FotoFest: Week 1

It really isn't easy to leave Houston this time of year. Only the SXSW activity in Austin over the last few days compares with the excitement down by the gulf. The comtemporary art scene is flourishing in H-town right now, forming the perfect foundation for FotoFest’s theme; U.S. Contemporary Photography. We visited Houston for the opening weekend and are here to tell tales of amazing places and fantastic visions.

(Asha Schechter/Matt Lipps)

Arriving in Houston on a wonderful sunny and 70˚ spring Saturday, we headed straight for the Galleria. The Williams Tower on Post Oak Blvd hosted Assembly: Eight Emerging Photographers from Southern California, an awe inspiring curation from Edward Robinson and Sarah Bay Williams with the Wallis Annenberg Photo Department at LACMA. The eight participating artists include Nicole Belle, Matthew Brandt, Peter Holzhauer, Whitney Hubbs, Matt Lipps, Joey Lehman Morris, Asha Schechter and Augusta Wood. Contemporary photo historian Charlotte Cotton was originally asked to currate this show, at which point she suggested the team from LACMA. The prints here are big and beautiful, some of the largest C-Prints I have ever seen, and all presented differently but wonderfully. Although each artist presented equally amazing work, Matt Lipps’ photo-collages have become some of my favorite contemporary images with their vibrant, saturated colours and confusing use of space. Asha Schechter shares a wing with Lipps and offers a unique take on the materiality and nostalgia we associate with our photographs by imaging the editing process of sorting and stacking prints. Be sure to pick up one of her free newspapers while you’re here too. More about Assembly and LACMA here.

(Luis Mallo)

Next, we headed over to Sicardi Gallery on Richmond Ave to check out Luis Mallo’s series Open Secrets. Mallo pointed his camera at catalogueing and archiving systems to produce a stunning set of C-Prints, most of which span 30 x 39 inches. His shots are all frontal and offer a clear look at the organization and uniformity necessary to keep archives accessible, reverting back to how we organize our own lives and questioning what will seem worth archiving in future generations.

Then, a not-so-quick stop by the Menil to treat ourselves to the surrealist collection and the Maurizio Cattelan work that is on display ( sorry no cameras allowed ). While we didn’t see any photogrpahy on exhibit, Leaps into the Void: Documents of Nouveau Realist Performance was being installed during our visit and will feature both documentation and original works from the Nouveau Réalisme movement as the Menil’s contribution to FotoFest. More to come on this next time.

(Eileen Maxson)

Afterward the Menil, we payed Russel Etchen a visit down the street at Domy Books on Westheimer and looked at Eileen Maxson’s new work Orphans of Failure. Maxson discovered a consistancy in the years 1993 and 2010, which she explores through the creation of a 2010 version of a ‘93 calendar. Using digital media and on-demand production techniques with original and found images, Maxson uses 1993 as an analogue to the current year, depicting an odd rift in American culture and offering up the notion that 1993 is a foreign and distant place. There’s always tons to look at while you’re at a Domy Books, and Orphans of Failure holds its own nicely. Maxson’s sequencing is well executed, while each image carries its own mystique.

(Ben Ruggiero/Anna Krachey)

By this point I was getting hungry and the Austinite in me could just sense a Whole Foods near by. So after a nice snack and refreshing beverage, we found our way over to the Box 13 Art Space on Harrisburg Blvd to enjoy the Panta Rei opening. Panta Rei, Greek for “everything flows” in reference to an ever fluctuating worldly existance, features eleven Austin based photographers dedicated to the progression of the medium. The space at Box 13 was ample enough to hold this juggernaut of contemporary, forward thinking work. Aside from varied framing and camera play, images such as Barry Stone’s Black Cloud have been rotated upside-down and inverted. In the case of Adam Schrieber’s Halliburton Archiving Solutions (II), 1987, a light leak casts a beautiful blue light over the confusing picture plane. Scales change, colors are sometimes altered, framing is often suprising, lighting situations may be unusual but every single image maintains its own confidence and beauty sustained through knowledge and consideration. Although each print is lovely in it own way, Panta Rei is largely successful at controlling how images are read. This is an exhibition on photo fluency beyond all others.

And that was just the opening weekend. We’ll be back next week with more FotoFest action.

Beauty Knows No Pain

O. Rufus Lovett's photographic series on Kilgore Rangerettes and Leah Devun's portraits of young Houston girls dressed as Hannah Montana come together in Beauty Knows No Pain opening at the Houston Center for Photography Friday February 27, 2009.

There are two other events scheduled in conjunction with this opening:

Thursday February 26, 2009 at 6:30pm there will be a screening of Elliott Erwitt´s film Beauty Knows No Pain, a lecture by O. Rufus Lovett, and a Kilgore Rangerettes performance at the Museum of Fine Arts Brown Auditorium. O. Rufus will also be available to sign books.

Saturday February 28, 2009, 1:00 PM - 2:00pm there will be an artist talk and discussion on girl culture between Leah DeVun and Tracy Karner at HCP.

Borrowing its title from the 1972 documentary by Magnum photographer Elliott Erwitt and the slogan of the Kilgore Rangerettes, this two-person exhibition addresses the perception of femininity in contemporary American culture.

Texas photographer O. Rufus Lovett´s celebrated black and white photographs of the Kilgore Rangerettes dance drill team reveal a long-standing tradition of discipline and teamwork towards the achievement of youthful glamour, uniformity, and synchronicity.

Emerging artist Leah DeVun´s color portraits of young Houston girls dressed up as Hannah Montana depict a subset of popular culture fixated on emulating a young female icon. This juxtaposition probes at the varied performative rituals of young American women and girls who, regardless of their socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, desire to embrace celebrity and femininity.