Excellent Show Folks!
I’ve been to many shows over the past few weeks and the Texas Hot Chilly show at 500X might be one my favorites. I do not have any images and have lost my gallery sheet with my notes. Let’s just say this is a non-post encouraging you to go see a show. The whole show is, more or less, great and very well curated. My favorite pieces are these intricate wood sculptures; one, in the center of the main floor, consists of a wooden foot form (mannequin?) with many slivers of wood stacked neatly inside (think Jenga for the intricate, meddling type). The accompanying artists work is upstairs and is equally as riveting. I’ll tell you what. I’ll try to sneak down there to get some proper information and photos, meanwhile just take my word for it. And while you’re there run over to the state fair and grab a funnel cake. You’ll be glad you did (on both accounts).
Sandi
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Who the #$&% is Richard Hamilton? (And why should you, *|FIRSTNAME|* *|LASTNAME|*care?)
Richard Hamilton, the father of pop art, passed away this morning. The Independent Group (a collective of British art historians, artists, sculptors, et al.) formed in 1952 at the London Institute of Contemporary Art to address, without irony, popular culture and its implications. A major influence on future generations of pop artists, Richard Hamilton was a member of this pioneering group along with Eduardo Paolozzi, John McHale, Alison and Peter Smithson, and Reyner Banham. In 1956, Hamilton, a disciple of the “Readymade” Marcel Duchamp, created Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So different, So Appealing? 
This collage was created from American magazine advertisements depicting a “modern” apartment adorned with products from mass culture: an Earth “ceiling” taken from Life magazine, a Hoover vacuum cleaner, a Stromberg-Carlson television, wall “art” of the cover to the Young Romance comic book (attention Roy Lichtenstein!), a tin of Armour Star ham, a newspaper, Armstrong flooring, a Reporter tape recorder, and a Ford emblem lampshade. These items, reminiscent of a consumer paradise, are encapsulated within a downtown apartment directly across from the Warner Cinema which was showing The Jazz Singer featuring Al Jolson. The image is flanked by two provoking nudes. The first, “Eve”, is a large-nippled female (American painter Jo Baer) wooing on the couch at her mate “Adam”: a muscular body builder (Irwin ‘Zabo’ Koszewski, winner of Mr. L.A. in 1954) who grasps a phallic Tootsie Pop. This theme of interior, which Hamilton revisits many times during his prolific career, depicts a social anxiety that this new consumerism could not be sustained. ‘Adam’ and ‘Eve,’ true to their story, must soon leave this consumer paradise. As John -Paul Stonar points out in Pop in the Age of Boom “Hamilton’s little picture seems to say that, in an Age of Boom, things sooner or later must go Pop”. This concept is eerily recognizable as the American economy (along with many others) tries to recover from the great “Pop”. Hamilton was eighty-nine.
Sandi
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Hello, I’m Sandi! I don’t call myself an artist, more like a connoisseur of the arts. You see, while it is true that I have and continue to create art, my passion lies more so in arts education and the business of the arts. Therefore what you will see from me is quite different than the works of my colleagues- stay tuned for exciting projects, exhibition reviews, and other curiosities. (oh yeah, and I’ll be doing some of the behind the scenes production work for our shows…)
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