Kettle Art Gallery Moving
As you may have read elsewhere this week, Frank Campagna’s Kettle Art is picking up its roots and moving to another neighborhood after a series of programs that will mark the closing of the Deep Ellum space. The idea of Campagna’s gallery in a neighborhood other than Deep Ellum feels a little like learning that Martin Scorcese just up and moved to Denver. I can’t quite wrap my head around it. Recently, Kettle Art was mentioned in the Art Places report that cited a composite Dallas neighborhood called Deep-Arts-DistrExpo-Main Street as one of the nation’s best spots of creative activity. Let’s hope Campagna helps keep the city’s score stable by at least relocating within that centrally-located neighbor-hub. In the meantime, here’s the rundown of what’s planned for the last few months.
Dallas Art Fair at Outsider Art Fair
The Outsider Art Fair took place in New York last weekend, and it was rather enthusiastically reviewed by a number of critics, including Jerry Saltz, who used the opportunity to scold the institutions for confining “outsiders” to the outside. I’m not going to get into that squabble, but I did want to note that the Dallas Art Fair’s Chris Byrne was among the exhibitors at the fair. If you are looking for some insight on just what aspect of Byrne’s aesthetic taste gives the Dallas Art Fair what he likes to call its “twang,” take a look at th fantastic forensic mock-ups by Frank Bender, a self-taught sculptor whom Byrne showed in New York.
Oliver Francis Wants an Intern
Via OFG:
“Imagine regular open hours at OFG>>> what a wonderful world that would B.”
If you’re interested, contact [email protected].
Art Featuring Missing Girl Finds Girl’s Family
Here’s a moving story that comes out of a recent exhibition at 500x. Artists Chancellor Page and Bryan Scott recently opened a show featuring a series of portraits adopted from the images of a girl who disappeared in 1974. The picture of one of the girls was featured on the gallery press release. Somehow that information wound up making its way to the parents of the missing girl, who decided to go to the opening:
Rusty, his wife Terri and daughter Shannon drove from Ft. Worth through the blinding rainstorm to attend the 500x opening reception in Dallas. A second serendipitous moment occurred when Rusty introduced himself as the brother of the missing girl in the image. Close to tears, the family and artists hugged. The Trlica family was touched that Rachel’s memory was being kept alive.
Page and Scott’s series is about the forgotten, questioning how we choose to remember, how we achieve closure with both personal and collective loss and how we reconcile ourselves with trauma thus continuing to live our lives.
Rusty Trlica maintains a website www.missingtrio.com and keeps his sister’s memory alive. He and the artists will keep in close contact. Art does have the ability to build community, generate awareness and foster healing.
Openings:
“paintings are objects… and possibly people” by Arthur Pena, at RE Gallery – February 8 : 6-10 p.m. 1717 Gould Street, Dallas, Tx 75215
Arthur Pena’s latest body of work, which will be on view in a solo show at RE Gallery, marks a subtle departure from the last time we saw his pieces en masse in DFW at Oliver Francis Gallery. The leather and bleached-cloth scraps, crudely stitched together and wrapped around the stretcher bars, have evolved into a series that employs a broader spectrum of materials, while still corralling studio bric-a-brac into canvas-bound concoctions. Canvas is used in Pena’s work not so much as a base or surface, but rather as a construction material. He imprints canvas texture on plaster that is poured between stretcher bars, or tears off strips of canvas from stretcher bars and reapplies them, along with the staples, so that the metal staples stick up off the edge of frame, creating a jagged edge that looks like something out of Hellraiser. In other pieces, canvas is entirely absent, as with one comprised of wooden edging that forms a frame that circles in on itself — or another, in which a shop towel is pinned at the corners to rectangular stretcher bars, hanging over the vacant “painting” space like a veil.
These trompe-l’oeils – the canvas imprinting, the wooden vortex, the shop towel diorama – do not suggest the facsimile so much as call attention to the thing itself as constructed object. Thus Pena blends painting and sculpture in an intriguing way, maintaining the integrity of the experience of the autonomous object hung on the wall while each work finds its composition rooted in composite construction – a point driven home, if you’ll pardon the pun, by all the exposed nails, screws, and staples.
In addition to their positioning on the wall, scale is also key to the work’s success. I wonder if these pieces would possess the same kind of richness of personality if they were wall-sized. Pena says he scales his pieces to familiar objects – the width of his shoulders, a doubling of sextupling of the dimensions of a VHS cassette – information you don’t necessarily need to bring to the work because the effect of size is innate to the paintings. And yet, when in one of his “Attempts,” as Pena titles all of his paintings, unspooled video cassette tape is stuffed behind a wall of clear tape, some of those VHS-era pop references rush to the surface. Maybe Frankenstein is the wrong character; I began to think of Chunk, that incarcerated, chocolate-fiending and deeply empathetic misfit in Goonies. “Baby Ruth!”
SUSAN/ELIZABETH at Goss-Michael Foundation – February 8 6-9 p.m.1405 Turtle Creek Blvd. Dallas ,TX 75207
The opening of the first ever New Practices exhibition at Goss-Michael coincides this week with the launch party for the second edition of Semigloss, the Sally Glass-driven artist magazine. The exhibition includes a collection of female artists (based in New York, Puerto Rico, and Dallas), whose work, the exhibition materials suggest, explores “the feminine and feminine relationships.” That curatorial interest stems from one of the curatorial partners in the exhibition, (wo)manitorial, an online art space whose (wo)manifesto explains that they are feminists who identify with feminism after they identify with their femininity.
It’s a bit of a tongue-twister, but as a curatorial project, it makes an interesting counterpoint to the Jefferey Grove-curated exhibition, Difference?, that is up for one more month at the Dallas Museum of Art. Putting aside the awkward question mark title, Grove’s exhibit, in essence just a rehanging of works from the collection by great female artists, operates under a straight-forward, though open-ended conceit: is art by women necessarily feminine, is there an artistic voice that expresses itself as feminine without necessarily being engaged in femininity, or is there gender neutrality with regards to the character of certain artistic practices?
Phenomenon at the Dallas Contemporary – February 9: 9 p.m. – midnight 161 Glass St. Dallas, TX 75207.
The Dallas Contemporary’s annual Phenomenon fundraiser takes place Saturday, and if you’ve been sitting on the opportunity to check out the new installations over there, then you’re in luck: Saturday’s event sounds like the perfect setting for DZINE’s “excessive and exuberant Kustom Kulture.” Alongside the work, the event will feature music by legendary house DJ Derrick Carter and a visit by Lowrider Car Clubs of Dallas.
And speaking of recent goings on at the Contemporary, the latest exhibition of Texas-based video artists, Los Americanos, has expanded outside of the museum’s Design District and into Victory Plaza, where the outdoor jumbo screens will display some of the works. Click here for more information on that, and here for times when you can see the art at Victory.
Ken Price Sculpture: A Retrospective at the Nasher Sculpture Center — Feb 9-May 12 2001 Flora St. Dallas, TX 75201.
We’ll be writing about Price’s show, which opens this week on the second leg of its three-leg, LA-Dallas-NY tour, but there are a couple of things to point out. Jerome Weeks has a nice take on the show over on Art & Seek, which includes a conversation with Dave Hickey, who wrote a catalog essay for the Price show. Hickey and Price used to surf near each other growing up in California, though they only discovered that coincidence later in life.
There is, of course, a disheartening element to this show, and that’s the very tangible impact Museum Tower is having on the Nasher’s exhibition. That the museum has been forced to cover its roof in order to protect Price’s sculptures from the Museum Tower glare is travesty enough, but the real depressing aspect is the impression that the implications of the condo development – that a skyscraper has robbed a museum of its defining and most elevating attribute, its light – is a point entirely lost on those who make up one side of the debate on what to do about the Nasher. As the Dallas Morning News reported earlier in the week, in all likelihood this is headed towards litigation.
“Notes on the Movement” and “Black Artists & The WPA” curated by Anthony Hopkins at the South Dallas Cultural Center – February 9- March 2 3400 S. Fitzhugh Ave. Dallas, TX 75210.
UPDATE: The “Notes on the Movement” exhibition has been pushed back to Feb. 21 and “Black Artists & the WPA” has been canceled. Really too bad.
Two exhibitions at the South Dallas Cultural Center this month attach themselves to specific moments in history. The first, “Notes on the Movement,” is an examination of the legacy of the Civil Rights movement, which will include a variety of artist installations as well as a series of events that aim to assess the impact of the Civil Rights Movement on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom.
The second exhibition, “Black Artists & The WPA,” takes as its touchstone a moment a few decades earlier, during the Great Depression, and gathers together the work of artists, muralists and painters, who were commissioned by the Works Projects Administration in the 1930s. Together, the two shows present an interesting diptych, directly relating the struggle for equal liberty through Civil Rights with the opportunity to find readily available and humane labor.
All-Time Lotion at The Reading Room – February 9: 6-9 p.m. 3715 Parry Avenue, Dallas, TX 75226.
Danielle Avram Morgan, who just left as manager of The Power Station, and photographer Kevin Todora, guest curate the small Expo Park space with the work of Atlanta-based performance artist and photographer Maury Gortemiller. Gortemiller is interested in the “Janus-faced” aspects of photography – Janus referring to the double-faced Roman god, the namesake of “January,” and a figure who presides over ideas of transitions and transformations, beginnings and ends, past and future. In this context, Gortemiller’s work utilizes the documentary quality of photography – the capturing of the image of the thing as it appears before the lens – and the creative, theatrical elements of performance to produce images that beguile and transfix. On February 23, Gortemiller will give a talk and performance that focuses on his Competitive Apnea project, which documents his pursuit of the fringe-sport of holding one’s breath underwater for long periods of time.
Altered States: An art-party fundraiser by The Art Foundation at The Old Tornado Bus repair station – February 9: 8-11 p.m., 3016 Gulden Lane, Dallas, TX 75212.
As we mentioned last week, The Art Foundation is hosting an event to raise money for a project that will take place at some point in West Dallas. Robert Andrade is the commissioned artist, or rather, the almost-commissioned. Think of this as a 2008-style Kickstarter campaign, that is, a micro-fundraiser in which you actually have to put on pants and show up. I understand there may be some antics involved, in addition to the music by a couple of FrontRow contributors and others, to keep you amused after you fork over your ten bucks.
This week’s lecture:
Gary Simmons at Tuesdays at the Modern at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth — Feb 12: 7 p.m. 3200 Darnell St. Fort Worth, TX 76107.
The Tuesday at the Modern lecture series returns this coming week with a talk by Gary Simmons. If you haven’t yet read Cassandra Emswiler’s review of Simmons’ Focus show at the Modern, do so here.
Other openings:
“Systems and Solutions” by Bernardo Cantu, Chance Dunlap, Linda Dee Guy, Terry Hays, and Kathy Robinson-Hays, at ‘Visit Addison!‘ – February 7: 6-8 p.m. 5100 Belt Line Road, Suite 400, Dallas, Tx 75254.
“Synesthesia “UИ1ØИ_ØF_ŦĦΞ_SΞИSΞS” at WAAS Gallery – February 7: 7-11:30 p.m. 2722 Logan St. Dallas, TX 75215.
“The Journey To Izmir With New Hope” by Robb Conover, at Cafe Izmir – February 7: 7-9 p.m. 3711 Greenville Ave., Dallas, Tx 75206.
“University Of Dallas 2013 Regional Juried Ceramic Competition” at the University of Dallas Haggerty Gallery – February 8 : 6:30-8:30 p.m. 1845 East Northgate Drive, Irving, Tx 75062.
“Diamonds and Stillet”O”s” by Omar Angel Perez and Martha Wilkinson, at Ilume Gallerie – February 8-9: 7-10 p.m. 4123 Cedar Springs, Suite 107, Dallas, Tx 75219.
“Divine Designs Art Exhibit” by Ann DeRulle, at the Marshall-McPhail Gallery – February 9: 1-5 p.m. 11450 Sprowles Street, Dallas, Tx 75229.
“The Piazza Valentina Marketplace” by Sharon Shero & Bob Quaglia, at 960 Dragon Street – February 9 : 11 a.m.- 5 p.m. 960 Dragon Street, Dallas, Tx 75207.
“Artist Talks at 1415 Slocum” by Trey Egan and David McGlothlin, at Cris Worley Fine Arts and Alan Simmons Fine Art – February 9: 3-5 p.m. 1415 Slocum Street, Suite 104 & 105, Dallas, Tx 75207.
“Frederick Hart (1943 – 1999)” by Madeline Kisting, author of Frederick Hart’s books, and Lindy Hart, the author’s wife, at the Southwest Gallery – February 9 : 1-5 p.m. 4500 Sigma Road, Dallas, Tx 75244.
“LOVE” by Angela DeAnda, A. Kaye, KeLaine Kvale, Joe Field, Ernie Benton, Jenny Keller, Betsy Daves Bass, Angel Rogers, Karen Thompson, Sandra Brinker, VET, Diana Chase, Celine Raphael-Leygues, John Carpenter, Carmen Lax-Ray, Walter Ray, Allison Wooten, Grace Keller Scotch, Jan Partin, Andie Comini, Cynthia Daniel, Fancy Tanner, Hamutal Michaeli, Julie Mortillaro, Julie Pitman, Randy Ross, and Marilee Vergati-Haynes, at the TVAA Downtown Gallery – February 10 : 2-4 p.m. Plaza of the Americas, Suite G207, 700 N Pearl, Dallas, Tx 75201.
