THE PERFORMING ARTS ISSUE Top Talent Now Playing On Demand: Jeff Zilm’s Motion Pictures Art At An Altitude Jewels Gone Wild
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SIGHTINGS: ALEX ISRAEL Through January 31
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Alex Israel, Self Portrait (Wetsuit), 2015. Acrylic on aluminum,w 79 ½ x 28 x 22 in. Courtesy the artist and Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York Photo: Kevin Todora, courtesy Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas. © Alex Israel The Sightings Series is generously sponsored by Lara and Stephen Harrison, with specific support of Alex Israel by Nasiba and Thomas Hartland-Mackie and Christen and Derek Wilson.
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EDITOR’S NOTE
Portrait Tim Boole, Styling Jeanna Doyle, Stanley Korshak
December 2015 / January 2016
TERRI PROVENCAL Publisher / Editor in Chief
Attracting and retaining audiences are among the recurrent plights of the performing arts the world over. Locally, we have access to a voluminous breadth of productions staged at world-class facilities and progressive venues with their offbeat charm. Created and chosen by the best minds in the industry for your viewing pleasure, all merely await your ticket purchase and interest for just a few hours—a brief stretch considering the amount of time spent on our cell phones, laptops, tablets, and social media. In respect to this ongoing need for spectators in order to thrive in this field, we asked two established contributing writers, Lee Cullum and Steve Carter, to spotlight the work of notable talent for Patron’s Performing Arts Issue. From a world-renowned soprano to an accordionist making the instrument current, we’ve covered a whole variety of genres in The SceneStealers and Music Has Charms. To that end, Paige Nyman, a luminous beauty and company dancer with Texas Ballet Theater, represents her fellow performing artists on this issue’s cover. Nearly enveloped by one of Jeff Zilm’s large film-based paintings, in a “That’s It!” moment, the ballerina executed a flawless arabesque ensnared in perpetuity by Steven Visneau. Of A Chump at Oxford, a most unlikely title to pair with a dancer en pointe, Zilm describes, “Having the ballet dancer pose in front of the Laurel and Hardy film was inspired. I love the cover image, both formally and the way it engages the deep historical relationship between dance and traditional visual art.” Mounting a show at Dallas Contemporary in January, the multi-media artist is enjoying an international breakout. Represented locally by James Cope’s ANDNOW gallery, this highly collected artist’s work has just been picked up by London’s Simon Lee Gallery. Brandon Kennedy checks in with the artist inside his motor-supply-based studio in preparation for his Dallas Contemporary exhibition opening the first month of the New Year. Profiled in Stealing Time At Present, the show will feature Zilm’s algorithmic and anti-algorithmic painting, sculpture, and time-based media. In the pages that follow, up, up in the air, teeming with light that underscores the contemporary art collection of two new Dallas residents, we captured a beautiful high-res dwelling in High Lights. Designed by Lee Lormand, this breathtaking home offers views of the Dallas Arts District, downtown, and more. More highlights from the visual arts front in Patron’s departments include the masterful exhibition of Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter’s Eye at the Kimbell Art Museum—bold by the Salon’s standards of the day, I love the work of this lesser known Impressionist. Over in the Dallas Arts District boundaries are diminished from Brooklyn to Jaipur in Alexander Gorlizki: Variable Dimensions, a site-specific installation at the Crow Collection of Asian Art that features the entirely inventive works from the artist’s mind. And, Justine Ludwig visits with Dallas’s own Frances Bagley, a sculptor with works on view at CYDONIA Gallery in Relational Matters. Lastly, our second installment of Sojourner takes you due south to visit the Museum of Fine Arts Houston for their recently opened Contingent Beauty: Contemporary Art from Latin America exhibition and the expansion of the Glassell School of Art helmed by celebrated Texas sculptor Joseph Havel, who will mount a show at Talley Dunn Gallery in January. In the final month of the year it’s all about wishes and resolutions. To that end, if every reader promises to take in a few local performances and exhibitions each year, we will have paved the way for continued programming. After all, they’ve been curated and staged just for you. Aren’t you curious? –Terri Provencal
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CONTENTS 1
FEATURES 65 THE SCENE-STEALERS Lee Cullum highlights six spectacular performing artists entertaining local audiences. By Lee Cullum 72 MUSIC HAS CHARMS Patron highlights five of the area’s singular music makers—a diverse field of voices, visions, and virtuosos. By Steve Carter 78 STEALING TIME AT PRESENT The public and private practices of Jeff Zilm. By Brandon Kennedy 86 HIGH LIGHTS Streaming through a canopy of glass windows, the sun, moon, stars, and city lights enhance the art collection of two new Dallas residents. By Nancy Cohen Israel 94 INTO THE JUNGLE In time for the holidays, selections from legendary jewelry and watchmakers preserve the irrepressibly wild and beautiful spirit of nature. Photography by Chris Plavidal
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THE PERFORMING ARTS ISSUE Top Talent Now Playing On Demand: Jeff Zilm’s Motion Pictures Art At An Altitude Jewels Gone Wild
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On the cover: Paige Nyman, a Texas Ballet Theater company dancer, in front of Jeff Zilm's A Chump at Oxford, 2014, dye, silver halide, acrylic and gelatin emulsion, and optical sound on canvas, 84 x 84 in.
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CLÉ DE CARTIER New Collection
CONTENTS 2
DEPARTMENTS 6 Editor’s Note 14 Contributors 22 Noted Top arts and cultural chatter. By Elizabeth Kerin 36 Fair Trade Openings 38 THE UNKNOWN IMPRESSIONIST Artist and patron, Gustave Caillebotte, has work seen anew at the Kimbell Art Museum. Contemporaries 42 FOUND IN TRANSLATION Brooklyn-Based artist Alexander Gorlizki melds East with West at The Crow Collection of Asian Art.
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Studio 46 RELATIONAL MATTERS In preparation for an opening at CYDONIA, Frances Bagley visits with Justine Ludwig in Bagley’s studio. Sojourner 48 AN ART-MINDED CIRCUMSTANCE The Glassell School of Art’s Core Residency Program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is a legendary creative cauldron, an evolving workin-progress since 1982. 52 SIREN SONGS The Museum Of Fine Arts, Houston, offers a challenging and politically charged exhibition that beckons the viewer beneath the beauty. By Steve Carter Space 56 THE MODERN CLASSICIST T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings’s defining furniture collection enriches Emily Summers Studio 54.
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Coveted 58 BETTER LIVING Independent boutique owners supporting the arts. By Diana Oates There 100 CAMERAS COVERING CULTURAL EVENTS
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Furthermore ... 108 LEADER OF THE PAC As the new Board Chair for the AT&T Performing Arts Center, Matrice Ellis-Kirk “keeps the momentum going.”
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PUBLISHER | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Terri Provencal terri@patronmagazine.com ART DIRECTION Lauren Christensen GRAPHIC DESIGN Jimmy Gigliotti COPY EDITOR Paul W. Conant DIGITAL MANAGER/PUBLISHING COORDINATOR Shelby Gorday PRODUCTION Michele McNutt EDITORIAL INTERN Elizabeth Kerin CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Steve Carter Nancy Cohen Israel Lee Cullum Brandon Kennedy Peggy Levinson Justine Ludwig Diana Oates CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Shana Anderson Marcus Junius Laws Sil Azevedo Chris Plavidal Bruno Shawn Saumell Kristina Bowman Jeff Scroggins Danny Campbell John Smith Quoc “QC” Cong Can “Can” Turkyilmaz Daniel Driensky Steven Visneau Chris Hundt Jonathan Zizzo CONTRIBUTING STYLISTS Adam Fortner Gabby Rosenberg (Hair and Makeup) ADVERTISING info@patronmagazine.com or by calling (214)642-1124 PATRONMAGAZINE.COM View Patron online @ patronmagazine.com REACH US info@patronmagazine.com SUBSCRIPTIONS www.patronmagazine.com One year $28/6 issues, two years $39/12 issues
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is published 6X per year by Patron, P.O. Box 12121, Dallas, Texas 75225. Copyright 2015, Patron. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without express written permission of the Publisher is strictly prohibited. Opinions expressed in editorial copy are those of experts consulted and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, publisher or the policy of Patron. Unsolicited manuscripts and photographs should be sent to the address above and accompanied by a self-addressed stamped envelope for return. Publisher will take reasonable precaution with such materials but assumes no responsibility for their safety. Please allow up to two months for return of such materials. Correction: In the October/November issue, That Day: Laura Wilson was incorrectly titled Laura Wilson: That Day in THERE.
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CONTRIBUTORS
STEVE CARTER Steve visits with five of the area’s most intriguing musicians, and it’s quite a varied roster— singer/songwriters Salim Nourallah and Warren Jackson Hearne, composer Mark Menza, jazz vocalist Hale Baskin, and accordionista Ginny Mac. He also goes behind the scenes of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s blockbuster exhibition, Contingent Beauty: Contemporary Art from Latin America where he spoke with the museum’s Mari Carmen Ramírez, Wortham Curator of Latin American Art.
SIL AZEVEDO Photography is a means of discovery and personal growth for Sil. His background as an architect comes through in the elegant composition of his images. Sil’s love for photography started at age seven when he got a Kodak Instamatic and started shooting away. In high school he was always in the darkroom and kept developing his skills in college and beyond. Connecting with people to highlight their individuality, Sil was well chosen to train his lens on the exceptional performing artists in The SceneStealers.
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BRANDON KENNEDY As the Director of Fine Arts and Design at Dallas Auction Gallery, Kennedy forges meaningful relationships with clients either handling a seasoned buyer's collection or introducing a novice collector to buying artwork in the secondary market. He is an artist, writer, curator, and educator in both New York and Dallas and continues to be involved in book culture, speaking about artists's books and keeping tabs on the ever-changing collectibles scene. In these pages, he highlights the vocabulary of Dallas-based artist Jeff Zilm, actively preparing for his January show opening at the Dallas Contemporary.
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PEGGY LEVINSON Levinson is a design industry veteran and prior Design and Style editor for D Home. In addition to freelance writing, Levinson consults with showrooms, artisans, and interior designers so they can function successfully and profitably, while preserving what makes each unique. Previously a showroom owner—BoydLevinson and Hargett Associates—she loves to wander around the Design District and Industrial/Riverfront area, keeping up with the “best and brightest” like Scott + Cooner, George Cameron Nash, Culp Associates, and David Sutherland.
LAUREN CHRISTENSEN With more than 1 years of experience in advertising and marketing, Lauren consults with clients in art, real estate, fashion, and publishing through L. Christensen Marketing & Design. She serves on the boards of the Christensen Family Foundation and Helping Our Heroes. Her clean, contemporary aesthetic and generous spirit make Lauren the perfect choice to art direct Patron.
CHRIS PLAVIDAL Fort Worth-based photographer, Chris Plavidal discovered his life’s calling as a boy launching model rockets with a small 110-film camera built into the nose cone. When the parachute fired, the camera shutter was tripped and developed the roll of film when finished. “Only two of them actually showed anything other than sky or the white smoke of the rocket engine, but there was something magical about seeing the rooftops from hundreds of feet up in the air.” After a stint in New York printing for fine art photographers and assisting for Eddie Adams, he returned to Dallas to concentrate on shooting still lifes.
NANCY COHEN ISRAEL For Nancy Cohen Israel, an art historian and Dallas-based writer, the diversity of stories told in Patron is one of its strongest assets. For this issue, she had the opportunity to speak with a broad range of the art community, from the multi-talented Alexander Gorlizki, whose exhibition Variable Dimensions transforms the Crow Collection of Asian Art’s galleries, to George Shackelford, co-curator of Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter’s Eye, to contemporary art collectors whose magnificent home is featured in High Lights.
GUEST CONTRIBUTOR, LEE CULLUM To this esteemed journalist, “the breath of life is performance of all kinds.” In The SceneStealers, she profiles six artists dazzling local audiences this season: principal flutist Demarre McGill playing Bruckner for the DSO, Joshua Peugh rehearsing his version of Rites of Spring at Preston Center Dance, Albert Drake working with the Bruce Wood Dance Company, soprano Ailyn Perez highlighting her roles in Great Scott and Manon for TDO, actor Bruce DuBose playing for the Undermain Theatre, and playwright Steven fascinating viewers with a sidebar to Henry V called The King’s Face.
JOHN SMITH For more than two decades, Smith has spent much of his time bringing out the art of architecture in his photography. He consults with architects, designers, and artists to bring their vision to light. A regular Patron contributor, John is called upon to photograph homes where art is at the forefront of design. Here, Smith observed and captured the reflection of the sun and night sky and city to interact with the art in the home of an art-collecting couple new to Dallas in High Lights.
STEVEN VISNEAU Lens-master Steven Visneau was born and raised in upstate New York. Now based in Dallas, this highly sought fashion photographer, also known for his work with Texas Ballet Theater, has been engaged by Patron for the final cover of 2015. In an otherworldly moment, one expert snap by Steven captured the ephemeral arabesque of dancer Paige Nyman in front of A Chump at Oxford by Jeff Zilm, an accomplished Dallas artist who uses film stock as his base material.
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M E A D OWS M U S E U M DA L L A S .O R G
500 YEARS OF ART AND COLLECTING SEPTEMBER 11, 2015-JANUARY 3, 2016 This exhibition is co-organized by the Meadows Museum and the Casa de Alba Foundation. A generous gift from The Meadows Foundation has made this project possible. It is part of the Museum’s Golden Anniversary, which is sponsored by The Meadows Foundation, The Moody Foundation, the Dallas Tourism Public Improvement District and the Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau. Media sponsorship has been provided by The Dallas Morning News.This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (Spanish, 1746-1828), The Duchess of Alba in White, 1795. Oil on canvas. Colección Duques de Alba, Palacio de Liria, Madrid.
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01 AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM The Carroll Harris Simms: National Black Art Competition and Exhibition showcases works of emerging black artists through May 21. Walter Cotton: Texas Folk Artist features the work of this self-taught artist through Mar. 5. The AAM presents Souls of Black Folk, Facing the Rising Sun, and Bayou Sculptors, featuring works created by artists native of the Bayou area of Houston and Louisiana, and continues through Dec. 31. aamdallas.org 02 AMON CARTER MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART Self-Taught Genius: Treasures from the American Folk Art Museum is on view through Jan. 3. In Laura Wilson: That Day, 71 photographs document the hard-bitten rural communities of the West. Through Feb. 14. Tales from the American West: The Rees-Jones Collection runs through Feb. 21. Muralist Esther Pearl Watson’s work, Pasture Cows Crossing Indian Creek, Comanche, Texas, Looking for the old Civilian Fort of 1851, North of Gustine and a mile west of Baggett Creek Church, captures the spirit of her Texas upbringing through May 30. cartermuseum.org 03 ANN & GABRIEL BARBIER-MUELLER MUSEUM Inside the Armor makes special use of X-rays that reveals the hidden secrets of these Japanese Samurai masterpieces. The museum sponsors Lunchtime Talk every Thursday at 1 p.m. Public Tours are on Saturdays and Sundays at 1 p.m. samuraicollection.org
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THE LATEST CULTURAL NEWS COVERING ALL ASPECTS OF THE ARTS IN NORTH TEXAS: NEW EXHIBITS, NEW PERFORMANCES, GALLERY OPENINGS, AND MORE.
PATRONMAGAZINE.COM
04 CROW COLLECTION OF ASIAN ART Jean Shin’s site-specific sculpture Celadon Landscape is on view through Dec. 31. Jean Shin: Inclusions offers works in video, installation, photography, and mixed media. Through Jan. 3. Alexander Gorlizki: Variable Dimensions exhibits the artist’s work in drawing, sculpture, installation, video, and the applied arts for a rich kaleidoscopic experience of the artist’s creative imagination through Mar. 20. Image: Alexander Gorlizki (born 1967), Orange Curtain, 2015, collage, pigment and gold on paper. Courtesy of the artist. crowcollection.org 05 DALLAS CONTEMPORARY This non-collecting museum continues to show Bani Abidi’s An Unforeseen Situation, Nadia Kaabi-Linke’s Walk the Line, Adriana Varejao’s Kindred Spirits, Synchrodogs’s Supernatural, and Jason Willaford’s “Sorry, this will only take a minute.” through Dec. 20. Black Sheep Feminism, Aura Satz, and Jeff Zilm open Jan. 16. Image: Adriana Varejao, White Mimbres I (detail), oil and plaster on canvas, 2015. Courtesy of Dallas Contemporary. Photography by Kevin Todora. dallascontemporary.org 06 DALLAS HOLOCAUST MUSEUM Hope for Humanity Award Dinner honoring Mayor Mike Rawlings takes place Dec. 3 at the Fairmont Dallas. Jan. 5 welcomes a new exhibit, Anne Frank: A History for Today that will continue through May 31. dallasholocaustmuseum.org
07 DALLAS MUSEUM OF ART International Pop synthesizes works from the global emergence of Pop in the 1960s and 1970s. Through Jan. 17. Jackson Pollock: Blind Spots offers the largest survey of Pollock’s lesser known “black paintings” ever assembled. Through March 20. Vermeer Suite: Music in 17th-Century Dutch Paintings opens Jan. 17 and features work from the great 17th-century painters. NS Harsha: Sprouts, reach in to reach out is a site-specific mural on display through Feb. 21. Spirit and Matter: Masterpieces from the Keir Collection of Islamic Art presents over fifty masterworks. Image: Nobuaki Kojima, Untitled (Figure), 1976. Collection of the artist. Through July 31. dma.org 08 GEOMETRIC MADI MUSEUM Middle Eastern Influences features Quisgard and Abedin through Jan. 9. Inspired by Moorish architecture and Byzantine mosaics, New York artist Liz Quisgard creates a magical vision through embroidered, abstract tapestries as well as columns. Iranian-born Fariba Abedin offers an exploration of color using geometric abstraction as a foundation. Abedin will give a closing lecture on Jan. 8. Opening Jan. 15, The Magic of Yaakov Agam exhibits his multi-perspective paintings. geometricmadimuseum.org 09 KIMBELL ART MUSEUM Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter’s Eye through Feb. 14, displays the artist’s daring and bold paintings created during the height of Impressionism in the 1870s and 1880s.
NOTED: VISUAL ARTS
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Castiglione: Lost Genius. Masterworks on Paper from the Royal Collection continues through Feb. 14 reinstating the 17th-century master as one of the greatest graphic artists of the Baroque. Image: Gustave Caillebotte, Man on a Balcony, Boulevard Haussmann, 1880, oil on canvas, 45.87 x 35.25 in. Private collection; courtesy of Christie’s, Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY. kimbellart.org 10 LATINO CULTURAL CENTER Cinco de Oro is a monthly movie screening celebrating Latino culture. On Jan. 20, Historia De Un Gran Amor will be screened. dallasculture.org/latinoculturalcenter 11 THE MAC In 2016, The MAC will reopen in its new location in The Cedars. the-mac.org 12 MEADOWS MUSEUM Treasures from the House of Alba: 500 Years of Art and Collecting offers an exhibition of 130 works from the Alba family’s private collection, including works by Fra Angelico, Goya, Rubens, Rembrandt, Ingres, and Renoir. Through Jan. 3. The Meadows offers community outreach activities and lecture series, including Connections, on Dec. 3, a program designed for individuals with early-stage dementia and their families. meadowsmuseumdallas.org 13 MODERN ART MUSEUM FORT WORTH FOCUS: Joyce Pensato exhibits American cartoons and comic book characters to create
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portraits that vacillate between menacing and amusing, fretful and enthusiastic. Through Jan. 31. Highlights from the Permanent Collection continues to showcase some of the museum’s most treasured works. Through Mar. 20. Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic is an overview of the artist’s prolific fourteen-year career running through Jan. 10. FOCUS: Glenn Kaino opens Jan. 30, exhibiting the artist’s installations that balance formal and conceptual concerns. themodern.org 14 MUSEUM OF BIBLICAL ART The Art of Aging features artworks by contemporary Jewish artists—Leonard Everett Fisher, Samuel Bak, and Leonard Meiselman through Dec. 18. Mysteries, Signs, and Wonders features paintings by Barbara Hines on view through Apr. 3. In partnership with Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church of Dallas, Orthos Doxa showcases treasures tracing back to the early first century. See works by Gib Singleton in the Via Dolorosa Sculpture Garden. biblicalarts.org 15 NASHER SCULPTURE CENTER Giuseppe Penone: Being the River, Repeating the Forest is displayed through Jan. 10. Sightings: Alex Israel features new sculptures and paintings inspired by Hollywood movies and the artist’s life. Through Jan. 31. Chalet Dallas, a collaboration between artist Piero Golia and architect Edwin Chan, transforms the Corner Gallery into a gathering space. Enjoy premier access to Chalet Dallas during non-museum hours. The two remaining public tours take place Dec. 12 and Jan. 9.
A Thousand Cranes: Christopher Theofanidis’ Second Symphony for Strings and Harp will be performed Dec. 12 as part of the Nasher’s Soundings series. Image: Chalet Dallas tour. Photo by Bret Redman. nashersculpturecenter.org 16 NATIONAL COWGIRL MUSEUM The exhibition of works by a Fort Worthbased photographer appears in RODEO: Photographs by Rima Canaan Lee in the Anne W. Marion Gallery, through Feb. 7. Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo Moo-seum Experience opens Jan. 15. Through Feb. 6. cowgirl.net 17 PEROT MUSEUM Creatures of Light: Nature’s Bioluminescence explores Earth’s organisms that produce light. Through Feb. 21. Discovery Days, the second Saturday of each month, features themes of Darkness on Dec. 12 and Light on Jan. 9. The Perot screens National Geographic films including Walking with Dinosaurs: Prehistoric Planet 3D, Wildest Weather in the Solar System 3D, Jerusalem 3D, and Giants 3D. perotmuseum.org 18 TYLER MUSEUM OF ART Ansel Adams: Early Works continues through Jan. 3. The Granite Sculpture of Candyce Garrett is displayed through Jan. 17. Embracing Diverse Voices: 90 Years of African-American Art opens Jan. 17. Through Mar. 20. This show features paintings, photographs, sculptures, and prints by artists including Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Jacob Lawrence, and Kara Walker. tylermuseum.org DECEMBER 2015 / JANUARY 2016
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NOTED: PERFORMING ARTS
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01 AMPHIBIAN Daedalus by David Davalos performs at the Milburn Theatre Dec. 6–7. Daedalus is a fictionalized account of the time in Leonardo’s life when he was struggling with the question of his identity and the responsibility that creators bear to and for their creations. Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins by Eric Kimmel shows Dec. 11–20. In partnership with The Modern there will be filmed screenings of the National Theatre of London’s Hamlet Dec. 9, 12, 16, and 19 and Coriolanus Jan. 13 and 16. Image: Hamlet (Benedict Cumberbatch). Photo by Johan Persson. amphibianstage.com 02 AT&T PERFORMING ARTS CENTER Evgeny Kissin takes the stage of the Winspear Opera House Dec. 10. Later in the month, Jersey Boys hits the stage Dec. 16–27. The month of January welcomes Lavell Crawford on Jan. 9 at the Majestic Theatre, and Shen Yun will delight audiences with ancient legends and stories from China today, Jan. 1–10 at the Winspear Opera House. If/Then will show Jan. 26–31 at the Winspear. attpac.org 03 BASS PERFORMANCE HALL The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra will play Handel’s Messiah, Dec. 11–27. Michael Martin Murphey’s Cowboy Christmas plays Dec. 21. Robert Earl Keen’s Merry Christmas from the Fam-O-Lee is onstage Dec. 30 and New Year’s Eve: A Night Out with The Boys offers a delightful evening of Nat “King” Cole, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, and Stevie Wonder on Dec. 31. On Jan. 2–3, the FWSO plays Pokemon: Symphonic Evolutions, followed by Beethoven’s Eroica, Jan. 8–10. Motown the Musical claims the stage Jan. 13–17. The month closes with Yefim Bronfman, Jan. 19; A Night at the Oscars, Jan. 22; Elvis Lives, Jan. 26; Shaping Sound, Jan. 27; and Viva Italia!, Jan. 29–31. basshall.com 24
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04 CASA MANANA Frosty the Snowman, a musical performance of the wintertime tale of a beloved snowman, continues to show through Dec. 23. casamanana.org 05 DALLAS BLACK DANCE THEATRE Black on Black performances will take place Dec. 11–12. The month of January welcomes the 20th Annual Founder’s Luncheon at the Hilton Anatole to celebrate the vision and passion of Dallas Black Dance Theatre Founder Ann M. Williams and to share in the continued accomplishments of the company over its 39-year history, Jan. 8. dbdt.com 06 DALLAS CHILDREN’S THEATER Valentine Davies’s Miracle on 34th Street shows through Dec. 20. Kathy Burks’s Theatre of Puppetry Arts performs Not a Creature was Stirring through Dec. 23. The Lone Star Circus will perform Zingari, Dec. 26 through Jan. 3 as a loving tribute to the old Gypsy roots of many circus families. A Year with Frog and Toad takes the stage Jan. 29 and will show through Feb. 28. dct.org 07 THE DALLAS OPERA Becoming Santa Claus by American composer Mark Adamo is an original new work brimming with the true spirit of the holidays! Performances will be Dec. 4–12. Linda and Mitch Hart Institute for Women Conductors Performance welcomes six of the most exciting women leading orchestras today to conduct The Dallas Opera Orchestra the evening of Dec. 5. TDO offers a family programming Dec. 5 with Bastien and Bastienne by Mozart, composed when he was just 12 years old. dallasopera.org 08 DALLAS SUMMER MUSICALS ELF The Broadway Musical opens Dec. 8 following the tale of Buddy the Elf, who
as a young orphan mistakenly crawls into Santa’s bag of gifts and is transported to the North Pole. The musical comedy captures the Christmas spirit as Buddy returns to his parents’ home in NYC and tries to save his dad from the naughty list. Through Dec. 20. dallassummermusicals.org 09 DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Dallas Symphony Christmas Pops stars soprano Ava Pine and the Dallas Symphony Chorus, Dec. 4 –20. Organ and Brass Christmas Spectacular features the DSO brass and percussion sections with the Lay Family Concert Organ, Dec. 7. DSO on the GO brings Organ and Brass Christmas Spectacular to Cliff Temple Baptist Church on Dec. 10. Enjoy Christmas Spirituals by acclaimed baritone Jubilant Sykes and friends, Dec. 10. Preservation Hall Jazz Band spices up the holiday season, Dec. 22–23. Ring in 2016 at the Meyerson with Viennese sparkle on Dec. 31. Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No 3 comes to the Meyerson on Jan. 7–10. The DSO will play Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, Jan. 14–16; Gershwin’s Greatest Hits, Jan. 22– 24; and Mozart 39 & The Magic Flute Overture, Jan. 29–31 with Dallas Symphony Music Director Jaap van Zweden. Image: Maestro Jaap van Zweden and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Photo by Mark Kitaoka. mydso.com 10 DALLAS THEATER CENTER Committed to staging new and challenging works, the Dallas Theater Center mounts the world premiere of Clarkston: Two young men attempt to join together to forge ahead in an uncertain future in the corporatized and dehumanized American West. Onstage in the Studio Theatre in the Wyly Theatre, Dec. 3–Jan. 31. A Christmas Carol heralds the Christmas season on the stage of the Wyly Theatre, through Dec. 26. dallastheatercenter.org
The 2016 Lexus LX. Go beyond boundaries, with Sewell’s boundless commitment to service.
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NOTED: PERFORMING ARTS
11 KITCHEN DOG THEATER Performances of The Totalitarians, the story of a candidate for Nebraska state offices, continue through Dec. 19. The play is a dark comedy about the state of modern political discourse, modern relationships, and how easy it is to believe truths without facts. The theater will be dark in January. kitchendogtheater.org 12 MAJESTIC THEATER Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the Christmas childhood classic, takes the stage Dec. 3–6, followed by The Milk Carton Kids, Dec. 11. The Polyphonic Spree performs Dec. 12 to complete December’s events. January invites Dave Rawlings Machine, Jan. 8. Lavell Crawford takes the stage Jan. 9. The January programming is closed with Patton Oswalt, Jan. 22 and Kathleen Madigan, Jan. 23. majestic-theater.com 13 TACA 2016 TAC A Grant Awards Presentation celebrates the support the organization has received the evening of Jan. 25 at the Wyly Theatre. taca-arts.org 14 THEATRE THREE The Fantasticks, the famed musical comedy by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmid, shows in Dallas Dec. 3 –27. The Fantasticks is a
timeless romantic tale of a boy, a girl, and their father’s schemes to get the two married. Oil, a new play by Neil Tucker, begins Jan. 21 and follows the tale of Magritte Holes, the matriarch of one of Houston’s most affluent oil families. Performed through Feb 14. theatre3dallas.com 15 TITAS There will be a performance of Bodytraffic the evening of Jan. 22 at the Winspear Opera House. Bodytraffic has made a big impact in the Los Angeles dance scene through pairing sophisticated European choreography with top-rung dancers. titas.org 16 TEXAS BALLET THEATER The Nutcracker is a sojourn into the Kingdom of Sweets, featuring the choreography by Ben Stevenson accompanied by Tchaikovsky’s Christmas classic. The performances will take place at the Bass Performance Hall, Dec. 11–27. Called the “most anticipated holiday event in North Texas,” The Nutty Nutcracker is a trip to the unexpected that takes the stage of Bass Performance Hall Dec. 18. texasballettheater.org 17 TURTLE CREEK CHORALE The chorale explores the theme of “There’s
COVER GIRL
Texas Ballet Theater’s company dancer, Paige Nyman, is pretty as a picture. Amid the Saturday-morning doldrums on a dreary Dallas day, Paige Nyman vivified Dallas-based artist’s Jeff Zilm’s studio to pose for the cover of Patron’s Performing Arts Issue. A company member of Texas Ballet Theater, Nyman presented the perfect Arabesque, poignant in its ephemerality, before Zilm’s work, A Chump at Oxford—an unlikely title to document this delicate action and the marvelous painting by an artist who has rapidly become of international significance. Of the flawless execution Paige says, “I was inspired by his work because it contained so much movement, and that truly spoke to me as a dancer.” Fittingly, and in an interesting aside, Zilm employs movie film as his base material for these largely gray-scale works. “My art is defined by movement and the meaning behind movements, so translating that feeling from his work seemed like a natural connection,” she illustrates. “I loved seeing the depth in his work, and it was an honor and pleasure to be a part of such a striking scene,” describes this beautiful performing artist who will play several roles in The Nutcracker onstage December 11–27 at Bass Hall. A former dancer with Britain’s The Royal Ballet, Ben Stevenson, the celebrated Artistic Director of Texas Ballet Theater, enthuses, “Paige is such a wonderfully bright and charming young dancer who is a delight to work with.” In her seventh season with TBT, Nyman has been dancing since the age of three. Bestowed with a scholarship to The HARID Conservatory where she studied for two years under Svetlana Osiyeva, Oliver Pardina, and Victoria Schneider, the ballerina says favorite roles have included the Pas de Trois from Ben Stevenson’s 2015–2016 season-opener Dracula and the Pas de Trois from his Four Last Songs, along with others. Image: Paige Nyman, a Texas Ballet Theater company dancer, in front of Jeff Zilm's A Chump at Oxford, 2014, dye, silver halide, acrylic and gelatin emulsion, and optical sound on canvas, 84 x 84 in. P
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no place like home for the holidays” in their performance of Home on stage at the Dallas City Performance Hall, Dec. 17–20. TCC welcomes youngsters Dec. 19 to a singa-long of holiday classics. In January, the chorale will participate in Uptown Player’s performance of Aida, which chronicles the love story of an enslaved Nubian princess who falls in love with an Egyptian soldier. turtlecreek.org 18 UNDERMAIN THEATRE The Night Alive, written by Conor McPherson and directed by Dylan Key, will take the stage through Dec. 12. The story follows the lives of four modern Dubliners, and has been described by The New York Times as “spellbinding and gorgeous.” undermain.org 19 WATERTOWER THEATRE Written by Michele Riml and directed by Terry Martin, Sexy Laundry plays in the Main Space at the Addison Theatre Centre through Dec. 13. Sexy Laundry is a touching and hilarious journey that will resonate with many. Lord of the Flies, based on the classic novel of the same name by Nobel Prizewinning English author William Golding, runs Jan. 22 through Feb. 14. The tale reveals morality through exploring the underbelly of human nature. watertowertheatre.org
NOTED: GALLERIES
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01 ALAN BARNES FINE ART British Impressionist Matthew Alexander will exhibit Light On the Landscape through Dec. 18. ABFA offers collectors—including clients like The Royal Family and Paul McCartney—a series of 18 th - and 19 th century works and contemporary pieces. alanbarnesfineart.com 02 ANDNOW This progressive gallery in The Cedars features the works of Viennese fashion artist Anna-Sophie Berger and LA-based artist Zak Kitnick through Dec. 19. ANDNOW represents Jeff Zilm whose works will be exhibited in January at Dallas Contemporary. andnow.biz 03 ARTSPACE 111 Waxing is a collection of works from Janet Chaffee opening Dec. 4 through Jan. 30. A native of Denver, Chaffee explores the concept of chance by layering different media and weaving together the old and the new in her work. artspace111.com 04 BARRY WHISTLER GALLERY Andrea Rosenberg’s solo exhibit is entitled New Drawings through Dec. 5, followed by Dan Rizzie’s Recent Prints and Collages, with an opening reception Dec. 12 and running through Jan. 9. barrywhistlergallery.com 05 CADD Contemporary Art Dealers of Dallas is an organization of the city’s foremost contemporary art dealers for the advancement of contemporary art on all levels. CADD also offers scholarships and organizes community gallery walks, bus tours, and their signature Mystery Dinner. caddallas.net 06 CARNEAL SIMMONS CONTEMPORARY ART Interface features selections from the UTSW 28
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Clements University Hospital collection developed by Carneal Simmons. Interfacing with multiple galleries and artists for the project, Susan Dory, Jud Bergeron, and Sherry Giryotas are exhibited, along with John Pomara, Linnea Glatt, Otis Jones, Dornith Doherty, Vincent Falsetta and Ted Larsen, William Cannings, and Charlotte Smith. On view through Feb. 13. Image: Susan Dory, Namesake, 2012, acrylic on canvas over panel, 56 x 62 in. carnealsimmons.com
10 CRAIGHEAD GREEN GALLERY This established Dragon Street gallery presents a group show of the works of Daniel Angeles, Krista Harris, and Frank Morbillo continuing through Dec. 31. Jan. 9 welcomes a new group exhibition of photographer Kenda North, painter Bryson Davis Jones, and the 3D collage and paper installations of Abhi Ghuge. Through Feb. 13. Image: Frank Morbillo, Go Round, 2015, stainless steel and cast glass, 12 x 15 x 4 in. craigheadgreen.com
07 CHRISTOPHER MARTIN GALLERY On Dec. 1–6 the gallery participates in the 4th edition of CONTEXT Art Miami at Booth 93, held in the Wynwood Art District, presenting a two-person show featuring new works by contemporary painter Christopher H. Martin and sculptor Michael Enn Sirvet, with a VIP opening the evening of Dec. 1. christopherhmartin.com
11 CRIS WORLEY FINE ARTS First Light, Harry Geffert’s solo show, runs through Jan. 2, exploring the natural world through his unmatched ability to replicate its delicate details in fine bronze casting. Celia Eberle’s solo exhibit, The Mytholog y of Love, explores the aspects of love by referencing the love goddess, songs and poetry, movies, music, animals, and perfume, Jan. 9–Feb. 13. crisworley.com
08 CIRCUIT 12 CONTEMPORARY Mysterious Muck, a group-show curated by gallery artist Clark Goolsby, focuses on artists whose works reflect the multiplicity and complexity inherent in contemporary culture. Artists include Matthew Craven, Mathew Zefeldt, Langdon Graves, Jennifer Nehrbass, and others. Through Jan. 2. Image: Mathew Zefeldt, Some Sum, 2015, acrylic on canvas, 55 x 40 in. circuit12.com 09 CONDUIT GALLERY W. Tucker’s expressive, multi-layered works will show through Dec. 31 in box, boxing, boxed. Roberto Munguia’s oil and encaustic paintings come together in a show entitled eternityest one. The Project Room showcases experiments by Sandra Ono, whose oeuvre considers the potential for conversion. Jan. 9–Feb. 16, graphite drawings by Annette Lawrence are presented in Standard Time. Image: Annette Lawrence, Midway and Counting (detail), graphite on paper. conduitgallery.com
12 CYDONIA GALLERY Cydonia Gallery continues to host the sculptures of Frances Bagley and found objects and iconographic images of Ryan Burghard in Where You End and I Begin: Relational Dialectics through Jan. 9. cydoniagallery.com 13 DADA Dallas Art Dealers Association is an affiliation of established, independent galleries and nonprofit art organizations that also offers the Edith Baker Art Scholarship to Booker T. Washington High School seniors pursuing the study of visual arts. dallasartdealers.org 14 DAVID DIKE FINE ART The gallery space is in preview mode for the upcoming Annual Texas Art Auction at Wildman Art Framing that will take place Jan. 23. daviddike.com
40 15 ERIN CLULEY GALLERY EL MERCADO: An Exhibition of Art & Design features artists and designers from Dallas, Baltimore, and New York, showing Dec. 5–24. Located in the Trinity Groves area. The gallery is committed to maintaining a public project program to contribute to the Dallas community. erincluley.com 16 FWADA Save the date for Spring Gallery Night, Mar. 19, held at over forty art galleries, museums, and venues throughout the city. FWADA members include independent art dealers, nonprofit exhibition spaces, museums, and university galleries. fwada.com 17 GALLERIE NOIR Gallerie Noir curates the synthesis of fine art within an interior design space. In a gallery space located in the Dallas Design District, paintings, photography, art installations, and sculpture are offered to revitalize residential spaces. gallerienoir.com 18 GALLERI URBANE Jan. 2 marks the opening of two solo shows: Refraction in the line of sight by California artist Jessica Snow in Gallery 1 and Dreamland featuring the works of Texas artist Jeffrey Dell in Gallery 2. Brooklyn artist Royal Jarmon’s work will also be displayed during the month of January. galleriurbane.com 19 GOSS-MICHAEL FOUNDATION New Wave features the works of Darja Bajagic, Nina Beier, Ida Ekblad, Claire Fontaine, Shilpa Gupta, Teresa Margolles, Amanda Ross-Ho, Sheida Soleimani, and Rosemarie Trockel. The artists exhibit a variety of materials and aesthetic approaches addressing sociopolitical issues. Through Dec. 11. g-mf.org DECEMBER 2015 / JANUARY 2016
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20 GRAY MATTERS GALLERY Vance Wingate’s work exhibits through Dec. in Talismans for Sullen Entropy/Furled Objects, displaying figures and objects that share the quality of having overworked surfaces. In Chirality: Defiant Mirror Images, works by Ellen Levy, Jeff Gibbons, Luke Harnden, Trent Straughan, Alan and Michael Fleming, and Steve Oscherwitz invoke dynamism through individuation and social action. Through Dec. 12. vancewingate.squarespace.com 21 HOLLY JOHNSON GALLERY In Rebecca Carter’s A Thread House Has Whiskers, the artist explores 3D forms in thread. Through Dec. 23. Bret Slater’s hybrid painting-sculptures are anthropomorphic surrogates that balance composition and material to feel both natural and functional. Through Jan. 2. Raphaëlle Goethals’s Paintings opens Jan. 9. Her works in wax and resin define her signature oeuvre. Through Mar. 26. Image: Rebecca Carter, Shed, 2015, cotton, polyester, and rayon threads, 9 x 4 x 4 in. hollyjohnsongallery.com 22 JM GALLERY The works of Kyle Hobratschk and Shelley Scott show through Dec. 19, challenging the viewers’s perception of space. Curated by Jane Politz Brandt and Michael Heinlen, JM Gallery maintains a collection of paper artworks and sculptural forms to promote and showcase artists in an inviting space at One Arts Plaza. jmgallery.org 23 KEVIN PAGE 3D GALLERY Kevin Page 3D Gallery presents works of art enabled by modern 3D technology. December’s Holidays in 3D exhibition features patented 3D Oil Prints and Augmented Reality gifts for the season. For January’s Art Walk, the gallery will premiere Holographic Art and Design, including works displayed in augmented and virtual reality environments. kevinpage.com 30
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24 KIRK HOPPER FINE ART Carlos Donjuan’s artwork will show in Everything Means Nothing through Dec. 30, immediately following Artwork by Sharon Kopriva will show Jan. 9 through Feb. 13. Donjuan’s works explore childhood memories and illegal immigration, while Kopriva’s exploration of nature brings deeper self-awareness and poises the reflections of life, death, universal spirituality, and coexistence. Image: Carlos Donjuan, Con Cuidado, 2014, mixed media on paper, 11 x 11 in. kirkhopperfineart.com 25 KITTRELL/RIFFKIND ART GLASS Kittrell/Riffkind now offers a gallery and studio at separate locations and features glassworks, including sculptures, goblets, jewelry, wall art, and other handmade collectables from over 300 contemporary glass artists. kittrellriffkind.com 26 KRISTY STUBBS GALLERY A retrospective entitled Selections from 21 Years in Dallas includes works by Pablo Picasso, Jasper Johns, Robert Indiana, Damien Hirst, Ben Tyers, Polly Morgan, Bo Bartlett, Edgar Cardoze, Francisco Moreno, Dennis Hopper, Laura Wilson, Piers Jackson, Tony Scherman, and many others. stubbsgallery.com 27 LAB ART TEXAS Now the second largest street art gallery in the U.S., LAB ART hosts the works of photographer and filmmaker Tyler Shields, on view through Jan. 9. labarttexas.com 28 LAURA RATHE FINE ART New Works is a group show featuring the work of Matt Devine, Judith Foosaner, and Alberto Murillo through Jan. 2. Mindscapes opening Jan. 9–Feb. 13 is a collaborative exhibit of the works of Katherine Houston and Michael Schultheis, synthesizing their new series of abstract mixed-media paintings. laurarathe.com
10 29 LILIANA BLOCH GALLERY On view through Dec. 23, Emblems features the work of Michael Corris, exploring the rich conversation between text and image in art and visual culture. Corris’s work may be found in private and public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Tate Modern, among others. lilianablochgallery.com 30 LUMINARTÉ FINE ART GALLERY The Big and Small of Things runs through Dec. 12, featuring the work of Keiko Gonzalez and Trent Mann. Beauty in the Beast grapples with the theme of cancer in an exhibit comprised of works by Caroline Shaw Ometz, Dhruba Deb, Anne Neal, Elisabeth Schalij, Paneeta Mittal, and Sandra Freeman. On view Dec. 19–Jan. 23. luminarte.com 31 MARTIN LAWRENCE GALLERIES Martin Lawrence Galleries showcases works by Picasso, Chagall, and Warhol. The gallery offers a prestigious selection of paintings and limited-edition graphics by published artists. martinlawrence.com 32 MARY TOMÁS GALLERY Featuring new works by key artists from their gallery roster, Core offers a conceptualized viewpoint in a variety of mediums from oil painting to Braille to communicate the inner strand of this art space’s mission. Through Feb. 2016. marytomasgallery.com 33 MUZEION Offering a diverse collection of artifacts, sculptures, and historically significant pieces, and fostering art that transcends time, the space currently features PreColumbian Textiles, a collection of textiles and feathers that have survived for generations. muzeiongallery.com
BID THEE WELL
January 23, 2016, marks the 20th anniversary of the Annual Texas Art Auction that David Dike Fine Art established in 1996. This distinguished and anticipated event by art enthusiasts all over features over 300 lots of original early Texas art by some of the most important early Texas impressionist painters, such as Julian Onderdonk, Porfirio Salinas, and Jose Arpa. Acutely aware of what is new and next in this active art market, and with the rise of midcentury modern art, the DDFA auction will feature a collection of over 50 works of the major American and Texas midcentury modern painters. Some of these artists include: Chester Toney, Michael Frary; and Dallas’s own Everett Spruce, DeForrest Judd, Otis Dozier, David McMannaway, Ben Culwell, and Seymour Fogel. Fogel moved to Texas in 1946 and became a professor at the University of Texas at Austin where he explored new techniques and materials with a shift toward non-objective works. This can’t-miss event and celebration of Texas art takes place at Wildman Art Framing with an auction preview Tuesday, Jan. 12 and Monday, Jan. 18. For more information and to obtain a catalogue, visit daviddike. com. Image: Seymour Fogel (Am. 1911–1984), Pagan Forms, c. 1950, oil on masonite, 36 x 24 in., signed upper left: Fogel, Est: $6,000–$12,000. P
ERICH ZIMMERMANN 214 · 691 · 5400 szorcollections.com
Midcentury Modern highlights David Dike Fine Art’s 20th Texas Art Auction.
DECEMBER 2015 / JANUARY 2016
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NOTED: GALLERIES
Is Honored to Present the
MARY WATSON STONE COLLECTION
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Julian Stanczak, Low Filtration, 1978, oil on canvas, 39x39, verso
November 13 — December 15, 2015 Landmarks and Legends: celebrating the culture and heritage of Texas
January 9 — February 12, 2016
Charles Umlauf Spirit of Flight, 1960 bronze maquette
Russell Tether Fine Arts Associates, LLC 13720 Midway Road, Suite 110 | Dallas, Texas 75244 | www.russelltether.com | 972-418-7832 | inquire@RTFAA.com
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34 PHOTOGRAPHS DO NOT BEND Keith Carter explores new territory in Ghostland. Through Dec. 30 the artist employs archaic lenses and photographic processes to create mythical imagery featuring 50 photographs of tintypes, large pigment prints, and traditional gelatin silver prints. PDNB relocates in January to Glass Street, across from Dallas Contemporary. pdnbgallery.com 35 THE POWER STATION The Power Station is a challenging, independent contemporary gallery that exhibits the work of Oliver Mosset in Plan B through Dec. 18. Mosset’s work prioritizes neutrality over aesthetics. Influenced by Pop in the ‘70s, his work is void of personal expression and mark-making. powerstationdallas.com 36 THE PUBLIC TRUST The gallery welcomes back Mylan Nguyen for his second installment of SOLILOQUY, a single work of art that challenges the visitor to rethink traditional methods of showing art. Through Dec. 12. trustthepublic.com 37 RE GALLERY The works of Butch Anthony show through Dec. 13, applying his talents to a number of different modes and mediums, called “intertwangelism,” to describe his method of collecting bizarre objects and transforming them into beautiful art pieces. Image: Butch Anthony, Smoke Coming Out Of His Ears, 2015, found photograph, acrylic, ink. regallerystudio.com 38 THE READING ROOM Sherwin Tibayan’s use of photography
08 considers the changing relationship with images and information in Index. Through Dec. 19. Becoming Colette, a project by multimedia artist and French author Colette Copeland, opens Jan. 16. Through Feb. 20, the show features video, prints, and sculpture, taking the viewer on a performative journey into the literary history of Paris and Colette’s writings. thereadingroom-dallas.blogspot.com 39 RO2 ART The miniature paintings of Belgium-based artist Peggy Wauters continue to display in the downtown space through Jan. 3. Ro2 ART at The Magnolia Theatre showcases Sharon Neel-Bagley’s Boiling Crash through Dec. 11. ro2art.com 40 RUSSELL TETHER FINE ARTS RTFA continues to exhibit the Mary Watson Stone Collection through Dec. 18. Landmarks and Legends: iconic paintings and sculpture from significant Texas locations opens Jan. 9. Specializing in significant collections and estates of fine art, RTFA also offers an inventory of more than 500 consigned works from 20th Century artists. Image: James Surls, Rotating Flower Series, wood, 36 x 46 x 42 in. russelltether.com 41 SAMUEL LYNNE GALLERIES James Gill’s When the World Went POP! continues through Jan. 11. Gill’s paintings reflect the interplay between realism and abstraction bringing Pop Art into the present. Gill’s works can be found in the collections of MOMA, Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, to name a few. samuellynne.com DECEMBER 2015 / JANUARY 2016
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NOTED: GALLERIES
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A02 42 SMINK SMINK completes 2015 with Two Trees in the Garden in the front gallery, new small work by Dara Mark in the third gallery, and the introduction of Danish designs by Finn Juhl, Kofod Larsen, and Nanna Ditzel. These are not re-issues but have been in production straight through since their inception in the fifties. sminkinc.com 43 SOUTHWEST GALLERY Dec. 5 welcomes the Artistic World of Harold Kraus. His bold paintings are executed in an impressionistic style with strong tendencies toward expressionism. The artist depicts happiness as a recurring theme, whether displayed by his use of color or in the settings of his subjects. swgallery.com 44 TALLEY DUNN GALLERY Through Dec. 19, Francesca Fuchs: Xmas Trees is a collection of mid-sized paintings of Christmas trees. In Escerpts, Xie recreates actual pages from newspapers, layering imagery and text so that the content from the other side bleeds through and forms an overlapping effect. In January, two new exhibitions by Joseph Havel and Sarah Williams will mount. talleydunn.com 45 UNT ARTSPACE DALLAS The 2015 Annual Faculty and Staff Exhibition will be held at UNT on the Square, an arts venue in historic downtown Denton through Dec. 10. gallery.unt.edu 46 VALLEY HOUSE GALLERY New York-based plein-air painter Henry Finkelstein investigates color through painting in the region of Brittany, France, in Recent Paintings. Through Dec. 19. On Jan. 16, Bart Forbes’s My Mind’s Eye opens with paintings representing a natural transition from his long career as one of America’s renowned illustrators for sports organizations. Through Feb. 6. Image:
46 Henry Finkelstein, Marsh at Larré, oil on linen, 46 x 54 in. valleyhouse.com 47 W.A.A.S. GALLERY Located in Deep Ellum, the gallery is committed to showcasing innovative work from local and international artists that boasts museum-quality installations. The gallery seeks to foster the arts culture in Dallas by hosting neighborhood collaborative events. waasgallery.com 48 WILLIAM CAMPBELL CONTEMPORARY ART An established Fort Worth-based artist and environmentalist, Billy Hassell’s works will show in Compass, featuring his brightly colorful reinventions of the Southwestern landscape, continuing through Jan. 2. williamcampbellcontemporaryart.com 49 ZHULONG GALLERY SHIKI: Landscape and Beyond, showcases the sculpture and photographic work of Azuma Mokoto displayed at Zhulong Gallery through Dec. 5. Opening Dec. 12, works by Susan Giles are on view through Jan. 23. zhulonggallery.com AUCTIONS 01 DALLAS AUCTION GALLERY Dallas Auction Gallery’s Holiday Shop opens Dec. 1–4 from 10 a.m.–5 p.m. daily, featuring amazing jewelry for any budget at wholesale prices. dallasauctiongallery.com 02 HERITAGE AUCTIONS Jewelry Live Auction will be Dec. 7 followed by Luxury Accessories Live Auction Dec. 8. There will be a European Art Live Auction Dec. 9. All auction previews take place Dec. 4–8. All previews and auctions to be held at Heritage Auctions in the Design District. Image: Maximilien Luce (French, 1858–1941), Baignade dans la cure, 1909, oil on canvas, 25-3/4 x 32 in. ha.com DECEMBER 2015 / JANUARY 2016
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FAIR TRADE
BY ELYSIA BOROWY-REEDER
CLIMATE CHANGE
Guadalajara’s Páramo Galeria makes its way to the Dallas Art Fair in April 2016.
Left: Meaghan Kent at Páramo; right: Ulises Carrión (1941–1989), Margins A.D., 1975, pages cut or torn, collage on millimetric paper, set of two, 11.82 x 8.39 in. each
F
rom Latin, the most alluring definition of páramo is: land wilderness, unsheltered, satin. For well-traveled art collectors, Páramo is a Guadalajara-based gallery known for progressive exhibitions, performances, screenings, and talks from emerging and established artists to establish a global dialogue about art. The gallery, directed by Meaghan Kent, will be a new addition to the 8th annual Dallas Art Fair in April. Here, MOCAD’s Executive Director, Elysia Borowy-Reeder, interviews Meaghan Kent: Elysia Borowy-Reeder: You’ve enjoyed a 10-year career at some of the top New York galleries. How is the art climate in Guadalajara? Meaghan Kent: Guadalajara has a really wonderful community of artists, curators, collectors, designers, etc., and it’s an extremely welcoming environment. What is also really special is the many possibilities in fabrication with wood, metal, ceramics, and textiles (Cerámica Suro and Taller Mexicano de Gobelinos, for instance). It has a very rich history of bringing artists into the city to make contemporary work, like Jorge Pardo, John Currin, Pae White, Lisa Yuskavage, and Marcel Dzama, amongst many, many others. EBR: Describe the global dialogue presented through your exhibitions at Páramo. MK: With Páramo, my intention is to further this already existing dialogue in Guadalajara through the work of international and national artists. We work with several artists based in Guadalajara, Mexico City, and Oaxaca, and this program extends to the United
States and internationally abroad. With the resources we have here with fabrication, gallery space, and residency, we have a unique ability to produce work and connect with artists. With that in mind, we have a commitment to present strong exhibitions that you wouldn’t be able to see anywhere else. EBR: Tell us about your artist residency program. MK: We are fortunate to have a residency very close to the gallery that allows artists to have extended visits in Guadalajara— not only to work with local materials, but to really spend time in this environment. This residency also partners with several other galleries and nonprofits in Guadalajara. EBR: Why the Dallas Art Fair? What are you bringing in April? MK: I have been really struck by the amazing patronage and support in the museums and institutions there with contemporary art and love the idea of the Gala Preview. I’m also interested in learning more about the art and culture in Texas as a whole. It is our first time at the fair, and we would like to present a small, cohesive presentation so that people can really identify the work we are doing in Guadalajara. We plan to present a small selection of works by Ulises Carrión, Emanuel Tovar, and Naama Tsabar. Carrión (1941–1989) was a Mexican Conceptualist artist and writer, and we have some very special unique pieces that we would like to juxtapose with our younger artists. P
Elysia Borowy-Reeder has attended the Dallas Art Fair for the past two installments and currently serves as the Executive Director of MOCAD. Her contemporary art expertise is wide-ranging from art history to art and design education, and museum management. She was the founding Executive Director of the CAM Raleigh (Contemporary Art Museum) in Raleigh, North Carolina. With two master’s degrees from Michigan State University, an executive certificate in management from Yale University, and a Getty Museum Leadership Fellow, she has served on many professional panels and advisory committees and held senior leadership positions at the North Carolina University State College of Design, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the Milwaukee Art Museum. Most recently she was invited to serve on the Detroit Advisory Panel for the US Pavilion in the 2016 Venice Architecture Pavilion, curated by Cynthia Davidson and Monica Ponce de Leon. 36
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Above: Gustave Caillebotte, On the Pont de l’Europe, 1876–77, oil on canvas, 41.63 x 51.5 in., Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth. Opposite, left: Gustave Caillebotte, Paris Street, Rainy Day, 1877, oil on canvas, 83.56 x 108.75 in., The Art Institute of Chicago, Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection. Opposite, right: Gustave Caillebotte, The Rue Halévy, Seen from the Sixth Floor, 1878, oil on canvas, 29 × 23.75 in., Private collection, Dallas
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OPENINGS
BY NANCY COHEN ISRAEL
THE UNKNOWN IMPRESSIONIST
ARTIST AND PATRON, GUSTAVE CAILLEBOTTE, HAS WORK SEEN ANEW AT THE KIMBELL ART MUSEUM.
“H
e became known as a buyer of art and a giver of art to the state,” says George T.M. Shackelford, Deputy Director of the Kimbell Art Museum. The giver in question is the French Impressionist painter, Gustave Caillebotte, whose work is currently on view at the Kimbell. When the official Salon rejected Caillebotte’s painting, The Floor Scrapers, 1875, a group of renegade artists welcomed him into their circle. For the official art world, Caillebotte’s half-dressed workmen at their hard physical labor, was unseemly. For the renegades, it represented modernity. These artists formed their own group, began mounting exhibitions in 1874 and eventually became known as the Impressionists. In his lifetime, Caillebotte avidly collected the work of his friends, artists such as Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, and Edgar Degas, to name a few. He bequeathed his collection to the state upon his death. Caillebotte came from a privileged background, liberating him from the need to sell his work commercially. This became a double-edged sword. While he regularly showed with the Impressionists, critics often singled him out as a wealthy dilettante, in spite of his training at L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Caillebotte’s experiments
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with perspective and space made his work too radical for many. As a result, until the mid-20th century, very few of his works had entered public collections. The late 19th century saw the opening of major American museums, filled with art donated by American collectors, who aspired to establish themselves as sophisticated connoisseurs of contemporary art. Not being widely collected at the time, Caillebotte’s work remained largely unknown. Shackelford, who co-curated the exhibition with Mary Morton, curator and head of French paintings at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., says that while all the great paintings are now in public collections, including the Kimbell’s On the Pont de l’Europe, 60% of the exhibition came from private collections. Nineteen paintings have been loaned from Caillebotte’s family alone. He never had children, but his nieces and their grandchildren have generously loaned work from their collections. The exhibition brings together over 50 of Caillebotte’s paintings, tracing his trajectory from The Floor Scrapers to the landscape paintings that dominate his later oeuvre. Included is Paris Street, Rainy Day, probably his most iconic work, on loan from the Art Institute of Chicago. Shackelford explains that the Art Institute purchased the work in the 1960s from the Wildenstein Gallery in Paris. It was the first of his works to enter an American public institution. “Wildenstein Gallery played a wonderful role in the popularity of Caillebotte outside of classic Northeast museums,” says Shackelford. Prior to the 1960s, he says, “You could see The Floor Scrapers in Paris and Man in Café in Rouen but they were the only paintings of Caillebotte that the public could visit.” It is worth noting that also in the late 1960s, Houston collector Audrey Beck purchased two of his works, neither of which is included in the current exhibition. Shackelford credits Beck as one of Caillebotte’s first American collectors. Beck worked with Thomas P. Lee, Jr., then at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, to mount the first retrospective of Caillebotte’s work. They hired Kirk Varnedoe, then a young curator, to organize it. It opened in Houston in 1976. Twenty years later, the Art Institute hosted another retrospective of Caillebotte’s work. And now we have this at the Kimbell. Shackelford stresses, “Of the three major retrospectives of Caillebotte’s work, two had their origins in Texas.” The Impressionists sought to document the 19th century transformation of Paris’s rebirth. Old neighborhoods came tumbling down as wide boulevards, radiating from newly created traffic circles, opened the city to new vistas, literally and figuratively. Perhaps none captured this era or experimented as much as Caillebotte. “There is one way in which his vision is different from the other Impressionists,” says Shackelford: “Caillebotte is looking to make paintings that function the way he thinks your eyes function.” In addition to showing with the Impressionists, Caillebotte also served as an organizer for
Top to bottom: Gustave Caillebotte, At a Café, 1880, oil on canvas, 61.44 x 44.88 in., Musée d'Orsay, Paris, on deposit at Musée des Beaux-arts de Rouen © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY; Gustave Caillebotte, Cut of Beef, 1882, oil on canvas, 14.94 x 21.63 in., Private collection © Comité Caillebotte, Paris; Gustave Caillebotte, Luncheon, 1876, oil on canvas, 20.5 x 29.5 in., Private collection, © Comité Caillebotte, Paris.
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OPENINGS
several of their group exhibitions. During their third exhibition, held in 1877 and considered by many to have been the most artistically successful of their eight exhibitions, Caillebotte installed Paris Street, Rainy Day in the center of the exhibition space. It served as a lightning rod for critics, who were either supporters or vocal detractors. The work can be challenging. “It’s not as intuitive as Monet’s and not as effortless at Renoir’s. Caillebotte’s is more intense. His focus is on the surreal relationship with things,” says Shackelford. Regardless, visitors will see similarities with paintings by other Impressionists. Street scenes painted from windows have echoes of Pissarro. Unlike Pissarro, however, “Caillebotte, as usual, takes his to a level of exaggeration,” says Shackelford. He adds, “By 1880, he projects himself out mentally so that we see nothing of structure he is in.” He continues, “You never get vertigo looking at a Monet but can get vertigo looking at a Caillebotte.” Monet’s influences are evident in the later landscapes. The exhibition is divided into seven sections, according to subject matter. In addition to the urban scenes, the exhibition also includes several portraits, mostly of members of Caillebotte’s social milieu. A section devoted to still lifes presents a tantalizing array of foods, including a display of luscious fruit, platters of rich-looking pastries, and an endless variety of fowl, game, and seafood. The final section is a visual chronicle of Caillebotte’s last years, spent at his suburban villa in Petit Gennevilliers. With the constraints of the city loosened, Caillebotte’s brushwork also becomes freer. Breezily waving fields and gently lapping water contrast with the more controlled brushstrokes of his earlier cityscapes. This transformation may also be reflective of Caillebotte’s friendship with Monet. In his lifetime, some critics considered Caillebotte’s work to be the most dominant of the Impressionists. Rediscovering it with the current retrospective gives viewers an opportunity to reassess and appreciate this little-known Impressionist’s work anew. P
Above right: Gustave Caillebotte, Calf in a Butcher's Shop, c. 1882, oil on canvas, 56.69 x 29.13 in., Private collection, © Comité Caillebotte, Paris. Bottom left: Gustave Caillebotte, The Floor Scrapers, 1875, oil on canvas, 440.19 x57.88 in., Musée d'Orsay, Paris, Gift of Caillebotte's heirs through the intermediary of Auguste Renoir, 1894. Bottom right: Gustave Caillebotte, The Pont de l’Europe, 1876, oil on canvas , 49.13 x 71.13 in., Association des Amis du Petit Palais, Geneva Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.
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Alexander Gorlizki transformed the Garden Gallery of the Crow Collection of Asian Art with a site-specific installation. Opposite: Artist Alexander Gorlizki
FOUND IN TRANSLATION
BROOKLYN-BASED ARTIST ALEXANDER GORLIZKI MELDS EAST WITH WEST AT THE CROW COLLECTION OF ASIAN ART.
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CONTEMPORARIES
BY NANCY COHEN ISRAEL PHOTOGRAPHY BY CAN TÜRKYILMAZ
C
rossing the threshold into Alexander Gorlizki’s exhibition, Variable Dimensions, at the Crow Collection of Asian Art is akin to entering a parallel universe. Gorlizki’s endless creativity has transformed the wallpaper-covered space into a tapestry of drawing, sculpture, video, and the applied arts. He designed all of it, including the varied wallpapers. At the core of the exhibition are the drawings, created collaboratively with Riyaz Uddin, an artist based in Jaipur with whom Gorlizki has worked for the past 18 years. Uddin and his atelier practice the 600-year-old tradition of miniature painting. Gorlizki says, “Riyaz is old enough to have the skill and technique but young enough to want to break out of tradition. The tradition has become static in terms of invention.” While Medieval European manuscripts and German Medieval sculpture inspire Gorlizki, the work reflects a deep vein of contemporary imagery. The focus on process that inspired artists of the Dada and Fluxus movements also compels Gorlizki. As a result, these collaborative works are complementary rather than hierarchical, with the drawings traveling back and forth several times between Gorlizki’s studio in Brooklyn and Uddin’s in India before they are complete. Gorlizki says, “The idea was to invert the tradition of miniature painting while using the same technique. The results are jewel-like images firmly rooted in tradition while also infused with a contemporary spirit.”
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In Variable Dimensions, Alexander Gorlizki created wallpaper, carpet, and textiles for a floor-to-ceiling visual feast for the eyes at the Crow Collection of Asian Art.
The exhibition is the culmination of three years of discussion between the artist and the museum. “After seeing the work, I originally thought we would display 20–30 paintings in a stark white room,” says Amy Lewis Hofland, Executive Director of the Crow Collection. Once Gorlizki began his installation, she was thrilled with the results. “It’s like the whole gallery is one piece,” she says. In fact, that is how Gorlizki conceived it. “It’s more like a laboratory. It’s an additive process,” he says; “I was looking at miniature paintings and trying to figure out how to go beyond the picture plane, to create a jewel-box environment from painting to painting.” Amid the traditional paintings, the resulting installation is firmly rooted in modernity. In contrast to the painstakingly hand-drawn works on paper produced in India using a single-haired, squirrel-tailed brush, the Americanmade wallpaper and textiles are produced using digital printing. It
blends together seamlessly. The collaborative effort extends to Uddin’s studio, where 12–13 artists are employed. For this highly specialized work, some artists only draw animals, while others might excel, for example, in foliage. Uddin himself, Gorlizki says, “is an incredibly gifted painter. He does the work freehand and then will do lines at different angles. The process itself is breathtaking.” The installation, however, is all Gorlizki’s. He credits the museum for giving him such a free hand in creating this universe. Three-dimensional work is placed throughout the space. Sculpture, much of which is crafted in Jaipur, covers a low table in the middle of the gallery. “It began as a cabinet of curiosities. The three-dimensional work is referenced in the drawing. There is a kind of fluidity in the visual language,” he says. Viewers want to go back and forth between the works on paper and the sculptural work. The effect, Gorlizki says, “is almost
Billy Hassell COMPASS November 21, 2015 - January 2, 2016
Opening Reception Saturday, November 21
6:00 - 8:00 pm
Meadowlarks With Jack Rabbit and Fox, Oil on canvas, 50” x 48”
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Alexander Gorlizki, Studio Wall, 2015
like a human pinball in space.” A desk nearby is more personal. An automated Rolodex serves as a visual file of recurring images from Gorlizki’s notebook. Since, he muses, artists fill notebooks with drawings they never look at again, this is a way of archiving his work. On the wall nearby, a series of mirrors echoes the recurrent phallic form seen throughout the exhibition. Ultimately, he says, “Everything had to relate to each other.” The collaboration continues with the viewer. “I like the viewer to establish meaning rather than the artist making it,” he says. For visitors wondering how he comes up with his ideas, Gorlizki provides some insight with the inclusion of his inspiration board in the last gallery. “The entire gallery was an inspiration board that kept moving,” says Hofland. Gorlizki is not Asian. However, he comes to this mixing of cultures naturally. His mother is Pip Rau, the legendary London
retailer and collector of Central Asian textiles. Gorlizki, who was raised in London, grew up visually surrounded by the patterns and textures of Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, and India. He made his first trip to the region as a teenager. After completing high school, he traveled the area more extensively, where the skill of local craftsmen fascinated him. He was introduced to Uddin in Jaipur several years later. For Hofland, the choice to host Gorlizki’s work transcended national borders. She says, “He’s practically a spokesperson for the arts and culture of Jaipur.” Hofland points out that the Silk Road represented a blending of cultures. As a result of his own cultural perspective, Gorlizki has combined the finest Central Asian traditions with contemporary Western culture to create a dynamic new aesthetic. P
THROUGH JANUARY 10
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth 3200 Darnell Street Fort Worth, Texas 76107 817.738.9215 www.themodern.org
SU N DAYS A R E F R E E !
This exhibition is organized by the Brooklyn Museum and made possible by the Henry Luce Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Promotional support for the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth provided by WFAA and the Star-Telegram. Right: Shantavia Beale II, 2012 (detail). Oil on canvas. 60 x 48 inches. Collection of Ana and Lenny Gravier. Courtesy Sean Kelly, New York. © Kehinde Wiley. (Photo: Jason Wyche)
Opening November 21
focus: joyce pensato DECEMBER 2015 / JANUARY 2016
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RELATIONAL MATTERS
In preparation for an opening at CYDONIA, Frances Bagley visits with Justine Ludwig in Bagley's studio.
A
rtist Frances Bagley has turned ten years of accumulated notes and lists into an immersive art installation titled Shall We Gather at the River?. These individual pieces of paper are displayed together on a labyrinthine series of walls that one can easily get lost among. There are phone numbers, shopping lists, records of bills paid, and plans to be made. Throughout the installation are the names of prominent members of the Dallas arts community—highlighting Bagley’s long-held position as a fixture in the scene. The massive amount of information is dizzying, calling attention to the minutia that constitutes a human life. The installation also bears similarity to the boards of information omnipresent in crime television shows and movies. The myriad notes demand decoding. As you walk around each corner you become an active participant in the work. Bagley has an uncanny ability to make the viewer feel as if they are part of her art. Bagley has been part of the Dallas arts community since 1976. She has had high-profile exhibitions across the state and muchloved public commissions including Wildlife Water Theater and Reading Garden. Bagley’s commitment to the arts in Dallas extends beyond her artistic practice as she has served on the board of the
artist-run cooperative gallery 500X and EASL (Emergency Artist Support League). Most recently, Bagley has taken part in AUROR A, the Dallasbased exhibition presenting interactive light, video, performance, and sound artworks, where her video installation Witness was shown at the Cityplace/Uptown DART Station. This work has been displayed in multiple settings over the years including Marty Walker Gallery in Dallas and Brand 10 Gallery in Fort Worth. In each context the work is slightly altered. The installation is comprised of individually displayed videos of eyes staring directly at the viewer. The crop of each video is tight, only showing the bridge of the nose, eyes, and eyebrows. Bagley instructed the subjects to do their best not to blink, lending an off-putting intentionality behind each eye movement. The work points to surveillance in both the physical and digital realms. In contemporary society, citizens are constantly reduced to data to be recorded and quantified. The installation has a feeling of a dystopian sci-fi narrative somewhere in the realm of 1984 and Twelve Monkeys. You become distinctly aware of how you are holding yourself as the work stares back at you a hundred-fold. This human element is a common presence throughout her practice. In Braided Rug, Bagley adopts the technique used to create rag rugs, but uses human hair as her medium. The selection of different shades of hair brings together signifiers of a wide range of ages and ethnic backgrounds. The work is understated, reading simply as a rug at first glance, yet it is conceptually weighty. Long hair, in many cultures, is seen as a manifestation of femininity. In weaving this hair into a rug, she points to feminist discourse surrounding the role of women in familial structures, as well as the commodification of the female form in marketing. Bagley has a deep sensitivity to the body and the manner in which a viewer navigates her work. There is always a relationship to physical form, whether in direct quotation or subtle allusion. Her works demand to be walked around, to be observed from a multitude of perspectives. This approach has necessitated a large studio. Bagley’s studio, which she shares with her partner and occasional collaborator Tom Orr, is a massive industrial space
Above, Frances Bagley, Shall We Gather at the River?, 2005-2015, paper and glue, 108 x 396 x 396 in. (10 years accumulation of personal lists, notes, and doodles) installed in Bagley studio. Photo by Frances Bagley. Left: Frances Bagley, Braided Rug, 2006, 644 ft. of one continuous braid of human hair, 90 x 72 in. Photo by Frances Bagley.
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STUDIO
BY JUSTINE LUDWIG
Frances Bagley, Witness, 2015, installed in Bagley studio. The initial version was done in 2006, dimensions are variable. Photo by Frances Bagley.
that rivals many arts institutions in scale. This allows for her installations to be presented in their ideal state. Dominating Bagley’s studio is the large installation, Unfinished/ Untold Story. The work originated from a loose sketch created by the artist, which she then attempted to render in three-dimensional form. In Bagley’s own words, “I first built the doodle threedimensionally and then kept going with the intent of creating a 3-D drawing to physically travel and move through, like reading a story with your body and your senses...and with no beginning and no end. It references those incidents we all encounter in life that become our story. The physicality and psychology of space is the issue.” Unfinished/Untold Story appears delicate, as if at any moment it could come tumbling to the ground, yet it simultaneously reads as a long-standing relic. The work is a pastiche of different cultural and art historical references. Most notably of these quotations are a crumpled up poster of Latin pop star, Enrique Iglesias, and structural similarity to Alberto Giacometti’s 1932 sculptures, The Palace at 4 a.m. The small work by Giacometti, which appears to exist somewhere between the dream and waking worlds, has previously functioned as inspiration for Bagley. Often seen in Bagley’s oeuvre is that one piece organically informs another, even as media and message may drastically change. Bagley is currently taking part in a two-person exhibition with Portland, Oregon-based artist Ryan Burghard at CYDONIA, a gallery on Payne Street. The exhibition titled Where You End and I Begin: Relational Dialectics uses the institution of marriage as a
conceptual framework to bring together the work of these two artists. While none of the displayed works are new, they promise to be born again and appear fresh and timely as all Bagley’s work has the ability to do. P
Bagley studio. Photo by Megan Wood.
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An Art-Minded Circumstance
The Glassell School of Art’s Core Residency Program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is a legendary creative cauldron, an evolving work-in-progress since 1982.
This page: Joseph Havel is the Director of the Glassell School of Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Photography by Cameron Bertuzzi. Opposite: Ivor Shearer, Last Things, 2008, HD video, 20:18 min.
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SOJOURNER
BY STEVE CARTER
T
he Glassell School of Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is just about all things artistic to all artistic people: its Junior School is year-round, teaching art to children from 3 to 18; the Studio School attracts adults from 18 and up with courses in art history and studio arts; and the top of the Glassell pyramid is its Core Residency Program, an elite residency designed to help artists and critical studies fellows build a sustainable practice. Last year’s numbers were impressive, with Junior School enrollment approaching 5,000 and Studio School at 2,500+. But it’s the Core Residency that’s the crowning cornerstone of Glassell’s international reputation, and its current numbers—7 artists and 3 critics in residence—speak volumes about the program’s exclusivity. “We’re getting the best and the brightest from the best art schools applying, and it’s often graduate students,” Director Joseph Havel says. “We’re fortunate because there really are a lot of remarkable artists who have come through the program.” Joseph Havel is best known to many for his own art—he’s an internationally renowned sculptor who’s exhibited all over the United States and Europe, and his work’s in New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Houston’s Menil Collection, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the Dallas Museum of Art, and other public collections. (An exhibition of his recent work is on view in January through February 20 at Talley Dunn Gallery here in Dallas.) In 2010 Havel was named Art League Houston’s “Texas Artist of the Year,” and he was the 2013 Texas Visual Artist,
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Danielle Dean, No Lye, 2012, video installation: plywood, various wood stain colors, bleach, Clorox, hair relaxer, soap, Ebony magazines, rope, electrical wire, ammonia, knives, flat screen TV.
selected by the Texas Legislature and the Texas Commission on the Arts. He’s directed the Core Program since 1991 and he became Director of the Glassell School of Art two years later. Where Glassell is concerned, he’s an enthusiastic and articulate ambassador. The Core Residency Program was founded by former Glassell Director Allan Hacklin in 1982. When Havel took the reins of the program in ’91, change was in the air. “I actually shrunk the program, increased the size of the artists’s studios, and increased the size of their stipend,” he says. “The fellows had once been mainly undergraduates, but most of the Core fellows at that point already had graduate degrees and were looking for ways to move into a more professional situation. And since I’m a practicing artist, I did it from the point of view of ‘What would I want?’ I was essentially their age; in fact, there were a couple of fellows who were older than I was. So I just looked at the program and said, ‘What would I need to make sure that I’m working on my practice in a serious way? How can I do something that would make sense to me?’” Havel is quick to point out that he doesn’t run the program alone, and his team members—Associate Director Mary Leclère, Critical Initiatives Coordinator Lily Cox-Richard, and Program Coordinator Pete Gershon—are critical to the program’s always-evolving strategies and constructs. “One of the things that’s unique about our Core Program is this malleability and change; that aspect of the program is quite unique,” Havel continues. “The fact is that every year we get together and assess what is going on, what was the year like, what should we adjust, what do we change? And so the program doesn’t rest on its laurels.” An essential part of the program’s mission is peer-group interaction. Havel notes that while some other residencies might focus on isolation, Glassell is all about community circumstance, whether it’s through seminars, lectures, mentoring, the annual Core Exhibition, or other situations engineered to bring resident artists and critical studies fellows together. The critical studies residencies were added to the program in 1998, and Havel explains, “That change was put in place to reflect more clearly what was going on in the art
Rodrigo Valenzuela, Maria TV, 2014, HD video, 18 min.
world, and that’s a more integrated peer group. The Core Program really emphasizes peer interaction and group activity. There’s a great emphasis on how everyone learns from a private community more completely than they do in isolation. They might be wonderful artists, but if all they want to do is be left alone then they’re not for us.” Alums of the Core Program include a wealth of recognizable names—Trenton Doyle Hancock, Julie Mehretu, Shahzia Sikander, Leandro Erlich, Vasco Araujo, Annette Lawrence, and Jeff Elrod among them, but other Glassell artists maintain behind-the-scene profiles. “From our point of view, there are different ways of defining success,” Havel says. “Many of our alumni are quite remarkable artists who don’t have all the accolades that the art world has showered on some of the others…they’re more reclusive or quieter about their practice, but they really make remarkable art. And we’re as concerned about that as we are the other ones.” The current crop of Core Program fellows is comprised of 3 first-year and 4 second-year artists, and 1 first-year and 2 second-year critics. The artists are working in mixed media, film, video, and installations, and their recent work will show from April 15–May 22 at the MFAH main campus during the 2016 Core Exhibition. “I always say the show’s not curated, it’s refereed,” Havel says with a laugh. The program also publishes a Core yearbook at the same time, containing essays by its critical studies fellows. The future of the Glassell School of Art and the MFAH is brilliant—once the museum’s just-underway expansion is completed, there will be a newly minted cohesiveness at play, creating a living urban center. Glassell students of all ages will enjoy a seamless, interactive experience with the museum’s galleries, a major boon for art history studies, studio artists, and fellows alike. And what does Havel hope the ultimate takeaway is from the Core Residency Program? “This is easy, because I have a saying—they come to us and they usually think they’re done being students. But when they leave, if they think they’re always going to be a student, then we’re successful.” P
SELF-TAUGHT GENIUS Treasures from the American Folk Art Museum October 10, 2015–January 3, 2016
More than 100 works of art are on view in this groundbreaking exhibition that highlights the roles of folk and self-taught artists as figures who are central to the shared history of America. Admission is free. Ralph Fasanella (1914–1997), Subway Riders (detail), 1950, collection American Folk Art Museum, New York, gift of Ralph and Eva Fasanella, courtesy MTA Arts & Urban Design Self-Taught Genius: Treasures from the American Folk Art Museum is organized by the American Folk Art Museum, New York. The exhibition and national tour are made possible by generous funding from the Henry Luce Foundation, as part of its 75th anniversary initiative. Local presentation is sponsored by the Kleinheinz Family Foundation for the Arts and Education.
#ACMgenius
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Roses have thorns… Las rosas tienen espinas… –Shakespeare, Sonnet XXXV
SIREN SONGS
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, offers a challenging and politically charged exhibition that beckons the viewer beneath the beauty.
María Fernanda Cardoso, Woven Water: Submarine Landscape, 1994, dried starfish with metal wire, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Museum purchase funded by the Caribbean Art Fund. © María Fernanda Cardoso
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SOJOURNER
BY STEVE CARTER
B
ack in October, the big art news from south of Big D was the groundbreaking of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s Fayez S. Sarofim campus. When all that dust settles in late 2019, the MFAH will finally have a long overdue permanent home for its highly acclaimed collection of Latin American art. But back now in real time, the latest big art news from Houston is the MFAH’s revelatory new exhibition, Contingent Beauty: Contemporary Art from Latin America. The show opened on November 22, the culmination of the museum’s 6th edition of its event-filled Latin American Experience Weekend. Contingent Beauty showcases 33 works by 22 artists, hailing from six countries: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, and Venezuela. While the artworks are drawn from the museum’s permanent collection, and most of them having been acquired in the last five years, this is not a general “recent acquisitions” survey. The show has big teeth, and it’s rife with paradox, irony, and deeper significances. Contingent Beauty: Contemporary Art from Latin America was curated by Mari Carmen Ramírez, Wortham Curator of Latin American Art at the MFAH, along with curatorial assistant Rachel Mohl. Ramírez is a nationally lauded champion in the field; among her many accolades she was named one of “The 25 Most Influential Hispanics in America” by TIME magazine in 2005. The show has been in the planning stage for nearly two
years, and Ramírez explains, “I studied the works that we had acquired, and it struck me that so many of them had operated through this recourse that I call ‘contingent beauty.’ They’re extremely appealing in terms of the materials and in terms of the aesthetic that they put forward, but in the end that recourse of beauty is really just a strategy that the artists use to draw the viewer into the work, so that they can reflect upon and contemplate what are usually very tough subject matters and issues. “They range from the drug wars in Latin America, to violence against women, to the Cuban embargo and the crisis there since the 1990s—issues of that sort. So they’re addressing highly political and social issues, but in a nontraditional way. They’re not doing it in terms of political messaging or explicit allusions to the subject, but in far more subtle and sophisticated ways that are very much in the experimental tradition of the avant-garde.” One brilliant illustration of Contingent Beauty’s premise is Le Sacre, a large installation by Guillermo Kuitca. Comprised of 54 child-size mattresses, each hand-painted with an ambiguous city map, the work confronts the crises of dislocation and homelessness, especially as they affect the young. And although the artist is from Argentina, the larger genius of the piece is its timely, and timeless, universality—it could
Left: Yoan Capote, Stress (In Memoriam), 2004–12, concrete, wood, and human teeth, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Museum purchase funded by the Caribbean Art Fund. © Yoan Capote. Right: Miguel Ángel Rojas, Broadway, 1996/2010, coca leaves and steel needles with museum putty on the wall, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Museum purchase funded by the Caribbean Art Fund. © Miguel Ángel Rojas
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easily be a commentary on today’s Syrian refugee crisis and its worldwide ripples. “That’s why these works are so important,” Ramírez continues. “They’re based on local subjects, but they’re subjects that transcend the borders because they are universal. The issues of violence, war, drug trafficking, refugee, or immigration crisis—all of these things are present everywhere, and that’s why the works of these artists have so much resonance outside of their countries of origin, and that’s why they’re such important figures in the international circuit.” “Broadway” is a wall piece by Miguel Ángel Ríos, and its first-glance beauty is the veneer of darker implications. While it might be viewed as abstract, or the suggestion of a migrating ant colony, it’s constructed of coca leaves, steel needles, and putty—drug trafficking is in the artist’s crosshairs. “Woven Water: Submarine Landscape” is an enchanting environment by artist María Fernanda Cardoso, yet its key element is clusters of dried starfish, a wry jab
at tourism and its impact on nature. Cuban artist Yoan Capote’s sculpture, “Stress (In Memoriam)” is unsettling, fashioned from wood and concrete, with thousands of human teeth embedded on the lower plane. “Capote is extending grinding your teeth at night as a metaphor for all of Cuba,” Ramírez explains, “particularly since the early 1990s, when Russia pulled out as its main sponsor— the population has suffered an incredible amount of precariousness…” What’s the biggest surprise for the average exhibition visitor? Ramírez answers, “I think it will be the experience of seeing work made out of the most common everyday human materials, such as hair or teeth or coca leaves; that may not be an everyday material, but it’s certainly part of everyday life. These are all nontraditional works, but they can provide a very exciting experience for people who are open to experiencing art in new ways—you’re not going to see any painting or traditional sculpture in
Guillermo Kuitca, Le Sacre, 1992, acrylic on 54 mattresses with wood and brass legs, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Museum purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund. Courtesy of the artist and Sperone Westwater, New York
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the exhibition. Also, there’s a level of interactivity in the pieces; viewers have to interact at the conceptual level to figure out how these things work and the messages that the artists are trying to convey. And there are some immersive video works where you’re going to be immersed in this environment of changing lines and sound at the same time. I think all this should be fairly exciting for visitors.” Contingent Beauty: Contemporary Art from Latin America is a fantastic harbinger of things to come at the MFAH. Ramírez adds that the museum has been aggressively building a major collection of Latin American art for the last 15 years, but gallery space for showing it has been nonexistent. “By 2019 you’re going to see a lot of these works on permanent display, together with all the historic collection that we’ve been building,” she enthuses. “Then you’ll be able to see key works from our collection in dialog with works from the European and North American collections of 20th century art. And once we have those galleries we’ll be the first major museum to have permanent displays of Latin American art anywhere—if you want to see Latin American art, you’ll have to come to Houston.” Contingent Beauty: Contemporary Art from Latin America at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, through February 28, 2016. P
Above: Johanna Calle, Obra negra (Black Opus), 2007–08, galvanized wire, copper, and Chinese ink on cardboard, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Museum purchase funded by the Caribbean Art Fund and the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund. © Johanna Calle. Below: Tunga, Lezart, 1989, iron, copper, magnets, and embroidered silk, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Museum purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund. © 1989, Tunga. Image Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York
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The Modern Classicist
T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings's definitive furniture collection enriches Emily Summers Studio 54.
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ew names elicit as many sighs of approval from modernists as this mouthful of a name to pronounce—T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings. Emily Summers— Dallas’s own preeminent modernist, one of Architectural Digest’s AD 100 Best Designers in the World, and arbiter of finely edited good taste, is now the North American distributor of the furniture created out of the historical collaboration between Gibbings and Saridis of Athens. His highly sought-after and widely copied pieces like the Klismos chair were previously available only sporadically on auction sites such as 1st dibs. These neoclassical pieces of art look quite at home at Studio 54 in Highland Park Village among the finely selected pieces from Summers’s collection of contemporary artists and 20th century design. Mr. Robsjohn-Gibbings, with his aristocratic face and tall slender frame clad in bespoke three-piece suits, had the name and the look that suited his career as architect, decorator, and antiques dealer in 1930s London. Important commissions for Neiman Marcus and Elizabeth Arden enticed him to move to New York where he commissioned a cabinetmaker to make six of his own designs, and in 1936 opened a showroom on Madison Avenue. The shop was the direct opposite of tasteful showrooms of the day, which were mostly brown European furniture tasseled and covered in chintz with Victorian tables full of porcelain objects. “The showroom had bare white plaster walls (waxed rather than painted), a fireplace without a mantelpiece, and a floor mosaic showing Dionysus driving a chariot drawn by panthers. The room’s uncompromising spareness emphasized the lithe quality of the furniture, and his career was launched,” from an article in Architectural Digest. “Gibby” was not at all a fan of the Victorian excess and the ornamentation of European antiques that were in vogue at the time. His designs were inspired by classic Greek form and devoid of decoration and the use of exotic finishes. He named it “American modernism” and called on American tastemakers to jettison the old world and formulate a new style to go with the spare modernism of new American homes based on American tradition and neoclassical principles. His was the most important voice of post-war American modernism. “American furniture is non-existent, and whoever starts out to materialize it starts from scratch,” he wrote in 1944. As he exhorted the middle class to throw out European antiques, he began decorating some of the best homes in America belonging to names such as Elizabeth Arden, Otto Kahn, Alfred A. Knopf, and Doris Duke. He was considered the preeminent American decorator of the 1930s and 1940s. With his avant-garde taste and a scathing wit, Gibby became a prominent writer and philosopher, forever espousing his antipathy to the fashion of collecting and copying antiques and over-decoration. In Good-bye, Mr. Chippendale, published in
T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings for Saridis of Athens Table Model No. 12
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SPACE
BY PEGGY LEVINSON 1944, he skewered both ends of the design spectrum fashionable at the time. The triumvirate of Elsie de Wolfe, Dorothy Draper, and Rose Cummings creating stuffy rooms filled with antiques and flounced cushions and porcelain knick-knacks he called “an indigestible mixture of Queen Anne, Georgian, and Spanish”; while ultra-modern Bauhaus furnishings by Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Brewer, and Le Corbusier he considered “fraudulent, lifeless utilitarianism” and were just plain ugly and uncomfortable. The furniture Robsjohn-Gibbings created was informed by the only antique style he considered worth emulating—the classic Greek designs based on standards of proportion and graceful lines. He designed for the Widdicomb Company in Grand Rapids, Michigan, from 1943 to 1956, and his American modernism influenced the entire furniture industry for decades to come. But in 1960, he decided to go back to the root of his original inspiration and moved permanently to Greece. In Greece, he partnered with Susan and Eleftherios Saridis of Athens, one of Europe’s finest cabinetmakers. Together they began the “discovery and contemporary re-creation of Greek furniture designs virtually ignored for the past two thousand years.” Robsjohn-Gibbings called on his decades of research in the British Museum and began collecting the design motifs found in classical Greek reliefs, terracottas, and bronze statues. He publicized their work in the book Furniture of Classical Greece, co-authored by Carlton W. Pullin. This collaboration between Gibby and Saridis has led us directly back to the fashionable shop of Emily Summers in Highland Park Village. When Summers opened her impeccably curated shop in Highland Park Village about a year ago, even the very sophisticated shoppers who frequent names like Hermes, Tom Ford, and Bruno Cucinelli in the Village had to sit up on their 75/25 white goose-down cushions and take notice. Named Studio 54 for the suite number (not the disco—nary a disco ball here), the 1300-square-foot shop feels spare and elegant, every perfect piece has space to breathe. Looking at the bare plaster walls, polished concrete floor, and discreet lighting, I can’t help but think that Gibby would have approved and felt quite at home here. P
Top: T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings for Saridis of Athens Chair Model No. 155; below: T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings for Saridis of Athens Couch/Chaise Model No. 11; all available at Emily Summers Studio 54 in Highland Park Village
DECEMBER 2015 / JANUARY 2016
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COVETED
BY DIANA OATES PHOTOGRAPHY BY SHAWN SAUMELL
A Curated Lifestyle In work and repose, Joanne and Charles Teichman surround their lives with artistic beauty.
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Charles and Joanne Teichman. An artwork by London artist Adam Ball is prominently placed above the sofa in Ylang 23.
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atrons of the arts need not even ask the dynamic duo behind Ylang 23 where their passions lie. Joanne and Charles Teichman, who first opened the doors to their designer jewelry store in 1985, are staples in the vibrant philanthropic arts scene. In fact, when they relocated their flagship store to a beautiful space in the Plaza at Preston Center, their involvement in the arts only seemed to flourish. Whether donating their time, space, or merchandise, the couple is a proud supporter of both the Dallas Contemporary and the Nasher Sculpture Center. The couple has also served as chairs for multiple fundraisers involving the North Texas Food Bank’s Food 4 Kids campaign alongside their dear friends Joyce Goss and Kenny Goss whom the Teichmans refer to as pillars in Dallas’s art community. “We like to think that most successful business owners will find their own worthy causes to support,” The Teichmans commented. “In our case, that happens to be some of our favorite local charities, museums, galleries, and schools.” The couple’s love for art is also apparent in their successful store that sells the creations of Cathy Waterman, Irene Neuwirth, Jennifer Meyer, Monique Péan, Ten Thousand Things, and Todd Reed (among others). When designing their new boutique at The Plaza at Preston Center, they even made sure to create natural space to showcase pieces from their personal art collection. Lovers of the unique and antique, the Teichmans adore collecting pieces from their trips to Los Angeles, New York City, and Paris. There are also future plans to feature the works of local artists on their exposed brick walls. Ylang 23 is in many ways a gallery of wearable art, featuring the meticulous masterpieces of both emerging and established designers. As one of the first shops to offer designer jewelry in the United States in the 80’s and again as a trailblazer in the world of online jewelry sales in 2000, Ylang 23 has positioned itself in a powerful place on the cusp of this beautiful form of artistic expression. When these busy art enthusiasts have a moment of free time, you can find them checking out a gallery or boutique in the Bishop Arts District, strolling the spacious garden created by landscape architect Peter Walker at the Nasher Sculpture Center, or heading to the Dallas Design District to explore exhibits at Dallas Contemporary or The Goss-Michael Foundation. But more than anything else, these two enjoy nesting at their house—an art-laden abode. P
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BY DIANA OATES PHOTOGRAPHY BY SHAWN SAUMELL
The Avant-Gardist Betty Reiter aligns the arts and art enthusiasts with her Euro-chic boutique.
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alking into the Betty Reiter boutique at The Plaza at Preston Center, it is easy to see why it is one of the premiere places to shop luxury European sportswear in Dallas. Like an artist piecing together a magnificent masterpiece, Reiter works the showroom pulling pieces from different collections to ensure her clients get a complete and polished look for whatever the occasion may be. Her attention to detail is unsurpassed and her eye for pairing patterns, colors, and textures is why she is one of the best in the business. But what drives this shop owner who, for more than 20 years, has managed to inspire the women of Dallas with her carefully curated clothing boutique? Turns out the arts have something to do with it, and growing up in Paris certainly doesn’t hurt either. She often returns to Paris, fondly referred to as “The City of Light” to let inspiration surround her, and by doing so, this place where art stimulus is everywhere shapes both her and her store. “I think art is what drives my creativity,” Reiter said. “I am in New York City and Paris a lot, and I always try to devote a few hours to get to a show. Sometimes I walk out of an art exhibition, and it just stays with me. Later when I am mixing colors at my store, I wonder what painting I saw that it came from.” Always taken by textures, Reiter’s fascination with the architecture of clothes and how they seem to come to life in places like the Meyerson Symphony Center and the Crow Collection of Asian Art is what has kept her involved in so many philanthropic art endeavors throughout the years. Whether she is helping with the Dallas Museum of Art’s Art in Bloom program or planning a private designer showing, Reiter allows the space and its art to be as much a part of the show as the clothes itself. Art and fashion are set to collide in a new way this winter when Reiter welcomes the Crow Collection of Asian Art to host a pop-up shop inside her boutique. Reiter’s exclusive designer offerings, like Yeohlee and Krizia, interacting with pieces from this Asian art pop-up perhaps best exemplifies her efforts to ensure that her small corner of University Park is rooted in arts and culture. Because as Reiter says, a city without both is no city at all. P
With her finely honed Parisian aesthetic, Betty Reiter is known for selecting exquisite pieces with a European sense of styling.
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Dressing the Modern Man A 43-year-old haberdashery outfits the finest contemporaries.
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hether it’s a “dress better than you have to” ideal or the commitment to customer service that makes this store special, Andy Weil and Doug Duckworth have truly turned dressing the modern man into an art. Although it has only called The Plaza at Preston Center home for three years, its 43-year legacy as a top men’s clothier followed the store to its new home. Weil says he is grateful for the opportunity to dress the men of Dallas especially in a city known for fashion. Whether dressing customers for a charity event or helping a man create his ideal work wardrobe, Pockets has a reputation for providing impeccable pairings. “Men look to Pockets for advice as they would their attorney, financial advisor, or doctor,” Weil says. “It’s an honor to dress them.” Thriving on the artistic bent of clothing, Weil says the Pockets team has a deep appreciation for the arts in Dallas. Weil says the best thing about the vibrant art scene is that there is something for everyone in the family. He and his wife Carla enjoy taking their son to the Dallas Museum of Art, Perot Museum of Nature and Science, Nasher Sculpture Center, and Dallas Arboretum. And sometimes, these places are where he draws creativity and inspiration for the store. “I find the local art scene to be energizing and inspirational. Art is similar to fashion in that it is an extension of someone and how one expresses themselves.” The Pockets team strives to be involved in a plethora of charities in Dallas as it is their belief that it is an integral part of the community. And although you might not see Weil and Duckworth walking every Dallas red carpet, you’ll surely spot a Pockets customer or two at each and every major philanthropic fete. P
Doug Duckworth and Andy Weil carry on the tradition of styling the most discerning gentlemen Pockets established 43 years ago.
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BY DIANA OATES PHOTOGRAPHY BY SHAWN SAUMELL
A Westerly Wind On the trail of Jason Lenox, the art collector behind Anteks Curated.
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n October of 2015, Jason Lenox opened Anteks Curated in The Plaza at Preston Center with almost 30 years of Dallas shop experience under his Western belt. Walking into this rustic-yetsophisticated home, gift, and accessories store, you are transported to a tranquil, familiar place perhaps somewhere deep in the mountains or maybe on the open plains. In fact, many find themselves searching for a live fire and a place to sit down for some hearty home cookin’ while a friend plays the acoustic guitar or banjo. Wherever this Western-wired scene takes you, it is certainly far from the oft-hurried lifestyles in Dallas. And while it is tough to label Lenox as one type of shop owner over the other (Anteks Curated sells everything from feathered bow ties to abstract art.), his contribution to the local arts community is hands-on, though not in a traditional sense. “We like finding products for the store that are made by artists,” Lenox said. “Belt buckles from the Hill Country and knives from Deep Ellum are two examples. Supporting local and regional artists and craftspeople is part of what we do.” In addition to featuring local artists and their products in Anteks Curated, Lenox is passionate about supporting the arts financially as well. Regardless of your success as a business owner, it is of his belief that giving is a given during both good years and lean ones. “Supporting local artists feels good, plain and simple,” Lenox says. Lenox spends his days selling rustic chic pieces, but it’s his appreciation for art of all kinds that keeps him coming back to the Dallas Museum of Art and the Nasher Sculpture Center for their world-class facilities that offer international art experiences. And because Lenox is a lover of all things local, it’s of no surprise to find that he frequents the Valley House Gallery & Sculpture Garden which, in addition to contemporary art, houses works by late nineteenth- and twentieth-century Texas artists. His love of the arts continues at home with an extensive collection of work by midcentury Santa Fe and Taos painters. From Taos Modernists like Ward Lockwood, Emil Bisttram, Janet Lippincot, Barbara Latham, and Cliff Harmon to midcentury Sante Fe artists (that don’t fit into the modern aesthetic) like Jorge Fick, Will Schuster, Ed Mell, Jozef Bakos, and Ila McAfee, it seems Lenox might just hold the keys to his absolutely favorite gallery in his hometown. P
For Jason Lenox, the founder and owner of Anteks Curated, works by mid-century Taos and Santa Fe painters inform his personal collection.
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From Left to Right: Michael Heinlen, Jane Politz Brandt, Craig Carpenter, & Justin Cohen
The Art Law team at Thompson & Knight congratulates Patron Magazine on four illuminating and insightful years of covering the arts in North Texas.
ADVOCATING THE ARTS www.tklaw.com Algiers | Austin | Dallas | Fort Worth | Houston | London Los Angeles | MĂŠxico City | Monterrey | New York | Paris
BY LEE CULLUM PHOTOGRAPHY BY SIL AZEVEDO
THE SCENE-STEALERS LEE CULLUM HIGHLIGHTS SIX SPECTACULAR PERFORMING ARTISTS ENTERTAINING LOCAL AUDIENCES.
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ack Clay, the man who made Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University a primary training ground for actors, was lured to Seattle years ago to work in theatre there. He was astonished by the plethora of dance and drama companies in a town without the necessary support of big corporations. (Boeing was the only game then. Amazon and Microsoft had yet to arrive.) Later Clay returned to Dallas for a luncheon speech and mused that this vitality in Seattle’s performing arts must be due to “lousy weather.” “If it’s beautiful, people want to be outside,” he explained. “If it’s cold, they’ll stay in.” But if it’s drizzling and blah, “They’ll go to a show.” Maybe so. Who can say for sure? What is clear is this: Dallas, whatever the weather, and it can be just about anything at anytime, is blooming with arts of radiant excitement. Dance, drama, music—all are here, all around, in generous abundance. What makes them sing, of course, is performing artists, those magical people who can open our eyes, enliven our hearts, and show us a world enlarged, enriched, and infused with the spirit of an ever more lovely Neverland. Here are some of them, all worth watching for.
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Ailyn Perez performed in the world premiere of Great Scott late October, commissioned for The Dallas Opera. Mink stole courtesy of Morris Kaye Furs.
THE SOPRANO Ailyn Perez, of the elegant cheekbones and soaring, spirited soprano, was born to play the bad girl. You would never know that when talking to her by phone one morning, she tells me, “in the Oak Lawn area.” Ailyn is in Dallas rehearsing Great Scott, the new opera commissioned for The Dallas Opera from Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally. It will go next to San Diego. Ailyn plays Tatyana Bakst, a Russian émigré who is so delusionally confident she thrusts herself forward to sing the “Starry Spangled Banner” at the Super Bowl when she doesn’t know a note of it, much less a word. Oblivious to the admonition that honesty is almost never the best policy, especially when it comes to unbridled ambition, she is candid to a fault, revealing without guile that “I want to be like Arden Scott [reigning diva of the piece], only bigger, better, and better paid. She tries so hard, but is not getting it,” Ailyn explained. “She is hilarious and heartbreaking…and is going to be learning a lot.” Ailyn Perez has learned a lot since her student days at the University of Indiana, then Philadelphia’s Academy of Vocal Arts. She captivated Dallas five years ago singing Zerlina in Don Giovanni. In February she’ll make her debut at the Met as Michaela in Carmen followed by Musetta in La boheme. She’s also doing the Countess in Houston’s production of Le Nozza di Figaro. And she’ll return to Dallas as Manon. Far more of a bad girl than Tatyana, this French anti-heroine is severely compromised by her determination “to have it 66
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all.” “And for five acts,” Ailyn assesses, “she kind of gets it all. Money matters. Love matters. But not enough. She doesn’t discover the pain of it all until the last act. [In the end] you can feel her soul changing, but it’s too late. She’s the coolest cat who is clueless.” Watch Ailyn Perez on You Tube. She sings the “Willow Song” with moving restraint as Desdemona in Othello. Her Violetta in Traviata is as flawless as it is radiant. But another Ailyn Perez shines through in Manon—the wit, cunning, and visceral charm of a true coquette, unburdened by principle, decency, or the Ten Commandments. Nonetheless, even to “a femme fatale,” Ailyn notes, “with great artistry you can bring a lot of humanity.” “Where do you live now?” I asked Ailyn Perez. Or rather, where does she vote, a sure sign of residence? “Probably Chattanooga, Tennessee, where my parents are,” she says. She’s “considering going home,” which could be there or Chicago where she grew up and her sister lives. But Ailyn travels all the time, mostly in the U.S. this year, but, usually, half her time is spent in Europe. Wherever she may be, her picture now is on the wall of the Met, with the other divas who grace that house. The composer in Great Scott may declare that the “the music endures; the voice does not.” Arden may advise Tatyana that “it’s about the music, not about you.” But for one brief shining moment, it is about her. It is singers, after all, who bring an audience to opera, at least for me. The music will outlive Ailyn Perez, of course, but her moment is likely to last a long time.
Hailing from the South Side of Chicago, Demarre McGill is the principal flutist for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.
THE FLUTIST I attend the Dallas Symphony Orchestra on a Sunday afternoon for the express purpose of hearing Demarre McGill, the young principal flutist much admired in music circles along with his brother, Anthony, principal clarinetist with the New York Philharmonic. And there is Demarre— the only African-American face in the orchestra that day that I can spot, smack dab in the middle, at the vital center of action, as if he were “their sun and the others his satellites,” as someone once wrote about about Virgina Woolf and the Bloomsbury group. It’s a funny thing about the flute, how an instrument as subtle, pure, and unassuming as this can seem to dominate an orchestra, adding at one point punctuation, at another conversation with a clarinet or French horn, high, sweet, soaring above the others with the soft, happy arrogance of an angel. The same could be said, too, of Demarre McGill, in a suit and tie for Bruckner’s 5th Symphony, and glasses, appearing more mature than when I met him a week or so ago, in a quiet room at the Meyerson. Casual then, he looked a decade younger than his 40 years, with a smile so open it could only come from a psyche uncomplicated by competing claims on his time, his energy, his life. The McGill brothers grew up on the South Side of Chicago, “A great place to call home,” said Demarre; “So blue collar, nothing pretentious, nothing flowery, where real people go to work. It is grounding for me, a place to recalibrate.” When his parents were dating, he related, they had jam sessions. His mother sang and his father, a firefighter, played a wooden African flute, replaced in time by a used silver-plated flute bought for him by his wife. When Demarre was about seven, he found that gift, in a closet, and loved it. “Blow across it,” his father advised, “like you blow across a Coke bottle.” Demarre has been blowing across a flute ever since. When his brother, four years younger, also showed an interest in music, their mother guided him to the clarinet since she didn’t want them both to play the same instrument. Demarre is lucky enough to have gone to a very good public school, Kenwood Academy, while Anthony attended Michelle Obama’s alma mater, Whitney Young Magnet High School, also highly respected. At 17 Demarre auditioned for the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and won a slot in a setting once graced by Leonard Bernstein, Samuel Barber, tenor Juan Diego Florez, and Alan Gilbert, conductor of the New York Philharmonic. Eventually to follow, of course, was Anthony. The great thing for Demarre is that his parents moved to Dallas last summer. “I’ll see them more than I’ve seen them in 20 years,” he says. Even so, he travels a lot, performing, teaching, and co-directing a chamber music enterprise in San Diego. “Are you married?” I ask. “No,” he replies, “But I will be.” Luckily, Anthony had a wedding not long ago and that takes some of the pressure off Demarre, whose life is consumed by his music. Getting where he is, from the Santa Fe Opera to Florida to San Diego to Seattle to Dallas— always as principal flutist—has not been easy. “You have to be extremely honest with yourself,” he confides, “extremely relentless in what you want to accomplish.” “But,” he adds, “I knew I had something to say.” DECEMBER 2015 / JANUARY 2016
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THE DRAMATIST It has been said that if anybody other than Shakespeare wrote the plays of the bard, it must have been Steve Young. Steve has that sweeping scope of Elizabethan theatre: He acts. He directs. He writes. He also has a flair for history, mystery, and the paradox of tragic comedy. One minute he’s playing Gloucester in Lear for Shakespeare Dallas. Then he’s doing a reading of Falstaff in Henry IV, Part I and II. Next he’s joining forces with two other actors to present Reduced Shakespeare—all 37 plays in 90 minutes. During dry spells he directs, or he did until he and his wife Lisa landed in London where she worked for Caterpillar. Steve enrolled in a novel-writing program at the City University and emerged ready to turn his insights into the arts of drama. In addition to stand-up comedy in clubs across the UK, he created The Renderings, about animals reduced to grocery meat as well as some who find second chances. It was a matter of picking up a craft where he had left off in Chicago, as a young actor fresh from Wisconsin where he grew up. Ever restless, Steve studied directing at Illinois State, and when those gigs dried up, he turned to writing plays. One, called The Resurrectionists, he gutted 39 times before finally seeing it produced in Virginia as well as Chicago. Next came The WalMartians, in which he argued that “our behavior is destroying us.” Then there were five years of no scripts at all, followed by his own resurrection as a playwright in London. In time Steve was lured to Texas Woman’s University in Denton and Lisa to Wells Fargo in Dallas. They settled into a townhouse near Farmer’s Market, and Steve picked up The King’s Face, first produced by Giant Olive at the Lion and Unicorn Theatre in London. It’s a tour de force about young Harry of Monmouth who is wounded by an arrow to the face at the battle of Shrewsbury, which secures the crown for his father, Henry IV, but leaves the matter of an heir in grave doubt. The king summons John Bradmore, the best surgeon available, to dig out the arrowhead stuck in his son, and save the life of the prince. It’s a tense, subtle study of the doctor and his frightened royal patient, who survives to reign as Henry V. The Public Theater in New York is looking at the play, and that could mean the biggest break yet for Steve Young, a Shakespeare of sorts for our own time.
Steven Young a performance of Henry V he saw as a young man to his thespian pursuits. Shakespeare continues to influence his acting, directing, and writing today. 68attributes PATRONMAGAZINE.COM
THE DANCER Albert Drake has a flair for the dramatic. Take a look at the latest poster for the Bruce Wood Dance Project and you’ll see him looking serious, sensual, muscular, but slender, in jeans with bare feet and back, a tiny tattoo on his left shoulder blade, a beautiful young woman twined somehow around him. Her name is Emily Perry, and he proposed to her last June, on stage, before the bow, on bended knee. It was perfect, Albert tells me, at Proof and Pantry in One Arts Plaza. (First he orders a glass of wine and the waiter asks if he is of age to drink. He is, at 25.) “Our families and closest friends were there,” he explains. The wedding will be next September, in Nashville where Emily is from. Albert grew up in Houston, with 14 siblings from various marriages. He describes them as “a dramatically entertaining family.” He is one of three born to both his parents. As the only boy in the trio, he “had a lot of them in my ear growing up, telling me what to do.” His father, a machinist who died a few years ago after an accident at work, “imposed the idea of being secure.” So Albert came to Southern Methodist University and considered architecture, environmental science, pre-med, and geology. But dance was what he fell for. Bruce Wood caught Albert in a campus production and immediately emailed him an offer to join the company. “I had to jump on that train,” Albert relates, “and see what I could be.” What he could be is one the finest contemporary dancers in Dallas, according to Charles Santos of TITAS, who has lined up Albert with Kimi Nikaidoh, artistic director of the company since Bruce Wood’s sudden death last year, for A Gathering, the extravaganza staged by numerous arts groups to help fund the continuing battle against AIDS. Easily bored, ever drawn to the new, Albert is pushing himself into choreography with his first full-length work, Whispers, well underway. He wants it to be “an introverted experience, asking: What is happiness?” He hopes also to do “a lot of smaller projects…to use downtown as a stage, maybe the reflecting pool by the Winspear.” And of course, he wants to “do a dance on Emily.” The two of them thought they would leave Dallas after this year, but not now. “Kimi’s plans are exciting,” he says. “We decided to stay and have a purpose.”
Charles Santos has deemed Albert Drake2015 one of/the finest contemporary DECEMBER JANUARY 2016 dancers 69 in Dallas.
Southern Methodist University alum, Joshua Peugh, is the founder and artistic director of Dark Circles Contemporary Dance.
THE CHOREOGRAPHER I get to Preston Center Dance on a Sunday afternoon just in time to catch the last hour or so of Joshua Peugh’s Dark Circles Company rehearsing his new choreography for The Rite of Spring. He plans to set it as a prom in the 1950s, in a gymnasium. “A prom is as close to pagan ritual as you can get,” he observed when we got together earlier that week. Some have peeled off from rehearsal before I arrive, but two Sarahs—Hammonds and Matzke—Kelsey Rohr and Chadi El-Khoury—are still there, moving like Tennessee Williams’s “cats on a hot tin roof” to no music at all at first, then playing the dance in a higher key to Rosemary Clooney singing this from a smart phone: If you loved me half as much as I love you, You wouldn’t worry me the way that you do. You’re nice to me when there’s no one else around. You only build me up to let me down. “It’s perfect for a prom in the ‘50s. But that’s only to set the rhythm,” Joshua explains. “Stravinsky is too uneven for that,” he adds, noting that at a previous rehearsal they had used Janet Jackson. But the real thing, The Rite of Spring, comes next, from a notebook. The dancers, in black tights, tank tops, and one in a red and blue plaid shirt, move into high gear. “It’s intense 70
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music,” says Chadi, “exhausting.” “We need more zigzagging,” Joshua instructs. “Don’t do upper body, just hands…It’s close to what I want,” he declares finally, as the dance winds down and the dancers high-five each other and depart, only to gather again the following week to prepare for a world premier of The Rite of Spring at Dallas City Performance Hall on March 4. “It’s the most ambitious thing I’ve done,” says Joshua, who leaves immediately for Fort Worth where he works regularly at TCU. There he’s assembling a work with “all Bob Wills's music…and swing.” Joshua Peugh has traveled many miles to this moment. He grew up in Las Cruces, New Mexico, came to Southern Methodist University, majored in dance and English, then took off for Seoul, and joined Universal Ballet, a company devoted to the classics. But Joshua grew bored dancing “Swan Lake” and “Giselle.” That’s when he created the first Dark Circles, with a partner in South Korea. It continues still, but Joshua returned to Dallas and, after a stint with Bruce Wood, launched another branch here. “I always want more than one color,” he says, “never just sad or just happy…I don’t want people dancing at me…I’d rather see something understated…The most important thing to me is to be curious.”
Bruce DuBose has appeared in several independent films and is a founding member of the Undermain Theatre where he will perform in cameo roles for the world premiere of Jonah.
THE ACTOR “It’s hard to work together and have your life together. I wouldn’t recommend it.” So said Bruce DuBose who, with his wife, Katherine Owens, has built the Undermain Theater into a steady, vital center for serious drama, sometimes challenging for audiences, but always compelling. Together since 1986 and married in 2000, the two of them showcase major writers, and when those writers are lucky, their leading actor in Dallas is Bruce DuBose. This season he did Tommy in The Night Alive by Conor McPherson, an Irishman who blessedly has stopped drinking and therefore turning out work like The Weir, where one drunk after another delivers monologue after monologue in a bar. The Night Alive is far more intricate than that, and Tommy more complicated. Bruce has been letting his hair grow for this role when I see him. Probably he will trim it back a bit to play the father in Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, due to open in February. The greatest triumph for Bruce thus far, however, has been An Iliad. It’s a one-man tour de force of Homer, distilled into an hour-and-a-half and updated with language of today that speaks still about the passions and compulsions of centuries. Intuition is the key to the power of Bruce DuBose as an
actor. “I tie into what the audience is bringing,” he explains. “I give them symbols. I give them revelations. No matter what I have in mind, the audience may find something else.” So the important thing is not what actors present. It is what they evoke—or in some cases provoke. “It’s an emphasis on words,” Bruce continues, “or an inflection, how I use my body, my voice.” Bruce has a rich bass-baritone at his disposal. It’s so commanding and effective, he has made a good living from voiceovers in television and film ever since returning to Dallas from Texas Tech, where he majored in theater and English, an important choice since literature informs his work at every turn. So does music. A master of strings, percussion, and keyboards, Bruce designs the sounds at the Undermain. For An Iliad he used a Saz, a stringed instrument from Turkey, ancient and plaintive, possibly strummed by Homer himself, who sang as well as spoke his tales of mortal tussles with the gods. Bruce DuBose has one more play coming up this season. For the world premiere of Jonah by Len Jenkin, director Katherine Owens has asked her husband to play two cameo parts: God and the whale. He has the stage presence and the voice for both. P DECEMBER 2015 / JANUARY 2016
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BY STEVE CARTER
MUSIC HAS CHARMS
PATRON PROFILES FIVE OF THE AREA’S SINGULAR MUSIC MAKERS, A DIVERSE FIELD OF VOICES, VISIONS, AND VIRTUOSOS.
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usic of the region, of the other-than-classical stripe, is a variegated feast that defies glib genrefication. “Big” ears, cross-pollination, and stylistic assimilation are sacraments in this big tent of players, as the resulting musical evidence attests. Here we profile five local musicians—established, emerging, behind-the-scenes, or under-the-radar—but all continually evolving, working to soothe a savage beast. Singer/songwriter/producer Salim Nourallah has been defining DFW indie pop sensibilities for over a decade, and following his creative arc seems to illuminate the scene at large. While he’s best known to many for his acclaimed solo albums Polaroid, Constellation, Hit Parade, and others, he’s equally renowned as an award-winning producer who’s helped shape releases by Rhett Miller, the Old 97s, the Damnwells, Deathray Davies, and many more. For years his empathetic instincts as a producer have kept him so much in demand in that capacity that production became his primary focus, and the pursuit of his own creative peregrinations only a secondary concern.
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Happily for Nourallahphiles, the tables are turning. The recent releases of Born to Say Goodbye (by Salim and Bob Blumenfeld’s The Disappearing Act project), and Salim’s Skeleton Closet, his first solo full-length since 2012, mark the renaissance of a renaissance man, and a welcome return to form. “I’ve been more active playing and releasing my own music in the past year than in quite some time,” Nourallah enthuses, “and that’s been a big change.” Another change is that for his current live dates he’s performing sans band, relying instead on the backing of vocal-less cassettes of Skeleton Closet songs, played on his vintage Panasonic boombox and pumped through a P.A. “I really love it, doing these one-man shows; Skeleton Closet would be a very difficult record for a band to perform effectively live, but the boombox does it every night, with perfection,” he laughs. The album’s diverse directions are knit together with heavily tremoloed and reverbed guitars, Nourallah’s unvarnished vocals, and consistent pop smarts; and lyrically, regret and loss are tempered with the promise of new beginnings. Catch him live at Sons of Hermann Hall on December 19. salimnourallah.com
Salim Nourallah’s 6th full-length record, Skeleton Closet, was released in August this year on his own HIT Records label. Photography by Jeff Scroggins
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Fort Worth native Ginny Mac is an accordionista nonpareil, a sultry songbird, and a ubiquitous musical presence around the Metroplex’s boho nighteries. Her love affair with the accordion began early—her first instrument was a seventh birthday gift, and years of lessons followed. A key piece of her schooling was her early involvement with the Cowboy Opry organization in Fort Worth. “They taught kids western music, cowboy music, Texas music, and Western swing music, which was totally different from the classic country that I had been singing,” Mac says. “Western swing orchestras often had accordion players; I was 12 or 13, singing Spade Cooley, Milton Brown, or Bob Wills. That was when I started putting accordion and singing together.” Mac recorded her first album, Sweet Sentimental Dream, at 15, accompanied by some of her illustrious cowboy mentors, even duetting with Texas Playboy legend Leon Rausch on “Cheek to Cheek.” It was a bravura debut, demonstrating both her accordion and vocal chops and her tradition-rooted influences—Patsy Cline, Hank Thompson, Hank Williams, and Tommy Duncan, among them. But over the years Mac’s artistry has expanded along with her admiration for Ella Fitzgerald, Freddie Mercury, Dean Martin, Johnny Gimble, Lenny Breau, Frank Marocco, and Art Van Damme—that’s just the short list. Ginny’s most recent album, her fourth, is On the Street Where You Live (2014). This time around she’s joined by Woody Paul and Joey Miskulin (Riders in the Sky), fiddle legend Buddy Spicher, bassist Bob Moore (Roy Orbison), and other Nashville greats. And while her cowboy roots are always showing, her gumbo now includes elements of hot jazz, gypsy jazz, standards, straight-ahead jazz, and originals. A new album is in the planning stage, and who knows where she’ll land this time. ginnymac.com
With a voice reminiscent of Patsy Cline, while performing, Ginny Mac dispels all stereotypes of the accordion. Photography by Sil Azevedo 74 that’s PATRONMAGAZINE.COM
Composer and musician Mark Menza makes a lot of noise out of his Design District studio. Photography by Kris Hundt
You may not realize it, but you’ve probably heard the music of Dallas composer/sound designer Mark Menza—his work has enlivened Jimmy Neutron, Wishbone, Dragon Ball Z, and others, not to mention commercial spots for Pier 1, Boy Scouts of America, Dallas Mavericks, and more. Originally from Buffalo, New York, Menza’s background is jazz guitar and voice; he moved to Texas to pursue a master’s degree at UNT. He was introduced to Dallas’s production music industry when he was a copyist, working with the late commercial music guru, Tom Merriman. Off to a good start, he eventually formed Menza Music in 1994. “I wound up getting plugged into the animation world,” Menza says, “so I get calls from all over the place, people who are doing animated properties.” Recently he’s been at work on Owlegories, a new faith-based animated series. “I think my biggest strength is
being able to write to picture,” he assesses. “My stuff may be very through-composed and written picture moment-to-moment. It’s very much in the style of Carl Stalling, but with updated musical sensibilities…” Mark’s musical versatility and communication skills keep him in demand, and he thrives on challenges. Last year he composed the orchestral score for a new ballet called Colin: Son, Marine, Hero; the work was commissioned by the Manassas Ballet Theatre. Menza has known the company’s artistic director, Amy Wolfe, and her family for years. The ballet tells the story of Wolfe’s son Colin, a young Marine who was killed in combat in Afghanistan. Colin was a personal and artistic triumph, and Menza’s now keen to do more dance pieces. “There’s a wide range of things to do,” he says. “I just wish I had more hours in the day to do them!” menzamusic.com
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Hale Baskin is a jazz-rooted singer and songwriter channeling the 1940’s Big Band “songbirds” and Ella Fitzgerald while mixing it up with soul and funk. Photography by Sil Azevedo
Whether she’s working as a duo, with her quartet, her little big band, or her full big band, vocalist Hale Baskin is a jazzer at heart. “Hale Baskin and her Jazz Addiction” is the umbrella that all of her ensembles operate under, and that appellation is apt. “Like most people who are involved with jazz I never really had a choice,” she recalls. “It was the music that was playing around the house: smooth jazz, 80s fusion, Al Jarreau, and Weather Report. My dad’s a musician and his favorite crossover singer was Natalie Cole, so between Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and Natalie I had a diverse but still very rooted education.” She says she was singing as soon as she could talk. The San Francisco native was a prodigy, and by the time she was 13 she’d won her first of three Downbeat magazine student music awards, and recorded her first album. She relocated to Denton six years ago to attend UNT, and she’s working part-time toward her jazz performance degree. “I needed to increase my musical knowledge and my marketable skills,” she admits. “Texas was a big shock in some ways, but Denton’s a little artistic enclave, so I feel very at home here.” Baskin’s current band includes her fiancé, keyboardist Colin Campbell, bassist Mike Luzecky, guitarist Horace Bray, and drummer Lupe Barrera. Jazzers all, they occasionally flex their soulfunk muscles as The Southpaw Preachers, with a grittier, Motown, R&B orientation. Although she’s wrapped up in school, performing, and teaching privately, Baskin’s plotting her next jazz album. “I’d like to do a collection of sassy and sultry songs about women,” she says. “I love all these wonderful love songs with tongue-in-cheek innuendo—that would be a really fun project.” halebaskin.com 76
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Cinematic musically and visually, Warren Jackson Hearne is a very singular singer/songwriter/bandleader whose music evokes the best of Ennio Morricone and Marty Robbins, with a touch of David Lynch. Photography by Marcus Junius Laws
The name, Warren Jackson Hearne, rings as if it’s preordained for the marquee of an indie-alt venue or a “wanted dead or alive” poster in a Spaghetti Western—maybe both. So it’s little surprise that Hearne’s cinematic musical musings often evoke the vast Southwest of the American imagination. Born to professional musician parents and raised primarily in Fort Worth and Missoula, Montana, Warren’s western orientation seems embedded in his DNA. “I like space in songs, and I really like dynamics,” he says. “And I like the opposite of space, all in one song.” Early on in his career, Hearne and his band, Warren Jackson Hearne and the Merrie Murdre of Gloomadeers, were pigeonholed with the epithet “death-folk,” and the title of their album, Grave Ambitions, seemed to confirm the conclusion that mortality was a muse, the raven on his songwriting shoulder. “When I first started the Gloomadeers I was interested in death ballads,” he
acknowledges. “For me it tends to be a little more honest—not everyone finds love, but everyone finds death. It may just be a little easier for me.” On his most recent outing, Eleutheros!, Hearne’s band is Le Leek Electrique, the grim reaper a dialed-down presence, and the deathfolk handle isn’t apropos, although a preponderance of minor keys colors the atmosphere. Robust horns and strings buttress the rhythm section, and Sabra Laval’s ethereal vocal contributions are a perfect foil to Hearne’s lean, brilliantined baritone. Existential disquiet is never far from the surface in his songs, and the landscape is one of sidewinders and saguaros, swing and jump blues, with God and Satan squaring off in the ultimate grudge match. “I’m continually trying to go to the next thing,” Hearne adds. So keep your ears peeled, Pilgrim. warrenjacksonhearne.squarespace.com P
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STEALING TIME AT PRESENT THE PUBLIC & PRIVATE PRACTICES OF JEFF ZILM.
Left: Jeff Zilm’s new light boxes will be shown in his January show at Dallas Contemporary. Right: Jeff Zilm in his off-the-beaten path studio. Opposite: Jeff Zilm, The Kleptomaniac, 2015, dye, silver halide, acrylic emulsion, gelatin emulsion, and optical sound on canvas, 54 x 78 in.
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BY BRANDON KENNEDY PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEVEN VISNEAU
CONSULT SOCIAL MEDIA APP. CONTACT ARTIST. CHANGE COMMUNICATION PLATFORMS. ARRANGE FOR MEETING AT ARTIST’S STUDIO. DRIVE TO LOCATION AT DESIGNATED TIME. CALL CELL WHEN IN PARKING LOT. LET IT RING AND HANG UP UPON SIGHTING. EXCHANGE HAND SIGNALS. GREET WITH HANDSHAKE AND FLASH LITERATURE. GRAB MATERIALS AND ENTER BUILDING. BE GREETED BY LOOKS OF STRANGERS. FOLLOW INTERLOCUTOR TO SERIES OF ADJOINED ROOMS. TAKE IN SURROUNDINGS. ENGAGE IN CONVERSATION. FOCUS IN ON OBJECTS. DISCUSS SINGLY AND AT LARGE, THEN IN CONTEXT. ASK ABOUT PRACTICE. EDUCATION. HISTORY. MEDIA. WRITE DOWN PERTINENT DETAILS THROUGHOUT. DIRECT ATTENTION TO TIME. EXIT STUDIO AND RETURN TO CAR. LAUNCH MAP APP. DEPART WITH GESTURE.
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This page: Jeff Zilm, The Floorwalker, 2015, dye, silver halide, acrylic emulsion, gelatin emulsion, and optical sound on canvas, 54 x 78 in. Opposite: Jeff Zilm, The Pharmacist, 2015, dye, silver halide, acrylic emulsion, gelatin emulsion, and optical sound on canvas, 34 x 48 in.
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E
ver since the start, we had been a series of missed connections, circular discussions, and unlaid plans, never really being present in the same place with the objects needed to be experienced in order to be discussed properly, whether at the moment or brought up in conversation later. As it turns out, all that was needed was a third party to arrange this meeting for us with the promise of a supplemental transcript as record, and here we are. Glitchy static yawps from a MacBook on the floor as we enter, and the artist casually walks over to slap the top down, silencing it like a misbehaving pet. Jeff Zilm and I are standing in his studio, casually moving about, as I look at a stacked line of books on a cardboard slab on the floor and then at several large canvases leaning against the walls, most with their surfaces hidden from sight, only baring their titles along the top edge of the overlap. Soon enough, we ease into sitting down in matching grey office chairs in his studio where he’s been for about a year; a few conjoined former office spaces located around the corner from the exaggeratedly outstretched wholesale order counter at a motor supply company in Southeast Dallas. Not too far from the state fairgrounds, this clambering compound of massive industrial sheds ringed by chain link and razor wire reeks of axle grease and oil pans. The outskirts location and ignored decor lend a certain credibility and slight air of danger to the whole situation, and one can easily see why Zilm chose the space. With workday hours access only and a wholesale
industry front, he’s practically hiding in plain sight. The beige-andblack open-checkerboard-patterned tile floor resembles an Escher tessellation as the drop ceiling hums and flickers on-and-off with an offbeat precision directly over the artist’s head. I first remember seeing an image of a work Zilm had produced for a pop-up show called Applefaces that very cleanly presented guitar chords silkscreened on canvas. Spelled out on a two-row grid of three six-string necks, it was appropriately entitled A GAFFE while demonstrating the configuration of black circles (representing finger placement) on vertical lines (strings) set between horizontal fret lines. Another larger work in the grid of nine necks was entitled A BAD FACE, leaving the first neck blank. This kind of wordplay and visual strategy were barely warm and overly precise, the humor deadpan. In other words, I was already reeled in. I consult the social media app where our first fractured conservations began back in November of 2012, and this was the exact subject as I had missed the exhibition altogether. The large monochromatic abstractions that Zilm is perhaps best known for and will be showing at the Dallas Contemporary this January have a prefigured strategy of means. Visually, they result in a contained gestural, thinly sprayed surface that initially echoes shadowy fabrics, torn paper, and the off-spray from repetitive industrial painting. Perhaps they even conjure up backgrounds of bad horror-movie posters, something clamoring to tear up the surface from the inside out. Zilm showed a grouping of these at
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AND NOW in October of 2014, perfectly at home in the offbeat white-walled, grey-floored Craftsman serpentine cube, somewhere pleasantly tucked between the sinister and sublime. Zilm’s methodology to these works is both conceptually simple and visually complex: take a reel or two of 16mm film and dissolve it in a low toxicity bath, and you have your medium (both image and sound information fade from the frames); load the liquid solution into an industrial sprayer and apply to a primed canvas of predetermined size (usually referencing a visual aspect ratio of some sort). The gestural rendering in the composition is accomplished by both masking and moving while spraying at differing distances to create variation in tone and application. Title the work with the name of the film used to create the medium when it was painted. When I asked Zilm how he knew when he was finished with the paintings, he emphasized “that it was only a rulebased project up to a point and still ‘conceptual painting.’ There’s no image per se, so they defer to the content.” He added that people often ask him “Why not just make a black painting?” Zilm is way too nimble for such conceits and added that he “didn’t want it to be
super-conceptual or too f***ing impenetrable altogether.” I then posit the inevitable: “What is the work’s relationship to ‘Zombie Formalism’?” He pauses and counters, “It’s complicated.” The titles of the paintings are as redundant as the films that Zilm has been collecting from various sources for a decade or more: The Floorwalker (Chaplin), The Bank Dick (a W. C. Fields classic), A Hash House Fraud (a Keystone Cops comedy); they are typically shorts and always in black-and-white. With a wink and a nod, one, possibly two large-scale canvases measuring eight feet tall by twelve feet wide will debut at the Dallas Contemporary this January with an overtly glib horror feature—as both substance and style—featuring the fashionably undead, writ large and frozen without motion, however slow. For his show at Preteen Gallery in Mexico City last spring, Zilm showed a series of Password paintings, elongated horizontal scapes that mimic search field windows or where like-minded info is requested. By feeding in askew phrases like “I’m half necro,” “WTF is China, De Sade?”, “I see a death comet,” “Yes, I am a seer,” or “Bitcoin is feces,” and deleting any spaces/punctuation and
Left: Jeff Zilm, A Hash House Fraud, 2015, dye, silver halide, acrylic emulsion, gelatin emulsion, and optical sound on canvas, 54 x 78 in. Right: Jeff Zilm, A Simple Sap, 2015, dye, silver halide, acrylic emulsion, gelatin emulsion, and optical sound on canvas, 54 x 78 in. Opposite, from top to bottom: Jeff Zilm, Untitled, 2015, acrylic on mylar in light box, 24 x 36 in.; Jeff Zilm, I’m Half Necro, 2015, acrylic on canvas, 2.5 x 96 in.; Jeff Zilm, A Synth, 2015, acrylic on canvas, 2.5 x 96 in.; Jeff Zilm, Passwords at Preteen, 2012, acrylic on canvas.
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issuing them in straight uppercase, Zilm then feeds the potential unlocks into a password-strength generator online at which they all fail miserably. That is, until random spaces are added between each letter, branching out the composition and making the alleged password strong. They are then rendered in white sans serif on simple solid-color fields, usually measuring two-and-a-half inches high by 8 feet long. By broadcasting such calculated nonsense as art objects, we arrive at an undetected impasse: no safe measures for public display of private data and a ridiculously improvised solution to an absurd contemporary problem. No one is counting spaces, nor trying this at home. To free up the display of such loopy logic, they’re typically displayed as pairs at tented angles or parallel verticals and attached to the wall with heavy-duty Velcro. You can practically hear the soft-spoken out-loud spelling of viewers with tilted heads, adding up their own slow consternation, space by space. Blocks of text on solid backgrounds read as directives through unseen spaces with unknown objectives. Mostly silkscreened black on white in a simple serif font, though white on blue or black is
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seen as well. These texts are derived from game cheats and play willy-nilly with the genre, subverting it, turning it on its head, and at the same time throwing echoes of John Baldessari, Jenny Holzer, and avant-garde literature. You can feel yourself creating the space for the narrative as you read the simple verb-noun, verbadverb construction. The works wriggle through their constructed missions, getting you at once nowhere and to the end of the text, though invariably you look back to the beginning, wondering what you’ve missed. Without a knowable objective, you’re just cutting conceptual bait, left floundering at an unknown door. In addition to Zilm’s painting practice, sculptural elements can take the form of medium-sized fluorescent-light boxes resting on the floor, outfitted with Mylar sheets slumped inside that are sometimes painted and sometimes not. More directly, entire large reels of film lie disemboweled across the floor in clumpy celluloid loops, creating an obvious obstruction for one accustomed to looking straight ahead for screen residue. One particularly pleasing example of this is entitled Patty Hearst (2014), whether conspicuously constructed or simply laid out is up for grabs.
As the punch clock nears the late afternoon, bringing percussive clatter at the motor supply, the would-be artist-in-residence and I head to the adjacent smaller paneled office where a large sprayed “film” painting hangs with a medium-sized “cheat” canvas wrapped in plastic sheeting. Zilm warns me that the “film” painting is unfinished and not to remark about it in particular; curious, as it looks busier to me than the rest of the “film” paintings I’ve seen, more compositionally active, and therefore maybe awaiting more pigment application. The “cheat” painting lies foggy beneath its protective wrapping as I squint and smile while imagining the colorful story unfolding in quickened time. Zilm picks up an industrial sprayer and explains the process in detail along with grasping a handful of blank film strips, relieved of their visual and aural information, presumably now residing on a nearby canvas in an altered state. I look up from the covered text-based canvas, and Zilm drops the clear lengths back into their empty bath. I realize that I’m at once in both a nursery and a morgue. I turn to reread the parting lines again:
This page: Jeff Zilm, Patty Hearst, 2015, Kodak 35mm safety film, dimensions variable. Opposite: Jeff Zilm, The Fat and the Lean, 2015, dye, silver halide, acrylic emulsion, gelatin emulsion, and optical sound on canvas, 54 x 78 in.
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QUIT THE PROCESS. TELEPORT TO WARSAW. LOOT. DRIFT. LOOT. STRIKE. SEE RECTANGLES, ANGLES, OPEN A FREE STORE. BE IDLE. LIVE IN LUXURY. BE A YIPPIE. NEVER WORK. DECEMBER 2015 / JANUARY 2016
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BY NANCY COHEN ISRAEL PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN SMITH
HIGH LIGHTS
STREAMING THROUGH A CANOPY OF GLASS WINDOWS, THE SUN, MOON, STARS, AND CITY LIGHTS ENHANCE THE ART COLLECTION OF TWO NEW DALLAS RESIDENTS.
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Lowland sofas by Patricia Urquiola, for Moroso; custom pillows in Sahco/Giorgio at Donghia, Place Textiles in Killarney/Mockingbird at David Sutherland Showroom; vintage textile from Japan; Phoenix coffee tables, Patricia Urquiola, for Moroso; humidor on the table, Jean-Claude Farhi, Cigares pour la maison, 1972 polymethacrylate; Fjord Swivel Lounge Chair and Stone Ottoman, Patricia Urquiola for Moroso; Vintage Moroccan rug 1970’s, by Doris Leslie Blau, from the Wright Auction in Chicago; all floors custom-colored solid walnut.
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L
evitating would be the best way to describe the feeling of walking into the apartment of this Dallas Arts District high-rise. From the elevators that open directly into the living room, visitors are embraced by panoramic views of Downtown Dallas, Klyde Warren Park, and Uptown. Between the views, the art, and the altitude, this could be heaven. The homeowners are citizens of the world. While the move to Dallas came after spending 14 years in Houston, work as a global business executive took the family on long-term assignments to New Delhi, Tokyo, and London. Their time in Japan seems to have made the most lasting impression on their tastes. In addition to the many tansu chests throughout their home, the space is serenely spare, with each object exuding a quiet beauty. In order to achieve the lightness of space, one of the first design decisions involved removing as many walls as possible, creating unobstructed views. The one element that could not be removed was a column housing the HVAC system. In a case of turning lemons into lemonade, the homeowners commissioned Houston artist, Ariane Roesch, to create an installation using electroluminescent wiring to create lines of light. Roesch read up on her Dallas history and came up with The Missing Piece. One of the buildings visible from this unit is the Bank of America Plaza, famously outlined with green lights. When it was erected in 1985, the original plan included a second tower that was to be outlined in magenta. The economic collapse of the late-1980s put an end to that plan. In Roesch’s installation, magenta and goldlighted wire wrap around the column, symbolically bringing the second tower to life. The view from the entry places it side by side with the existing Bank of America tower. To achieve this sense of lightness and to help implement their design vision, the homeowners turned to Dallas-based
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Opposite page top: John Clement, Lollipop, 2014, powder-coated steel, Below: Ariane Roesch, The Missing Piece (installation), 2015, El Wire; (left) August Muth, Substance, hologram glass; (right) Dieter Balzer, Manga 5/4, 2012, MDF and adhesive foil. This page: Stephen Dean, Ladder, 2010, NASA-colored glass; Tato Pouf by Cerruti Baleri; Steinway grand piano, 1906
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Above left: Custom-designed banquette seating by Lee Lormand upholstered in Innovations: Sierra faux leather; table, vintage Saarinen base with custom oval quartzite top; custom Sahco/Bahia pillows; custom cantilevered acrylic shelves with LEDs by Lee Lormand displaying vintage Nelson McCoy pottery; succulents by Lauren Lightfoot, Grange Hall. Above right: Ford Beckman, Pop Target, 2012, oil with high gloss industrial finish; Athos wall unit, by Paolo Piva for B&B Italia; Penta Chairs, by Toan Nguyen for Viccarbe; hand-knotted Tibetan wool and silk Billboard rug from Tamarian Rugs; Kitchen designed by Lee Lormand with customcolored lacquer-front cabinets, and custom-colored back-painted glass backsplash.
Lee Lormand of Lee Lormand Design. While impressed with Lormand’s classical training, his serene design aesthetic clearly also resonated with them. Both designer and client stress that this project was highly collaborative. Prior to moving to Dallas, the homeowners lived in Houston’s historic Shadyside neighborhood in a traditional home built by John Staub in 1938. Looking for a clean slate, they left tradition behind when they moved to North Texas. Lormand first visited them in Houston and took a full inventory of the house. He says, “From that, we spoke about which pieces they wanted.” Only four or five pieces of furniture made the cut. Of what was left behind, a few pieces went to a second home. Between an estate sale and auction, they divested themselves of everything else. As a result, much of the art and furniture is newly acquired. On first glance, some of the artwork looks as minimal as the space it inhabits. But as with the rest of this environment, a closer look reveals an entire universe. In the dining area, a painting from Christian Eckart’s Sacre Conversazione series appears to be a pure color field surface, created with layers of lacquer on aluminum. However, the title of the series is derived from the Italian Renaissance artistic tradition of painting sacred conversations between the Virgin Mary and saints from differing time periods. Eckart’s influences include Kazimir Malevich, Barnett Newman, and Ad Reinhardt.
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But an exhibition of the 16th century master Correggio at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York captivated him. Using Correggio’s images as a starting point, he eliminated the figures and rendered the composition into a series of abstracted vertical bands of color. On an adjoining wall, an heirloompainted Chinese scroll depicting the seven immortals having tea in a garden provides a similar composition to the Correggio paintings that inspired Eckart. While 300 years separate the two works, their juxtaposition is fresh and coherent. These paintings frame a dining area whose disparate elements form a cohesive whole. The T-chairs, designed by William Katavolos and dating from 1952, surround the table. Lormand says they found them at the Wright Auction Gallery, which specializes in 20th century furniture. It reminded the homeowners of a saddle. Since they now live in Texas, it seemed like an appropriate nod to the state. Lormand designed the gray glass tabletop to sit atop the Aracnida base by Barcelona Design, bringing all of these elements together. Illuminating the table from above is one of Ingo Maurer’s Flying Flames chandeliers. This lighting system, whose light is provided by LED candles, contributes to the overall sense of flotation throughout the space. The kitchen is around the corner. It underwent a complete renovation, designed by Lormand. The homeowners say, “We were looking for a little surprise when you walk into the
Above left, above the table: Christian Eckert, Sacre Conversazione, 2014, lacquer on aluminum; Dining chairs, by William Katavolos, Ross Littell and Douglas Kelley for Laverne International, 1952, purchased from the Wright Auction Gallery/Chicago; Dining Table base from owners inventory with custom gray glass ovoid top; Flying Flames chandelier, by Moritz Waldemeyer / Ingo Maurer, for Ingo Maurer; Jeff Koons, Split Rocker vase, 2013, limited edition glazed porcelain. Above right: Katana dansu (sword chest), Edo period (1688–1704), Japan; Regine Schumann,Telescope IX, 2009, fluorescent Plexiglas. Bottom: Ploum Sofas, by Erwan and Ronan Bouroullec for Ligne Roset; Abaco tables by Pianca, with custom gray-mirrored tops; John Clement, Penny Candy, maquette, 2011, powder-coated steel; rugs by Truett Fine Carpet & Rugs; Stainless steel planters by Blomus; Aldo Chaparro, Unique Grace, freestanding stainless steel sculpture.
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kitchen.” While most of the apartment is finished in neutrals, here pistachio accents provide visual drama. One of Ford Beckman’s Pop Target paintings provides a focal point to this area. While the reference to Jasper Johns’s Target paintings is clear, Beckman sought to fuse Minimalism with the aesthetics of Pop Art. Lormand describes his clients as “some of the most gracious and welcoming people I have ever met,” adding, “They are very nurturing of talent.” The couple stresses that they enjoy getting to know the artists whose work they collect. They also enjoy entertaining for them and introducing their work to others. For this purpose, a large, open living area provides the perfect backdrop for guests to mingle. A sectional sofa designed by Patricia Urquiola for Moroso invites conversation and contemplation. On the coffee table, Cigares pour la Maison, a colorful geometric sculpture by Jean-Claude Farhi, provides another conversation piece. During daylight hours, Stephen Dean’s Ladder enlivens the space. Placed at a slight diagonal against the windows, each uniquely colored panel of specialized glass developed by NASA casts light across the room. At night, the reflection of city lights illuminates the space. Similarly, light is also an element of Regine Schumann’s work. She used florescent Plexiglas cylinders fitted into circular spaces to create Telescope
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IX, a work that changes color tone according to the light around it. August Muth’s hologram Substance #5 also comes to life at night, moving in response to viewers walking past it. Strategically positioned near the floor-to-ceiling windows, Lollipop, by Brooklyn-based John Clement, is an open, circular piece of sculpture fabricated in powder-coated steel. From the living area, it perfectly frames Reunion Tower. It sits atop a Plexiglas pedestal that allows the sculpture to appear to float in front of the window. A conscious decision was made to have an accent color in each room. While tangerine accents the living room, red prevails in an adjacent sitting area. Strawberry-inspired Ploum sofas by Parisian designers (and brothers) Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec and John Clement’s maquette for Penny Candy manifest these hues. Clement’s work is currently on view at Houston’s Gallery Sonja Roesch. Grace, a seven-foot stainless steel sculpture by Aldo Chaparro, keeps the room from feeling too scarlet. And rather than feeling contrived, these chromatic themes provide an elegant unity to their spaces. In Asian cultures, the bedroom is meant to be a place of repose. In this home, the master bedroom is an oasis of serenity. Red Feathers, a large, monochromatic painting by David Simpson, hangs over the bed. As with other work in this collection, it is only monochromatic on first glance. For
Simpson, light is the most important aspect of his work. Indeed, from one time of day to the next, from one season to the next, this work uniquely glows from within. Two tansu chests, each originally used for different purposes, provide storage. The tradition of the tansu dates to the Edo Period in Japan. Hardware and wood dictated their purposes. Here, a choba-dansu, originally used by merchants, shares the space with a sakai hakone. The latter would have been used in a kitchen as the odor of their kuri wood repelled insects. While the master bedroom is ethereal, the master bath brings reality and place into sharp focus. Steve Penley’s painting, Fabulous Fox, depicts Atlanta’s iconic theatre. Its placement overlooking the Dallas Arts District is particularly apt. The back hallway connecting the bedrooms to the kitchen features the work of several family friends, including Michael Corris and Bo Bartlett. Corris, a Professor of Art at SMU, created a suite of nine ink-jet prints on aluminum for this space. And Barlett’s meticulous realism has earned him a place in public and private collections throughout the world. Two of his paintings are in this part of the home. One of them, Buddha, is a perfectly suited hybrid image for the space. While these newcomers have embraced Dallas as their home, they continue to be global citizens. And while they are involved in the Arts District around them, they are also enjoying the lifestyle afforded by “lock and leave” high-rise living. One thing is certain: wherever they are, they will involve themselves with the local culture, bring a part of it home, and further enrich their surroundings. P Opposite: Custom pillows in Kent by Sahco; small pillow and coverlet by Peacock Alley; Sakai Shima-dansu (merchant chest), Edo period, with custom acrylic risers; Lamps by Baker; Jacques Garcia, Eugene chairs for Baker, Pillows in chairs by Sahco at Donghia. David Simpson, Red Feathers, 1985, iridescent inference pigments mixed with acrylic paint. This page, top: Michael Corris, Storage Problem, 2014, inkjet prints on aluminum. Bottom: Bo Bartlett, Buddha, oil on panel; Phillip Jeffries Lacquered Walls in Evening Drama
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRIS PLAVIDAL STYLING BY ADAM FORTNER
This page: Harry Winston Premier Precious Butterfly ladies' timepiece in white gold. Mechanical automatic winding, 28 jewels, 28,800 vibrations per hour, 72-hour powerreserve. Dial in butterfly marquetry motif. Sapphire crystal case back. Diameter: 36mm, exclusively in Dallas at Harry Winston, Highland Park Village. Opposite: 18k rose gold Monkey Ring, embellished with 7 ct. white and cognac diamonds, holding a 27 ct. carved Colombian emerald, exclusively at William Noble, Highland Park Village
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into the jungle Betwixt and beneath the rainforest canopy, half of the world's flora and fauna are residents. In time for the holidays, selections from legendary jewelry and watchmakers preserve the irrepressibly wild and beautiful spirit of nature. DECEMBER 2015 / JANUARY 2016
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This page: Yellow sapphire and peach fossilized walrus-ivory earrings by Monique Péan, framed in white pavé diamonds. The sapphires share a weight of 31.04 ct. Set in 18k recycled rose gold, Ylang 23, Plaza at Preston Center. Opposite: Flexible elephant 18k rose gold cuff with pavé diamond tusks, Roberto Coin from the Animalier Collection, Eiseman Jewels, NorthPark Center
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This page: deBoulle Collection, 18k white gold, 4.42 ctw. G-H/VS round brilliant diamond necklace, 45.77 ct. carved ruby, exclusively at deBoulle. Opposite: Blancpain, Flyback Chronograph, Grande Date, off-centered hour, 18ct. white gold case bezel set with one row of diamonds, mother-of-pearl dial set with diamonds, calibre 26F8G self-winding movement composed of 495 parts, 44 jewels, ostrich band with folding strap, 2.24 total carat weight, Tourbillon Boutique, NorthPark Center; 18k white gold sapphire and diamond, wide American Glamour bracelet with 468 light blue sapphires at 36.61 ctw., 504 dark blue sapphires at 32.23 ctw., 61 diamonds at 1.96 ctw., exclusively at Bachendorf's. 98 PATRONMAGAZINE.COM
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Chair Nancy Rogers 2015 TWO x TWO First Look Presented by Fossil Photography by Bruno Courtesy TWO x TWO For AIDS For Art
THERE
TWO x TWO FIRST LOOK PRESENTED BY FOSSIL PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRUNO COURTESY OF TWOXTWO FOR AIDS AND ART
Joy!
Jessica Nowitzki, Anna Sophia Van Zweden
Bradley Agather Means
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An ne G oy e r 2 1 4. 4 57. 04 1 7 Howard Rachofsky, Cindy Rachofsky
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THERE
TWO x TWO FOR AIDS AND ART GALA & DINNER PRESENTED BY HARRY WINSTON AND AUDI OF AMERICA PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRUNO
Amy Phelan, Jeremy Scott
Robin Thicke
Howard Rachofsky, Todd Fiscus, Cindy Rachofsky
Thomas Keller, Laura Cunningham
Federica Boida, Nell Langford, Donald Dykes, Amy Wendt
Eric Muscatell
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Nancy Rogers
Richard Phillips, Federica Fanari, Vika Gazinskaya
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Gavin Delahunty
NASHER PRIZE REVEAL AT THE WAREHOUSE PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRUNO
WITH GRATITUDE MR 3:)6 1 MR 7EPIW MR
Nancy Nasher
Catherine Rose, Jeremy Strick, and Jennifer Eagle
Howard Rachofsky
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John Runyon, Lisa Runyon, and Jed Morse
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THERE EVERYWHERE THERE:
NORTHPARK 50TH ANNIVERSARY PATRON RELEASE PARTY AT SALVATORE FERRAGAMO PHOTOGRAPHY BY QUOC CONG
Lynn McBee, Capera Ryan, Victoria Snee
Jan Strimple, Heidi Dillon
Mayor Mike Rawlings, Nancy Nasher
Jeremy Strick
Taylor Zakarin, Kristen Gibbins
Nancy Nasher, Brian Donnelley (KAWS)
AKRIS AND TOWN & COUNTRY LUNCHEON AT CHRISTIE’S POP-UP PHOTOGRAPHY BY JONATHAN ZIZZO
Jo Marie Lilly, Laree Hulshoff
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Amy Faulconer
Capera Ryan, Debbie Ryan
2015 FIRST NIGHT AT THE DALLAS OPERA PHOTOGRAPHY BY KRISTINA BOWMAN
Phyllis Coit, Joseph Minton
Curt Branom, Mary McDermott Cook, Margaret McDermott
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Keith and Jennifer Cerny
Terrence McNally, Tyne Daly, Tom Kirdahy
Don and Ellen Winspear
DALLAS HOUSTON
www.ariastonegallery.com
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THERE EVERYWHERE THERE:
VIKA GAZINSKAYA SPRING 2016 TRUNK SHOW AT FORTY FIVE TEN PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRUNO
Vika Gazinskaya
Christen Wilson, Brian Bolke, Nasiba Hartland-Mackie
Martha Leonard
BAHZ BY BRIT HARLESS LAUNCH AT SUITSUPPLY PHOTOGRAPHY BY SHANA ANDERSON
Mutual Zoi-Adams, Kunthear Mam-Douglas, Hamilton Sneed
Britt Harless, Dan Pritchett
Heidi Dillon, Cathy Vieth
B STELLAR POP-UP AT THE GOSS-MICHAEL FOUNDATION PHOTOGRAPHY BY DANNY CAMPBELL
Chandra North Blaylock
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Charles Smith II, Nancy Martin Koen, Misty Burns Incontrera
Ektaterina Kouznetsova
Jessica Nowitzki and Kimberly Chandler attend Children First: An Evening with UNICEF (Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images for US Fund for UNICEF)
Lynn and Allan McBee (Photo by Kristina Bowman)
Selwyn Rayzor, Joyce Goss, and D'Andra Simmons (Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images for US Fund for UNICEF)
American Airlines Laura Schulz, John Bush, Julie Mucciacciaro, Gay Zara and Hector E.. Adler with President/CEO of U.S. Fund for UNICEF Caryl Stern (Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images for US Fund for UNICEF)
FURTHERMORE
BY TERRI PROVENCAL PHOTOGRAPHY BY SIL AZEVEDO
LEADER OF THE PAC
As the new Board Chair for the AT&T Performing Arts Center, Matrice Ellis-Kirk plans to “keep the momentum going.”
“W
hen I was growing up in Cleveland, our public schools exposed us to the arts. We went to the symphony, The Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Karamu House more than once each year,” says Matrice Ellis-Kirk, a managing partner for RSR Partners, a national executive, board, and leadership-recruiting firm. Recently assuming the role as Board Chair of The Dallas Center for the Performing Arts Foundation, she recalls, “My Grandmother recognized that the arts were something very special, and she made sure I took every opportunity to learn and enjoy a wide range of disciplines—symphony, ballet, musicals, theatre, sculpture, painting, and more. We took it all in.” Her husband, the former Dallas Mayor and U.S. Trade Representative, Ron Kirk, shares her belief that the arts influence both creative and critical thinking. “Ron and I took the same approach with our daughters as our parents did. The arts were never an add-on for us, but an essential part of our family life. Just as some families build in time for soccer, little league, and football, we factored in time for the arts.” Thus, their two daughters have benefited from this culturally informed foundation: Alex is a law student at Fordham, and Catherine, a graduate of the Dallas arts magnet Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and NYU, is now a professional dancer in New York. “And while I was not blessed with the artistic talents that my children were blessed with, the arts still shaped the way I approached the world,” she says. Well-prepared to manage her position as Board Chair, Ellis-Kirk is charged by the “great team operating” AT&T PAC. “We’re running at full speed,” she describes of the resident companies along with the near-capacity calendars of the Winspear Opera House and Wyly Theatre. “We are premiering new works and world premieres with a wide range of programming, paid and free, throughout the year.” She feels confident being backed by a strong Board of Directors with many in place since inception. “For nonprofits, that kind of dedication and support is hard to find, and hard to hang on to, so we’re fortunate to have such a deep bench.” Though AT&T PAC opened in the middle of the economic crisis in 2009, she faces new challenges today. Attracting and retaining audiences is indisputably the core mission of every arts organization globally. Period. Especially in Dallas in the thrust of a burgeoning arts movement with more choices than ever before. Not to mention, for many, regardless of a strong economy, tickets may still be out of reach. “I recognize that it isn’t easy for every family, especially those without the resources or means to access the arts. That is one reason I have been so deeply involved in our city’s arts organizations from the moment I moved to Dallas—to help make sure the arts and all that they have to offer, are welcoming, diverse, and accessible.” Undoubtedly countless residents and visitors to Dallas will benefit from Matrice Ellis-Kirk’s vision. “It’s all one big experience and it has to be top notch, or next time they’ll go somewhere else.” P Matrice Ellis-Kirk at the AT&T Performing Arts Center.
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Breguet, the innovator. The Marine 5827 chronograph
Having become a member of the Board of Longitude in Paris in 1814, Abraham-Louis Breguet was appointed Horologer to the French Royal Navy by Louis XVIII the following year. This prestigious title, embodying exceptional scientific competence, is now perpetuated through the Marine collection and the Marine 5827 chronograph, which features a central chronograph minutes and seconds. History is still being written...