'Lance Letscher: The Perfect Machine'
D Berman Gallery through May 15

By Wayne Alan Brenner
Austin Chronicle
May 7, 2010

Lance Letscher's new show is an array of his familiar collage style in two dimensions and of iconic objects of adventure (pistols, a full-size motorcycle), expanding the artist's scope of expression by way of illustrating his first children's book, The Perfect Machine.

Letscher's work, long a sort of paper kaleidoscope of broken text and images built from butchered books and other bastions of print arranged in seemingly obsessive patterns, makes the leap from flat ground only after exploding on that surface. The narrative of The Perfect Machine is vividly captured by what are possibly Letscher's most representational creations thus far, with shards of color and typography and hacked images streaming from the young protagonist's head – or where a head or body, occluded by the stunning graphic tumult, might be.

Before images can stream forth, of course, before they're displayed with the meticulous vigor common in Letscher's work, images or the idea of images tend to remain locked within a creator's head. This seems to be the message behind the wide piece called Talking Cure, where dozens and dozens of boxes of many colors cover the white ground, waiting only for the therapy of art or something more clinical to unlock them and unpack them and let the contents flow toward greater relief if not actual glory. With this exhibit, though, we suggest one could make a case for glory.

Just seeing these mostly two-dimensional works displayed on the gallery's walls, observing the brilliantly collaged objects drawing light to their jarring depths, we wouldn't think they were part of a sequential tale, much less one intended for children. But then, we wouldn't think that other than the luckiest child in the world – or the most discerning collector – would be gifted with the knowledge of a collection like this.

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Ransom Center's "Making Movies" takes visitors behind the camera
Exhibit draws on extensive archives to illustrate complex process.

By Joe Gross
Austin American-Statesman
May 8, 2010

If there is one sacred cow that's going to be tipped as you go through the Ransom Center's "Making Movies" exhibit, it's the auteur theory, the notion that the director is the "author" of a movie.

Before any film student or scholar sits down to write a strongly worded e-mail, know that this is not to denigrate the director's crucial role in tying the movie together, in being the (more or less) final word on what happens behind the camera and what the public sees on the big screen.

But "Making Movies" reminds you that there are plenty of threads to tie, that there are often disparate and competing visions in a movie, dozens and sometimes hundreds of voices that come together and fall away during the creation of a motion picture. The director suddenly seems less an author than a conductor, coaxing the various elements together to create the best harmonies he or she can.

And walking around the exhibit with Ransom Center film curator Steve Wilson is a treat, like having Tom Colicchio talk you through an episode of "Top Chef" or watching the Austin Symphony Orchestra with Peter Bay.

Wilson put together this exhibit out of the Ransom Center's extensive film holdings, including archives from actor Robert De Niro, screenwriter Paul Schrader and a ton of material from legendary producer David O. Selznick.

"We wanted to say something about the filmmaking process, show off all the creative people involved and put the materials in the context of specific films," Wilson says. Between 400 and 700 objects are in the exhibit, depending on how you count (a page of script versus a whole scene on display, for example). Either way, it's easily the biggest display the center has mounted.

We start at the beginning, as many movies do, with the producer, an area dominated, as one might expect, by memos and photographs.

There's a photo of MGM executives Harry Rapf, Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg. There's a chart looking at various financing options for "Gone With the Wind" (a production Wilson calls one of the best-documented movies ever made). And there's a copy of the filmmaker's bête noire, the 1934 version of the production code. It's fascinating to see what's on there and what is not. "The sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrong-doing, evil or sin" (good luck with that, guys). Offensive terms such as "yid" are on there, as is "nerts." (No, really.)

Some words were obviously so beyond the pale they are simply absent. "Damn is not on there," Wilson says, gesturing to a memo from Selznick to the Hays Office (the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America censorship office) requesting a variance for the "Frankly, my dear \u2026" line.

Over on the writer wall, we learn that writers were typecast right along with actors. A letter of suggested writers for "Gone With the Wind" contains some rather \u2026 direct assessments.

Sinclair Lewis might be "either a little too political minded or a little too gin minded" for this gig. Edwin Justice Mayer, writer of "To Be or Not to Be," is called "the world's laziest man." These days, agents might talk about this sort of thing over the phone, lest they leave a paper trail that could be subpoenaed.

Wilson points to various outlines that screenwriters construct, and, boy howdy, do they reveal a lot. Ernest Lehman's outline for "West Side Story" is on index cards, suggesting the big-picture vibe of a golden age studio movie. Paul Schrader's outline for "Raging Bull" is written in a cramped, tiny hand, the sort you might see on a letter sent to a newspaper before the author starts randomly shooting people in a McDonald's. David Mamet's outline for "Heist" is a timeline, with events carefully placed for maximum narrative punch.

"We have another outline for 'Gone With the Wind' that is 81/2-by-11 pages taped together end to end," Wilson says. "It's about 14 feet long with 75-year-old Scotch tape on it. Couldn't really figure out how to display that one."

Over on the actor wall, memos and notebooks let you know how much influence certain actors have over their parts. Jack Nicholson suggested that Nietzsche be worked into the character of the Joker in "Batman." Notes are scrawled all over De Niro's copy of the "Taxi Driver" screenplay. Tom Cruise was heavily involved in shaping his character in "Top Gun." (And you have to love the "intensity chart" that "Top Gun" screenwriter Warren Skaaren used to plot action beats in that movie. It's easy to imagine it as exhibit A in the hypothetical trial of the American action movie.)

"There's a terrific letter from Christopher Plummer to (director) Robert Wise about his role in 'The Sound of Music,'\u2009" Wilson says. "Very well-written. He hated the song 'Edelweiss.'\u2009"

Plummer calls it "schmaltzy and trite, surely all the things we hope to avoid."

Wilson: "Wise wrote him a very nice letter back that basically says 'No, no, no, no and no.'\u2009"

When we get to concept art and scene conceptions, Wilson practically runs over to the case, pointing at two pages of typewritten text.

"This is the most historically important item in the show," Wilson says. These last two pages of a five-page memo outline the idea of giving William Cameron Menzies — already a well-regarded art director — a new position.

"Selznick wanted to have one guy in charge of designing and supervising everything you could see," Wilson says. With that memo, Selznick essentially invented the job of production designer and made Menzies the first one.

"Within two years, every movie had one," Wilson says. Now THAT is power.

Lest you think the exhibit is only for movie nerds, Wilson directs my attention over to the stuff everyone loves: the special effects and the costumes.

"This has been a big hit with the high school kids," Wilson says, pointing to the model of De Niro's head from the Kenneth Branagh version of "Frankenstein." He points to the monster's shoes . "The costume design students got a kick out of how they just built up De Niro's height by using Rollerblades." Sure enough, the boot is built around the blade. It's much cooler than anything in "Avatar."

Wilson's favorite objects in the exhibit are gorgeous collages made by a guy named Norman Dawn. "Dawn pretty much invented special effects," Wilson says, working with directors such as Mack Sennett, Erich von Stroheim and even Thomas Edison.

Dawn created big cards that illustrate his special effects, constructed from his own field notebooks, sketches, production photographs, detailed camera records , film clips and so on. It's amazing stuff, and it's a little shocking how most techniques used right up until the CGI era were variations on ideas Dawn pioneered. You could construct a whole exhibit using Dawn's stuff alone, and it's screaming to be collected in a coffee-table art book.

Virtually any of these exhibits could be blown out into their own gallery. The Center's holdings are vast, from the sheet music for scores to costumes from "Casino" to Travis Bickle's military jacket and Western shirt to a notebook of storyboard sketches for "Beetlejuice" (Tim Burton's a great cartoonist) to photos of Texas movie theaters (including a nickelodeon called the Casino theater owned by Skinny Pryor, Cactus Pryor's father).

In fact, almost all of this stuff, this detritus that illustrates the time and energy that goes into making movies, is cooler than anything in "Avatar." But with blockbusters more and more dependent on CGI, it makes you wonder what one could display from the movie business in five, 10 or 20 years. Script pages? Memos? Sure. A hard drive? That's no fun.

But you can be sure the Ransom Center will have it.

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The fluidity of catastrophe
Houston artist Marina Zurkow's 2009 video piece has renewed relevance in light of oil spill

By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
Austin American-Statesman
May 12, 2010

Houston artist Marina Zurkow couldn't have known how prescient her mesmerizing animated film 'Slurb,' now on exhibit at Women & Their Work, would read with a catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico currently grabbing headlines.

Originally commissioned for a 2009 Tampa, Fla., arts festival - yes, created for a city on the Gulf of Mexico, speaking of prescient - the 18-minute continuous loop with an ambient electronic pop-inspired soundtrack (by Lem Jay Ignacio) paints a picture of a post-apocalyptic future world that's been destroyed by some sort of alluvial pollution-triggered catastrophe.

In Zurkow's vocabulary, 'Slurb' is combination of 'suburb' and 'slime.' And in this flooded new world - projected movie-screen large in the gallery - remnants of a civilization float by. Or really we float by it: 'Slurb' unfolds leftward like a slowly unrolling Chinese scroll. It's a leisurely though compelling 360-degree tour through a landscape - a waterscape? - that's both familiar and not.

Intensely colorful, 'Slurb' is populated by an eccentric cast of characters.

Zurkow created her oddballs from video clips she found online and elsewhere. She culled footage of traditional Southeast Asian aquaculture and commerce - the flat boats and floating house communities of Cambodia and Thailand, for example. From YouTube, Zurkow selected clips from a preacher competition. And searching under the keyword 'sad' from online stock footage archives, she found arresting moments of people in deep grief.

Zurkow also plucked news images of half-destroyed elevated highways, deluged downtowns and half-submerged cars - from Hurricane Katrina coverage? - for background elements.

Using all these found visuals as a template, Zurkow crafted them into her own fluid hand-drawn images, saturating everything in a simple palette of bright colors.

The cataclysm in 'Slurb' has already occurred. And yet the inhabitants of this strange world seem caught in a moment of suspended anticipation, locked in their endlessly repeated moments, yet waiting for the next event.

A child preacher evangelizes from atop a flooded trailer home. Asian women slowly propel their flat open boats through watery piles of tires. A couple left wearing nothing but T-shirts sob together as the float by in a simple rowboat.

Flittering among all these people is a wholly other cast of freaks - larger-than life insects and sea creatures, mermaids with almost fluorescent skin tones and half-human, half-amphibian mutant beings. They too are endlessly locked in repeated gestures - ceaselessly dancing, diving, waving.

Hypnotizing with its gentle movement, playful and friendly with its hand-drawn style and vivid colors, 'Slurb' is nevertheless a dirge, an elegy to a destroyed world.

Would that every environmental cautionary tale be rendered so beautifully.

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'Matisse as Printmaker' showcases evolution of a master

By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
Austin American-Statesman
May 12, 2010

Though Henri Matisse is an A-list artist whose work is normally the subject of attention-grabbing exhibits, `Matisse as Printmaker,' a new traveling exhibit at the Blanton Museum of Art organized by the American Federation of the Arts, is by no means a blockbuster.

It is, nicely, the anti-blockbuster - the kind of sharply focused exhibit that the Blanton has become deft at selecting and showcasing since it opened its new building four years ago. Its small scale and atypical focus offer a new snapshot of a legendary artist everybody might think they already know. Come for the big-name artist, stay for something you likely haven't seen before.

For starters, "Matisse as Printmaker" is hardly a large show. The 63 small-scale prints occupy one-third of the Blanton's main floor gallery. (The other two-thirds of the gallery currently feature "New Works for the Collection.")

Also, Matisse is synonymous with color: The French modernist master revolutionized the use of vibrant color as a means of emotional expression. "A great modern attainment is to found the secret of expression by color," Matisse once wrote.

But except for two works, the Matisse on exhibit at the Blanton is an artist working entirely in black and white.

Likewise, Matisse is celebrated as a painter. This is an exhibit entirely of prints. And while his peers - in particular Picasso, his great friend and artistic rival - continuously churned out prints during the course of their careers, Matisse practiced printmaking in fits and spurts over his half-century career, using the technically specific medium as a sort of extension of his drawing that he considered the essential element of his art.

"My line drawing," Matisse once wrote, "is the purest and most direct translation of my emotion."

There's a pecuniary motivation to printmaking, too. Produced in multiples, prints are infinitely cheaper than unique paintings. Matisse, like many artists, used prints as a way to sell his work to as many collectors as possible.

Though it's a compact exhibit, the trajectory of Matisse's evolving style is all there in "Matisse as Printmaker" - the early experiments with expressive gesture, the gradual simplification of line and form, the growing use of pattern and abstraction, all of which led to an eventual flattening of the pictorial space.

It's the type of exhibit that demands attention to detail. Prints, after all, do that, and not just because they're typically small. Traditional black and white prints such as those Matisse made are ultimately symphonies of simple lines - there is no bold texture, no color to define the image. And different printing techniques (etching, lithograph, woodcut) make for subtle differences in how those lines are rendered. To appreciate those subtleties takes some patient viewing.

Which isn't to say that the works on view don't have immediate impact. They do. "Nadia with a Serious Expression," for example, is a striking 1948 aquatint, the earnest, steady gaze of the model captured in less than 20 thick lines - an exquisite example of how Matisse mastered an extraordinary economy of line and a remarkably calculated simple form.

Though the Blanton's collection of 13,500 prints may be one of the best among any university art museum, it only includes seven Matisse prints, not one of which was added to the current show, though. "Matisse as Printmaker" is culled entirely from the Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation. (As a bit of ballast, the Blanton has organized a small companion exhibit, "Picasso: A Graphic Inquiry," which features prints by the Spanish master from the Blanton's collection.)

The artist's youngest son, Pierre Matisse, who died in 1989, was a prominent New York art dealer who introduced now legendary 20th-century artists like Marc Chagall, Joan Miro and Alberto Giacometti to the art scene in the United States. The foundation now maintains Pierre's substantial collection, including many works by his father.

That the exhibit is curated by Jay McKean Fisher, senior curator of the Baltimore Museum of Art, is also noteworthy. Though in this country, Matisse was first championed by New York's Museum of Modern Art (the museum is mounting yet another large Matisse exhibit in July), it's the Baltimore Museum of Art that arguably has the most substantial gathering of his work. A pair of wealthy Baltimore sisters, Claribel and Etta Cone, were among Matisse's first patrons, amassing some 500 of his works. Fisher arranged the exhibit chronologically, and that offers a sense of Matisse's come-and-go relationship with printmaking. (Matisse would nevertheless produce more than 800 images, typically in editions of 25 or 50.)

Born to a middle-class family in 1869, Matisse studied law before taking up painting seriously in his 20s. And while he attended art school classes, he spent considerable time in the Louvre copying paintings. He didn't seriously begin turning his attention to printmaking until about 1906, after his first major solo show in Paris. After producing a series of lithographs and linoleum cuts, several of which are featured in the exhibit, he returned to painting and sculptures. He tried his hand with monotypes in 1914, but the next flurry of serious printmaking activity didn't occur until the 1920s, when he made an astonishing 247 images in addition to his prolific production as a painter and a sculptor.

As his reputation grew in the United States and Europe, Matisse - always alert to the marketing of his art - produced more prints as well as illustrated books, also reasonably priced examples of his work.

Still, though Matisse continued to make prints throughout his life (he died in 1954), he would never again do so in such volume as he did in the 1920s.

The public's appetite for Matisse's prints hasn't waned. Today, copies of original prints - often marketed as limited edition lithographic copies - still sell heartily. In fact, in the Blanton gift shop reproductions of Matisse lithographs - specially stocked in tandem with the current exhibit - sell for as little as $19.

Perhaps, then, only with its accompanying merchandising, does "Matisse as Printmaker" resemble a blockbuster.

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