A R T L E T T E R
The Timely Magazine of Art
#19 | <!>previous/ next>!> Artletter index | December 15, 1995 |
NEW YEAR'S SPECIAL: Receive ARTLETTER by mail at the new lower subsription price: just $15 for next years' 24 issues! Rubber at Lawndale 1/13 The work in this show is awful. Garish, glassy eyed figures painted very badly interact with chicken entrails and other ghoulies in an indecipherable mish mash of allegories. There is no excuse: not self-expression, not self-perceived outsider status, not misconstrued anger, to justify the self-indulgence of these paintings and sculptures.-Delfina Objects Beside the Economy at Art of This Century 1/? Four objects made by non-artists: a clear pill capsule filled with silver glitter, two Barbie dolls crudely cast in bronze, an old jar containing an exquisitely dressed doll family, and a huge trophy made out of trophy parts. In this unimproved, cheap office space these items, which might otherwise just seem odd, take their rightful place as part of the creaking, foolish story of this culture (headed for the 21st century.)-Delfina Lawrence Carroll at Lawing Gallery 2/10 Grody wall boxes (which Carroll calls paintings) refer to geometry without being limited to it. Mute and evocative, his romantic surfaces push perilously close to melodrama. Curious low-intensity constructions, layers of canvas, paint and wood. Very like the late Twombly, but without the corny Italian words. This show will seem too obtuse for some tastes and too saccharine for others, but it strikes a delicate balance.-B.D. Derek Boshier at the CAM 1/28 Hordes of gloppy, bombastic neoexpressionist canvasses from the 80's. At best they are humorous. Boshier's vague political messages serve as an excuse for the expenditure of hundreds of dollars of paint, while his colorful, cake-frosting surfaces disguise their conceptual poverty.-B.D. Jesus Moroles at Barbara Davis 1/6 Boring granite potato chips and sausages. A collection of cloying office lobby sculptures, carefully crafted with an inventory of industrial techniques to avoid arousing the slightest intellectual stir. It's works like these which give formalism a bad name.- B.D. Address letters to: Bill Davenport, 801 Tulane St., Houston TX 77007 Mail subscriptions $15/year. Look for Artletter 20 on January 2.