Roving Eye: Ready for the Readymade

My colleagues and I are finalizing plans for "It is what it is. Or is it?" which opens May 1, and will be the first show I've curated since my arrival at the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston (CAMH). The exhibition features works by 18 artists and collaborative groups, and considers the readymade as physical remnants of conceptual practice.

It's hard for me to believe that Duchamp's first readymade is nearing its 100th anniversary-he made Bicycle Wheel in 1913. Since that time artists have taken advantage of the readymade's simple materiality and economy of means to offer pointed commentary on political, social, and esthetic issues. Given the advent of digitization, we consume images differently from even a decade ago. A selection of works in the exhibition considers the notion of images-as-readymades as well.
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Roving Eye: International Festivals

Galveston, Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico, is a 45-minute drive from Houston. It was the state's first capitol, and though it's been wiped out by numerous hurricanes, it clings on resiliently.

The occasion for my visit was the Galveston Artist Residency (GAR), a new start-up that hosted a single artist in 2011, and this year welcomes three residents. Artists Eric Schnell and Bert Geary, and architect Robert Whalley founded GAR, wanting to stimulate Galveston's artistic community. The program started in the wake of Hurricane Ike in 2008, which destroyed Schnell's home and studio (among those of many other residents).
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Roving Eye: Deep In (and out of) the Heart of Texas

There's been a recent influx of New Yorkers to the Texas art scene: Bill Arning to Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; Regine Basha to Artpace; Steven Evans to the Linda Pace Foundation and Gary Tinterow to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, not to mention myself to the Contemporary Art Museum Houston. But Texas has its artistic exports, too.

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