Entries Tagged as 'Texas'

Laura Owens and the Sculpture Garden at the Dallas Museum of Art

December 30th, 2007 · 2 Comments · Artists, Texas

Lauraowens
Laura Owens, Untitled, 2004

A week in Dallas means trips to as many of the splendid area museums as we can talk our patient family members into accompanying us, starting, naturally, with the Dallas Museum of Art. Fault the DMA if you will for succumbing to the King Tut cash cow, but the Dallas institution will always have my heart: it’s my hometown museum and the first place I fell in love with art. And what fun to see one of my favorite LA painters, Laura Owens, (one of Christopher Knight’s “top 45 LA painters under 45”), now part of its permanent collection.

We also saw a surprising exhibition of Indian painting that kept us under its spell for far longer than we had planned. Chock full of narrative works that had much in common with contemporary graphic novels. Also, the Phil Collins three-part video installation, the world won’t listen, part of the DMA’s Concentrations series is slapstick funny and sad and profound all at once.

Kelly
Ellsworth Kelly, Untitled, 1982-1983

Handforth
Mark Handforth, Dallas Snake, 2007

Hadid
Zaha Hadid, Bench, designed 2003, executed 2006

Of course, you can’t go to the museum without spending time in its gorgeous sculpture garden. When it’s 67 degrees a few days before Christmas, there’s not much better than taking in an Ellsworth Kelly from a Zaha Hadid bench in the bright winter sun.

Domains of Wonder: Selected Masterworks of Indian Painting
November 18, 2007–January 27, 2008

Phil Collins: the world won’t listen
November 9, 2007–March 23, 2008

And here’s an excellent interview with LA painter Laura Owens.

Dallas Video Festival, Saturday, Aug. 4

August 3rd, 2007 · No Comments · 2006 The Stepping Up and..., Texas

Dvf

Our video, The Stepping Up and Going Under Method, will be showing in the closing night of the 20th Annual Dallas Video Festival tomorrow, Saturday, Aug. 4 at 8:45 at the Dallas Theater Center. It looks like a great line-up: we are just three shorts after a Miranda July.

Here is the schedule for tomorrow, which includes our film at 8:45pm. Incidentally, tonight they’re showing The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema, an excellent film that a couple of our new Greek friends introduced us to last weekend. Brilliant, funny and philosophical, the PGTC will make you think of Hitchcock in a whole new light. One snippet: the most frightening thing in cinema is not death, but the inanimate undead object, or that which cannot die, yet does not live.

You can buy tickets to the festival here, but if you’re not able to make it to the screening, the ever-innovative DVF is simultaneously hosting the film festival on Second Life for one week in conjunction with the live events. Here’s what you need to know and here’s where you need to go.

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Dallas Renaissance

June 22nd, 2007 · No Comments · Artists, Texas

Abakanowicz
Magdalena Abakanowicz, Bronze Crowd, 1990-91

It’s only since we’ve been in Dallas this month that I’ve come to realize the extensiveness of the renaissance that’s happening in this city, particularly in the arts and cultural realm. Of course, this has been in process for a long time, but now that buildings are finished or heavily under construction and roads are re-routed and whole blocks have been removed, the difference is visceral. Dallas is an entirely different city than it was even ten years ago.

The arts district is one of the areas that is the most changed. The Nasher is open just a block away from the Dallas Museum of Art. The new opera house is nearing completion next-door to I.M. Pei’s Meyerson Concert Hall. My old high school, the arts magnet, just a few blocks from the museums, is shut down while it’s being renovated by the same firm that designed the Contemporary in St Louis.

That’s to say nothing of the proposed Calatrava bridge over the Trinity River. Or the just-built Victory Park with its postmodern digital “Kunsthalle.” This city has some serious momentum.

Dma

With all the change, it was really reassuring to visit some familiar faces at the same museum where I spent many teenage hours avoiding the heat and trying to stay off the radar of my demanding orchestra director.

Hello, Spanish Elegy, you old friend.

Motherwell
Robert Motherwell, Elegy to the Spanish Republic 108 (The Barcelona Elegy), 1966

Tending, Turrell, Dallas Sky

June 14th, 2007 · No Comments · Artists, Texas

Turrell1

Turrell2

James Turrell’s skyscape, Tending, at the Nasher Sculpture Center: one of the best places in Texas for a long conversation with an old friend.

The Art of Shopping: Northpark Center, Dallas

June 12th, 2007 · 1 Comment · Artists, Texas

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Northpark2

Right now we’re in Dallas for a few weeks spending time with family. Our worldly belongings have moved ahead of us to Providence, we’ve turned in our keys to St Louis, and we’re leaving for London and Greece at the end of June.

Dallas is a great city for art-lovers. Great museums and galleries — the DMA, the Dallas Contemporary, Art Prostitute, and Angstrom, the Crow Collection, to name a few. Plus, it’s just a short drive to the first-class offerings of Fort Worth’s art district, like the Kimbell and the Modern. We’ll be posting about all these places and more in the next few weeks.

Then, there’s NorthPark Center. The ridiculously high-end mall with the equally high-end art collection. NorthPark is beautiful in every way: architecture and design, store design, landscape design, and artwork. It’s a collecting institution, and there is thoughtfully sited artwork everywhere you look. NorthPark is truly, even though it’s technically a “shopping center,” an art destination not to be missed.

We wrote more about NorthPark Center here.

Pretty Baby at The Modern

April 13th, 2007 · No Comments · Artists, Texas

Gaskell
Anna Gaskell, That’s All I Remember, 2006, stills [source]

Two weeks ago, I was able to sneak in a quick trip down to Texas to visit one of my favorite museums: The Modern in Fort Worth. Pretty Baby, the current exhibition, is a fascinating exploration of childhood from numerous lenses. From Catherine Opie’s nursing Self-Portrait to Miranda July’s audio interviews of children to Loretta Lux’s idealized and slightly subversive portraits, Pretty Baby is a thought-provoking, as well as simply provoking, investigation of a time-frame in human experience that so rarely finds itself under the microscope.

The exhibition runs through June 24 and isn’t scheduled to travel, so it’s worth a trip if you can swing it. Good exhibition non-withstanding, it’s hard to overshadow the Modern’s lovely Ando-designed building, which seems to float on a still pool of watery glass, or its mouth-watering permanent collection. Here are a few of my favorites to whet your appetite for a trip to Cow Town.

Richter
Gerhard Richter, Ferrari, 1964

Puryear
Martin Puryear, Ladder for Booker T. Washington, 1996

Celmins
Vija Celmins, German Plane, 1966

Mueck
Ron Mueck, Untitled (Seated Woman), 1999

Pretty Baby
February 25–June 24, 2007
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
www.themodern.org

Intersections Opens Sat, Nov 4

October 30th, 2006 · No Comments · 2006 The Stepping Up and..., Texas, Tools and Tech

Intersections_card_1

We’re heading down to Austin, TX this weekend for the opening of Intersections at Creative Research Laboratory. If you’re in the area, please stop by. The show runs through Dec 2. If you can’t make it out to see the show, you can check out the podcast interviews of the artists that will be online after the opening.

We were interviewed by the director of CRL, Jade Walker, and Katja Rivera, an art historian, last week via iChat audio conferencing. It was an odd experience to wear headphones and answer questions about our art practice and the genesis of our collaboration into our laptop at the dining room table at home, but it was great fun. If you listen closely, you might hear our dog scampering in the background. He was playing with his chew toy pretty enthusiastically over the course of the interview.

We’ll link to the podcast when it’s online. More info about the exhibit here.

Art Exposure Leads to Firing

September 27th, 2006 · No Comments · Texas, Writing

David
Michelangelo, David, [source]

Texas art is in the news again, and not in a good way (story here). A Frisco (far northern exurb of Dallas) 5th grade art teacher has been fired, allegedly for exposing a student to a nude sculpture on a trip to the Dallas Museum of Art. According to the Frisco Enterprise Star, the teacher had received a “low evaluation rating” at the end of the 2005-6 school year (source), and the firing had to do with her job performance. But even if that’s the case, why would the district choose to hit such a radical hot button by firing her over the museum field trip?

The most baffling aspect of all is that the principle will not disclose the piece of art in question, and referred to it only as an “abstract sculpture” (source). So which is it? Nude or abstract? Or is the principle so misinformed about art that she is unable to distinguish between the two?

[via and via]

Goodbye, Annie

September 15th, 2006 · No Comments · Texas

Richardsp01
You were a true Texan, thru and thru.

“I am delighted to be here with you this evening because after listening to George Bush all these years, I figured you needed to know what a real Texas accent sounds like.” -Ann Richards, 1988 keynote address, Democratic National Convention

The Houston Chronicle has more here.

El Paso Floods

August 2nd, 2006 · 1 Comment · Texas

Flood1

We passed through El Paso yesterday during a flash flood. The I-10 was closed down to one lane, routed onto the shoulder.

Flood2

We held our breath while we made the crossing: the water was up to our wheel-wells.

Flood3

The guy in the white mercedes wasn’t so lucky — we last saw him standing hip-deep outside his submerged car, water pouring onto the leather seats, hollering into his mobile phone.

Today, we are safely in Dallas, leg two of our nearly cross-country move completed.