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Bad mood rising

Attempting to accomplish even the simplest of tasks while on an empty stomach places you on a rocket-ship to a shit attack*. Anger, anxiety, stress levels explode to uncontrollable levels. Your body wants you to know that whatever the fuck you think your trying to do, you better stop and get some food.

Now imagine a different hunger, not a physical need, but a mental or emotional one and your body has a similar reaction. How to fill this void and get your focus back to do your work, your job or whatever? I figured, go out and see an art show right? Good idea right? Wrong.

I went to see Sally Weber’s show, Elemental, at Women and Their Work. I had been trying to get out there for a bit. All the social media images of the show I saw made me want to see more. I was reeeealy curious about this show. But life kept popping up and interrupting. But fuck it, I was feeling low and my brain needed something. I forced a time into my schedule and manage to get out there. Feed my brain, get past my mental hunger. Good idea right? Wrong.

The show is ok. It’s not bad; it’s not terrible and sure as hell isn’t meltmahFaceOrgasmic good, (what show is, right?). It’s just ok.

I was disappointed by what seems to be a crucial work in the show, Flux. It’s three thin, long rectangle sandboxes, expertly finished in white and placed on the floor creating a horizontal line in the middle of the space. A drive system hung from the ceiling twists and swings 20 lasers via long cords over the boxes as they doodle colored light onto the sand into what I assume infinity or at least until they turn off the lights at closing.

Anyway, The drive system takes all the air out of it for me. There’s no magic, the temporal light drawings on the sand feels lacking somehow. It’s sort of felt like watching The Rockafire Explosion. Here’s a video if you don’t know what that is.

Is it fair to write a review of a show when I’m in a bad mood? Is it fair to expect any show to fix the shit that happens to us when we’re not “arting”? No, it’s not fair. Not fair at all, but at least I’m being upfront about it.

February 19, 2016-RJHarrington

*BTW, that’s just a harsher version of heart attack, you know, extreme stress and anxiety, not a literal shit attack

Like a boss.

Fucking Seth Orion Schwaiger, what the fuck are you doing man? It’s not like I could hate you anymore, but then you went and got all complex.

First, you’ve well established the fact that you’ve got some serious writing chops there. You scrutinize the art shows here in town and write reviews and essays that kick everybody’s ass up and down the street with how good they are. We read the words you knit together for the Chronicle that reveal deep, well consider arguments and insights about the art that all of us assholes keep putting out there.

Ok shit, so now, second you go and show everybody that you’re not some one-trick pony. Hell no, you go off and put your tool-belt on and proceed to build out entire new studio spaces and a fucking gallery at Pump Projects where you then casually install some sculptures, video, sound, large-scale drawings and other shit.

Shit! Shit motherfucker. It’s not like the work is half-ass either, you gave us a couple of busts sculpted out of bronze and wood that mesh together pretty damn impressively. They’re not pristine, but FUCK, it looks like they weren’t meant to be pretty highly polished historical representations. They’re intentionally raw. You want us to know that those fuckers were made by hand.

There’s more of that type of shit all over this show. Remarkable circular charcoal drawings with various vignettes, that make me use my fucking brain! Thanks Seth, like I needed that. Forcing me to recall the main gallery space, which you depicted empty in the drawing, but then I remember you’ve actually filled them up with six giant-ass plinths, just as raw as the busts, but again, intentional.

See and that’s the big rub. Because ok great, you’ve got skills all over the place, writing, sculpting, drafting, but then you go next level and wrap it all up in a conceptual frame-work that has me considering time, memory and place. And what’s worse it’s not chronological. Fuck that’s BOSS.

That’s some sick shit Seth. Showing off your game like that, skillz-to-pay-the-billz and all that shit. Yeah it’s complex and shit, but fuck, it’s also a kick to our collective asses. We’re on notice Seth, and we as artists better step it up too, because, just cuz we can draw or paint n’shit, don’t mean a thing, anybody can do that, but can you think? Seth sure the fuck is.

February 12, 2016-RJHarrington

The definitive #TYAG 2015 Fall arts preview

The slow burn of summer is finally over and the fall art season has begun. All over Texas myriad art exhibitions have opened or soon plan too. With so much going on, hunting down a good show can be exhausting.

Worry not trusty #TYAG readers! The staff at #TYAG Worldwide Media® have beaten the bushes filled with a giant pile of press releases and social media announcements to scare up some quarry to place in your sights! Without further ado, I’ll just jump right in and list them in reverse order.

No.2-September 19, the Museum of Pocket Art hosts Russell Etchen’s Released Under Police Freedom of Information at the Contemporary! Holy hot shit! The genius machine is working overtime at MoPA headquarters. This must see event starts at 1 and then does other stuff. If you miss it, you should kick yourself in the FACE!

No.1-September 23. EMPIRE season 2 returns to television! Is this a surprise? Really, if you don’t have this on your fall must see calendar, then you need to stop reading this blog right now. You just don’t get #TYAG and never will. I mean, look at that promo pic! HOT DAMN! Cookie is the SHIZZZ!!!

Aaaaaaand that’s it. I’m sure Houston and Dallas has stuff going on, but I’m not looking into it, don’t care. Don’t feel like researching it anyway. I’m not driving out there anytime soon. Plus, I don’t know if you watch the news but those towns can get Kray-Kray-Kray.

Honorable mention goes to those lovely gentlemen from Los Outsiders who are doing Dance Your Pants Off 2 at EAST. A quick note: I did loose my pants during last year’s event, even though I was not in attendance.

September 16, 2015-RJHarrington

Give me dead flowers

It’s probably apropos that I can’t find an image of the Museum of Human Achievement’s exhibit Texas Towers by Wade Schaming. The show was up for just two days (August 27-28) and my ArtGuts were happy I got to see it.

I liken un-monumental exhibits like these to buying fresh cut flowers where you know they look awesome at first, but they’re already dead and time will pass and your arrangement decays and rots, the petals fall off all the while the water turns scuzzy and putrid, but at least you had that memory of when it looked awesome. The memory is what’s valuable.

Intentionally ephemeral, Schaming creates poetic work comprised of simply stacking found objects into a cohesive association. The objects are raw, discarded, heavily used and unassuming. Schaming takes the noise of a bulk trash heap and organizes a succinct arrangement. Repetition creates patterns, while the grouping builds into a harmony.

Mind you they’re not all winners. A stack of delicately piled chairs climb a pole based with a reflective emergency blanket-Yawn. However, the majority clearly outshone the few lackluster groupings. I’m happy I was there to witness this brief exhibition bloom.

September 3, 2015-RJHarrington

Lost in the garden

Oh man. I’m not going to fuck around and try to be cute with this one. So, let me get straight to business.

Mexic-Arte’s latest exhibition YLA 20-Within Reach, is bad, real bad. Poor organization, distractions and a weak curatorial premise unite to turn this show into a giant let down.

Organized in a slipshod manner, simply navigating this exhibition becomes a chore. Reference numbers on the wall feel random and jump completely out of order and have no logical progression. I’m not saying you can’t hang your show how you want. You want to pair work from this artist to that artist and then pair him/her with another artist somewhere else. Fine. But trying to figure what work belongs to whom with the supplied “Finding Guide” becomes cumbersome and distracting.

And the potted plants everywhere while initially pleasant, over time get in the way, and eventually take away from individual art works. I found myself time and time again referencing the “Guide” to determine if the plants were part of the work. I just couldn’t allow myself to assume that in this space, plants where not allowed to be art. Am I to understand that I have wandered into some magical garden? I’m not buying it.

This curatorial framework of LITERALLY trying to transform the space into a garden is a daring misstep. I get the metaphor and it’s an easy one to use when trying to find a way to shape an exhibition around artists with different ideas, different backgrounds, different interests and different executions. But by attempting to use potted plants as a substitute for a garden is heavy handed. Each time I ran into a plant next to an artwork, I felt knocked over the head with the metaphor, "you're in a garden, don't forget!"

I expected more and felt let down.

July 29, 2015-RJHarrington

Passed out visiting the beach

See that photo? That’s Pete. He works with me here at #TYAG Worldwide Media®. I took that photo while I was describing Impressionism and the Caribbean, the show up right now at the Blanton.

Right before that picture, he was in the process of ordering pizza, cake and drinks for our annual summer company picnic. Pete LOVES that picnic. He really looks forward to that thing every year. It’s more of a party, but picnic sounds nicer.

Anyway, look at Pete, so sad. It’s like we shot him with a tranquilizer gun. I want to point out that his unconsciousness was not due in any way to my storytelling or reporting of the show. He just couldn’t take the descriptions of the paintings, the layout of the show and passed out. Before he knocked out he mumbled “academic historical distortions…” Something like that, I’m not sure.

In his defense, I too nearly fell asleep when I visited the exhibition! Visitors with questions, thinking I was a docent, snapped me into consciousness.

We put a blanket on Pete and Tanya ended up ordering the party food. If you’re having trouble sleeping I suggest going to this exhibition. It’s the visual art equivalent of Zzzquil.

July 22, 2015-RJHarrington

When talk was cheap

Roughly ten years ago scientists announced the Earth’s ice had finally all melted away and gave us what is now our coastline. Remember New Orleans, San Diego, or Houston? The entire east coast, including Rhode Island, Delaware and even Florida went the way of Atlantis. It’s also hot as balls now. But the worst part is our crowded mega-cities.

If you’re like me, you probably live paycheck to paycheck, commute at least 2 hours a day from an outer borough-sector and remember a time when living in central Austin was affordable. Now, only the mega-rich can afford to live within 5 miles of downtown, with another 10-mile bubble set aside for the basic-rich, and everything else for the rest of us, and there are a lot of “the rest of us.”

Decades ago, back in 2008 I moved to Austin just as the first Great Recession laid the foundations for our current oligarchy (err Republic?) and widened the wealth gap to a chasm. Shortly after that (as early as 2010) a dramatic shift in income distribution pushed all the poor people out (read: minorities) from the city core out to various suburbs. At that time I lived in east Austin, (where what is now the stables for the Walton horses). I was fortunate and not part of the first great “purge”.

Looking back at that time, I remember, as a member of Los Outsiders being part of a series of events that revolved around an exhibition held at the old Mexican-American Cultural Center (was the ESB-MACC, now that Google tower). The exhibition #GentlyFried, focused on topics relevant at the time like displacement, affordability and rapid cultural change. It included artists like Deborah Roberts an Austin native, who left for an MFA only to return to a city drained of its African-American community. It included work by Jill Bedgood, another native, who at the time of the exhibition, had to leave Austin for San Antonio because of cost of living issues.

I look back fondly on that exhibition because Los Outsiders tried to have an open dialog about gentrification and what, if any, steps could be taken to either stop or alleviate the ills that eventually came to fruition. How naive we all were. We should have known, culture will always take a back seat to profits and was bigger than just a regional problem. We had a discussion, and that was the best we could do.

June 8, 2015-RJHarrington

Let’s table that

In the Austin arts world, the Austin Critics Table (ACT) nominations came out today. The critics, I assume, met, discussed, and then nominated artists, performers and organizations for outstanding work in various fields from visual art and dance, to classical music and theater.

Since I consider myself a critic in the area, and was not invited to join in on the deliberation or consulted with, I question the legitimacy of the nominations in the visual arts. That last part is a joke BTW, I don’t take myself that seriously, but by stating that it gives me reason to go where I’m planning with the rest of this post. It has been noted by some arts leaders in this town that the visual arts lack coverage in this town and therefore, these nominations can’t possibly reflect what actually went down this past year. This must be remedied, and I humbly offer my nominations to fill in the glaring holes and gaps that the ACT left in the visual art categories.

Most Awesome curatorial collective:

Los Outsiders with Robert Jackson Harrington

Los Outsiders with Robert Harrington Jackson

Los Outsiders without Robert Jackson Harrington

Most Awesome Art related fundraiser:

#DYPO, Dance Your Pants Off- Los Outsiders

#ATX Loteria- Los Outsiders

Most Outstanding New critical art blog

Trust Your ArtGuts- RJHarrington

Robert Jackson Harrington Facebook feed, Robert Jackson Harrington

Ummm, that’s about all I can think of and I’ve seen EVERYthing this year, but nothing else comes to mind right now. Oh well. If you can think of any, start your own blog.

Winners from ACT and from my list will be announced June 1, 2015.

May 21, 2015-RJHarrington

The Distracted Gaze

Well shit, let me start by stating I’ve met Russell Etchen, had a great lunch/talk with him once, and even invited him to show in my alternative art space, the Museum of Pocket Art. So, I want that known, before I review his latest exhibition.

Now, Russell Etchen went and made his own art space for his own artwork. If you have access to this review, then you have access to his show, Art Opening. There is NO reason for you not to see it. I even gave you the link.

Anyway, the show is part “Choose Your Own Adventure” book, part “Oregon Trail/role player computer game“ mixed with a Tumblr, displaying a bunch of digital images meant to look like large paintings.

Etchen has created a platform and taken control of how his work gets “out there”. The feel of the experience (and really, that’s what this show boils down to) is that the artist is exerting control, or at least trying to. Yet, now, with everything accessible online, I wonder, how much aspects of intent still holds true, especially, how we initially consume images.

Interestingly, I’m reminded of this film-C’était un rendez-vous that you can also watch on your computer right now. However, for director Claude Lelouch, it was never his intention for you to see it on a computer or iPhone or however the hell you see the above link. It was a film meant to be seen in a theater, enveloped in black, with larger than life imagery. The intended experience is overwhelming, drawing you in, getting lost in the moment.

Watching it now however, on my computer screen, I’m distracted by writing this review, and I’ve got 13 tabs open in my browser, and pings alerting me to new communications from friends and all that stuff adds to the experience, never meant to be part of the movie.

The same holds true for Etchen’s Art Opening. All the same distractions, the design of Google Chrome, coupled with my personal settings, all add up to how I consume Etchen’s exhibition. He has no control over these things, How can he?

Yet, I can’t help but think he’s savvy enough to know that those things are part of it. We each get our own unique experience of this work. Which, to pause and focus on that point, is amazing and odd and terrifying all at the same time. The shared experience of the internet has turned us into a hive, networked, connected and sharing the same viral videos. On the internet, we speak the same language, internetease, yet our experiences can’t be the same. As they say, we all die alone.

April 24, 2015-RJHarrington

You lost me at Hello

Right now, accessible all over town is Hello Lamp Post Austin, an interactive art project by Pan Studio from the UK, commissioned by Art in Public Places (AIPP). I want to start with two observations- 1. AIPP is busting its ass trying to bring engaging, thoughtful work to the public. 2. Hello Lamp Post is pretty engaging, technically advanced, and TONS better than shitty painted cows or giant guitars that usually passes as public art projects.

However, I cannot help but be critical. In case you don’t know, I’m part of a curatorial collective called Los Outsiders and our latest project is an exhibition structured around gentrification, the rapidly changing Austin landscape and those negatively affected. Allow me to make a side observation- I was in a meeting yesterday, and someone lamented the loss of the days in Austin, when strangers would acknowledge you and wave as you passed by or stopped to talk to their neighbors. That rarely happens now. Personally, I mostly blame tech money and outside investment capital for the dramatic shift currently happening here.

From my perspective, Hello Lamp project is geared for that tech/investment audience. Or am I wrong and it’s just a reflection of the times? More and more often social interaction occurs in virtual spaces like Twitter/Facebook/Instagram. Yet, not everyone is armed with a smart phone, or access to the Internet or much less even a computer. Not everyone gets to have a text convo with a lamppost, and take selfies with their newest inanimate buddy.

For those without those things, what’s left? May I suggest trying this public art project, Hello Real Person, and try to a have an IRL convo without a screen.

April 10, 2015-RJHarrington

On an infinite loop

Witness is up at the Blanton right now and it’s GOOD. Get up off your lazy ass and go see this exhibition. RIGHT NOW!!! But that won’t be enough. You need to go back, and then go again, and then again and again.

Tucked off to the side, near the back, I spent my entire lunch hour watching this video of Nina Simone performing Mississippi Goddam on a loop. The song is partly in response to the killing of Medgar Evers in 1963. I had to cry.

I had to cry because it’s on a loop. At the end of the video Simone forcefully strikes the keys on her piano, and sings, “that’s it”. But it’s not; the video queues up, and starts all over again, and again, until May 10 when the show comes down.

But shit, that loop hasn’t stopped has it? No. It doesn’t look like it ever will. Simone’s lyrics (poem really), still applies now. This damn song has been on a loop since 1963.

And that’s just this video. The show is overwhelming and needs multiple viewings, but it’s worth it. STOP READING THIS!!! STOP! Go see this show. NOW!

March 24, 2015-RJHarrington

Looking under the bridge

If you’re anything like me you’re 5 foot 9 inches tall, and like chile rellenos (pause for laughter). Additionally, you go to art shows and have opinions about those art shows. Also, if you’re like me, sometimes you write those opinions down. However, unlike me, you don’t post them to your sad little blog, because, you’re not AWESOME, like me. Anyway, for whatever reason you’ve decided you don’t want those written down opinions “out there” in the world. How sad is that?

Well, muffled Austin art goer, your chance has arrived to share those opinions with a larger audience than just your roommate or (most likely) mom, without the social ramifications of having to defend yourself to bitter, ignorant, defeated, artists and patrons.

Trust Your ArtGut is currently accepting phantom/anonymous submissions of art show reviews. Send your reviews to [email protected] .

If it’s good, I’ll post it with no byLine. Simple. I won’t track you down, or attempt to figure out who you are. I will point out that just because this is anonymous, it isn’t your chance to be an asshole. I want honest reviews. If you don’t like something, back it up with sound reasons and/or opinions, same goes if you love it.

Get to it, jerks!

Love,

RJHarrington

ps. I promise NEVER to reveal your identity, even if you ask me to. If you decide to claim yourself, I’ll deny it.

Luxury better well spent

Lest than a year ago, Hipster camera brand Leica posted a 45 minute video of its manufacturing process where a tech spends the entirety of the video polishing the frame of one of its cameras. One could argue it’s a luxurious waste of time. It takes about as long as most hour long TV shows without commercials. Essentially, it is the white space on the printed page, or giant 10 story atriums in luxury high rise buildings. All that nothing is there to state, “we can afford all that nothing.” That’s the subtext.

And like most luxurious things, there is a sense of deep gratification and guilt that occurs simultaneously for the duration of the video. I can afford to watch it. I have access to a computer, I have the time to sit and watch a 45 minute video of anything, I have the time to sit and watch a 45 minute video of a man meticulously polish an aluminum camera, I have the time to write about it all. That is a luxury that I am hyper-aware of. I do not take it lightly. Yet, at the end of the day it is a waste of time.

Currently on display at Las Cruxes is RISE THRU SHADOW 2015 by Domokos Benzcedi. That show, well, that is just a waste of time, and nothing else.

March 10, 2015-RJHarrington

Try Between Something Else

I went to Women and Their Work’s latest exhibition Between Borderlands, by Sara Frantz and while the work exhibits the skill set of a highly trained draftsman, I’m confused by the title. Does Frantz know how to apply gouache and graphite to paper creating a representational image? CHECK. Great, but that’s not what I care about, it’s that word, Borderlands, used here in the title of the exhibition, bugging me.

Maybe it’s me, or the baggage I bring to any show, but that word, used in a region like Texas, automatically gets charged with issues of immigration, deportation, and confrontation. This show is not about that. It’s about architecture and landscape and how someone might define oneself.

So why Borderlands? Sterilizing the word and using a simple dictionary definition of “an area of overlap between two things” makes sense. Frantz isolates singular architectural buildings and places them in serene, untouched environments. It’s a formula, contrast two things, and create new meaning or understanding. Fine, but I can’t un-charge that word. I can’t disassociate Borderlands from all the connotations of mass deportation, children fleeing central and South America, drugs, killings, exploitation, etc.

This show is pleasant and the work looks great, framed and well lit. Go have a pleasant time thinking about how the funky Whataburger “W” framed building help build your identity as a Texan. Just don’t expect anything deeper than that.

March 2, 2015-RJHarrington

#Bullseye

Sean Ripple’s latest project, #TargetResidency, challenges his audience by exploring notions in art making, art viewing and redefines the readymade for a contemporary age1. All this is to say, Sean, who I know, has given himself an art residency with the giant corporate retailer, Target. What I find so engrossing about Sean’s project are his definitions, or lack thereof.

The loose term for a residency in an art context usually means relocating to a space and focusing on your work2. However, for #TargetResidency, space can mean any number of things, whether he’s actually in a Target store, on their website or merely thinking about it. Additionally, the work generated exists in the same way. Drawings, sculptures, arrangement, performance, exist online or in the store.

However, #TargetResidency’s, true success for me, simply lies in the fact that it sparked my own internal dialog, which follows:

If memory servers correctly, way back when, large communities had a public square where people gathered, exchanged ideas & shared life together. It was a place that belonged to no one, therefore anyone could say anything. Open dialog in both senses of the term freedom. Fast-forward to the 1970’s Mall-ification of the US, where public space moved to privately owned mega-buildings and the focus shifted to consumerism. You could speak freely, as long as what you said didn’t hurt sales. Now, that public space, still owned by a private entity, has shifted to social media and whatever you say is monitored, recorded and most importantly owned by that private entity.

Therefore in that context, #TargetResidency, belongs to Facebook and Target, not Sean, and so does this review.

January 16, 2015-RJHarrington

1.Suck on that Ben Davis! 2.Actually, it means going to the forest to get drunk and have sex with everybody, but that’s not important here.

Back on the horse

During the 2004 presidential election, a popular argument from the right was an echo of Lincoln’s, “you don’t change a horse mid-stream”. Bogged down in the war on concepts, the right held that a change of leadership in the middle of a war potentially could make things worse.

At the time I hated that argument, simply because the horse we were riding was a stupid shit and never should have jumped into the water in the first place, plus it couldn’t swim. I don’t even know why the hell we were at that river in the second place. Now, that fucker is out to pasture on a ranch painting lame portraits, while the rest of us deal with nearly drowning.

Anyway, if anything can be gleamed from my previous post, I believe I’ve been riding the wrong horse. Or to be clear, I’ve approached Art from the wrong angle. Recently, I finally read Ben Davis’ 9.5 These on Art and Class. I suggest you pick up a copy as well. I am not going to claim a strong foundation in critical theory, or marxism, or standard art school text, yet Davis writes in a clear, concise style that makes me feel comfortable with my handle on his ideas.

It is using his lens that I plan to use moving forward. Yes, the art market exists. Yes, the money involved in the art market is obscene. But it does not inform me or my work, visually or written. As an artist, I’m a small business owner and I have no plans or ambition to franchise to the point where my money makes money. I’ve always said I want to be the Ian MacKaye of the art world. I’ll drive my bus the way I want to from now on, with ZERO compromise.

January 9, 2015-RJHarrington

Time to speak

These last two weeks I’ve attended art exhibitions with plans to write reviews. I’ve stood in at least 4 different galleries and it all seemed so pointless. Right now, art seems so irrelevant and gratuitous. ArtBasel seems so disgusting to me right now.

Here’s the thing, it’s not just right now, it’s been going on for hundreds of years and I’ve been playing along. Acting like every thing is fair and if you just work hard it all levels out. Playing along with a passion for art where ideas over material matter. Acting like the idea of a urinal as art is such a beautiful thing. Acting like a fool.

That idea is beautiful, but it’s not real. It’s a luxury. It’s based on the concept that every thing is fair and nothing else matters. But it all matters. How we live with each matters. How we treat each other matters.

Speaking out matters and I have been silent and blissfully ignoring it all by going to trivial art shows. I’m not sure what I’m doing anymore or how to proceed. I know I can’t stop making art, but I’ve got to figure out how to speak out and not be silent.

December 4, 2014-RJHarrington

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