40
Texas Gallery, Houston
- Wendy Vogel -
Rachel Hecker, Orange Paint Chip, 2009; acrylic on canvas; 36 x 32 inchees; courtesy Texas Gallery, Houston, TX
Linda Nochlin, considering the omission of women in the art-historical canon, wrote in 1971: “The fault lies not in our stars, our hormones, our menstrual cycles, or our empty internal spaces, but in our institutions and our education.” Nearly forty years later, the venerable Texas Gallery takes this critique to heart in its anniversary show, a sprawling intergenerational survey with nary a “token” male artist. Unlike recent museum exhibitions such as WACK!, 40 at Texas Gallery does not attempt to chronicle the developments of feminist art; and unlike certain gallery exhibitions, this show does not frame the inclusion of female artists as a special case. Rather, gallerists Fredericka Hunter and Ian Glennie implicitly acknowledge feminism’s forty-year cultural impact by dedicating their highly visible space (now thoroughly an institution) to work by women.
Though 40 does not seek to historicize, the show is clearly organized by theme. The five paintings in the sparsely hung entrance gallery give the exhibition critical traction and visual appeal by deconstructing mid-century movements. The background of Pat Steir’s expressionist Lama Ghost (2006), a large oil painting in her signature drip style, echoes the subtly shimmering color modulations in Marcia Hafif’s meditative Glaze Painting: Sap Green/Gold (2004). Anne Appleby’s Little Pink Rose (2007), a four-panel arrangement of monochrome hues plucked from her garden, is a clever send-up of Brice Marden’s multi-panel monochromes referencing art-historical masterpieces. Rachel Hecker’s Orange Paint Chip (2009) stands out for its wry critique of both our obsession with commercially produced objects and the fetishization of the artist’s hand. Scrawling “wrong” across the surface of an impeccably rendered, blown-up paint sample, Hecker monumentalizes a moment of doubt that could be attributed as easily to an interior decorator as a contemporary painter—a fitting homage to feminism’s reconsideration of the domestic sphere as a woman’s traditional place.
Joanne Greenbaum, Wall Unit, 2008; oil on linen; 60 x 55 inches; courtesy Texas Gallery, Houston, TX
The adjoining gallery provides a counterpoint to Hecker’s deadpan humor through a showcase of large, vibrant abstractions. Here, color and gesture are celebrated with bravado, though not always with aesthetic success. The room’s two showstoppers are Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes’ A Lua (1997), a conglomeration of organic patterns and doilies rendered in tropical hues, and Joanne Greenbaum’s Wall Unit (2008), a metallic geometric abstraction surrounded by loose, high-keyed brushwork. Dana Frankfort’s puzzlingly dark and barely legible work Spit (Blue) (2008), however, is nearly lost among the other works, and Dona Nelson’s Okey-Dokey (2008) attempts to do too much by straddling the line between painting and object. Hanging at a distance from the wall, Nelson’s work reveals dyed cloth strips that the artist affixed to the canvas verso—a sloppy rather than meaningful reference to the painting’s structural support. Despite such missteps, this concise selection of abstractions harmonizes expressive gestures and loud palettes into a collective whole. The room is a rich display of feminist interests in merging decorative motifs with individualized visual languages.
By contrast, thematic ties and aesthetic quality become distractingly uneven in a final grouping of figurative and landscape works in the gallery’s back room. Mickalene Thomas admirably creates a sumptuous surface through her use of rhinestones and enamel in her tondo Portrait of Clarivel (2008). The disjuncture between the painting’s kitschy, blinged-out materials and its subject’s elegant clothes and posture provide a refreshing departure from Thomas’ typically erotic reclining subjects. Kathleen Gilje’s Portrait of Thomas Hanmer, Restored (After Van Dyck) (2003) renders the Flemish painter’s courtly subject—originally clad in a somber black robe—as a nude wearing only a lace collar, hand on his hip and clutching an unworn glove. Gilje thus reimagines Hanmer’s pose as an irreverently queer gesture. Lynda Benglis’ Turbinellidae (1980) resembles not so much a seashell as a spirited combination of a dreamcatcher headdress with a multicolored vaginal form hanging from the bottom, while Shawne Major’s L’Argent (2008) is a wildly dense fabric “map” including such materials as faux sheriff badges, sequins and circuit boards.
Kathleen Gilje, Portrait of Thomas Hanmer, Restored (After Van Dyck), 2003; oil on canvas; 45 x 35 inches; courtesy Texas Gallery, Houston, TX
Together, these four works, which fuse representation with the deconstructionist impulse of the entrance gallery and the energetic palettes of the second, would stand as a fitting conclusion to 40. Unfortunately, the rest of the room is devoted to middling, pale landscapes by artists such as Ellen Phelan, Maureen Gallace and Jennifer Bartlett. If the breadth of 40 should be applauded, here the exhibition’s catchall philosophy leaves something to be desired. These landscapes, reminiscent of the 2010 Whitney Biennial’s troubling penchant toward grayed-out paintings of interior spaces and moody vistas, suggest a dangerous impulse to circumscribe the work of female painters into traditional, and traditionally feminine, genres.
Unlike the 2010 Biennial, which for the first time included more than 50% women, Texas Gallery is a commercial space without a public mission to write art history. Nonetheless, by creating an expansive all-female anniversary exhibition (and borrowing works to that end), the gallerists show that they attribute Texas Gallery’s longevity not only to their role as tastemakers catering to private clientele but to their sophisticated understanding of formal and theoretical developments in art. That is to say, they recognize the symbiotic interests of institutions and the market. Their decision to show work by only female artists without explanation, and more importantly without apology, is a bold one. In turn, we see that forty years of feminism have delivered on the promise to manifest institutionally invested space for women without quotas. Let’s push it further and see where the next half-century can take us—all of us.
Wendy Vogel is a Critical Fellow in the Core Program at the Glassell School of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
This exhibition is on view through July 31, 2010.