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  Ad Referendum by Julie Speed |
Speed takes old images and gives them new faces Speed takes old images and gives them new faces By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin When you get right down to it, in the universe of Julie Speed, everything is connected to everything else. High culture and low culture. The hand artistry of metal plate etching and the wizardry of digital scanning. Nineteenth-century Bible imagery and contemporary politics. But that's not surprising for an artist who was told by professors when she showed up at art school in the late 1960s that she was about 400 years late for class. While her peers busied themselves with conceptualist experiments, Speed was imitating Old Master techniques. The critically acclaimed Austin artist, by virtue of her singular artistic trajectory, has long been melding old and new. After all, as she noted in a recent essay, "When I really look at a work of art it makes no difference where it came from or when it was made." Hence her latest venture: "Bible Studies," a series of nine etchings that combine some of her usual cast of exquisitely rendered, dreamlike figures (clerics, forlorn women) with collage elements from 19th-century Bible illustrations. Specifically, Speed pilfers many images by Gustave Doré, the popular illustrator known for his spirited proclivity with the grotesque and the Romantic. Thus in "Ad Referendum," we see a jaded and slightly-confused looking cleric staring blankly at us, his mitre and robe a medley of dramatic book-burning scenes -- all brimstone and fire -- set against a flat, deep red background. As in her paintings, there's a deliberate ambiguity to this etching and collage, but also a definite pun -- the hypocrisy of a religion rooted in a book that nevertheless stifles the written word. It's what happened in the Middle Ages; it's what happening now as extremists of all religions rage against open-minded approaches. It's classic Speed. This current foray into collage is something of a periodic tangent Speed takes, a respite from the weeks she spends crafting just one of her meticulous oil paintings. And respites are more welcome than ever these days for the 54-year-old painter. Speed's career has soared since her highly successful show, "Queen of My Room," at the Austin Museum of Art in 1999. "Queen" traveled the state to popular acclaim and was followed by a slew of solo gallery shows. Last year, the University of Texas Press published a lavish, illustrated catalog of her work; Blue Star Contemporary Art Center in San Antonio organized a prominent solo exhibit; and she landed her first solo gallery show in New York in 14 years, which turned out to be very favored. For years now, collectors have gotten on waiting lists for her paintings, which sell for up to $40,000. "Bible Studies" started with a water-damaged stack of pages from an 1870s Swedish Bible that a rare book dealer friend gave to the artist after his store flooded. While the illustrations were of Doré engravings, they had been poorly reproduced and lacked sharp contrast. A fortuitous brief use of a scanned image to create an etching led Speed to try something new. She scanned the Doré reproductions into high-resolution images. Having them digitized meant she could also cut and paste them virtually, creating strange tableaux. More importantly, the digitized images heightened the dramatic black-and-white contrast of Doré's lurid scenes. And then, combined with Speed's precise figure drawings, and burned into the metal etching plate, the entire process results in exacting, intense prints of incredible allure. "Julie has really brought it all together in this new series," says Mark Smith, co-director of Flatbed Press, the printmaking workshop where Speed has long produced her prints. Actually, this time around, the printing was more a collaborative effort than usual with master printers Katherine Brimberry and Tracy Mayrello creating the plates and pulling the larger prints. Speed's husband, Fran Christina, printed the smaller ones at home. Smith says Speed's prints strike an elegant symmetry by uniting a 21st-century technical process with appropriated historical imagery. "She's found an original print process that allows her to combine her masterful drawings with the antique collage elements she likes so much," he says. "The result is compelling works that take us backward, forward and especially inward." In other words, it connects everything to everything else. |
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 Tres Ventanas by Randall Reid |
The Retro Show By Wayne Alan Brenner You'd expect F8 Gallery, located as it is near Wiggy's liquors and Z'Tejas and Cafe Josie and all those eclectic little interior-decor shoppes along West Sixth, to be something of a bastion of elegance. And it is, reassuringly, but the proprietors don't let that get in the way of presenting artwork that is also, elegant or not, compelling and arresting. Now they're offering "The Retro Show," a retrospective of artists whose works have been previously featured in the tony space, and you needn't be of Scandinavian heritage to appreciate the variety and quality of this graphic smorgasbord. Ray Donley has long been associated with F8, at least in the public mind, and his candle-against-the-dark oil portraits of concubines and clowns, of mysterious figures in sumptuous clothes, are represented here by several new pieces -- Sleep Walker No. 3 foremost among them, I suggest, due to the way the figure's blouseline trickles streamlike, in solitary whiteness, to its frame's terminus and threatens to extend the subject beyond its formal borders. Michael Kessler's work eschews the figurative arena and instead outs the latent grids of drafting, his large, multilayered acrylic-on-panel Chambered appearing like a Rennie Mackintosh dream of schematics shattered and reconfigured through translucent glass planes. Most abstraction leaves your reviewer dulled and uncaring; this is the sort of work that galvanizes and leaves him wanting more, please, Mr. Kessler. Randall Reed's mixed-media constructions could be companion pieces to Kessler's: Imagine such abstractions distilled, shrunk, and embedded in the center of a vast, complementary field. Imagine a funerary plaque fit to adorn a tomb for the soul of an angel, especially one of the higher seraphim; you may begin to picture Reed's Red Sea or one of the others of his works available at F8. Frequent Chronicle illustrator Nathan Jensen's paintings are on display here, too, the colorful anatomies depicted perhaps less exaggerated than those in his various streetside murals. There's even more, paintingwise, but let's cap this review with an impressed nod to the photographers whose black-and-white captures lend a stark realism to the gallery's 2-D proceedings: Polly Chandler, Tony Stromberg, M. Delos Reyes, and David Verba. And, if this is truly your point-by-point guide while you're buzzing through an as-many-galleries-as-possible day of art? Don't leave the venue until you've gazed for several minutes at Corn Crib, one of the split-toned silver gelatin monoprints by Deborah Poisot. Of course it's called "The Retro Show"; these artists are well worth going back for. |
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 Detail, Moderation, by Zack Booth Simpson photo by Bret Brookshire |
22 to Think About By Rachel Koper How does the individual relate to a broader American culture? Exactly how many images of Paris Hilton is one expected to digest in a lifetime? Does getting your culture spoon-fed to you make it taste better? The Austin Museum of Art exhibition "New Art in Austin: 22 to Watch" breaks down some excellent social questions, with local artists challenging themselves and the viewers of their work to access things like urban planning, control over the environment, social distance, and the vastness of known science. The triennial "New Art in Austin" show was created by AMOA Director Dana Friis-Hansen in 2002 to highlight the achievements of Central Texas artists (and the area boasts a lot of both artists and achievements). The curatorial team for the 2005 show – Friis-Hansen; AMOA adjunct curator James Housefield; AMOA director of exhibitions and education Eva Buttacavoli; Joan Davidow, director of the Dallas Center for Contemporary Art; and Clint Willour, curator of the Galveston Arts Center – have proven themselves to be sophisticated and in some subtle ways egalitarian ... very Austin. Their exhibit is quite heavy in theory, both art historical and social. The artists included are idea people, and the issues they communicate are almost all interesting. This is a show that makes demands on you from the moment you enter the gallery. The floor-to-ceiling triptych by Barna Kantor consists of simple, thin metal panels made of a common industrial material and very low tech. But because there are two perforated layers, the panels come alive as you move around them. Turn your head, and the round shapes of light stretch and fly around the black surface. The scale of the piece puts the shapes above and around you like abstract angels activated by the real-time effort of your brain to make two eyes see one thing. It's a fun double-shutter piece that puts you nicely in the moment. It's as spiritual as you want to make it. Harder to build but equally open to a spiritual interpretation is Jerry Chamkis' Kosmophone, which is based on gamma rays. An ultraviolet pulse is detected and turned into an electrical current, which is then processed through a MIDI synthesizer and made into sounds. While the tones and settings of a synthesizer are common, what is uncommon here is the source of the sounds and the fact that it occurs in real time. Gamma rays are big. So big that for countless generations humans didn't know they existed. So big that they pass right through the earth like it's nothing. Considered in this context, humans seem small, like godforsaken ants. With some patience and some imagination, you can be humbled by this sensation. Take a moment and listen to the invisible rays passing through you and everyone on Earth. Who knows what you'll imagine? Perhaps a rare feeling of unity. The flip side of unity is distance and isolation, which are interpreted and brought to the fore in Young-Min Kang's Reconstruction. Kang has taken photos of Texas' world-class highway system, pixelated the images, stretched and warped them, shredded them, then woven the dozens of thin colored strips through a 3-D metal framework. His large, mostly paper installation fills the room ceiling to floor with lots of color. He calls it "my matrix." To this site-specific installation, he has added people: almost life-size figures walking away from you, their backs turned; a couple climbing on their motorcycle and driving away from you. Kang portrays people he doesn't know, who will never meet, who will not enter the museum; they are anonymous urban dwellers. Sterling Allen uses the anonymity of city life as a source of inspiration. A former employee of a franchise business that cheaply and efficiently processes the public's photos, Allen effectively acts out an urban myth, that of the photo lab clerk who steals a look at – or just plain steals – our personal, private images. He has commandeered photos found on the job (a nonartistic self-portrait, the humiliation of a drunken close friend, a moment of intimacy, an image that's just ineptly taken), enlarged them, and drawn them in beautiful, confident contour lines. They are absolutely hysterically funny. The awkward compositions portray these nameless folks sympathetically, and yet they promote a larger paranoia. One recurring motif of the show is control of the urban environment. This is most literally portrayed in The Architect's Desk, by Peat Duggins. He presents a cardboard desk wired into a cardboard light table, coffee maker, and lights. On the desk sits a highly detailed architectural drawing for a new subdivision. Many aspects of city living are portrayed: water treatment, a dump, a public park, security departments, roads, and lots for homes with privacy fences. On the wall nearby are several more drawings in the style of a "presentation glossy," like he's pitching the development to ol' Mayor Watson. The drawings themselves are beautifully rendered and on close inspection reveal references to American Indians and an airborne military security team. The work asks each of us to sit at this desk and pretend for a moment that we are in control of our cities, that we are the party that planned things to be the way they are. It asks viewers to accept responsibility. Just imagine that we designed our culture for better or worse – the ghettos, schools, and the military, not just the good parts. I find it to be something of a call to arms, not with God as the architect, but you. Also grappling with urban planning is Heather Johnson. The former resident of San Francisco has made a spidery installation based on old architectural drawings of the streets she discovered. Fascinated with them as art objects, Johnson carefully embroidered the drawings to scale with various black and gray threads on light gauzy white fabric, going so far as to include the signature of the original artist. Like Duggins' work, it is a fake, but one that asks us to revisit and possibly reflect on the basic infrastructure of our cities. In addition to the "historical drawings," Johnson's installation breaks out into a sprawling thread sculpture, with nails placed on the walls – all the way up, higher than the track lighting – and connected with white threads. To install these intersections, actual blown-up maps were placed on the walls and later removed. It's lovingly tedious, and its expansiveness speaks to our cultural appetite for endless sidewalks and sprawl. Perhaps metaphorically the artist is the creator, the spider weaving its complex web. Several artists examine the urban environments as we have created them, using modern industrial elements to represent the future of the American landscape. Michael Osborne's series of large color digital prints depict moody images of our concrete jungle that are haunting. I found the details in the dark shadows intriguing, and I was able to spend more time considering the beauty of Texas overpasses. The panel by the Sodalitas trio – Shea Little, Joseph Phillips, and Jana Swec – echoes this appreciation of and love for the city. They use printing, collage, and encaustic to portray cool-looking buildings and radio towers that radiate waves and circle forms that happily bounce around the panels. In his mezzo-tinted prints, Jeffrey Dell spices up the life of timelessly elegant architectural backgrounds by adding the ultimate city dweller, the pigeon. These birds energize the courtyards. They socialize the gray concrete forms. Do we control our environment or does it control us? Artist Zack Booth Simpson creates an atmosphere that physically changes depending on the viewer's actions. A self-taught artist and video game programmer, Simpson takes delight in treating the audience as a variable in his game theory. On careful study, like an anthropologist but with math skills, Simpson predicts behavioral outcomes. A rocky-bottomed pool of water is projected on the floor. When you step into this virtual pond, gentle ripples appear on the water's surface. This charming reaction leads you further into the piece. If you stand still, dragonflies buzz up to your place in increasing numbers and gently follow the contours of your shadow. Walk slowly, and colorful algae flowers bloom under your feet. It's a hopelessly lovely effect, for kids of all ages. But if you chase these virtual creatures or move quickly, they all run away. There is a visual experiential reward for calm behavior. Can artists really modify behavior? This aspect of the piece is what takes it beyond the realm of the techie and into the realm of a cultural critique, real social knowledge, and great art. Ledia Carroll takes a more direct form of control over the environment, asking AMOA: Can I play in your fountain? Can I reroute your water supply? The history of artists dealing with earthworks in Texas is a proud one. Caroll fearlessly puts on those big shoes and pierces the large tempered plate glass windows of the building to allow clear pipes to carry water from the outdoor fountain into and back out of the building. I only wish it had a couple of ping-pong balls to emphasize the directional activities within the pipes. The Austin Museum of Art will host a series of panels throughout the next couple of months. These smarty-pants artists will meet new audiences both in Austin and later on when the work travels to the Dallas Center for Contemporary Art and Galveston Art Center. I think it demonstrates a maturation of the local visual art scene, the depth and complexity of which stands tall in any urban center. These artists, like the reversed signage on the front door of the museum installed by Jason Singleton, beg for your time and your mind. Are you reading the letters? Are you paying attention? |
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