New Reviews
If you haven’t checked out Cassandra Emswiler’s reviews of a number of shows that opened over the past few weeks, you can do so here.
DMA Publishes Catalog of South and Southeast Asian Art
The Dallas Museum of Art announced its newest publication, the first ever catalog produced by the museum that is dedicated to its South and Southeast Asian Art collections. There are a couple of interesting things to note about this publication. First, that it is a first, and that it is the second in a series of catalogs (following 2009’s The Arts of Africa) that are systematically surveying the museum’s permanent collection.
The second thing of interest about this particular publication is how it relates to a conversation I had with DMA director Maxwell Anderson just before the holiday. In short, he identified Southeast Asia as a region of the world that could be the next locale of the museum’s Dallas Museum exchange (DMX) program. Launching last year with a historic partnership with Turkey, DMX is the exchange program that hopes to export DMA know how – technology, curatorial support – and import exhibitions and individual art works and artifacts to the DMA. Next week we’ll publish the full conversation with Anderson on FrontRow for more context and information about the program.
What TACA’s $1.3 Million Payday Could Mean to Dallas Art
TACA, or The Arts Community Alliance, released its 2013 grants this week, dolling out a record $1.3 million to North Texas Performing Arts organizations. If you want to see who scored scratch, go here. But this is why I bring it up. Last year in my visual arts year in review, I speculated about what kind of funding models could help sustain the sudden proliferation of interesting grass roots arts projects that have been spearheaded by individuals or collectives of intrepid (and fearless) artists. I think as a arts fundraising model in Dallas, TACA is one of the city’s best in so far as it matches the city’s penchant for large philanthropic giving with a conduit for putting those dollars in the hands of organizations both large and small that produce great work. For example, among this year’s TACA recipients, the Dallas Symphony received $100,000, but then the Dallas Black Dance Theatre received $70,000. Perhaps more significantly, groups like Undermain Theatre and Bruce Wood Dance Project received $27,500 and $17,500 respectively. Even Stephen Walters’ Second Thought Theatre, the dramatic equivalent (if you’ll forgive an impossibly stretched comparison) of a Oliver Francis Gallery or perhaps a Reading Room, received $17,500 from TACA. In other words, here is a means by which our city’s generosity, which always appears to be in abundance but directed towards big ticket items, can meet the city’s creative needs, which always seems to be wanting.
Of course S.C.A.B or the Homecoming Committee, or the Fort Worth Drawing Center don’t need $17,500. Actually, it would probably be a liability to give it to them (It was pointed out to me that this phrase was misleading. What I meant by it is that it is probably not necessary — and might even be a detriment — to give an organization a whole heap of money when it hasn’t had any (or much), and that it is probably a better idea to grow into a budget.) But $17,500 is also 35 $500 grants, and that kind of money could do a lot for Dallas.
This city’s patron class is somewhat preoccupied with the performing arts, and that love of performance is both a limitation and an extension of a city that understands events, if not exactly the activity of the imagination. But I think this tendency towards “event” as the expression of cultural activity has long hampered the region’s cultural sensibility. Take Skip Hollandsworth’s piece on Two X Two in this month’s Texas Monthly, the key moment in the article being when Ana Pettus slaps Maxwell Anderson’s wife Jacqueline on her buttocks and howls “Let’s get some art, girl.” Is this is Dallas art’s patron class? Maybe so, but rather than depress you, I bring it up to offer TACA as a refreshing tonic. There can be sanity in this city. We just need a way to for the visual arts – in all its rag-tag, puckish uneventfulness – to find a way to the TACA trough.
Interview With Nicolas Guagnini
Nicolas Guagnini was a visiting artist at SMU in the fall of 2012. He was also a founding member of Orchard 47, a cooperatively owned, for-profit art and event space located on the Lower East Side. SMU’s Noah Simblist interviews Guagnini below and speaks to him about the founding impetus of Orchard 47, including the decision to open a for-profit space in order to “address the market on its own terms” and to experiment with the “sorcery” of turning “creative capital into financial capital.”
Art Foundation Party
Speaking of events and funding opportunities, the Art Foundation is taking a tried and true path towards raising money towards their next project. They are throwing a party on February 9 and dangling this carrot to get people to show up: a new DJ collective called The Contempt Collective, comprised of D Magazine music critic, Christopher Mosley; artist and semigloss. Magazine editor, Sally Glass; artist and writer Cassandra Emswiler; and artist and musician Kathryn Falvo. Yes, I recognize that there are lots of connections between this one and the magazine, but still, it shows a grass roots art group trying to figure out a way to fund something that exceeds the sum of their means. The “something” is a project called Ruined State(s) No 2, a public art piece by Los Angeles-based artist Robert Andrade, who promises to plop down some take on “change” and “dominance” in that politically super-charged part of town called West Dallas. $10 at the door.
Fur Face Boy Talk and Release and Stuporbowl Sunday at The Public Trust – January 31 and February 3: 2919-Commerce St in Dallas, TX. 75226.
Brian Gibb’s Public Trust has a pair of intriguing events this weekend, the first being a talk with Fur Face Boy creator Ha Mai, who will chat about design and bringing and release some new product. Then on Sunday, the Public Trust is celebrating the all-American holiday with a Stuporbowl Sunday party, featuring bike races, food, and drink – though bring some of your own too, organizers say.
“UNIVERSAL LIMITED ART EDITIONS” by Bill Goldston, Enrique Chagoya, Amy Cutler, Carroll Dunham, Mark Fox, Ellen Gallagher, Orly Genger, Bill Jensen, Jasper Johns, Julian Lethbridge, Suzanne McClelland, Elizabeth Murray, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Ed Ruscha, James Siena, Kiki Smith, Richard Tuttle, Terry Winters and Zachary Wollard, at the Talley Dunn Gallery – February 2 : 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. 5020 Tracy Street, Dallas, Tx 75205
I have a good friend who was a printer at Gemini in Los Angeles and who spent the better part of a half-decade executing Richard Serra prints for the famously cantankerous sculptor. Actually, that’s not fair. I learned via my friend about Serra’s thinking and process, his personality, quirks, insecurities, and eye. Staring at a proof one night in at Gemini, Serra asked my friend what he thought of the print they had just made, a large piece of paper dominated by a smear of black ink. As my friend spoke about black shape, Serra cut him off: “It’s about the white space!” I’ve never looked at Serra’s sculptures the same way again.
Working in a print shop also waged war on my friend’s health. His second daughter had a brain issue (she’s fine now) that could cursorily be traced back (though not conclusively) to the chemicals used in the printmaking process. All this to say, the printmaker is a highly under appreciated craftsman in the world of art. A executor, a collaborator, a critic, a sacrificial proxy to the sometimes toxic world of making art. So its great to see a printmaker honored in an exhibition. Talley Dunn is shining the light on Bill Goldston, whose years at Universal Limited Art Edition likely has much to do with the success of the work by the notable artists who have produced prints there. For more on ULAE, go here.
Closing of “The Art of Ricardo Paniagua” by Ricardo Paniagua, at RE Gallery – February 1 : 6-9 p.m. 1717 Gould Street, Dallas, Tx 75215.
“Incrementum III” an Art Auction benefiting Alley’s House, at the Gallery At Midtown ($25.00) – February 2 : 7-11 p.m. 13331 Preston Rd, Dallas, Tx 75240
“Visions Of The Lake” by Fran McRedmond, and “19th Annual El Corazón Art Exhibition” by Diana Almand, Chandra Armstead, Ninotchka Beavers, Angie Bolling, Kimberly Bradshaw Meadows, Lori Brennan, Eunice Bridges, Kailyn Cano, J R Compton, Sam Coronado, Cynthia Daniel, Steve Danner, Brett Dyer, Reyna Flores, Jacque Forsher, Teresa E. Goldsmith, Bryan Gooding, Stephanie Guajardo, Rebecca Guy, Juan J. Hernandez, Anne Hines, Heather Hughes, Cindy Kelly, Terry Kerr, Mark King, Johanna La Grone-Headrick, Margot Lee Miller, Violet Lopez, Eli Lorenz, Roberta Masciarelli, Caleb Winter Massey, Janine Marie Maupin, Monica Moody, Terry Mosher, Jeff Murphy, Eric Joseph Pouncie, Guinn Powell, Christina Ramirez, Celine Raphael-Leygues, Lesley Rucker, Kate Schatz, Vin Schehagen, Armando Sebastian, Sabine Senft, Michelle Stroescu, Diane Torres, Samuel Torres, Karlo Henry Velazquez, Mayra Viviana Zamora, and Julie Zarate, at the Bath House Cultural Center – February 2 : 7-9 p.m. 521 East Lawther Drive, Dallas, Tx 75218.
“Scrap Can Be Beautiful” by Students at the Booker T. Washington School for the Performing and Visual Arts, at the Mary Tomas Gallery – February 2 : 5-8 p.m. 1110 Dragon Street, Dallas, Tx 75207.
“Houston Baptist University : Faculty, Student and Alumni Fine Arts Show” by Hanz Molzberger, and others, at Norwood Flynn Gallery – February 2 : 6-8 p.m. 3318 Shorecrest, Dallas, Tx 75235.
