The Great God Pan Is Dead: Party at the Moon...
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Friday, July 5, 2013 Party at the Moon Tower Robert Boyd It's always kind of a game to get to know the work of MFA candidates before graduation and think about which ones have "it." It's kind of a sick game, but I'll admit to playing it. It's exciting to see the work of someone before it takes the public stage. You don't know if the artist whose work you like will go on to a career of life-long art production or will be one of the many MFAs who gradually stop being artists and fade away from the scene. And at its crassest level, it's a gamble on whose work is going to be worth money, and whose isn't. I wish I could say I was pure enough that such thoughts never entered my head. And what's a more perfect summer show than a bunch of MFA candidates or recent MFAs. It's not the time of year when collectors are around--they're at their vacation homes in Maine. (I'm projecting here because that's where I wish I was.) A gallery has freedom to experiment a bit if they want and show some work by artists without proven track records. David Shelton Gallery is taking advantage of the season with Under the Moon Tower, a show featuring work by University of Texas MFA grads and candidates from the classes of 2013 through 2015. Now a show like this is inherently a hit-or-miss affair, but the work I saw there really impressed me. Box 13 ad The Most Popular Posts of the Past Week Contextually Speaking: A couple of BLACK GUYS, Tu, and You Lonestar Explosion 2014 - Man Under Blue Board by Raindawg Mysterious North Houston Art Colony Discovered Super-Deformed Medieval Dudes Betsy Huete’s Top Ten of 2014 Mail Chimp opt in Blog Archive ► 2015 (3) ► 2014 (130) ▼ 2013 (272) ► December (8) ► November (23) 0 More Next Blog» Create Blog Sign In Subscribe to our mailing list Subscribe The Great God Pan Is Dead: Party at the Moon Tower http://www.thegreatgodpanisdead.com/2013/07/party-at-moon-... 1 of 7 1/16/15 11:33 AM
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Friday, July 5, 2013
Party at the Moon Tower
Robert Boyd
It's always kind of a game to get to know the work of MFAcandidates before graduation and think about which oneshave "it." It's kind of a sick game, but I'll admit to playingit. It's exciting to see the work of someone before it takesthe public stage. You don't know if the artist whose workyou like will go on to a career of life-long art productionor will be one of the many MFAs who gradually stop beingartists and fade away from the scene. And at its crassestlevel, it's a gamble on whose work is going to be worthmoney, and whose isn't. I wish I could say I was pureenough that such thoughts never entered my head.
And what's a more perfect summer show than a bunch ofMFA candidates or recent MFAs. It's not the time of yearwhen collectors are around--they're at their vacationhomes in Maine. (I'm projecting here because that'swhere I wish I was.) A gallery has freedom to experimenta bit if they want and show some work by artists withoutproven track records. David Shelton Gallery is takingadvantage of the season with Under the Moon Tower, ashow featuring work by University of Texas MFA gradsand candidates from the classes of 2013 through 2015.Now a show like this is inherently a hit-or-miss affair, butthe work I saw there really impressed me.
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James Scheuren, BMX Cloudescape, 2012, archival inkjet print, 40 x 50 inches
BMX Cloudescape by James Scheuren is my favorite piecein the show and is the most mysterious one. There is afairly flat, dusty looking landscape, devoid of vegetationor human structures, with a low horizon. It's a cloudyday. But then there are two uncanny elements. First if thevertical crease in the middle of the image. You wonder ifScheuren photographed an open book--if this is aphotograph of a printed image of another photograph.Then the other element are the faint brown/black marksin the sky. The title suggests that they might be frombicycle wheels. They have that look. Maybe Scheurenprinted out a large split image of a landscape, ran a BMXbicycle over it, and rephotographed it.
But these were not the thoughts going through my headwhen I saw it in the gallery. I wasn't even aware that itwas a photograph. It feels painterly. The marks in thesky, which look so random, nonetheless suggest motion,like maybe you are seeing part of a windstorm passingover this dusty area. These lines feel like the motion linesof cartoon characters in comic books. But motion lineswithout the object in motion. It is the ghost of motion,and it is beautiful and uncanny.
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James Scheuren, Boneless Christ (IKEA Hammock), 2013, archival inkjet print, 50 x
40 inches
Scheuren's Boneless Christ (IKEA Hammock) is a moreconventional photograph, but haunting nonetheless. Thefaded stripes on the hammock parallel the ridges on thecorrugated metal wall behind it, and the greyed-putpalette speaks of old forgotten things. It's a formallybeautiful photograph, and one that radiates nostalgia, butneither glowing sunny nostalgia nor nostalgie de la boue.It's a feeling of regret that I get from this piece. Both ofScheuren's pieces are so quiet and so beautiful that I'malmost suspicious of my feelings about them.
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Aaron Meyers, Column, 2013, cast concrete, modified IKEA shelf, 12 x 75 x 12
inches
Aaron Myers sculpture Column was placed next to the twoJames Scheuren photos, and it was a good juxtaposition.They share grey and black colors and a grungy matter-of-factness. (And there is the Ikea connection--the galleryshould have gotten the Swedish cheap furniture retailerto sponsor the exhibit!) If you have a piece calledColumn, folks are going to think of Brancusi's EndlessColumn. Endless Column could be made to any heightand in any number of versions. The same could be said ofMeyers' Column, especially when you recall the modularnature of many of Ikea's shelving units which can beexpanded just as endlessly as a Brancusi.
These pieces were all in the back room of the gallery.Greys, blacks and browns dominated all the work in thatroom. Maybe the color scheme gave the collected work acollective sense of gravitas that pieces might not havehad if seen individually. If so, that is a testament to thecuration. But I think that feeling of seriousness wasinherent in the work.
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Georgia Carter, Timber, 2013, oil on linen, 24 x 30 inches
Georgia Carter's landscapes, such as Timber above, hadthis a quiet feeling of sunset (or moonrise), silhouettingpine trees against a lighter colored sky. One shows thetrees reflected in a lake with an undisturbed surface. Thatcommunicates a stillness and quiet, but with theseSouthern forest scenes its never quiet. Crickets, birds,cicadas. etc., are serenading you, and these paintingsmake me think of these country sounds. You can hearthe lonesome whippoorwill when you look at Carter'spaintings.
Erik Shane Swanson, Polychromatic Pentaptych, 2013, enamel and acetone on
panel, 19 x 75 inches
With work like Carter's, Meyers' and Scheuren's in theback gallery, you can see why Erik Shane Swanson's workwas separated in the front. His bright colors would havestuck out. But even as intense as they are, Swanson'spieces exercise restraint. Only two of the panels inPlychromatic Pentaptych have bright colors, and in thosetwo panels, the range of colors is limited (yellow, red andgreen in one, green and yellow in the other). This piecestarts of chromatically intense on the outer panels.growing less so as the eye moves towards the center.
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Intriguingly, one of the panels is an recognizable(photographic?) image. It appears to be an image of aformal garden that has been run through a photocopierand folded twice.
Erik Shane Swanson, Sunset Prism, 2013, enamel on mild steel, 47.5 x 13.5 x15
inches
Sunset Prism reminded me of a piece by David Shaw,Collider, that I saw at NADA. The difference is that theshifting colors in Sunset prism are painted and fixed inplace, while David Shaw's colors are created usingholographic laminate and shift as you walk around thepiece. I like this piece, but I confess I wished that thecolors moved. I'm spoiled that way. We live in aninteractive world.
There were pieces by Peter Abrami, Janaye Brown andAdriana Corral in the show as well, which all wereinteresting in their own way and added to the excellenceof the whole exhibit. Under the Moon Tower is up throughJuly 20.
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Labels: Aaron Meyers, Erik Shane Swanson, Georgia Carter, JamesScheuren
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