Texas Biennial 2005
Bolm Studios, Camp Fig, Dougherty Arts Center, Eastside Artist Co-op, Gallery Lombardi
- Rebecca S. Cohen -
The 2005 Texas Biennial is not—as one might expect—the result of a major institution casting a net for new talent but, rather, a bootstrap effort by five small artist-centered spaces in Austin, with the help of colleagues from across the state. “Look at us, we’re playing like the big boys,” say distinctive graphics and a multi-city list of jurors and artists—well, yes and no.
After a twelve-member panel made its selection from roughly 3,000 slides, each of five out-of-town jurors chose an artist to receive a $100 prize. Works were then divided among the five participating galleries. The smallest two venues—Eastside Artist Co-op and Camp Fig—got first pick. A critique of the individual installations, therefore, seems both more appropriate and more manageable than reviewing each artist’s work in detail or commenting on the exhibition as a whole. Artists from Austin dominated the mix throughout the Biennial, although twelve different cities are represented. Interestingly, painters received four out of the five jurors’ awards.
Elaine Bradford, In The Brush, 2004
Mounted elk head, yarn, buttons
78 x 48 x 30 inches
Austin’s first statewide biennial brings together works by thirty-six artists as a means of calling attention to the “the burgeoning network of mostly new, mostly uncommercial artists and art spaces of Austin” says artist Bill Davenport, juror from Houston. Davenport was tapped to write a few words for commemorative postcards boxed in cardboard and sold in lieu of a catalog. On the flip side of the Davenport card, Dana Friis-Hansen, director of the Austin Museum of Art, also offers a few words of encouragement to the city’s “scrappy shoestring spaces,” and those who toil as part of Austin’s growing “art ecosystem.”
The postcard catalog, a bargain at ten dollars, proved a valuable aid in reviewing the individual exhibitions. I sorted the cards to correspond to five unequal—in more ways than one—mini events. On opening weekend, I logged nearly thirty miles in my effort to see this multi-venue exhibition, got lost while looking for Bolm Studios, missed seeing the Eastside Artist Co-op on my first two passes and circled several blocks to find parking reasonably close to Camp Fig. It was raining. I was grumpy. Austin is not Venice, but I was pleased to visit these various galleries—some for the first time, obviously.
The resident artists at Eastside Artist Co-op moved into a modest house in East Austin just days before the Biennial. Their clean, newly painted front room makes a fine gallery for Elaine Bradford’s work—crocheted sweaters for taxidermic trophies. Her elk head in domestic camouflage displayed above a faux mantle won a juror’s prize and my own heart. Viewers may regard Bradford’s animal wraps as suffocating (no eye or mouth holes), or as lovingly and humorously applied multicolored shrouds for the victims of sportsmen.
Equally ambiguous are Daniel Tackett’s wall-mounted guns made from wood and found objects—works complemented by Lance Jones’ abstract acrylic paintings and Iris prints by Chris Ferebee. In all, the Co-op houses a small, cohesive exhibition of young artists who seem to have plenty of interesting things to say to us—and to each other.
Christine Gray, Easter Bush Still Life, 2004
Oil on panel
36 x 36 inches
Once I found the place, Bolm Studios also proved well worth the effort. Situated at the end of a row of studios and shops in a warehouse, requisite car seats and random debris indicate homeless persons or artists hang out here on occasion—or, possibly, homeless artists. Inside, concrete floors, white walls, high ceilings, sufficient lighting and electrical connections aplenty lend a sense of legitimacy. (Imagine DiverseWorks shrunk to postage-stamp size.) Large works are, admittedly, a bit squeezed. Peat Duggins’ paintings and Young-Min Kang’s installation both beg for breathing room. On the other hand, the discreet space provided for Barna Kantor’s work—video projections and an array of nervous clock hands—is a perfect arena. Serena Lin Bush’s video installation Speak Easy (2004) seems a bit less comfortable in the entry space it shares with Jonas Criscoe’s icy suburban iconography, but the accompanying laugh track wafts through the space to good effect. The gallery also features paintings by jury-prizewinner Christine Gray and a construction by Candace Briceno. This broad mix of media provides a neat and tidy glimpse into the contemporary art scene in Texas—and everywhere else.
Tara Welch, You Don’t Give a Shit About Anyone But Yourself, 2004
C-print
18 x 22 inches
The winner at Camp Fig is Richard Martinez of San Antonio, but his paintings are difficult to see, squeezed as they are in the corner. Would-be viewers have to back into a storage room to gain an overall sense of the work. Later, as I peruse the postcards, I am amazed to find that the images from Camp Fig appear reasonably compatible. Inside the gallery, however, the impression left is that of a messy mass of high-color, figurative objects that pathetically compete for attention like children in a small classroom. It’s hard to make sense of the work in this environment. Tara Welch’s photos of message-laden birthday cakes, Celia Eberle’s appliqué on found crewel, paintings by Martinez, Mathew Guest and Patricia Donahue and ink drawings by Heyd Fontenot all deserve better.
Janaki Lenni, Breathing Space 17, 2005
Oil on masonite
20 x 16 inches
Dougherty Arts Center’s gallery also serves as the building’s foyer—a well-worn thruway for students en route to their studios. Though it might seem lavishly sized compared to Camp Fig, works also compete within this space. The dancers in the Joe Ives’ video installation I’m sorry, I cant hear you over the music in my head (2004) do not gyrate in silence; instead, they appear to move to—or in opposition to—sounds emanating from Kosmophone (2004), an electronic sculpture by Jerry Chamkis. Janaki Lennie’s elegant paintings cry for someone to save them from grungy, fabric-covered walls. These and paintings by William Betts, Annie Simpson and Nina Rizzo hang together like folks waiting for a subway in New York. They have little in common and even less to say to each other but at least there is no overt hostility between them.
Jason Makepeace’s video and sculptural odes to the Slinky, Seth Mittag’s sly and meticulously crafted wall-mounted sculptures and photographs by Debra Sugerman complete the offerings at Dougherty. This is not a particularly cohesive grouping, nor is there a particular dialogue that develops from the dissonance. Though many of the works are quite wonderful, they gyrate in silence, much like Ives’ video subjects.
At Gallery Lombardi, on the other hand, the hodgepodge of styles and approaches generates an energetic, rough and tumble ambience. Beginning with San Antonio-based Richie Budd’s What’s Going On Behind What’s Going On (2004)—a gloppy, freestanding sculptural amalgam of pedestrian objects and techno-trickery—to Faith Gay’s colorful floor pods, Mari Omori’s teabag-stained mosquito net and the very weird Fuck Bike (2004) by Jimmy Kuehnle—the works at Lombardi urge visitors to kick back and have a good time. This is not to say that the individual objects are more accomplished or interesting than those at the Dougherty, only that they seem more comfortable with each other and their setting.
Matthew Rodriguez applies paint to the backs of old baking pans; Charlotte Smith arranges perky, multicolored blobs of acrylic paint on board. Postcard text describes Ali Fitzgerald’s ink and acrylic Blubbering Heights (2004) as “Michelangelo meets Mad Magazine.” Works by painters Susan Cheal, Rosalyn Bodycomb and Jonathan Marshall join seamlessly with the rest, though they might have been equally impressive—and no doubt more visible—in another setting. Marshall’s obsessive acrylic and ink on panel The Eruption of Mt. St. Helens, 1980 (2004) was voted best in show; the artist was awarded a $1,000 cash prize.
It is hard to deny the importance of an exhibition that introduces the work of young artists like Marshall (and many others in the Biennial)—to statewide jurors and audiences, but what does the future hold for the capital city’s burgeoning art scene? The last Texas Biennial was in 1993, assembled by DARE in Dallas. Let’s hope it doesn’t take another dozen years for the next event to materialize.