Drawn Back, Iron Curtain Reveals Art

By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
Austin American-Statesman
Thursday, April 12, 2007

There's something both expected and unexpected about "Eastern European Painting Now" at Lora Reynolds Gallery. Organized by Jean Neal, Oxford, England-based critic and curator, the show spotlights the work of four artists from former communist bloc countries: Slawomir Elsner, Adrian Ghenie, Serban Savu and Wojciech Zasadni. All thirtysomething, these artists represent the generation that witnessed both the creative stranglehold of the communist regimes and their subsequent downfall and the emergence of democracy -- and capitalism.

Not surprisingly, a dark, detached voyeuristic mood and cynical approach prevails. And that translates into physical terms, too: intimately scaled, these paintings could be private visual diaries. Then there's the palette. But for Zasadni's vibrant satirical tabloid covers, these paintings don't stray much from a black-and-white or sepia-tone range of hues. Only occasionally will any color pop out, such as in Savu's quartet of untitled works, where just a flash of color -- the bright red apron worn by a cleaning woman, for example -- will interrupt the monochromatic, impersonal scenes.

In Elsner's allusive images from his "Panorama" series, he uses the pictures from a popular Polish magazine of the same name, plucking images from the year of his birth (1976) to both investigate his own beginnings and jab at the aesthetics of Polish communist propaganda. Or, really, the lack of aesthetics. Elsner's paintings are faded, blurry or badly cropped, just like the crude images.

Zasadni also criticizes popular media but offers perhaps the most unexpected work. He fashions fake tabloid magazine covers, perfectly copying the jazzy arrangement of explosive headlines, the lurid colors, even the bar codes. But he paints on panels of hand-carved wood so that each physically pops out from the flat surface. In the end, Zasadni's critique is literally, and humorously, in your face. Crafted like old-fashioned toys, Zasadni's painted objects are a funny affront to free-market consumer culture.

("Eastern European Painting Now" continues 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, through May 5 at Lora Reynolds Gallery)

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In his first solo show, artist Michael Sieben smiles
Drawing from cartoons and children's books, artist crafts nostalgic commentary on contemporary culture

By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
Austin American-Statesman
Thursday, April 19, 2007

Might as well. Smile, that is.

Michael Sieben is. And it's not just because the Austin artist is having his first Austin solo show, "Smile Forever," now at Art Palace.

No, Sieben is smiling because, well, he knows he's on camera all the time. We all are. In our suspicious, cautionary times, we're the stars of many a surveillance camera reality show, so to speak. And with so many people carrying camera or video phones or pocket-sized digital cameras with video capabilities, our 15 minutes of fame can happen anytime, anywhere and for a lot longer than 15 minutes. And then it can be loaded onto the Internet for all the world to see.

"Sometimes, I wonder how much that changes our behavior, knowing that we can or will be photographed at any time. Do we act more animated? Show off more?" Sieben says. "Sometimes I think maybe I should wear a nicer shirt when I go to an art show because, well, what if I end up on YouTube the next day."

Sieben doesn't hide the surveillance cameras in his paintings. In fact, he animates them, gives them big grinning faces so that they smile down on the singular, quasi-human characters that are formally posed as if each were a traditional portrait. Intimately scaled, the paintings line the walls of the bungalow gallery like family photographs.

Only this is one weird family. Some of the figures are all head and legs; others are all fuzzy neck and face. Many sport bandages on their heads or appendages. And all of them seem infused with nostalgia -- happy-go-lucky storybook eccentrics who suddenly realized they're vulnerable and the world around them is mean.

But hey -- this is Sieben's family.

No, it's not his wife, Allison Sands, or his parents back in Seguin. But this motley, smiling crew of characters bears the signature of Sieben's increasingly unique style: neatly rendered in a combo of paint, ink and pencil and clearly influenced by comics, cartoons and classic children's books, And, oh yes, skateboard aesthetics, too. After all, Sieben, an avid skateboarder, has supported himself since graduating from the art program at the University of Texas as a designer for various national skateboard companies.

Indeed, Sieben's skateboard design work has garnered him a fan base across the country. But not as many -- even those here in Austin -- are as familiar with his fine art work.

And nobody is familiar with Simon.

"I wanted him to be a surprise," says Sieben of the massive rag doll-like sculpture, a huge 3-D version of one of his strange crew.

Like the rest of Sieben's characters, there's something both sweet and menacing about Simon. He seems beaten by reality. But then again, he just chopped off his own arm with an ax. "It's like (Simon) did it, even though he knew it would hurt him, just so that he could feel it," Sieben says.

Or perhaps Simon did it because he's on camera. Above his head, crafted out of cardboard, hangs a grinning surveillance camera.

Good thing Simon is smiling.

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The Geometry of Hope: Latin American Abstract Art From the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection
Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, through April 22

By Salvador Castillo
Austin Chronicle
Thursday, April 19, 2007

"The Geometry of Hope" provides an overview of abstract art as it developed in Latin America over the course of the 20th century. For easier consumption, the exhibition is segmented into chapters by cities and decades across South American nations. Beginning at Montevideo, Uruguay, Joaquín Torres-García sets up a modernist aesthetic. Construcción en Blanco y Negro (1938) welcomes you with black and white rectangles. Just a slight overlap in the paint creates an illusion of gradation, suggesting some volume but remaining pretty flat. Subsequent works lose any hint of volume yet gain archaic symbols. Suggesting a precolonial knowledge, the combination of pictograms and grids exemplifies Torres-García's theoretical system of constructive universalism.

Approximately a decade later in Buenos Aires, Argentina, artists reduce visual language to color and geometric shapes. After attempts at chaotic compositions, paintings liberated from the canvas' rectangular frame, the paintings become orderly. Thin lines support the composition of colored shapes like musical notes on a scale. Desarollo en 14 Temas (1951-52), by Tomás Maldonado, expands the linear structures, and the painting looks like an architectural CAD drawing.

In São Paulo, Brazil, during the 1950s, optical illusions are painted with geometric and solid elements. Unlike the practice in Buenos Aires, these do not rely on mathematical equations. At the same time in Rio de Janeiro, artists use the geometric basis in complex constructions, revealing dynamic, open, and organic compositions. The prolific Hélio Oiticica emerges from this group of artists. With him, the exhibit opens up to color. Objeto Ativo – Amarelo (1959-60), by Willys de Castro, is a yellow horizontal rectangle. On the leftmost edge, a blue line is interrupted in the center. The missing square can be found on the corresponding level on the opposite side. That shift across the panel is so fast, it's disorienting. It also signifies the movement to color as the tool of investigation.

The exhibit also moves to Paris as most of the artists spend time studying in Europe. Jesús Rafael Soto hailed from Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela, and moved to Paris in 1950. It was there that he began working with optical movement in his paintings and sculptures. Prepenetrable (1957) is a 3-D realization of the Doble Transparencia series and the precursor to Penetrable (1990).

Returning to South America, Caracas, Venezuela, is the final stop in this globe-trotting exhibit. It is here that Gego, one of a small number of female artists included, almost closes the loop of investigation. Using line as the starting point, she creates kinetic compositions for objects that are simultaneously voluminous yet almost invisible. Even though they lack color and are metallic, the materials used provide a warmer context than those of mathematical equations and reflections of concrete urban environments.

It is from Venezuela that the exhibit presents the most sculptural and interactive works. Gego's constructions look more inviting than the optical trickery of Carlos Cruz-Diez. Jesús Rafael Soto allows the viewer to tactilely experience his work. With his Penetrable, installed outside on the north side of the museum, plastic yellow tubing hangs like giant spaghetti and disrupts the view of any person or object that moves through or behind it.

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The Blanton Museum of Art: The First Year
A year after opening, new Blanton museum continues to draw the crowds

By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
Austin American-Statesman
Monday, April 30, 2007

The stickers tell the story of the Blanton Museum of Art's popularity.

A year ago, when the University of Texas opened the main 124,000-square-foot Mari and James A. Michener building -- the first of its $83.5 million two-structure art museum -- visitors began leaving their admission stickers on surrounding street lamps and signposts.

Now, like geological layers of earth built up through time, the layers of multi-colored stickers tell a story: The Blanton built it and the crowds have come.

Since opening a year ago this weekend, more than 172,000 people have crossed the transom of the Michener Building, a number well exceeding the 140,000 museum officials estimated.

In its first year, the Blanton has jumped to being the third-most visited arts and cultural institution in the city, the third-most visited university art museum in the country and the fourth-most visited art museum of any kind in Texas.

That has Blanton officials glowing.

"It just speaks to the pent-up demand there was in Austin for a certain kind of art museum experience. And it's been gratifying all around because we're getting good attendance figures from all the audiences we set out to attract: general public, university students and school groups," said Jessie Otto Hite, museum director. "Actually we're all still high from the opening a year ago."

Indeed, when the museum planned to open its new home with a 24-hour public happening, they estimated that perhaps 5,000 people might come. Instead, 13,000 came out with hour-long lines extending around the building into the wee hours of the morning. Attendance for all of the museum's opening week public and private receptions totaled 22,000.

The enthusiasm still seemed to percolate with visitors on Friday. Tasha Beretvas, with her 4-month-old daughter Gabriela napping in a stroller, wandered through a gallery filled with abstract expressionist paintings. It was the third visit for Beretas, a University of Texas faculty member, had made in the past year, she said, and even her daughter's second.

"This is just a wonderful resource," Beretvas said, adding that she had brought family visiting from Vancouver to the Blanton with her.

Sue Martin took a break in the museum's E-Lounge with its comfortable armchairs, art books, magazines and computer stations. A retired school counselor from North Pole, Alaska, who was visiting family in Central Texas, Martin was making her first visit to the Blanton. "I've been watching the news about the Blanton for a year now," she said, noting it was the first place she wanted to visit when she came to town. "This is a step into the culture of the future."

It's not only the attendance numbers that exceeded predictions. Before opening, the Blanton membership roll counted 1,233 and about $175,000 in membership revenue. Museum officials planned marketing strategies to recruit more members and hoped to bring the total up to 5,000. Now, 14 months later, membership has hit 9,755, an increase of 697 percent, with membership revenue totaling just over $1.1 milion. The museum's annual budget is $6.4 million. General memberships are $45 to $110 and include free admission, museum shop discounts and other benefits. University of Texas students, faculty and staff get in to the Blanton free.

"Membership means the future for us," says Ann Wilson, associate director of the Blanton. "These are the people who we can develop longer relationships with and cultivate as future donors. And both the membership and attendance statistics means we've been able to accomplish the very ambitious directive we got from (university officials), which was to be a welcoming public entry point to the university."

Among those who have felt welcome are the 25- to 45-year-old set, the demographic that marketing professionals have dubbed "yoco," or young cosmopolitan. In effort to attract young professionals, the Blanton launched the "B-Scene," a monthly evening event held the first Friday of the month that features live music, food, cocktails and art activities in the galleries. Attendance regularly tops 1,000 revelers; some 1,600 came to the "B-Scene" in March. The building has a capacity of 2,000.

"The B-Scene has been a wonderful surprise to us," said Hite, noting that the "yoco" crowd was one the Blanton was initially unsure of attracting.

As associate director of the Texas Cultural Trust, Jennifer Wijangco, 30, not only fits the young professional profile, but she's also in the business of getting her peers to join StrataTx, a Cultural Trust membership group designed to increase awareness of the arts. "(Young professionals) are very busy and need help prioritizing," she said. "They want to do lots of things, but don't always have the time to research and choose. An event like the B-Scene is perfect because it packages the cultural experience together. People see it as a low-risk, fun way of approaching and getting involved in the arts and then in the Blanton specifically."

Of course, the larger-than-expected -- and sometimes cocktail-toting -- crowds are not without their practical effect. Regular human traffic jams inside the building's entrance resulted in the rearrangement of visitor services' stations. Additional gallery attendants have also been hired to accommodate crowds, especially during special events. And a staff position was created just to coordinate the increasing number of group tour requests. The museum now has a staff of 64 full-time-equivalent employees up from 30 when the Blanton's was at its previous location in the Art Building.

Wilson said they are currently conducting a survey of members and have regularly collected feedback from general visitors to see what other services need tweaking.

Longtime Austin artworld observers say the Blanton's popularity has had a positive trickle down effect. "Galleries are definitely seeing an increase in out-of-town visitors and collectors," said Judy Taylor, owner of Gallery Shoal Creek and co-coordinator of the gallery consortium Art Austin.

While many galleries don't keep exact attendance figures, Taylor said, a year ago Art Austin's Web site, www.austinart.org, a directory local galleries, had a monthly average of a few hundred hits. Now the site sees more than 7,000 unique hits a month. "We are all hearing a great deal of chatter (from our visitors) about the Blanton," said. "The Blanton provides the anchor we have needed to attract national attention."

Museum officials note, however, that while this first year has been a success, it won't be until the Smith Building opens a year from now that the museum will be fully finished. Now under construction across a tree-filled plaza from the Michener Building, the 56,000-square-foot Smith Building will feature a café, museum shop, a 299-seat multi-media auditorium, classrooms and administrative offices.

"We're cramming an awful lot of activities into the gallery building currently," said Wilson. "If people love us much as they seem to right now, wait until we're actually finished."

TOP FIVE AUSTIN ARTS AND CULTURE MUSEUMS BY ANNUAL ATTENDANCE

1. Bullock State History Museum -- 452,505
2. LBJ Library and Museum -- 224,680
3. Blanton Museum of Art -- 172,225
4. Austin Museum of Art -- 77,035
5. Ransom Center -- 74,642

TOP FIVE TEXAS ART MUSEUMS BY ANNUAL ATTENDANCE

1. Museum of Fine Arts-Houston -- 1,616,833
2. Dallas Museum of Art -- 431,000
3. Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth -- 181,833
4. Blanton Museum of Art -- 172,225
5. Amon Carter Museum -- 130,013

TOP FIVE UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUMS BY ANNUAL ATTENDANCE

1. Brigham Young University Museum of Art -- 334,774
2. Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio State Univ. -- 225,950
3. Blanton Museum of Art -- 172,225
4. UCLA Hammer Museum of Art -- 129,337
5. Harvard University Art Museums -- 123,465

Source: American Association of Museum Directors 2005 annual survey; staff research

Blanton Museum of Art

History: Founded as the University Art Museum in 1963, later named the Huntington Art Gallery. Housed in the Art Building with additional galleries in the Ransom Center.

Collections: The Blanton has 17,000 works of art, with strengths in modern and contemporary American art, including the Mari and James A. Michener Collection; modern and contemporary Latin American art, including the Barbara Duncan Collection of Latin American Art; 15th century to contemporary prints and drawings, featuring the Leo Steinberg Collection; European paintings, including the Suida-Manning Collection of Renaissance and Baroque art.

Jack S. Blanton: The museum was named for former University of Texas System Board of Regents Chairman Jack S. Blanton in 1997, when the Houston Endowment Inc. gave $12 million to kick off the new museum building campaign. Blanton and his late wife, Laura Lee, also gave $5 million.

New museum complex:

• 124,000 sq. foot gallery in the Mari and James A. Michener Gallery Building, named for the bestselling author and museum donor. Opened April 2006.

• 56,000 sq. foot Edgar A. Smith Building will house café, offices, auditorium, bookstore. Named for Houston UT alumnus. Scheduled to open in 2008.

• 145,000 sq. foot Larry and Mary Ann Faulkner Plaza, named for former UT president and wife.

Annual budget: $6.4 million

If you go. . .

Where: Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Congress Avenue.

Hours: 10 a.m to 5 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays; until 8 p.m. Thursdays, 1 to 5 p.m. Sundays.

Admission: $3-$5 (Thursdays free)

Information: 471-7324, www.blantonmuseum.org

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