial. However, there’s no word yet on their next event.
