My fav Houston art blogger, Sean Carroll, is curating a fascinating exhibit, that opens tonight at the joanna gallery. I’ve been looking forward to this for awhile, hope you can make some time to stop by and see it.

The American Wandering Club is pleased to present a new exhibition of technologically complex artwork by Mike Field and Frank Olson at The Joanna Gallery.

Coming from radically different philosophies, both artists have advanced fractal computer-based art by applying aestheticism and shamanism to an impersonal medium. Their surreal landscapes and textural abstractions hum with energy, echoing the building blocks of science and the structures of microscopic organisms.

Conversely, Field and Olson exude passion through color, form and composition in much the same way that early Modernists like Wassily Kandinsky explored emotion through abstraction.

Join us this winter for an exhibit of 21st century technology and timeless compassion bringing together academic and intuitive inspiration.

There will be lectures by both Field and Olson at 6 pm on December 13th in conjunction with the opening. Refreshments will be provided.

Saturday, December 13, 2008
Artist Lectures @ 6pm
the joanna gallery | 4014 Graustark (near the Menil)
direction to the gallery here.

Opening Reception Friday, August 22, 2008, 6:30-8:30 PM
Artist talks at 6:00 PM

Check it out, yo.

(Re)Vision: A Preservation of Houston’s
Inner Loop | Shannon Duncan

Project Space

Shannon Duncan has a compulsion to collect and photograph discarded and otherwise overlooked objects, reviving their once precious nature by excessively archiving and/or documenting what she finds. For her installation in the Project Space, Duncan extends her interest in abandoned property to include real estate. Between January 1st, 2008 and June 30th, 2008, Duncan synced her life in tandem with the City of Houston’s on-line permits website, then visited residential properties scheduled for demolition within the inner loop. She captured these fugitive places using (the now discontinued) Polaroid film, and retrieved what personal items she found on site. (Re)Vision encapsulates her six-month project, with the collection of images gridded off by zip code and accompanied by selected found objects.
http://www.communitywalk.com/revisionhouston

Transcendental Smoothie
Mary Magsamen +Stephan Hillerbrand

John M. O’Quinn Gallery

• Psychedelic Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich store front facades
• Magical bottled water crystal palaces
• Strange Star Trek space anomaly looking pictures of our kids!

Transcendental Smoothie is a video installation by the collaborative husband and wife team of Magsamen + Hillerbrand. Through a playful and unexpected use of materials and camera viewpoints, Magsamen + Hillerbrand transform the John M. O’Quinn Gallery into a kaleidoscope world of cookie dough, vultures and monumental peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that bring questions and ideas of perception, identity, family and everyday pressures. “Transcendental” refers to Kant’s theory that our experience of things is about how they appear to us, but not about those things as they are in and of themselves. “Smoothie” refers to our use of food and everyday objects and the blending of many items to make something delicious.

What’s in a Line?
Judith Cottrell and Alex Lopez

Mezzanine Gallery

Alex Lopez and Judith Cottrell approach their exhibition with a simple question, what is the purpose of a gallery? The purpose of a “gallery” is considered by many as a place to exhibit works of art. Their answers lead them to examine the gallery as a finite area of space with interesting, challenging and complex architectural situations. “Would the gallery space be defined by the work or would we propose the question that perhaps the space itself could be the artwork?” Through an investigation and visual documentation of the Mezzanine Gallery they were able to determine that the space was in fact the challenge and “line of sight”, or point of perspective, would be one of their primary focuses. Their exhibition will combine independent and collaborative sculptural drawings that involve an investigation of methodology, approach, and comment on how line and space can be articulated, integrated, viewed, and accessed. Through installation and various media, Cottrell and Lopez challenge the modes of traditional genres with a new consideration for line.

The Grand Tour, Texas
Omar Vera

Grace R. Cavnar Gallery

Inspired by the ‘Grand Tour’ collections of Europe, Vera’s The Grand Tour, Texas is a grouping of charcoal and ink drawings and terracotta maquettes executed on site in the small and somewhat obscure Texas cities that take their names from iconic European meccas: Paris (311 miles from Houston), Florence (197 miles from Houston), and Roma (383 miles from Houston). The subject of these studies is the architecture, public artwork, and other local symbols whose role it is to fill the hopelessly large art-historical shoes of their namesakes. “Despite the implicit cynicism in undertaking this project, I have found that there is a tangible sincerity in the act of traveling to and venerating these locales not usually ennobled by the rhetoric of ‘The Grand Tour’, “explains Vera.

Experiential Opening: Saturday, August 23, 2008, 6-9pm

2445 North Blvd.,
Houston, TX, 77098

Exhibition Dates: August 23- August 28, 2008

Houston-New York based, experiential Artist Molly Gochman presents Release: Give-Away III as her last event at Commune on 2445 North Blvd, Houston.

The space will become alive with the interactive experience of Molly’s work on Saturday, August 23rd, from 6:00 to 9:00 PM.

Molly Gochman’s GIVE-AWAY PROJECT is a series that continually unfolds. Release: Give-Away III addresses relationships with change through exhibiting large-scale prints and intimate paintings, inspired by aspects within these prints. Both the prints and paintings serve as a way of archiving choices, circumstances, and personalities. During the exhibition, the image on selected prints will become less distinct. People will use cleansing tools designed to correlate with the body as instruments for physically engaging with the work. Release encourages one to be present, connect, and let go.

Creating opportunities for community interaction, connection, and exchange is a primary investigation of Molly Gochman’s work. When she began the GIVE-AWAY PROJECT in 2002, Gochman invited people throughout Houston to take place in an exchange, “Take home free clothes by modeling what you love”. People came throughout the evening the night of Give-Away Part I. Led by their curiosity, participants wove between the candy colored clothing and each other. It seemed as if garments were hovering at various heights within a large warehouse space. People chatted with each other. They also interacted with the objects by fondling them and evaluating their sizes and other features. They were considering the possibilities for these objects. Then, through documenting themselves with their chosen items, participants helped Gochman fulfill one of the intentions of this work, to investigate and record taste.

The lighthearted atmosphere encouraged visitors to openly express themselves while being documented. The prints, images of the participants, convey the type of energy present that evening.

Consistent with her entire body of work, Gochman explored the concept of value. Not only with the depiction of what her participants valued, but also by showing how the actions within her installations have at least as much value as the installation itself. Exhibiting the documentation during Give-Away II, showed how a group of collective actions can evolve into a significant series of work.

Molly Gochman is an experiential, inter-sensory artist working and residing in both Houston and New York. Her work provides evocative experiences through inter-disciplinary installations. Born in San Antonio, Gochman studied art in New York City and London, and received her BFA from Guilford College in 2001. In the last five years, Gochman’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally.

“My work returns what’s missing from life – fragile moments within cycles of creation and destruction. Through performances and installations and the documents that record them, I communicate a delicate dance between presence and absence. Creating work helps me come to terms with extremely contradictory experiences. Within the work, rigid contrasts soften and boundaries become blurred. Fabric, my primary medium, is used to transform surfaces into gurgling landscapes. My usage of materials within space allows me to create intimate experiences. Supple, penetrable materials like fabric, allow my work to have a softening affect. The common thread is not always obvious; mystery and romance hover. Unfolding myself as I work allows me to build environments that blur the relationships between particulars. A clarification can occur as one releases oneself within the mistiness of the work”.

The exhibition is in conjunction with Deborah Colton Gallery where the gallery’s portion of all sales will be donated to DiverseWorks and Aurora Picture Show.