GALLERIES ONLINE
During the not-so-great pandemic shutdown of 2020, a few of Houston’s small art spaces and galleries are turning lemons into lemonade with their online offerings.
Some commercial spaces remain open by appointment and have even hung new work. Midtown dealer Sonja Roesch went ahead with her planned April show, Mokha Laget’s “Capriccios,” which is up through June 20. “We’ve never had much foot traffic,” Roesch says. “Life has to go on. Somehow we have to exist as best we can.”
In a video-centric world, no online art experience beats watching an art film. (Although we do miss the dark theater experience.) Houston is lucky to have two experimental media spaces, and both are presenting excellent films. There’s never been a better time to get to know them, so we’ll start there.
Aurora Picture Show
Aurora continually updates the Satellite page of its website with a robust selection of short films, links and notes. In advance of JooYoung Choi’s new immersive video and installation work coming in November, Aurora shares her crazy-colorful “Journey to the Cosmic Womb.” This is art-meets-music videomeets-video game, with a created cast of hundreds, ranging from handmade puppets to animated creatures and Choi herself in many guises. Miwa Matreyek, who is returning to Aurora in the next year, appears in excerpts from “Myth and
Infrastructure,” a terrific work (usually performed live) with shadows, projections, puppetry and animation. There’s lots more, some of it vintage, featuring works by pioneers of experimental film. Go to aurorapictureshow.org.
14 Pews
Director Cressandra Thibodeaux is presenting 10 documentary films from the archives made in collaboration with 14 Pews’ Film Academy students. The 63minute “Theremin Fever” is about Texas’ first festival devoted to the quirky electronic instrument. Interviews from “Dialogues on Grace” consider what grace looks like. “Mydolls: A
World of Their Own” celebrates Houston’s legendary femalefronted punk rock band. Visit 14pews.org.
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Liliana Porter’s 10th solo show at Sicardi, “Red Brush and Other Situations,” fills the space with poignantly metaphorical paintings, installations and objects. The show can be viewed via Sicardi’s website. After the shutdown, though, Porter and Ana Tiscornia also created something new — a 21-minute “virtual work of theater,” formatted for smartphones. “FirstHand Theatre for New Times” features a cast of 10 quarantined Argentinean actors, filmed
Courtesy of the artist / Aurora Picture Show on their respective phones. Sometimes they interact remotely, but mostly they are going playfully through the now-familiar litany of things people do to pass time alone: eating, reading, taking dance lessons, being crafty (toilet paper from sliced up newspaper!) and bemoaning bad hair. In Spanish with English subtitles. See it, along with Porter’s brief talk about the gallery show, on Vimeo.
Catherine Couturier Gallery
A new blog, “Safe in the Studio,” by this photography gallery is written by a different artist each week. Maggie Taylor and Mabry Campbell have taken turns. This week, Wendi Schneider writes about dwelling in serenity. The featured works are discounted 20 percent for a week after each post is published. See it at catherinecouturier.com.
Foltz Fine Art
Sit down with the much-admired painter Richard Stout, who died at age 85 on April 5, as he gives an important and thorough lesson, “Modernism in Houston,” a two-hour video filmed in 2010. Foltz, which concentrates on Texas artists, also has posted much shorter exhibition tours on YouTube. Its exhibition catalogs can be downloaded from Issuu; and viewers can “try out” artworks from the gallery on their home walls with Apple’s ArtCloud app. Access it all at foltzgallery.com.
Glasstire
The nonprofit website Glasstire has built up a large bank of submitted videos from art spaces across Texas since pandemic shutdowns began. Museums are in the mix along with commercial galleries. Houston shows added recently to the Five-Minute-Tours series: Virginia Lee Montgomery filmed and explains her “Sky Loop” exhibition at Lawndale; and G Spot Contemporary owner Wayne Gilbert walks viewers through his special “Virus” show, including his own works made with cremains and large pieces by Bill Hailey. (Gilbert is also leaving a light on for those who want to peek through the windows or visit by appointment.)