A R T L E T T E R
The Timely Magazine of Art
#7 | <!>previous/ next>!> Artletter index | June 15, 1995 |
Christian Garnett at Lawing Gallery 7/15 Shells, prawns, paramecium angels, sponges, florals and lobster claws deftly squeegeed out of primordial paint ooze. Speedy, fresh, matter of fact, polyreferential, except for the murky Temporanium. A refreshing spot of competence on this Saturday's gallery rounds. -B.D. Waldo Bien at Diverseworks 7/11 I don't hold the lyrical all-encompassing ideas about humanity that are in the artist's statement, but here they're presented as true: there is absolute conviction and earnestness in this work. The simple, beautiful Between the Ears and Ferry Boat crystallize the poetic perfection of their scuffed materials. The scribbled drawings of Untitled-Titled have strong character; some of those on the gateway (#7) are overbuilt, excessively burdened by meaning. At times, as in the murky, hard-to-decipher, whitish plexiglas and plastic sheeting, or in the mud wall, whose significance fails without the explanation, there seems to be greater intensity in the intention than in what actually comes across in the finished piece.-Delfina Kim O'Grady at Lanning Gallery 7/1 "Invisible Paintings. . ." I sure wish they were. O'Grady seems content to scratch away at her paintings' surfaces as if they were scabs or abscesses. These paintings are far too pretty to be either. They are neither bloody nor pus-ridden enough. O'Grady's phaneromania would be better suited to nose picking than painting. The only redeeming thing in this entire show is the Welshman smoking a pipe in the Tinman's (Wizard of Oz) tin hat of Untitled #3. O'Grady is yet another in a long line of tortured-soul Ab-Ex artists (i.e. Monsieur Giles Lyon et al.) Rah rah. . . -Patrick Phipps Beth Lipton Weinberger at Weekend Gallery 6/28 A sincere, sensitive effort at cliche, landscapey Ab-Ex by one who doesn't know enough. This work lacks clarity of purpose and real urgency.-Delfina De Bock, Moore and Frazier at West End Gallery 7/8 Marci De Bock's doll-altars to abused children are a junky hodgepodge of arty effects. Bill Frazier's works are bad bad bad bad bad. Art-historical references, feminist messages and retarded visual jokes are mixed at random and ruin the purity of the bad experience, which otherwise could have been appreciated for its own sake, a la Jeff Koons. -B.D. Address letters to: Bill Davenport, 801 Tulane St., Houston TX 77007 Mail subscriptions $25/year. Look for Artletter 8 on July 1.