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Visual Arts

This Week’s Visual Art: Dec 13-16: Gallery Openings, News, Reviews, and More

Toping our weekly roundup: CentralTrak and The Art Foundation host two must-see lectures tonight. Plus a fundraiser at Ro2 and Favio Moreno at the Public Trust.
By Peter Simek |
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Artist talk with Richard Patterson and Shaun “El C”Leonardo + closing reception for The Art Foundation’s exhibition twain at Grey Matters Gallery – December 13: 6-8:30 p.m. 113 N. Haskell Ave. Dallas, TX, 75226.

Twain, the latest project by The Art Foundation, brings together a collection of artists operating under alter-egos, pseudonyms, or assumed names, which creates a show that is full of tension, primarily involving the relationship between authorship and meaning. Work here includes absurdist sculpture, found and “activated” objects, video, text, and photography, and all of it takes the ground out from under the viewer with roguish plays off title cards, exterior fictions that inform the objects, and a recurring challenge to the idea that a work of art stands on its own. It is a show not merely driven by ideas, but, by curatorial design, tries to subvert role of biography and product in the conception of the art object. By doing so, twain back-handedly provides these aspects of the art object with a kind of screaming presence.

All of this (and likely much more) will be discussed this evening with Richard Patterson, an artist whose work is included in the exhibition under two alter-egos, as well as Shaun El C. Leonardo, whose work isn’t in the show, but whose assumed persona-driven performance pieces offer an interesting take on the role of the alter-ego in artistic practice. I’ll be moderating, and given the artists involved, I use that word “moderation” very loosely. I expect my role to be something closer to bull rider.

As an intro to Leonardo, here is a feature from PS1’s Studio Visit series.

 

NEXT TOPIC: CentralTrak Talk Series with “Co- Re-Creating Spaces” curators and artist at CentralTrak – December 13: 7 p.m. 800 Exposition Ave., Dallas, TX 75226.

There’s a bit of a conversational conflict tonight, unfortunately, with the twain panel mentioned above overlapping with this gallery talk that includes the curators and artists involved in another interesting exhibition currently up in Dallas, “Co Re-Creating Spaces.” The panel promises to discuss the exhibition as well as larger questions raised by the exhibition regarding systems and spaces and the role of the artist in the conceptualization, creation, and re-creation of space. The panel will include:  Morehshin Allahyari, Kristen Cochran, Cassandra Emswiler, Greg Metz, Karen Weiner, and Michael Corris, together with curators Carolyn Sortor and Mike Morris, moderated by Mona Kasra.

 

F@#K Brain Cancer – Special Exhibition and Silent Auction Fundraiser for Patrick Short” by Anne Albagli, Lynne Allen, Jesse Morgan Barnett, Jennifer Caine, Dana Clancy, Kristen Cochran, Hannah Cole, Deborah Cornell, Matthew Cusick, Gabriel Dawe, Erika Duque, Carolina Duque, Sarah Edwards, Cassandra Emswiler, Gary Farrelly, Leah Foster, Michael Garguilo, Joshua Goode, Jill Grimes, Monica Gunderson, Rachel Hellman, Elizabeth Livingston, Lindsay McCulloch, Lydia Musco, Dushko Petrovich, Teresa Rafidi, Harold Reddicliffe, Richard Raiselis, Ryder Richards, Richard Ryan, Lucia Simek, Lisa Townley, Andrew Douglas Underwood, Bartek Walicki, and Andrew Wick, at Ro2 Art Downtown Projects – December 14: 7-9 p.m. 110 North Akard, Dallas, Tx 75202.

For those who aren’t familiar with Patrick Short, the artist was the driving force behind Guerilla Arts, an artist-run exhibition space that lived in a dinged up building on Haskell for a brief time in 2010. We named that space best new gallery in 2011, right as it shuttered (here’s Joshua Goode’s obit).

At the time, the success and failures of the Guerilla Arts space prompted a variety of conversations about the need for a more deliberate effort on the part of artists to show their own work and create their own “scene.” This may seem like an intuitive role for artists, but in Dallas, as Creative Time observed, it was (and is) still an uphill battle. Since the folding of Guerilla Arts, we have seen an increased number of pop-up shows, artist run spaces, and other such efforts, and in a way, this latest surge in homespun art activity can trace its way back through Short’s space, directly or indirectly, consciously or not.

Short was diagnosed with brain cancer earlier this year, a sudden and staggering shock to those who knew him. Joshua Goode has helped organize this fundraiser show at Ro2, which will raise money for Short’s continued battle with the disease. The strong group of artists who have submitted work to the exhibition is a worthy tribute.

 

“WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS” by Favio Moreno, at The Public Trust – December 15 : 6-9 p.m. 2919-C Commerce Street, Dallas, Tx 75226.

The Bodega Negra’s Favio Moreno has his first solo exhibition at Brian Gibbs gallery. Moreno’s vibrant and colorful paintings possess a strong graphic sensibility that blends a subversive mix of religious iconography and street sensibility, forcing themes of life and death and ecstasy to the surface. In The Public Trust’s small front room, graffiti collective Sour Grapes has been given carte blanche to turn the gallery’s shop into a Sour Grapes store, and they will be selling prints, t-shirts, zines, stickers, buttons, pinatas, and more.

 

Ash Fridays at Ash Studios — December 14: 9 p.m. – 4 a.m. 3203 Ash Lane, Dallas, Texas 75226.

We may have mentioned this last week, but Ash Studios is hosting parties every Friday until the end of the year. I just think that’s a noble idea.

 

Here are all the openings:

“John Cobb: Chapel Installation and Landscape Paintings” by John Cobb, and “Laurie Hickman Cox: Figure It Out” by Laurie Hickman Cox, at the Valley House Gallery & Sculpture Center – December 12: 6-8:30 p.m. 6616 Spring Valley Road (between Preston and Hillcrest), Dallas, Tx 75254.

“A Christmas Event with Driven Magazine” by Bradley Tomberlin and Ron Contary, at WAAS Gallery – December 12 : 7:00 PM – 11:00 p.m. 2722 Logan Street, Dallas, Tx 75215.

“Downtown Face to Face : Portraits by Gene Dillard and Gabrielle Pruitt” at the Art Centre of Plano – December 14 : 6- 9 p.m. 901 18th Street, Plano, Tx 75074.

“Holiday Party” at Art Hotel Gallery – December 15: 7-9 p.m. 1112 South Akard, Dallas, Tx 75215.

“Pop-Out Shop” at the Dallas Contemporary – December 15: 11-3 p.m. 161 Glass Street, Dallas, Tx 75207.

“Holiday Bazaar” by the Texas Visual Arts Association – December 16: 2-4 p.m. 700 N. Pearl Street, Suite G207 Dallas, Tx 75201.

Image: Favio Moreno, The Optimist, 2012. (detail) acrylic on panel, 20 x 20 in. (via)

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