CAMH
debr a barrer a
nathaniel donnett
carrie marie schneider
right here, right now: houston debr a barrer a
Avalon Bill Arning
8 Acknowledgements, Artist Bio, List of Works
28 nathaniel donnet
Nothing To See, Hear; Every Sound as Insight Valerie Cassel Oliver
33 Acknowledgements, Artist Bio, List of Works
52 carrie marie schneider
The Work is a Test. The Work is The Answer. Dean Daderko
57 Acknowledgements, Artist Bio, List of Works
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Director’s Foreword right here, right now: houston
I have repeatedly extolled Houston’s virtues as a city for artists to live and work. The housing is affordable, studio space is plentiful, and the intellectual and social stimulation is abundant. Along with my two curators, Valerie Cassel-Oliver and Dean Daderko, we greatly enjoy being part of this art community, witnessing local artists become players in broader dialogues both within the city and on the international stage. For Right Here, Right Now: Houston, my curatorial staff and I have embraced our rolls as community mentors, choosing three artists whose work has provoked our individual enthusiasms as visitors to exhibitions in the city. We met with each of them regularly over a period of time, engaging in wide-ranging discussions about what these first solo museum shows could be. All three of us are well aware of the potentials—both pitfalls and opportunities—presented by working intimately with a professional, experienced curator in a museum setting. The mentoring component of this exhibition also allows us to enter a generative relationship with the cultural producers who comprise a significant percentage of CAMH’s primary audience. Houston, as one of America’s largest metropolitan areas, is a fine place to base a career and many artists have made the decision to be here. As in any large city there are many distinct groups of artists who often show together and support each other. When we at CAMH posed the question, 4
“With whom would you want to work?” it was a great thrill to find that each of the selected artists show in different clusters of spaces and have different groups of fellow art colleagues. Showing the work of Debra Barrera, Nathaniel Donnett, and Carrie Marie Schneider simultaneously will hopefully foster increased dialogue among the cultural practitioners of Houston. CAMH has, for sixty-six years, been an integral player in the cultural ecology of the city and has many times before focused scholarship on the artists working in our proverbial backyard. Most recently, the exhibition No Zoning featured a large survey of artist-generated projects and collectives in the city. The retrospectives of Trenton Doyle Hancock and upcoming Mark Flood exhibition in 2016 continue that tradition, which we further expand upon with Right Here, Right Now: Houston. As always, my wonderful staff of dedicated professionals went above and beyond to bring this exhibition to life and I cannot thank them enough for the hard work they contributed to the making of Right Here, Right Now: Houston. I am also grateful for the generosity of The Brown Foundation, Inc. and the Museum’s Major Exhibition Fund donors. —bill arning
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Installation view of Avalon
Bill Arning
Avalon When the samba takes you out of nowhere / And the background’s fading out of focus Yes the picture’s changing every moment / And your destination, you don’t know it —Roxy Music, “Avalon,” 1972
In Debra Barrera’s rapturously entitled Avalon exhibition, she explores— through drawings, installations, and objects—the very human compulsion to “escape.” The artist’s earliest mature works focused on modes of transportation—cars and horses—drawn in her signature lush black-andwhite palette and always quoting from cinema or found photographs. Her current project, anthologizing methods of getting outside of or away from one’s present circumstances, continues in Avalon as she identifies and depicts the unreal, inaccessible, and impossible allure of breaking from the ennui of daily life. Barrera provides tantalizing hints that it is indeed possible to leave the psychic space of wherever we are. Avalon includes drawings of unlikely escape “vehicles,” such as magical puffs of smoke and spacecraft, combined with depictions of unreachable never-never lands. These stand alongside physical manifestations of “leaving”—her sculptures 9
and installations that employ motorcycle helmets, rockets, and taxi lights. The actual built apertures through which one could theoretically physically exit the galleries (but that the public is not permitted to use) are highlighted through color and transformed into metaphoric escape routes. Architect Gunnar Birkerts intended the museum’s angular spaces to be accelerators of energy. In their framing of bodily motions they are perfect for the artist’s investigations of escape velocities. Barrera is in many ways a profoundly figurative artist even though depictions of bodies never appear her work, and are even excised from the photo sources she uses for her drawings. Still, the conspicuous absence of visible bodies conjures beings that are wildly present, even if unseen; and with the implied invitations to take the pink or black routes of her transformed exits, those bodies just might be our own. Every element in Avalon declares in a different tone, “Get me out of here.” By systematically exploring diverse forms of escape she lets us look at the ur-myth in which we will be redeemed, destroyed, vaporized, or suspended. The escapes she conjures are beyond any and all particular methods, circumstances, or locales, focusing instead on the paradigmatic irreducible nature of this drive. Barrera also offers us a critical distance for considering the positive and negative aspects of both acting on the desire and not acting on the desire, staying in one’s circumstances while forever fantasizing. Outer space, the oceans, and the Arctic are places where, as a culture, we can locate many conflicting dreams, and as an avid film watcher Barrera is steeped in those mythologies’ current manifestations. Yet those myths have haunted human consciousness from time immemorial, and the descriptions of the places to which one can vanish vary only in details.
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Right Here, Right Now: Houston
Invisible Records/Romance, 2014
Floating CAMH, 2014
(from left) Ballute, 2014 Dragon in the Pacific (SpaceX Capsule 2012), 2013 Endless Dep, 2014 Together Forever, 2014
Poof (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1910)
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For AndrĂŠe (Arctic Balloon Expedition, 1897)
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Debra Barrera: Avalon
Still, it was with the invention of cinema that the fantasy of total escape populated a universal image bank. Perhaps the definitive one is the Paramount Pictures mountain, an image that produces a Pavlovian response in anyone raised on Hollywood movies. Projected at the start of a film, it sets the expectation that now is the time we will collectively go someplace else in our heads and hearts. But the Paramount mountain doesn’t really exist and the original logo had only a few details—just a smudgy conical peak; it gained in specificity every time it was updated by the studio (as with any recurring dream, the details become clearer, if contradictory, over time). It seems as if any one mountain could not contain the myriad fantasies Paramount would produce over the decades. Barrera mirrors its peak so as to render it more emblematic of unreality as a paradise. Another image that Barrera mined from early cinema is the puff of smoke the witch uses to vanish in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910), the first of the many film versions of this celebrated children’s tale (Oz being another magical place unreachable by any traditional means). In choosing this version Barrera mingles what we already know about the wonderful wizard with the creation of the Hollywood studio (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was made by the first film studio to locate to Southern California, the Selig Polyscope Company). Barrera also frames more mundane but nonetheless intoxicating escape fantasies. By mounting a taxi marquee high on the wall, she celebrates the effortlessly transporting urban experience of escaping a tiresome party or a bad date by merely raising a hand and having a cab whisk you off. Another wall features a motorcycle helmet balanced on a chain, conjuring the perverse dream that a two-wheeled vehicle means absolute freedom (rather than mortal risk and/or quotidian broken ribs). These are the only two escapes she offers that might actually be available at some point in life to the majority of exhibition visitors, most of whom will not be riding a rocket anytime soon. 18
Right Here, Right Now: Houston
(foreground) Number Gold, 2014
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Debra Barrera: Avalon
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(from top) Taxi Take You or Me, 2014 Paintings (melting state), 2014 New Monument for Us, 2014
Installation view of Avalon
Even if the jet packs we were promised as children never materialized, the space race did provide a marvelous depository for fantasies of vanishing. The deep space images Barrera uses in her work trigger memories of countless film taglines (i.e., Alien’s “In space no one can hear you scream.”) and the oft repeated image of an astronaut tumbling slowly away from any possible salvation, a trope that recurred as recently as 2013 in the Academy Award–winning Gravity. Barerra’s work Together Forever, using an actual backyard rocket as its central element, reminds us that every kid that builds a primitive rocket wants nothing more than to leave home. Barerra traveled to the Japanese version of NASA to make a series of works, fascinated by the very idea that this small country that already leads the world in so many fields would still require their own aerospace program to keep a balanced self-image. As Barerra writes, “Once I saw a California sunset over the Pacific. Looking over the horizon, I realized that beyond the lavender clouds and hot pink sky was the deepest black of space. Even though my eyes fail to see beyond the earth’s atmosphere, in that moment I achieved an understanding of an impossible place. Through the orange of a Los Angeles sun I saw the depth of outer space—a true dark formed from the brightness of the sky. Like a mirage coming into focus, what was once invisible became true.” An earlier image comes from the end of the 19th century when the only truly uncharted area of the globe was the North Pole, along with parts of the Pacific Ocean. While the warm ocean might be treacherous and vast, it was ultimately functioned not unlike much of the known world. The Arctic, however, was so impossible to comprehend that it was widely believed that the North Pole hid entrances to a tropical inner world. The Swedish explorer S.A. Andrée wanted to fly over the North Pole in a hot air balloon—the quickest way, in his estimation, to become the first human to see it—and his launch was surrounded by great fanfare. Despite his 24
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disappearance, he was a hero of sorts in the public imagination. After his balloon and remains were found 30 years later, the photographic images he and his crew took of their failed mission became a strange monument to his romantic endeavor. Barrera pulls into play two rarely noticed apertures in CAMH’s galleries. For Avalon, the emergency exit/loading dock door will glow pink and the trap door to the lower galleries will be remade in black. While the idea of coloring a disappearing place in total light-absorbing black is somewhat straightforward, the magenta requires some explication. Magenta, the color we typically describe as pink, is the only common color that does not appear in the color spectrum; it is an unreal color that the mind creates to unite two conflicting impulses from the optic nerve. The artist, raised in a stereotypically female mode, was encouraged to embrace all things pink, but utterly rebelled. Only later when she learned that pink is in fact an impossible color—existing only in the mind of the perceiver—did her unknowing rejection make a poetic sense. This desire for escape stands in perverse relationship to the survey exhibition of which Avalon is a component. The very title, Right Here, Right Now, foregrounds the plaintiveness of artists in a certain locale— the city of Houston, Texas. The show opens in the hottest month of the summer when the need to get away to more temperate climes is on many Texans’ minds. Yet the city was described in the title of the decisive volume of Cite essays as an “ephemeral city,” one with no attachment to its past and therefore a slippery relationship to its immediate circumstances. Perhaps this city, like only a few others—Vegas, Paris, Dubai—leads artists in their studios to evasive maneuvers, such as Debra Barrera’s Avalon. In titling her show Avalon, Barrera conjures the mystic lands of Oz, Valhalla, Camelot, Shangri-La, Shenandoah, Neverland, and heaven— 25
Debra Barrera: Avalon
Paintings (melting state, detail), 2014
unmappable places that we invest with the greatest restorative powers, but that we also construct as unobtainable, save through oblivion. For many of us the Roxy Music song Avalon is the unavoidable pop culture reference. Roxy’s leader Bryan Ferry was quoted in 1982, upon the record’s release, “Avalon is part of the King Arthur legend and is a very romantic thing. When King Arthur dies the Queens ferry him off to Avalon, which is sort of an enhanced island. It’s the ultimate romantic fantasy place.” Yet in the iconic video for the song, the lovely woman he dances with keeps turning into a mannequin. In Barrera’s fantasia we have a similar realization. If we are always dreaming of escape, is there de facto something seriously the matter with our circumstances? The answer to that is truly the terra incognita that haunts us.
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Debra Barrera: Avalon
Acknowledgements
List of Works
Betty Moody, Lee Steffy, and Adrian Price at the Moody Gallery were a tremendous help in allowing us to share Debra Barrera’s works with the Houston public. —bill arning
dr awings
Special thanks to Bill Arning, Moody Gallery, Burning Bones Press, Jillian Gayle Gomez at Sybil Press, Kristen Cliburn, Traditional Designs Inc. of Houston, Jonathan Hopson, the CAMH staff and crew, and all of my friends and family who supported me. —debr a barrer a
Artist Bio Debra Barrera was born in 1984 in Corpus Christi, Texas, where she also grew up. She received a BFA and a BA in English from the University of Texas at Austin and an MFA from the University of Houston. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Art Museum of Southeast Texas. She was recently commissioned by Rice University to create a public artwork while in residence with the Physics and Astronomy Department.
Dragon in the Pacific (SpaceX Capsule 2012), 2013 Graphite and compressed coal on paper 23 x 15 1/4 inches Collection of Joshua Newcomer and Tejal Shah For Andrée (Arctic Balloon Expedition, 1897), 2013 Graphite and coal on paper 23 x 25 3/4 inches Private collection Ballute, 2014 Graphite, compressed coal, and oil charcoal 13 5/8 x 29 inches Collection of Lea Weingarten Sea to Space/ Tanegashima, 2014 Graphite and coal on paper 20 1/8 x 29 inches Courtesy of the artist and Moody Gallery
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Poof (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1910), 2014 Graphite and oil pencil on paper 11 5/8 x 11 3/16 inches Courtesy of the artist and Moody Gallery Avalon, 2014 Gold wrapping paper, poem written by the artist 11 x 8 1/2 x 2 inches Courtesy of the artist and Moody Gallery prints Sea to Space to Sea to Space, 2014 Lithographic prints on paper 22 x 32 inches Courtesy of the artist, Burning Bones Press, and Moody Gallery
Paramount Mountain, 2014 Lithograph print on paper 24 x 32 inches Courtesy of the artist, Burning Bones Press, and Moody Gallery
Paintings, 2014 Ice, pure pigment, white marble Dimensions variable Courtesy of the artist and Moody Gallery
Invisible Records/ Romance, 2014 sculpture Hygrothermographs Dimensions variable Together Forever, 2014 Courtesy of the artist Low altitude model and Moody Gallery rocket, parachute, painted photo New Monument for Us, backdrop 2014 Dimensions variable Thassos marble, pure Courtesy of the artist, pigment Kristen Cliburn, and 11 x 62 x 3/4 inches Moody Gallery Courtesy of the artist and Moody Gallery Number Gold, 2014 Racing helmet, Endless Dep, 2014 Figaro gold chain, arts Acrylic, glass, oneachievement award way mirror, hair gel red ribbon 17 x 36 x 18 1/4 2 x 8 x 1 feet inches Courtesy of the artist Courtesy of the artist and Moody Gallery and Moody Gallery Taxi Take You or Me, 2014 Taxi roof light 38 x 11 1/4 x 9 1/2 inches Courtesy of the artist and Moody Gallery
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book Sky and Space (Artist Book), 2014 8 x 10 inches Edition of 50 Courtesy of the artist, Sybil Press, and Moody Gallery
Debra Barrera: Avalon
installations The Big Pink Moon, 2014 Paint (Baker-Miller pink), pink light bulbs Dimensions variable Courtesy of the artist Floating CAMH, 2014 Galvanized steel, distilled water, liquid silicone, pigment 69 x 69 x 1 3/4 inches Courtesy of the artist Nothing Better, 2014 Digital audio track 2 hours 13 minutes Courtesy of the artist
Installation view of Nothing to See, Hear
Valerie Cassel Oliver
Nothing to See, Hear; Every Sound as Insight introduction Over the course of two weeks, Nathaniel Donnett and I engaged in an e-mail exchange. The ensuing dialogue is featured below. I have removed my voice, allowing Donnett to speak to the reader directly. What he espouses as an artist in terms of the conceptual scope of his work and his “end game” provides great insight into the power of the visual image as a catalyst for change. There is a particular sharpness to the language and the images he has produced. The jagged edges are his unflinching and unapologetic passion for our collective understanding of what he has often stated as post-traumatic racial disorders. How does the residue of oppression affect the overall health—mental and physical well-being—of the victimized? In this installation, Donnett has constructed a space for imaging those experiences, not as diatribe or didactic brow beating, but as meditative contemplation. Much of the work that debuts in this exhibition was constructed to create an immersive environment for the viewer. It is from this place that Donnett speaks to the viewer. His message is simply for us all 33
to engage in the collective consciousness of mankind. He speaks from the black body because he was born into that body, but struggle is universal and Donnett challenges us to have the courage to care and embrace the legacies of past in an effort to manifest a brighter future. –valerie cassel oliver in his own words My work has always been rooted in socio-political concerns and cultural critique. It is a philosophy that took hold while I was a student at Texas Southern University. My professor, Harvey Johnson, like John Biggers, believed that your work reflects your environment and serves as a voice for the community that you come from. In their teachings, your work is poetry and as a visual artist, you are the poet. I have taken that foundation and coupled it with my interest in hip-hop culture and the music in general. I am also fascinated by people and their habits, and how those people become “society” and their habits, the “norm”. This curiosity is much more a viable underpinning in my work than, say, art history. My earlier works took the form of assemblages and found sculptures, then paintings, and then came the paper bag drawings. These drawings are primarily figurative works that address the internal vestiges of slavery upon black folks such as “colorism” or what I like to call “shadism”—a psychological tension of beauty, value, and worth. It is the critique of the black gaze upon the black body. My more recent work has continued to address those issues, but in different ways. I am more interested in the subconscious of blackness— that space of the otherworldliness and black imagination. I seek to investigate how black imagination moves, lives, dreams, fails, and dematerializes. Something through the experience and psychosocial concerns that breaks through limitations, restrictions, and recycling or the veiled isms that are constructed by the world at large or the art market. 34
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Nothing to See, Hear addresses many of these concerns. The installation is also a meditation on death, memory, and history. It asks the viewer to think about the body—the black body as a conceptual idea and its history as experiential and performative. The immersive environment is conducive to enabling a certain empathy and transference among viewers. This enables experiences and even the physicality of the body as subject matter, to be reflective. I want the viewers to think about their own mortality and experiences. That being said, the narrative in this exhibition is about the black body— its physicality, experiences, and history. It is also about the impact of those experiences and histories upon the psychology of that body. I wanted to explore what was stored within the subconscious. In doing so, I removed all traces of the body’s physicality, replacing it with an existential echo. The body exists in the space, but in faint traces. There is human hair in the drawings but they remain abstractions of an anonymous body, devoid of a location, history, or memory. The human condition is implied by default. The general idea behind this faint tracing was to remove the tangible black body from the gaze and to reject this idea of objecthood in lieu of something more intangible, mutable, and imperceptible. I wanted the darkness to dull a perceived expectation of blackness, but to heighten one’s reflexive ideas around personhood and existence, as well as the dematerialization of that existence. In the installation I wanted the viewer’s own body to become the subject, rather than the absent black body. The black body occupies space. It shifts perception, but is also shaped by perception. W.E.B. Dubois speaks about this perception in The Souls of Black Folks. He puts forth the concept of “double consciousness,” a sense that one feels by looking at oneself through the eyes of others. In the book, Dubois also speaks of his interaction with another black person. He framed this interaction with a simple but coded question: “How does 35
Nathaniel Donnett: Nothing to See, Hear; Every Sound as Insight
(left to right) Innocent, 2014; To the Wall, To the Wall, 2014; Leonora Draper, 2014
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Nathaniel Donnett: Nothing to See, Hear; Every Sound as Insight
it feel to be a problem?” In essence, Dubois posits their interaction as a merger that renders them both invisible. That was 1903. What is visible and invisible these days? How has that narrative shifted in the collective understanding of the black body? How do we apply new narrative to a well-worn history that resists being relinquished to the future? How real is the ability to construct one’s understanding of self when society continues to yield any form of autonomy in that self-construction? I want to insert the idea of a holistic existence as opposed to a fractured or fragmented one created by a false perception or authority. Nothing to See, Hear coalesces my interest in death and the emotional and psychological responses to such loss in our historical and current time. I was also thinking of how physical space could be rendered in an environment that integrated the aesthetics of traditional Japanese gardens and West African rituals around loss. The occupancy of space towards mourning, celebration, ritual, death, and memory was one of the elements that I wanted to explore and conflate. I also thought about African American music—hip-hop, jazz, blues, and soul—as the dissent voice of oppression and the champion of human rights. As a kid I always thought about death and the afterlife. I realized how life and death are necessary—not exclusive of each other. Music has always touched upon these things sonically and through lyrics—particularly the genres of blues and rap, which have enabled a more complex understanding of life and death, seeing it from the inside out. This installation represents that desire to reach from the inside and tease out the residue of experiences. I want to provide a journey through the subconscious of the black experience. In developing this project, I came upon the title, Nothing To See, Hear. I was thinking about the irony of clichéd police responses to situations involving police and civilians. You know the proverbial, “Let’s move on folks…there is nothing to see here.” 38
Right Here, Right Now: Houston
Ritual (detail), 2013–2014
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Nathaniel Donnett: Nothing to See, Hear; Every Sound as Insight
(from left) Ritual, 2013–14; I Think I Saw It Move, 2014; Dark Like the Side of the Moon You Don’t See, 2014
It is the response when police want civilians to ignore something that is obviously egregious, something that more than likely shouldn’t be ignored. There is also the play upon word and sound in the title that evokes a sensory transference between presence and absence, sound and light. This in turn affects a transition to other spaces and an immersion into memory and history. It is about bringing together visibility and invisibility, darkness, the spirits of those lost to echo meaning into time and space. There is an importance to all the elements featured in the exhibition. dr awings The drawings are abstractions of the black body. They are minimalist gestures that combine graphite and hair (human and synthetic) on paper. The human hair is collected from local barbershops, while the synthetic hair is purchased from neighborhood hair stores. Hair as material is loaded, and is used by used numerous artists. These drawings however, created with graphite, charcoal, and ContÊ sticks, are as much a sociopolitical statement as they are a contemplation of the history of minimalism. The compositions of these abstract drawings also capture the ordinary and everyday aesthetic of black hair design, which is also used as a communicative device. I use traditional and non-traditional materials as a means to negotiate the space between content and subject. The works are also the embodiment of people who have been lost to the struggle for social justice. And the titles of individual drawings are the names of individuals who died at the hands of the police such as Oscar Grant (whose tragic death was the subject of the recent film Fruitvale Station) or significant events that were catalysts for social change such as Sharpsville (for the Sharpsville Massacre in Johannesburg, South Africa).
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ritual, 2013–14 Ritual is comprised of 300 drumsticks that have been manipulated into a hybrid of a drumstick and police nightstick. While constructed of wood, it serves as a temporal object in that its construction is meant to collapse upon use. Using these hybrid forms, I’ve created a memorial wall to call attention to the abusive actions of the police toward civilians. As wall reliefs, these objects represent the relational space between police and those they have abused or those who fear abuse. This space holds the curiosity, mistrust, anger, violence, and protest that still exist. The baton in this shape was used as a self-defense weapon, as well as to attack. The police seem to have one mode of beating that is hard, heavy, and steady; on the other hand, the drummer’s rhythm is nuanced and tempered according to the situation/composition. It shows the how those involved in institutions remain within a structure and are not allowed to improvise. I’m trying to convey the complexity of being human by suggesting the divergent space between people. dark like the side of the moon you don’t see, 2014 Inspired by Japanese Zen gardens, this piece is comprised of sand, rocks, clothing, glass, and other detritus from the community—donated by individuals or purchased. As such, it also represents the collective body of a community. Like the Zen garden, its purpose is to be a space for tranquility, peace, and reflection. But it also functions as an intersection between reality and a utopian spiritual space. The garden functions like that of an altar. There are offerings that are embedded—things that had been given to me prior to the exhibition. The donors are anonymous and that sense of anonymity and an absence suggests what is visible and what remains invisible.
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Nathaniel Donnett: Nothing to See, Hear; Every Sound as Insight
Various drawings, 2014
disappe ar (eulogy), 2014 In Blues People Amiri Baraka talks a bit about the way the enslaved Africans had their own musical scales and percussive approach. Their music was always compared to European and Western music and then automatically placed in the “lesser than” column. This was a senseless comparison of fundamentally different perspectives that happens with music and in other spaces as well. Sound in the context of the exhibition can mean many things, but it is the music and use of words in rhythms, patterns, phrases, and language. The sounds are chants and moans used in protest rallies, while feet march and hands clap through neighborhoods; blues songs relaying emotional experiences; eulogies expressing loss of loved ones; the sounds of a body being attacked; the sonic quips and vocal distortions in rap songs that set a precedence for a different type of language speak; or the soulful and bluesy stories sung through a saxophone or guitar, showcasing montages of life lived in America. I thought about this installation as a painting from a bird’s-eye view, mapping out the neighborhood like Google or the FBI. I saw it as a nod to the lighting and theatrics in baroque paintings by artists like Caravaggio, using sound as a vibrational guide to focus in prayer, meditation, and loosing oneself in a zone. In the exhibition, there are two sound works: the most profound is Disappear (eulogy). While this work is subtle, it carries with it a visceral impact in the exhibition. It is the simple act of reciting the eulogies of those who have died at the hands of others abusing their power. The idea is to again refer to visibility, loss, and memory. These eulogies were material found on the Internet. I wanted to give voice to those who have died from senseless violence and acts of protest. The voice without music in song mode has a particular resonance—only the voice delivers the meaning and expression. I thought it was interesting to highlight 48
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that together with the social spaces that were created for black people in churches and at memorial services. i think i saw it move, 2014 Set within the inspired Zen garden is a tower of bass and tom drums. The drum sculpture and its sound element serve to ground the overall installation and the viewer. The work is a mix of my interpretation of a West African power sculpture (nkisi), spiritual figure, and sound object. It is significant as the spiritual-awakener and direction-mover from the subconscious memories to the conscious. In addition to communication, it builds languages, allowing for a steady stream of focus and zoning for meditation. Amiri Baraka also talks about the misunderstanding of the use of drums when Africans were brought to America to be enslaved. It was thought to be a simple code exchange, when in fact it was much more—a system of communication where rhythms, tones, and patterns acted as letters, sentences, and paragraphs. seikseulb, 2014 Light creates form. With the use of light in the installation, I wanted to shape and alter the viewer’s reality, challenging how we see things psychologically, historically, and socially. The blue light creates the obvious reference to “black and blue.” It is a blues aesthetic of sorts, but multidimensional. The work also references how historically, black music has been characterized as “the devil’s music” by both whites and blacks— especially by Christians who saw the blues, rhythm and blues, and later rap music genres as sirens to youth. However, music can transformative, repelling the very same demons that it has been characterized as summoning. This piece emanates the blues as a means to dispel sorrow and to mitigate trauma. In bathing in the light, one is able to stand at the 49
Nathaniel Donnett: Nothing to See, Hear; Every Sound as Insight
Seikseulb, 2014
crossroads that Robert Johnson sang so fervently about—the ability to visit the dead, engage with their spirits and soothe their sorrows. It is my hope that this space will function as a catalyst for the viewer to delve into the communal histories that shape our present day lives. Each element provides a framework to access the “muscle memories” that drive the black struggle and imagination. In using light and sound, I’m using the language of minimalism to discuss complex ideas regarding the black body and its experiences. This installation uses these familiar things—like hair, drums, or through things like light and sound—recognized by the senses through association. There is also the olfactory element that acts as a transporter of sorts. I am hoping to create an “after-experience”— something like the afterimage that occurs after looking at the sun or a bright light—but through immersive experience, the residual effect cognitive as well as optical.
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Acknowledgements
Artist Bio
I would like to thank Nathaniel Donnett for his openness and spirit of collaboration on this project. This project underwent several iterations and I am thankful to the artist for his thoughtful perspective and creative talent. I am also greatly appreciative of efforts by my colleague Libby Conine, major gifts manager in the Museum’s development department, who sought additional underwriting for this installation project. Jeff Shore also deserves special thanks for allowing the artists to manifest their ideas in the realm of the tangible. And, while it is rare to acknowledge an artist’s patron, I wanted to extend my heartfelt appreciation to Sharon Hoffman, whose passion for Nathaniel Donnett’s work has no bounds. Her enthusiasm and support of young talent helps to sustain the field in the wake of overwrought commercialism and fallacies of instant stardom. Finally, I would like to thank director Bill Arning and curator Dean Daderko for their generosity in undertaking Right Here, Right Now. It has been a pleasure. —valerie cassel oliver
Nathaniel Donnett is a visual artist and musician. He studied painting at Texas Southern University. His work has been exhibited at such venues as Lawndale Art Center, Project Row Houses, Texas Southern University Museum (all in Houston); The New Museum, New York; as well as the National Museum and Modern museum in Lima, Peru. His work was recently featured in the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston’s exhibition Black in the Abstract: Hard Edges/ Soft Curves. His work will be featured in the Texas Contemporary Arts Fair as a statement project and in a solo exhibition at the Mattatuck Museum in Westbury, Connecticut, both 2014. Donnett is the recipient of numerous awards and grants including a residency with a solo exhibition at Redline Milwaukee in Wisconsin, supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, 2013; the Houston Arts Alliance Established Individual Artist Grant and an Idea Art Fund Award supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, both 2011. He received an Artadia Award in 2010 and was a nominee for the 2009 Tiffany Louis Comfort Award. As a musician, Donnett has performed locally and participated in the 2001 musical performance presentation of Bhandra Fever, choreographed by Donald Byrd and featured at Houston’s Wortham Center for the Performing Arts. Donnett lives and works in Houston.
I wish to thank those who donated material for the creation of the work Dark Like the Side of the Moon You Don’t See, as well as the following for their support in the development of the installation Nothing to See, Hear: Khalif Aikens, Markus Cone, Jamal Cyrus, Djenaba Donnett, Tyres Donnett, Maurice Duhon, Kenya Evans, Charles Fields, Chinelo Ikejimba, Autumn Knight, Flash Gordon Parks, Robert A. Pruitt, Garry Reece, Unlimited Stereo. At the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, I thank Valerie Cassel Oliver, senior curator and organizing curator for this installation; director Bill Arning; curator Dean Daderko; and head preparator Jeff Shore.—nathaniel donnett 52
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List of Works dr awings Arthur Lee McDuffie, 2014 Graphite, synthetic and human hair on paper 9 x 9 inches Earl Green, 2014 Graphite, synthetic and human hair on paper 9 x 9 inches Grand River AveDetroit Riots, 2014 Graphite, synthetic and human hair on paper 9 x 9 inches I Thought Charles Baltimore was Dead, 2014 Graphite, synthetic and human hair on paper 14 x 17 inches Innocent, 2014 Graphite, synthetic and human hair on paper 30 x 40 inches
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James L. Farmer Jr., 2014 Graphite, synthetic and human hair on paper 23 x 30 inches Leonora Draper, 2014 Graphite, synthetic and human hair on paper 30 x 40 inches Orangeburg, 2014 Graphite, synthetic and human hair on paper 9 x 9 inches Oscar Grant, 2014 Graphite, synthetic and human hair on paper 14 x 17 inches Rocks in the Bottom of Lake, 2014 Graphite, synthetic and human hair on paper 12 x 12 inches Sandi Smith, 2014 Graphite, synthetic and human hair on paper 23 x 30 inches
Sharpesville, 2014 Graphite, synthetic and human hair on paper 30 x 40 inches Throw Ya Hands In the Air, 2014 Graphite, synthetic and human hair on paper 12 x 12 inches To the Wall, To the Wall, 2014 Graphite, synthetic and human hair on paper 14 x 17 inches Trenton in Benton/ Benton Harbor, 2014 Graphite, synthetic and human hair on paper 9 x 9 inches installation Dark Like the Side of the Moon You Don’t See, 2014 Sand, glass, cloth, plastic, hair, mints on wood base 96 x 144 inches
Nathaniel Donnett: Nothing to See, Hear; Every Sound as Insight
Seikseulb, 2014 Fluorescent light, Mylar in wall Dimensions variable sculpture Ritual, 2013–14 Wood, drumsticks, paint 260, each 17 x 5 x 1/2 inches Courtesy the artist I Think I Saw It Move, 2014 Sound, 10 Bass and tom drums 28 inches diameter (4 bass drums); 20 inches diameter (6 tom drums); overall dimensions variable sound Disappear (eulogy), 2014 Digital recording 35 minutes All works courtesy the artist
Installation view of Incommensurate Mapping
Dean Daderko
The Work is a Test. The Work is The Answer. In France in the 1960s and 70s, members of the cultural movement Situationist International (SI)1 attempted to synthesize diverse theoretical disciplines into a comprehensive critique of the mid-20th century’s advanced capitalism. Their playful approach to geography was a methodology they called psychogeography, which they defined as “a whole toy box of playful, inventive strategies for exploring cities…just about anything that takes pedestrians off their predictable paths and jolts them into a new awareness of the urban landscape.”2 The Situationists referred to this movement through space and ideas as a derivé, and called participants in such actions flâneurs, a French word that translates as “stroller,” “lounger,” “saunterer,” or “loafer.” Celebrating idle time as creatively productive time, a flâneur might explore the streets of Mexico City using a travel guidebook for Berlin. 1 2
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Michèle Bernstein, Guy Debord, and Asger Jorn published a manifesto announcing the formation of the Situationist International movement in 1957. Joseph Hart, “A New Way of Walking,” Utne Reader, July/August 2004, www.utne.com.
(on wall) CAMH Excavation, 2014
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Right Here, Right Now: Houston
Like the Situationist derivé, Carrie Marie Schneider’s works often explore the notion of incommensurate mapping: she combines dissimilar ideas or forms in order to explore the fields each one occupies and expose new vantages from which to view each subject. For Describe Something Completely (2007), a collaboration with the artist and biologist Adeetje Bouma, ten people participated in a review process that translated their personalities into ice cream flavors. Eloise’s flavor profile included lavender, chamomile, hibiscus, hyssop, and white chocolate–covered raisins, while Joel’s included chocolate, coffee grounds, Red Hots, and chili powder. When participants were asked to match flavors to personalities, they did so with 90 percent accuracy. Dad Collapse (2008) combines multiple photographic images: Schneider, who was living and studying in Maryland, sent a snapshot of Baltimore cherry blossoms to her father. He printed out the image, photographed it in a field of Texas bluebonnets, and sent it back to his daughter. She then printed copies of his image and photographed them in the branches of a cherry tree. With works like these, Schneider surprises us with expanded notions of perception: personality gets located in an ice cream flavor, and multiple temporalities and spaces are located in a single photographic image. Schneider creates art to “invent ceremony, mark meaning, and reconfigure memory in my personal experience.”3 She developed a particularly compelling project as a means of recovering from acting as a primary caregiver for her mother who was terminally ill with cancer. Care House (2011) memorializes Schneider’s mother, Angela, in the home they both occupied. Months after her mother’s passing, and before the family home was put up for sale, Schneider performed a series of ritual interventions that became an installation. Visitors were given a key-box code that permitted them to enter the residence one at a time, fostering a sense of intimacy. Care House is an affecting work that 3
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Carrie Schneider, www.carriemarieschneider.com.
The Work is a Test. The Work is The Answer.
Carrie Marie Schneider and Mike Schneider, Dad Collapse, 2006/2014
looms large in the memories of its visitors; I’ve heard many stories from individuals who wandered through the rooms of the house, encountering photographs, video installations, and other multimedia works. For Couch Boat (2011) the artist disassembled the family sofa, tearing away its chintz floral upholstery, foam cushions, and batting. She used the sofa’s curved wooden slats and rails to construct a skeletal evocation of a boat. Symbolically, Couch Boat becomes a wish for safe passage. In Dress (2012), Schneider performs in front of slide projections of a series of family photographs in which her mother appears. We see her attempting to square up the registration between herself and her mother’s image, trying to fit her body into the projected images. One image of Angela was taken at a bar adorned with a Lone Star beer logo; another shows her as a bride standing beside her mother, and a third shows her in a yard, standing beside her daughter in a graduation cap and gown. In Dress, Schneider speaks to a variety of familial connections, from physical resemblance to how the ways we act are conditioned by the people we emulate. One imagines this effort to connect—and by extension Care House itself—could have offered Schneider a sense of solace, connection, and closure following a trying emotional period.
As an active and respected artist in Houston’s cultural community, Schneider has participated in exhibitions and events at Alabama Song, Box 13, Labotanica, Project Row Houses, and Skydive, among other venues. When I was a newcomer to Houston, Schneider’s face quickly became familiar to me. On the strength of a memorable presentation she made about her work at CAMH, I asked her if I could make a studio visit. From this first dialogue to the present, I’ve come to understand that Schneider is an artist whose works are propositions that develop from her active participation and offer similar experiences to her audience. Her beautiful risks unite tests with their answers. Schneider has stated: “I find 62
Right Here, Right Now: Houston
(foreground) Sand Tray, 2014
Carrie Marie Schneider and Alex Tu, The Human Tour 2013 map, 2013 (printed on Michael Galbreth’s map for The Human Tour, 1987)
myself needing to invent new formats for showing and sharing my work as part of the work itself.”4 Engagement reveals information to us—like it does for Schneider—through direct involvement. Created for this exhibition, Schneider’s newest works consider CAMH’s position within and in relation to Houston’s cultural fabric. These manifestations are the result of Schneider’s observations and are augmented by her extensive research in CAMH’s archives. These historical investigations are particularly apt as the Museum celebrates its 65th anniversary season. The presentation of new architectural models, sculpture, audio, print, and video works is augmented by a selection of earlier works by Schneider and other collaborators that consider this city’s urban fabric. As this exhibition came together, Schneider shared a quote with me by the feminist economist duo J.K. Gibson-Graham that feels particularly illuminating relative to some of the resistant and visionary projects she has cultivated. They wrote: We have found that we need technologies for a more reticent yet also more ebullient practice of theorizing: one that tolerates “not knowing” and allows for contingent connections between the hiddenness of unfolding; one that at the same time foregrounds specificity, divergence, incoherence, and surplus possibility… the requisite conditions of a less predictable and more productive politics…What is bizarre about this theorizing…is that it does not collapse what it aggregates into fewer categories, but spreads everything out to the limits of our tolerance for dimensionality and detail.5
In a number of recent projects, Schneider has found ways to unite technology with open-ended activities. The Human Tour 2013 (2013) is a collaborative work Schneider developed with artist Alex Tu. They 4 5
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Ibid. Carrie Schneider, e-mail message to Dean Daderko, July 17, 2014. From J.K. Gibson-Graham, A Postcapitalist Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), xxxi.
The Work is a Test. The Work is The Answer.
invited the public to participate in a series of walks that were inspired by Michael Galbreth’s eponymous work from 1982. For his Human Tour, Galbreth developed a digital mapping technology that allowed him to superimpose a human form atop a street map of Houston, creating a 40-mile-long meandering pathway to navigate by car. Schneider and Tu brought attention to this earlier work, while at the same time encouraging participants to experience Houston as pedestrians. Costumed in hooded white coveralls, the pair resembled scruffy astronauts as well as the crude human form from Galbreth’s map. Walking together as a group, participants in these variously scheduled excursions had no other goals than to be present with their fellow walkers, observing the city through their own eyes, as well as through those of their companions. Hear Our Houston (2010–ongoing) is a web-based project that also encourages pedestrian engagement with the city. Visitors to the website can download digital audio files created by Houstonians offering their impressions of notable sites; they can also upload tours for fellow walkers to listen and follow.6 Topics and places of interest include, for example, an exploration of the triangular no-man’s land bound by Highway 59, Hillcroft Avenue, and the Westpark Tollway, and tours centered on wild foraging, transgender history, homecoming mums,7 and greenways such as Buffalo Bayou and Japhet Creek. The work Mixed Use Development (2014) is presented in this exhibition as a video projection of a digital collage. Schneider’s imagination transforms a row of the type of townhouses rapidly being constructed citywide into a projected future. The appropriated homes have become restaurants, tire and beauty shops, hotels, tattoo parlors, and laundromats. Densely packed with businesses to the point of absurdity, the work poses a 6 7
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Hear Our Houston can be accessed online at www.hearourhouston.com. Homecoming mums—a Texan tradition—are elaborate corsages worn by high school students at homecoming dances and sports events. The original mums were indeed flower corsages, but they have grown to become large and elaborate decorations that may incorporate silk flowers, ribbons, beads, bells, stuffed animals, and even electronic components such as LED lights.
Right Here, Right Now: Houston
Documentation of Who Belongs, 2014, displayed on a realty sign.
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The Work is a Test. The Work is The Answer.
question about the city’s capacity to fill these dwellings and support its citizens while lauding a DIY ethos that will be humorously familiar to many Houstonians.
The world in miniature grants us a sense of authority; it is more easily maneuvered and manipulated, more easily observed and understood. Moreover, when we fabricate, touch, or simply observe the miniature, we have entered a private affair; the sense of closeness, of intimacy, is implicit.8
In addition to producing a number of architectural scale models that reimagine CAMH herself, Schneider invited a diverse group of artists and students to do the same; each one imagines a transformed Museum. In her archival research, Schneider found that similar visions were explored in the 1982 exhibition Dreams and Schemes: Visions and Revisions for the Contemporary Arts Museum, curated at CAMH by Linda Cathcart and Marti Mayo. Then, as now, there is no initiative to realize these proposals. Rather, they were an opportunity for Schneider to “assign imagination.” She relates: “As I spoke with each student this process became about assigning imagination. I heard repetitive placating of profit, liability, and success when they described the rules of their field. I wanted to ask the impossible—to imagine past limitations, to create an artistic infrastructure for a world with radically different values than this one operates under. For a third-grader this might be learning outside a test, for a graduate student it could be the freedom to make a path not preordained to debt.”9
Schneider’s youngest collaborator was third-grader Daniel Garcia, age 7, who squared off architect Gunnar Birkerts’ distinctive diamondshaped parallelogram building in order to create a “fishing house on a 8 9
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Akiko Busch, The Art of the Architectural Model (New York: Design Press, 1991), 11. Carrie Schneider, e-mail message to Dean Daderko, July 17, 2014. From J.K. Gibson-Graham, A Postcapitalist Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), xxxi.
Right Here, Right Now: Houston
cloud,” complete with seashells and miniature cardboard figures who are sitting down to learn about the environment together. With her model Mnemophobia (2014), high school student and artist Alex Rodriguez reimagined the museum as a comfortable, quiet place for artists to reflect and journal their thoughts while immersed in image collages covering the walls and floor of the space. University of Houston architecture graduate student Silvia Izaguirre’s ability to work without imposing absolute rules on herself struck a chord with Schneider: she recognized Izaguirre’s impressive conceptual strengths, and felt she found a kindred spirit. Izaguirre’s proposed Hover Cloud CAMH (2014), which she produced alongside Irma Sifontes as an elaboration on a semester-long project at the University of Houston’s Gerald D. Hines College of of Architecture, is conceptually and materially visionary. Her model’s most notable feature is a light-filled addition that seems to levitate over Birkert’s space. Schneider also identified with the experiments initiated at CAMH by Donald Barthelme, Jr. and Sebastian “Lefty” Adler during their tenures as directors. Barthelme—who went on to become an internationallynoted author10—joined the museum’s board in 1959, and held the directorial post for nine months in 1961–62. He chaperoned the Museum through a difficult financial period with a dwindling volunteer staff. Where austerity and cutbacks appear as obvious solutions, Barthelme instead enthused the museum’s supporters to dream bigger and think more artfully. He programmed Happenings and paid artistin-residency programs that offered artists policy-making roles in the institution. Schneider’s work The Ugly Show (2014)—audible in the Museum’s elevator—stages a reading of the checklist of “cultural artifacts of ambivalent status” that Barthelme assembled for a widely controversial exhibition in 1960 and challenges us to recreate an 10
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Like the quotation cited earlier by J. K. Gibson-Graham, Donald Barthelme also celebrates “not knowing.” See: Donald Barthelme, “Not Knowing” in Not Knowing: The Essays and Interviews of Donald Barthelme, ed. Kim Herzinger (New York: Random House, 1997), 11–24.
The Work is a Test. The Work is The Answer.
Alex Rodriguez, Mnemophobia, 2014
(from left) Architectural models by Lauren Fisher, Alex Rodriguez, and Carrie Marie Schneider
(from top) Balloon, 2014 and selected archival materials
otherwise undocumented show in our heads. Barthelme’s short story about a massive balloon that appears mysteriously over Manhattan inspired Schneider to create an inflatable version of CAMH out of silver emergency blankets that she titled Balloon (2014). Adler’s controversial exhibition ‘10’ included process-based and participatory artworks that were disarmingly unfamiliar for some viewers, and proved as visionary and exciting for others; this exhibition inspired Schneider to test the museum’s limits with a request to excavate into one of its walls. Visitors to the exhibition will also find themselves invited to imagine new futures for the museum through a series of interactive works. Actual, magical, critical, and contingent, Carrie Schneider’s works operate in “the funky overlap where we are building a new world while existing in the old one.” With her work, she sees and illuminates “the multiple possibilities that exist right here, right now, beyond, despite, and alongside our current system.”11
11
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Carrie Schneider, e-mail message to Dean Daderko, July 17, 2014.
The Work is a Test. The Work is The Answer.
Acknowledgements First and foremost, my thanks are due to Carrie Marie Schneider for her vision, dedication, generous criticality, and good humor. Thanks are also due to the individuals and organizations who collaborated on and contributed their time and expertise to her projects: Regina Agu, Art League Houston, Lisa Augustyniak, Michael Bise, Misha Burgett, Burning Bones Press, Thuy-Linh Cornett, Diverseworks, David Feil, Gary Felix, Lauren Fisher, Fresh Arts, Michael Galbreth, Daniel Garcia, Hear Our Houston contributors, Ashley Clemmer Hoffman, Chris Hollomon, Silvia Izaguirre, Jonathan Jindra, Stephen Kraig, Julie Lytle, Gabriel Martinez, Kathleen McAuliffe, Project Row Houses, Riverway Properties, Alex Rodriguez, Dario Robleto, Susan Rogers, Htoo Roh, Harbeer Sandhu, Mike Schneider, Sel-Fast Printing, Irma Sifontes, Morris Solomon, Texas Art Asylum, The Art Guys, Alex Tu, TX/RX, Pietro Valsecchi, Lillian Warren, and Workhorse Printmakers. Thanks are owed to my colleagues here at CAMH for their support and hard work; each and every one played an integral role, but I’d like to single out public programs manager Daniel Atkinson, former curatorial associate Nancy O’Connor, interim curatorial assistant Sarah Schultz, and our able preparator Jeff Shore for each of their invaluable contributions to this project. In addition, I extend my gratitude to Jillian Conrad, Rachel Cook, Alhena Katsof, Matthew Rowe, and Ginger Brooks Takahashi. —dean daderko
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In addition to those individuals recognized at left, I am grateful to Dean Daderko, generous excursionist, for his full-hearted curiosity and engagement in this process. I am grateful to the CAMH for hosting me and for the network of Houston artists and institutions that have made my path possible. To the students I work with, you greatly inspire me. Thank you: To Jeff and the crew. To Ann Holmes, Don Barthelme, and Lefty—and to Misha Burgett who helped me find them. To Dario, Raj, Susan. To Gabriel. To Alex, Julie, Luis, Lisa, and David—thank you.—carrie marie schneider
Artist Bio Carrie Marie Schneider is an artist, writer, and educator based in Houston, Texas. She uses art to “invent ceremony, mark meaning, and reconfigure memory.” Her work has been presented at Alabama Song, the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, DiverseWorks, labotanica, Project Row Houses, and Skydive Art Space in Houston; Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum in San Antonio; andElsewhere in Greensboro, NC. Schneider’s previous projects have been supported by grants from the Houston Arts Alliance, the Idea Fund, and the Awesome Foundation.
List of Works selections from the camh archives Archival materials related to key moments in CAMH’s history (1960–73); Gunnar Birkert’s building design (1967–72); and Sebastian “Lefty” Adler’s tenure as Director of CAMH (1966–72) Copies of newspaper and magazine articles, photocopies, and offset print catalogues Archival materials related to Dreams and Schemes: Visions and Revisions for the Contemporary Arts Museum (1982) Offset prints, black and white photographs, photocopies, letters, and hand-printed notes
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Archival video from In Our Time: Houston’s Contemporary Arts Museum exhibition panel (1982) Digital video from U-matic tape Color, sound, 91 minutes works by carrie marie schneider ||||||||||||, 2014 Styrofoam Whataburger cups, foam core, and hot glue 35 x 15 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches Balloon, 2014 Heat-sealed emergency blankets, custom-made ventilation equipment, and hardware 480 x 242 x 42 inches Advisor: Gary Felix Engineers: Lisa Augustyniak and Pietro Valsecchi
The Work is a Test. The Work is The Answer.
Bank, 2014 Gatorboard, foam core, linoleum, carpet, cork, aluminum sheeting, wood, coffee stirrers, plastic figurines, ribbon, gold chain, ink-jet prints, paper, artist tape, and ballpoint pen 27 x 10 3/4 x 5 inches Barthelme Board Minutes, 2014 Photocopies, printed texts, highlighter pen, adhesive tape, staples, paper clips, and pushpins 94 x 156 inches CAMH Excavation, 2014 Charcoal on wall and museum response Dimensions variable Care House invitation, 2012 Blind debossed paper 3 x 5 inches Printing: Workhorse Printmakers
Care House Walk Through, 2012 Video: color, sound 26:24 minutes Camera: Jonathan Jindra Dark Air, 2014 Video Color, sound, 8:05 minutes Camera: Jonathan Jindra Materials related to the process, inspiration, and drafts of Incommensurate Mapping Display of printed matter Memory Map, 2012 Tracing paper, watercolors, colored pencil, tape, and inkjet collage mounted on board 20 1/2 x 20 1/2 inches Mixed Use Development, 2014 Video projection of digital collage Dimensions variable
List of Works (continued) Pool, 2014 Foam core, cardboard, blue insulation foam, paper, theatrical gel, aluminum foil, drinking straw, cocktail umbrella, bamboo skewers, worry dolls, moss, glue, and tempera paint 23 3/4 x 9 3/4 x 5 inches Sand Tray, 2014 Wood, paint, sand, LED lights, hardware, and figurines 84 x 39 x 19 1/2 inches Carpentry: Stephen Kraig Base: Gabriel Martinez Figurines courtesy of Texas Art Asylum The Ugly Show, 2014 Audio recording Voice: Harbeer Sandhu Vacuum, 2014 Blue insulation foam, aluminum sheeting, long beans, spray paint, wood, labels, and adhesive 6 x 3 x 5 inches
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Who Belongs documentation, 2014 Color photographs mounted on found sign, wood, and hardware 125 x 49 x 49 inches Sign courtesy of Riverway Properties
Carrie Marie Schneider and Alex Tu The Human Tour 2013 map, 2013 Silkscreen on color offset print 25 3/4 x 20 inches
Carrie Marie collabor ative Schneider and works Alex Tu The Human Tour 2013 Carrie Marie suits, 2013 Schneider and Polyester and cotton Gabriel Martinez fabric, vinyl, plastic, Untitled, 2014 Velcro, baseball cap, Metallic ink zippers, buttons, silkscreens on metallic thread, tape, spray poster board, nails, foam, acrylic paint, and paint PVC pipe, concrete, Silkscreens: 8 1/2 perspiration, dirt, x 11 inches each, and unidentified edition of 300 foodstuffs Display walls: 144 x Carrie’s suit: 63 x 24 x 120 x 96 inches 12 inches Alex’s suit: 73 x 26 x Carrie Marie 13 inches Schneider and Garment fabrication: Mike Schneider Thuy-Linh Cornett Dad Collapse, 2006/2014 Various contributors Laminated color Hear Our Houston, photographs and wire (2010–ongoing) 4 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches hearourhouston.com each
Right Here, Right Now: Houston
works by invited artists Lauren Fisher Sledgehammer Tonicity of the Cerebellum, 2014 Suitcase, dental plaster, found illustrations, t-pins, paper, ink, varnish, glass jars, and water 21 x 16 x 18 inches Daniel Garcia Daniel’s Fun House, 2014 Foam core, cardboard, construction paper, book light, sea shells, bottle cap, plastic bag, model railway grass, computer chipboard, wood, ribbon, felt, wire, glitter, cotton batting, scotch tape, masking tape, hot glue, adhesive, marker, acrylic and tempera paints 22 x 23 x 20 inches Facilitated by Kathleen McAuliffe and Park Place Elementary School Additional assistance from Yaneth Garcia
Michael Galbreth The Human Tour map, 1987 Color offset print 25 3/4 x 20 inches Silvia Izaguirre and Irma Sifontes Hover Cloud CAMH, 2014 Museum board, laser-cut Plexiglas, plastic figurines, and adhesive 18 x 24 x 6 inches
Pedestals supporting architectural models provided by: Regina Agu, The Art Guys, Art League Houston, Fresh Arts, Ashley Clemmer Hoffman, labotanica, Julie Lytle, Gabriel Martinez, Kathleen McAuliffe, Dario Robleto, Mike Schneider, and Lillian Warren
Alex Rodriguez Mnemophobia, 2014 Cardboard, foam core, photographs, magazine clippings, stretcher bars, Plexiglas, 8 track tape, photographic negatives, plastic figurines, modeling compound, and adhesive 16 x 20 x 10 inches Alex Tu Wild in the Streets, 2013 Adhesive stickers on framed print 18 x 24 inches
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The Work is a Test. The Work is The Answer.
This exhibition has been made possible by the patrons, benefactors and donors to the Museum’s Major Exhibition Fund: major patrons Chinhui Juhn and Eddie Allen Fayez Sarofim Michael Zilkha patrons Mr. and Mrs. I. H. Kempner III Ms. Louisa Stude Sarofim benefactors George and Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation Louise D. Jamail Anne and David Kirkland KPMG, LLP Beverly and Howard Robinson Robin and Andrew Schirrmeister Leigh and Reggie Smith Yellow Cab Houston donors A Fare Extraordinaire Bank of Texas Bergner and Johnson Design Jereann Chaney Elizabeth Howard Crowell Dillon Kyle Architecture Sara Paschall Dodd Ruth Dreessen and Thomas Van Laan Jo and Jim Furr Barbara and Michael Gamson Brenda and William Goldberg Jackson and Company King & Spalding L.L.P. Marley Lott Lauren Rottet Susan Vaughan Foundation, Inc. Karen and Harry Susman Mr. Wallace Wilson
Funding for the Museum’s operations through the Fund for the Future is made possible by generous grants from Chinhui Juhn and Eddie Allen, Anonymous, Jereann Chaney, Marita and J.B. Fairbanks, Jo and Jim Furr, Barbara and Michael Gamson, Brenda and William Goldberg, Leticia Loya, Fayez Sarofim, Robin and Andrew Schirrmeister, and David and Marion Young. The Museum’s operations and programs are made possible through the generosity of the Museum’s trustees, patrons, members and donors. The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston receives partial operating support from The Brown Foundation, Inc., Houston Endowment, the City of Houston through the Houston Museum District Association, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Texas Commission on the Arts, The Wortham Foundation, Inc and artMRKT Productions.
CAMH also thanks its artist benefactors for their support including Jules de Balincourt, Jack Early, Mark Flood, Keltie Ferris, Barnaby Furnas, Theaster Gates, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Mary Heilmann, Jim Hodges, Jennie C. Jones, Klara Lidén, Maya Lin, Robert Mangold, Melissa Miller, Marilyn Minter, Angel Otero, Enoc Perez, Rob Pruitt, Matthew Ritchie, Dario Robleto, Ed Ruscha, Rusty Scruby, Cindy Sherman, Lorna Simpson, James Surls, Sam Taylor-Johnson, and William Wegman. lenders to the exhibition Moody Gallery, Houston Lea Weingarten, Houston Riverway Properties The catalogue accompanying the exhibition is made possibleby a grant from The Brown Foundation, Inc.
Official Airline of the Contemporary Arts Mueseum Houston
Published on the occasion of the exhibition Right Here, Right Now: Houston, organized by Bill Arning, Valerie Cassel Oliver, and Dean Daderko for the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston Photography by Paul Hester Designed and edited by AHL&CO Pages 16, 17: Courtesy of the artist and Moody Gallery, Houston Š Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, 2014 Artwork Š Debra Barrera, Nathaniel Donnett, and Carrie Marie Schneider All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Library of Congress Control Number: 2014950614 ISBN: 1-933619-51-1
CAMH Contemporary Arts Museum Houston 5216 Montrose Boulevard, Houston, TX 77006 www.camh.org
Right Here, Right Now: Houston showcases the city’s vibrant creative community through the presentation of work by three artists living in the metropolis. This dynamic portrait of the artistic developments taking shape in studios across this city are featured in solo presentations of work by Debra Barrera, Nathaniel Donnett, and Carrie Marie Schneider. CAMH’s Director Bill Arning, Senior Curator Valerie Cassel Oliver, and Curator Dean Daderko respectively selected Barrera, Donnett, and Schneider. Each artist and curator worked together closely from the conception of each individual’s project to its final installation. Right Here, Right Now: Houston is the first solo museum exhibition for each of the participating artists, thereby bringing their work to both area audiences for whom their work may be familiar, as well as act as an introduction to wider audiences outside of the region.
Right Here, Right Now: Houston
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