When it comes to the visual arts in Texas, how can you tell if there
really is a here here?
Lots
of ways. For instance, you can take note of how new talent is incubated
in the Lone Star State. "Beyond the Academy: Encouraging New
Talent from Texas" does precisely that. And the encouraging
conclusion it draws is that there's a lot of smart encouraging going
on.
And
no knee-jerk regionalism. The Jones Center exhibit, featuring the
works of 12 emerging artists and the six nationally recognized Texas
artists who were their mentors, demonstrates that Texas artists
have long been interested in more than just backyard bluebonnets.
There's a here here all right. And it's very much connected to out
there.
Perhaps
the clearest trajectory of influence can be seen in the work of
Michael Ray Charles and his former
students Zoe Charlton and Edward Monovich.
Charles, who teaches at the University of Texas, upends stereotypical
African American pop culture images with whip-smart irony. His work
turns Sambo, Aunt Jemima and Uncle Tom into edgy, disconcerting
faux-aged paintings that mimic broadsides for vaudeville acts or
magazine covers. (Charles' poster for
Spike Lee's "Bamboozled" famously proved too controversial
for the New York Times to run in advertisements.)
Charlton,
likewise, undermines racial stereotypes, but does so from a more
personal platform. An expressive draftsperson, she maps out large
mixed-media drawings filled with her own codex of symbols that allude
to racial and gender issues. In "Home Work Home," a trio
of white men stands behind a cast iron bed, while in the foreground
a nude African American woman avoids their gaze while severing her
connection to a symbolic tether.
Monovich
tackles current events -- specifically the repercussions of U.S.
military actions in mixed-media drawings that are amalgamations
of pop culture images. "Market Penetration" features an
American eagle on the head of a roly-poly man in his boxers, all-American
tattoos covering his body and a fighter plane screeching across
the sky. Monovich has coated his brightly colored drawing with a
shiny resin and invites viewers to write or draw on it with dry-erase
markers. The folks at the Jones Center wipe it clean every so often
when it gets too muddied up. On a recent visit, a few of the added
comments included "I refuse to participate" and "Let
me free!"
Houston
painter Peter Precourt utilizes the same expressive stroke as his
mentor, University of Houston art professor Gael Stack (who was
also Charles' teacher). But whereas Stack painted her personal responses
to the spiritual mysteries of life, Precourt explores the role of
men in public and in social situations. In "Señor Rafael
de Paulo," Precourt takes that super stereotype of masculinity
-- the bullfighter -- and turned him into a block-headed, featureless
cartoonish robot. So much for machismo.
Not
all of the teacher-student matrices in "Beyond the Academy"
reveal the traces of influences so overtly. Take the work of Bill
Lundberg, longtime UT instructor and founder of that school's transmedia
program, and his former student Sue Blevins. Lundberg is arguably
one of the most important American pioneers of film and video installation.
Just take a few moments to witness his 2001 work, "Wash."
Three ordinary bath pedestal sinks line the gallery wall; into the
basin of each is projected a film sequence of water filling the
basin and an elderly man slowly washing his hands. With its simple
symbolism of age and catharsis and its exquisite sense of timing
(each sequence starts and ends at a different time), Lundberg's
piece is a quiet meditation.
Blevins
revels in quiet, too, only she doesn't use video, just found objects.
"Birth" is a slightly rusted, old-fashioned child's bathtub
which she has skillfully lined with tufted pink satin. Like Lundberg's
work, Blevins' resonates with mortality and vulnerability. And like
"Wash," "Birth" says so softly.
Ah,
the sounds of silence.
jvanryzin@statesman.com;
445-3699
'Beyond
the Academy: Encouraging New Talent from Texas'
When:
11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday-Friday (Thursday until 9 p.m.), 10 a.m.
to 5 p.m. Saturday, 1 to p.m. Sunday through March 9
Where:
Arthouse at the Jones Center, 700 Congress Ave.
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