For the past four decades, the Dallas Contemporary has acted as the city’s art world provocateur. Its art is often more exciting, sexy, and confrontational than any other institution in town. The museum has, in fact, continuously worked against becoming “institutionalized.” Perhaps that’s why it’s been able to create a dialogue that extends beyond the confines of the art world.
“The museum has been a platform for contemporary art discourse in Dallas. Dallas Contemporary has always been artist focused and the art is the reason people visit – no art world politics or institutional baggage,” says executive director Peter Doroshenko.
The Contemporary has never shied away from relevant social and political conversation. If it’s on your mind, it’s most likely reflected on the walls of the museum. Last year, Pia Camil’s Bara, Bara, Bara contemplated consumerism and globalization. McDermott & McGough’s I’ve Seen The Future And I’m Not Going explored gay identity and cultural repression. Kiki Smith’s Mortal dealt with the perennial problem of life itself. Doroshenko cites these, as well as exhibitions by Julian Schnabel, Richard Phillips, Adriana Varejão, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, and Bruce Weber as definitive moments in the museum’s history.
“[Those] exhibitions have pushed the museum and our visitors in new directions,” he says. “The ability to work with these major artists on their bespoke exhibitions at such large scales were important decisive moments for the Contemporary.”
It’s been pushing things forward for a while now; helping Dallas shed its stuffy reputation in exchange for a cultural renaissance which is just beginning to come to fruition.
“Outside of New York or Los Angeles, Dallas has the most sophisticated contemporary art collector base in the country … Every contemporary art heat-seeker wants to visit the city and experience the burn. Part of the city’s contemporary art excitement is Dallas Contemporary’s commitment to pushing all envelopes and perceptions about what contemporary art is,” says Doroshenko. “Playing it safe or editing current local or global artistic issues is wonderful for sleepy, conservative, spaces. That’s just not part of Dallas Contemporary’s DNA.”
Entering its fourth decade, the museum’s fall 2018 exhibitions are no exception. The trio – Horizons by Ian Davenport, Ceramics, Knots, Thoughts, Scraps by Ghada Amer, and Parliament by Boris Mikhailov – is as thoughtful as you’d expect.
Ian Davenport, Detail of Spring (Bluebonnet), 2018, Dallas Contemporary. Courtesy of Dallas Contemporary. Photo by Kevin Todora.
Ian Davenport’s exhibition is the easiest to digest, and probably the most likable. His abstractions color the galleries with vivid spills, tip-toeing the line (or horizon) where creative control meets chance. Paint streaks down the canvas like lines in a barcode and swirls in rainbow pools on the floor. The pieces mostly speak to Davenport’s process.
Boris Mikhailov’s Parliament is less easy to grasp – it is purposefully disorienting, actually. The works are digitally photographed images of European parliamentary debates from television, which the artist manipulated and fractured to be unrecognizable. The series is a commentary on the era of post-truth politics and the 24-hour news cycle; the jumbled images represent the confusion and distrust felt in today’s political climate.
However, Ghada Amer’s Ceramics, Knots, Thoughts, Scraps is the most provocative exhibit of the bunch, and perhaps the most moving. Here, ceramics – a medium often relegated to the humble realm of crafts – meet pornography in an unlikely and elegant marriage. It’s the artist’s first exhibition dedicated to ceramics, though she often works in similarly “gendered” media, such as embroidery.
Amer, who has spent much of her career investigating the objectification of women, is interested in the role of gender and sexuality in art. This show “reminds the viewers of the predominance of male practitioners and female subjects in the art historical canon,” while taking their legacy in a new direction. Taking inspiration from pornography, Amer creates an exaggerated representation of the heteronormative sexual ideal.
“The Ghada Amer exhibition is an important look at one artist’s view of current gender, sexual and material issues,” says Doroshenko.
Beyond that, it’s just so pretty and sensual. The sculptures are a visual representation of human touch and passion: Clay dimpled with thumbprints; two mouths blurring together beneath the sheen of glaze; the sense of frenzied motion in breathless brushstrokes.
It’s as relevant as it is irreverent, and the same can be said for the museum itself.
“Dallas Contemporary is a reflection of what Dallas does best – being intelligent about how to get major things done and always having something tantalizing to look at.”
