Eye candy and food for thought from galleries
Editor’s note: Molly Glentzer, the Chronicle’s ever busy, nearly omnipresent arts writer, recently began posting daily examinations of singular art pieces on the Gray Matters website. Here is a selection of Glentzer’s recent observations, ranging from painting to an interactive 3-D art construct. Read the daily installments at houstonchronicle.com/local/gray-matters/.
‘Tree of Life’
The artist: Reginald C. Adams Where: Capital Tower, 811 Rusk at Travis Why: Houston is awash with street art, some of it decent, some of it atrocious. Reginald C. Adams puts his murals in a different class — they’re all commissioned public art, usually involving community input and collaboration with area students. “Tree of Life,” which wraps around the corner of the Capital Tower downtown, isn’t just a pretty symbol of wisdom. The 20 circular “blossoms” perched on its bare branches are enlarged from designs created by students at Kipp Connect in southwest Houston during a project that introduced them to sacred geometry — so they were finding a new way to approach math, through art.
Kudos to the Super Bowl Host Committee and Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards, who commissioned Adams to create four community-based murals, including “Read” at the Beula Shepard-Acres Homes Neighborhood Library, 8501 W. Montgomery; “I Am Empowerment” at Cuney Homes, 3260 Truxillo; and “The Heart of a Champion” at the Breakfast Klub, 3711 Travis.
‘Yours for the Taking’
The artist: John Adelman Where: Assistance League’s 38th annual Celebration of Texas Art, Williams Tower Gallery, 2800 Post Oak Blvd. When: 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, through Feb. 24 Why: Because the noise is just deafening. You probably don’t have to look far to find a person who just needs to put a sock in it these days — or, er, a coin slide. Laugh or cry, and put your money where your mouth is. Though John Adelman has recently begun adding three-dimensional elements to his obsessive pen-and-ink drawings, this piece surprised me because it’s entirely 3-D, composed of a plaster cast bust, a metal coin slide (that perfectly suggests a flapping tongue!) and a marble base, yet it’s still in keeping with what Adelman calls his “dismantling” concept.
Juror Jose Esparza Chong Cuy, an associate curator from the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, also included two of Adelman’s drawings in the Assistance League’s annual show, which features an impressive selection of works in a wide variety of media by 60 area artists.
‘Manifest’ series
The artist: Laura Splan Where: Capsule Gallery, 3909 Main When: Open house 6-9 p.m. Monday as part of the Midtown Art Crawl; then 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday Why: I’d love to see what one of these delicately crafted little objects might look like if it reflected, say, the face of Super Bowl quarterbacks Tom Brady or Matt Ryan during a sacking. Artist Laura Splan, who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., started her “Manifest” series of sculptures the same way she began the drawings and textiles in her show — by recording the fluctuating electricity in her muscles with a type of biosensor called an electromyogram.
In this case, she captured numerical data from her facial expressions as she smiled, blinked, squinted, furrowed her brow and so on. With custom software, she translates such data into curves that can be reproduced in various ways. The sculptures, which are 8 inches high and made of laser sintered polyamide nylon, resemble spinning tops.
The wonder only increases when you examine how Splan applies the technique to create zig-zaggy waves on woven tapestries and mandalalike prints on paper. Her latest pieces are laser-etched from recordings of eye movements.
‘Chlorophylle’
The artist: Annabelle Arlie Where: Jonathan Hopson Gallery, 904 Marshall When: Noon-6 p.m. Fridays-Sundays, through March 5 Why: Because how often are you going to see an iron sailing through a bamboo forest, looking like a cross between a computer cursor and a NASA space shuttle? Jonathan Hopson and Debra Barrera have allowed French conceptual artist Annabelle Arlie to paper one of the walls of their recently restored, light-filled Craftsmanstyle home with her “found” stock photography of wild environments. She also employs the huge prints like quilts, draping them over readymade textile looms, for her first U.S. show.
I chuckled when I noticed the subtle flourish of the iron affixed to a wall. But it also made me think. Could it be that one day, we will be able to view forests and their creatures only through the “magic” of digital mediums? Seems like we’re nudging closer to that stark possibility every second.
‘Rusty Putin Bust’
The artist: Charles Krafft Where: Zoya Tommy Gallery, 4012 Fannin When: 11 a.m.-6 p.m. TuesdaysSaturdays Why: Because it’s both funny and as sedicious as hell. Seattle artist Charles Krafft’s “Rusty Putin Bust” rests in the center of shelves that also contain teapots with images of Kim Jong Il, Adolf Hitler and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, plus an assortment of “Fragment Grenades,” all painted in the pretty Dutch Delft tradition. An opposite wall contains porcelain firearms.
‘Clockworks’
The artists: Jeff Shore and Jon Fisher Where: McClain Gallery, 2242 Richmond When: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday-Friday, noon-5 p.m. Saturday (final day) Why: If I were a mad scientist, this is the kind of stuff I’d want to make. Jeff Shore and Jon Fisher’s installation of “sculptural mechanisms” immerses you in an environment where you can literally see time ticking away. The walls contain seven plywood supports that hold up speakers, plugs, wires and, most important, shelves with motorized cylinders that hold little cardlike numbers from retro flip clocks.
Press the start button that controls them all, and the numbers begin turning bouyantly, in time with sounds from a self-generated score that plays for a minute or two. Press the button again, and the sound changes. Through three cycles, I heard a dreamy melody, a counting exercise and something in between. Prepare to stay awhile and play; it’s addictive.