AUSTIN Summer 2014

a visual arts dialogueaether

aeCollaborators

EDITORS

Rachel StephensPartner • Wally Workman Gallery

Judith TaylorDirector/ Owner • Gallery Shoal Creek

aether 3

Copyright © 2014 by AETHER. All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part, without the express written permission of the publisher, is prohibited.

aether, summer 2014 • contact@aetherart.com • www.aetherart.com

CONTRIBUTORS

Claiborne Smith is the Editor in Chief at Kirkus Reviews and the former literary director of the Texas Book Festival.

Erin Keever is a visual arts writer living in Austin, Texas. She teaches Art History at Austin Community College and is currently developing online curriculum in Art History.

Laura Harrison is Assistant Director of Gallery Shoal Creek.

Elizabeth Tigar is a former entrepreneur, sometimes designer, and avid pun enthusiast. She recently completed her MBA at McCombs School of Business with a special focus on

the integration of business and design strategies.

Amethyst Beaver is Curatorial Assistant to the Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Blanton Museum of Art.

Erika Huddleston is an artist and designer with a Masters of Landscape Architecture from the University of Texas at Austin.

Macy Ryan is a filmmaker and writer. She graduated cum laude from

Rice University with a degree in English.

Caprice Pierrucci, Charcoal Cascade with Large Loops, birch plywood and pine. 73x46 inchesCOVER: Andy Dixon, Matador, acrylic and oil pastel on canvas, 52x39 inches

aetherWhere is ART going in Austin? Several articles in this SUMMER 2014 issue of aether give insight as to how art initiatives are taking bold steps toward how we see art. Nature and art come together in the public art planned for Creek Show, the arts-based programming initiated by the Waller Creek Conservancy as well as with the creation of the Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park at The Contemporary Austin's Laguna Gloria site. Longtime arts and community advocate Melba Whatley has played a major role in both. Whatley was instrumental in the merger of Arthouse and Austin Museum of Art, the hiring of Louis Grachos as the Executive Director of The Contemporary Austin, and in supporting the vision for Laguna Gloria. Currently, Whatley is president of the Waller Creek Conservancy and took the lead in forming a public art initiative for Waller Creek. Erika Huddleston's article Waller Wall describes the conservancy's first public arts project, and Macy Ryan points out that plans for Laguna Gloria instinctively mesh with Austin's identity as an outdoor city.

Amethyst Beaver chronicles walls that are all about lines - the Sol LeWitt installations at the Blanton Museum of Art which took forty-six UT students and over fifty Blanton staff ten days to complete. Claiborne Smith critiques Mary Ellen Mark's recently published book of photography, Man and Beast: Photographs from Mexico and India (UT Press and the Witliff Collection), and reflects on Mark's relationship with her subjects as well as the natural conversation of artists talking through time. Erin Keever asks why with a student body numbering 43,000, a permanent art gallery has eluded Austin Community College. Her essay gives renewed hope that one will soon be reality for the Art Department's students and faculty. These diverse topics as well as profiles of four individual artists give our readers a head start on their ART reading for the summer. Enjoy.

-The Editors

aether 5

Contents6 MARY ELLEN MARK/ Man and Beast: Photographs from Mexico and India

12 LINES ON A WALL / Sol LeWitt wall drafters install works at the Blanton Musuem of Art

20 KAREN HAWKINS / Books Rebound

26 ART IN NATURE / Laguna Gloria’s Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park

32 WALLER WALL / Waller Creek’s Peripatetic Image

38 ANDY DIXON / Deferential and Defiant

44 CALL FOR AUSTIN COMMUNITY COLLEGE ART GALLERY 50 SIDE BY SIDE / Shane and Sara Scribner

54 DATEBOOK / Recommended happenings

Jellyrolls (installation detail), book pages, size variable photo by Paul Bardagjy

22 aether

M A R Y E L L E N M A R K

by CLAIBORNE SMITH

Man and Beast: Photographs

from Mexico and India

aether 7

Pinky and Shiva Ji, Great Royal Circus Junagadh India, 1992.

Pinky having her hair cut, Great Royal Circus, Cohin India, 1992.

aether 9

It’s no slight to the reputation or artistry of Mary Ellen Mark to say that her photographs of animals, carnival workers and children make me think about other photographers’ images of animals, carnival workers and children. Mark has her own style, or styles: she can be funny, haunting, and confrontational. In some images, she is more interested in space or perspective than in human emotion. She does not evoke the same kind of spookiness that Diane Arbus does, though both of them like to make sure our faces are mushed right up to the thin lens separating us from harsh, eerie imagery (in Mark’s case of children who contort their bodies for a living or human dwarves who dress up as apes). Mark’s photo of a dog astride a saddle astride a donkey—by the way, that dog has an expression that says, “Oh, hi – I’m sitting on top of this donkey. Did you pick up the dry cleaning like you said you would?”—recalls the lackadaisical wit of some of Elliott Erwitt’s photos. There are other images by Mark that echo the agility that you feel Garry Winogrand had to have had in spades to have been able to capture the emotion that he did, that feeling that an artist is at home in their medium and knows exactly what they’re about.

To really be successful, art that references some other, previous art must speak to two audiences: the viewers who get the reference and those who don’t know there’s anything to get. Reference is fun for a viewer because it’s a glimpse into a conversation

between artists who are talking through time, and across distance, gesticulating between themselves, honoring one another and sometimes one-upping each other. I’m not convinced that Mark, in her new book Man and Beast: Photographs from Mexico and India and in the exhibition at the Wittliff Collections in San Marcos of the same material, is out to dazzle us with her allusions to photographers she admires. From the relatively rare journalistic evidence (Mark doesn’t appear to relish being quizzed about her working methods), she focuses more on fostering a meaningful relationship with the people and animals she captures than on making a tip of the hat to her artistic forebears. There is another image in Man and Beast of two animals acting out a human scene, this one of a monkey riding a donkey. Do you even need to know that a photographer named Elliott Erwitt once existed to enjoy Mark’s photography? You don’t, but that doesn’t mean a conversation between artists isn’t taking place.

If the images in Man and Beast don’t have to be read as allusion, Mark, who has contributed to Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, published her first photography book in 1974, and has received three NEA fellowships, must be aware that it’s already a crowded field any book of photography about the circus, animals and children enters the moment it’s published. One of the things that makes Mark’s work stand apart is how relentless the gaze of her subjects staring back at her, and us, is. There are

to animals, she says. Mark ventures to the poor places in those countries, where outsiders and the neglected gather. The people there, and the animals, let her in. There are echoes of other photographers in Man and Beast but if you’re willing to engage with the gazes her subjects throw right back at you, the book and the exhibition are experiences that not only are entirely of Mark’s making but actively make you a part of them too.

Claiborne Smith is the editor in chief of Kirkus Reviews and the former literary director of the Texas Book Festival.

"Mary Ellen Mark—Man and Beast: Photographs from Mexico and India" is on exhibition at the Wittliff Collections, on the seventh floor of the Alkek Library at Texas State University in San Marcos through December 7, 2014.

www.thewittliffcollections.txstate.edu

ae

10 aether

people and animals in her black-and-white images that have occluded or shy gazes, but for the most part, Mark prefers subjects who directly telegraph their emotions. On a spread of two images in her book, Mark situates two boys from India on the left-hand page and two women holding hands at the Carnaval in Zaachila, Mexico in 2006 on the other side of the spread. The clearly poor boys are at the Victoria Terminus in Mumbai, one looking proud, and the other wearing a mask (though visible through the mask are his sad eyes). In the other photo, one of the Mexican women lowers the mask she’s wearing to the carnival just enough so we can see her questioning expression: Why do you want to take my photo, she seems to ask. Of course, the fact that she lets the mask down at all blunts her defiance.

Mark writes in a short opening statement in Man and Beast that there is a “primal force I sense in the people and their culture that binds” India and Mexico in her mind. People in those places have “a more fundamental and intimate” relationship

w w w.mar yel lenmark .com

aether 13

REVEAL.

Lines on a Wall Sol LeWitt wall drafters install works at the Blanton Museum of Art

by AMETHYST BEAVER

aether 13

When he is not drawing on walls, Roland Lusk is usually wearing chest waders and standing up to his knees in water. He is a farmer, of sorts, raising oysters and clams off of the Chesapeake Bay. He comes from a family of marine farmers, as does his wife, a fourth generation oyster and clam farmer. Marine farming allows Lusk the flexibility to travel around the world, fulfilling another passion, drawing on walls. Lusk has been working as a Sol LeWitt wall drafter for nine years creating drawings for museums, galleries, and private collectors. At his busiest, he worked one hundred days a year, and was occasionally gone for months.

Lusk is part of a select group of people known as Sol LeWitt wall drafters. They live throughout the world, although mostly in the US and Europe. Lusk smiles as he names drafters and counts on his fingers, deciding ultimately that there are “plus or minus twelve” senior drafters who are actively “on call” at any given moment to create a LeWitt wall drawing.

Sol LeWitt saw his drafters as important collaborators of his works and relished the variability inevitable in the execution of his wall drawings. In a 1971 interview with Sarah Kent,

Image: Installation view at the Blanton Museum of Art, 2014/ Wall Drawing #797, 1995, Black, red, yellow, blue marker on wall/ First installation: Mead Art Museum, Amherst College/ First drawn by: Jeffrey Howington, Andrea Latvis, Peggy Soung, Lisa Yurwit/ LeWitt Collection, Chester, Connecticut/ Photo courtesy Mary Myers © 2014 The LeWitt Estate/ Artists Rights Society (ARS) New York

published in Modern Painters in 2007, he said, “Since I use other people, I want them to contribute. The plan I give them is phrased so that they can use their own ideas as much as possible. I try to make the plan specific enough so that it comes out more or less as I want, but general enough so they have freedom to interpret. It’s as though I were writing a piece of music for someone to play on the piano—there’s plenty of opportunity to improvise within the limits.”

Over the course of a year and a half, the Blanton Museum of Art has installed six wall drawings--four of the them for the exhibition, Converging Lines: Eva Hesse and Sol LeWitt. These drawings have kept Lusk and fellow senior drafter, Gabriel Hurier occupied in Austin. Collaborating with students and faculty as well as working alone, the wall drawings took anywhere from seven to ten days and up to nine hours a day for the drafters to complete. Out of the six drawings, the largest undertaking was Wall Drawing #797, a project that took forty-six UT students and over fifty-one

Blanton staff ten days to complete. As LeWitt did not specify how many people could contribute to Wall Drawing #797, the Blanton’s installation pushed this open-ended call for participation to comical proportions. Given LeWitt’s love of play and absurdity, he most likely would have enjoyed this interpretation and appreciated the community that came together around this project.

The instructions for Wall Drawing #797 are as follows: The first drafter has a black marker and makes an irregular horizontal line near the top of the wall. Then the second drafter tries to copy it (without touching it) using a red marker. The third drafter does the same, using a yellow marker. The fourth drafter does the same using a blue marker. Then the second drafter followed by the third and fourth copies the last line drawn until the bottom of the wall is reached. The first drafter, in this case senior drafter Hurier, started the drawing with a black “not straight” line across the top of the wall. A junior electrical engineering major at UT saw the progress on day five and, grasping the core concept

aether 15

Senior wall drafter Gabriel Hurier draws a line on LeWitt's Wall Drawing #797Photo courtesy Mary Myers © 2014 The LeWitt Estate/ Artists Rights Society (ARS) New York

w w w . w a l l y w o r k m a n g a l l e r y . c o m

ae

aether 25

of LeWitt’s wall drawing, exclaimed, “Look at all of the propagation of error!” Like a visual game of telephone, each subsequent line was an opportunity for the individual hand to attempt to replicate the line before it.

Lusk believes that the opportunity for students to work on a LeWitt wall drawing enhances their appreciation of his work. Lusk notes that it expands the ways that they think about drawing and the different ways that art can be made. Many of the students who participated in the process of creating a wall drawing were able to see the beauty of the imperfections and the variability of interpretation that each person brings to the work—something LeWitt would have enjoyed.

When the exhibition, Converging Lines: Eva Hesse and Sol LeWitt show closes on May 18th, the gallery will be transformed for the next exhibition. All but one wall drawing will be painted over, in keeping with LeWitt’s practice. Wall Drawing #1243/ Scribbles 2 (PW) will remain on view in the permanent collection galleries as a long-term

loan for the next two years. In LeWitt's work, lines appear, converge, and dance across walls in logical and surprising ways, securing a place in our memories long after they’ve vanished. ae

Converging Lines: Eva Hesse and Sol LeWitt, on view at the Blanton Museum of Art through May 18, 2014, celebrates the close friendship between two of the most significant American artists of the post-war era: Eva Hesse (1936–1970) and Sol LeWitt (1928–2007). The exhibit is organized by Veronica Roberts, the Blanton’s curator of modern and contemporary art.

Image preivous page: Installation view at the Blanton Museum of Art, 2014/Eileen Lammers and Roland Lusk complete Sol LeWitt's Wall Drawing #1243/Scribbles 2 (PW), 2007/ First Drawn by: Chip Allen, Takeshi Arita, Andrew Colbert, Sarah Heinemann, John Hogan, Gabriel Hurier, Sara Krugman, Roland Lusk, Anthony Sansotta, Michael Benjamin Vedder/First Installation: PaceWildenstein, New York, NY/ On long-term loan thanks to the generosity of the Lindemann Family Collection and Eric Herschmann and family/ Photo courtesy Mary Myers © 2014 The LeWitt Estate/ Artists Rights Society (ARS) New York.

18 aether w w w.blantonmuseum.org

REPETITION.

aether 21

Visiting the bookmobile every week as a child—returning one stack, leaving with another—Austin artist Karen Hawkins has always loved books. “In my childhood they were my escape. I traveled the world through books. I still love to touch them and smell them.”

Today Hawkins continues to surround herself with books—decommissioned ones, pulled from shelves and discarded. Here she finds the materials and inspiration for her three-dimensional sculpted forms. "In creating small and large-scale sculptures from the pages of [these] old, forgotten books," notes Chris Cowden (executive director, Women and Their Work), "Hawkins deconstructs and re-purposes the meaning originally found there. The authority and significance of the printed page—harkening back to the first mass printed book, the Gutenberg Bible—is becoming obsolete in the digital age. In Hawkins’ work, the page assumes a different role, becoming a vehicle for nostalgia conveyed through form. Her process (like reading) illustrates the passage of time but meaning is perceived as visceral rather than cerebral."

As viewers, we marvel at the transformation, the structural elements and the forms that emerge. For Hawkins, though, it is the process that drives her artistic focus. “I begin by changing the book’s structure—folding, cutting and excavating it—and rendering each page

BOOKS

by JUDITH TAYLOR

REBOUND

Image: Totem (installation detail), book pages, size variable, photo by Paul Bardagjy

aether 21

largely unreadable. Each book shape shifts into an object, not of literature or science or history any longer, but an object of art. As the meaning of each book is subjugated to [this] objectification process, a shifting beauty transpires, aside from any language or text or etching held between the endpapers. . . I like seeing the type transform, from a recognizable symbol to a simple visual mark, no longer referencing a known cue, but introducing a new language. It can only be created by absolute perfection in repetition, and that appeals to me. There’s something very meditative to me about this motion.”

Beyond the form, the marks on the page—printed text or graphic imagery—create lines and patterns allowing a visual language to surface. The process began one day as Hawkins was exploring the textural elements of a small, German book purchased at a flea market. Running her fingers over the pages, she began folding each one and suddenly saw the sculptural aspects of the hand-sewn vintage book. As an object it had taken on new form, leading her to explore more.

In this manner, Hawkins creates totems, towering constructs from the sewn pages of old books. Turning the book inside out, the intricately folded pages become undulating, cylindrical structures

having the appearance of lathe-turned spindles. Stacked, they reference what the artist sees as cultural icons which speak to society’s move from print to digital.

For a May exhibition at Gallery Shoal Creek, Hawkins has created a room installation of hanging totems. Forms vary in size and shapes and are spaced to allow the viewer to walk through the installation. “One’s first reaction,” says Hawkins, “is to reach out and touch the forms. These pieces ask you to do that. People want to know what they are.”

Another installation exhibits a lively flair and showcases what the artist calls Jellyrolls, referencing not the sweet treat but the coordinated fabric squares her grandmother, a quilter, would assemble and roll in preparation for creating quilt tops. Rather than selecting fabrics, Hawkins gathers pages with colored edges from vintage paperbacks, mostly fiction and romance novels. Traditionally, the colored edges served to protect the book from dust, dirt and handling. In Hawkins' work, these edges take on an aesthetic quality.

Starting with a small dowel, Hawkins begins winding, adding pages one at a time to create wheels in varying diameter and depth. Here, too, a decidedly rhythmic movement takes hold. She

aether 23

Jellyrolls (installation detail), book pages, size variable photo by Paul Bardagjy

has made thousands of these which she uses to create site-specific wall installations that embrace improvisation and melodic freedom as she works with the module forms. Looking straight on, the wall sings in period colors; from the side, the printed page reveals the paper source.

Moving beyond the folded and rolled pages, Hawkins integrates other parts of the book in her work. Her Epilogues, for example, emphasize module constructs, which are of particular interest to the artist. She removes the books’ covers to expose the stitching along the spine and the original craftsmanship, and then cuts what remains into blocks and preserves them in beeswax. From these honeyed bricks, she constructs wall reliefs with rich texture and subtle pattern from the natural colorations of the aged books. The honey aroma blends with the old book smell, giving the multi-sensory assemblage a vintage presence yet contemporary composition. Once again, there is a desire to reach out and touch the work.

“[By] changing the book structure, what I’m really doing is taking out the referential use of the book and pushing the object of the book, which is where we are in today’s [technological] world. We don’t

use books as reference anymore; they are in so many ways just objects. I am pushing that [idea]. Some people have had negative reactions to my destroying books, but I don’t see it that way. They were headed to the dump, you know? I am just preserving them in a different way.”

Hawkins has storage units and garages full of discarded books. Among the inventory is a complete law library bequeathed to her when a large law firm went digital. Her plans for it? She is not yet sure, but will someday create a piece referencing the law. Given the number of volumes, it is certain to be a monumental work.

Also on her “to do” list is the search for a bookmobile. Of course, it has to be authentic; she is on the hunt for a 1960s vintage vehicle which she can restore and transform the interior into a book inspired traveling art installation. Perhaps when it becomes a reality, the creative energy it generates will inspire young people to use their imaginations much as the bookmobile of her youth inspired her.

Karen Hawkins' work will be on view at Gallery Shoal Creek through June.

ae

24 aether w w w.gal ler yshoalcreek .com

RE-IMAGINE.

Laguna Gloria’s Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park Realizes Inherent Essence of Austin’s Art Identityby MACY RYAN

ART IN NATURECharles Long, Pet Sounds (detail), 2012. Powder coated aluminum, fiberglass, and electronic

components. Dimensions variable. Installation view, The Contemporary Austin – Laguna Gloria, Austin. Courtesy the artist, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, and Madison Square Park

Conservancy. Photograph by Brian Fitzsimmons.

aether 27

If we are lucky in life, we get to observe those rare and historically significant moments of destiny being actualized, of evolution taking shape, where a metamorphosis lends progress to the human condition. If we are truly lucky, we get to actually participate in one of these transformational events. Such is the case with the creation of the Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park at Laguna Gloria. Here, we have the opportunity to experience the sublime with the marriage of art and nature, the true calling of the Austin Art Scene.

People love Austin because it’s an outdoor city, a city in which nature plays a starring role. Infinite resources are devoted to taking advantage of its beautiful environs and its weather, which is generally mild in the winter and quite striking in the fall and spring. No other town boasts more outdoor festivals – music, food, film, you name it. It’s a place where the environmentally conscious flourish, and where outdoor living and architecture are pronounced. Porches and patios are found in most residences and have extended to many businesses, including a large contingency of restaurants and bars. There are plenty of trails, as well as a huge outdoor fitness community dedicated to running, walking, hiking, cycling and climbing, not to mention the alternative activities

Charles Long, Pet Sounds (detail), 2012. Powder coated aluminum, fiberglass, and electronic components. Dimensions variable. Installation view, The Contemporary Austin – Laguna

Gloria, Austin. Courtesy the artist, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, and Madison Square Park Conservancy. Photograph by Brian Fitzsimmons.

that pave their own way here, like X Games-style skateboarding and dirt biking, breakdancing and even Segway Tours. People come to Austin to be outside in Austin. So what better avenue for art in Austin than the great outdoors?

Laguna Gloria has long been a luscious outdoor setting, with elements of the grounds dedicated to the visual arts. The Villa is an artistic and architectural icon, and the Art School has been educating the Austin community for years. When Arthouse at The Jones Center, the Austin Museum of Art and Laguna Gloria were merged to form The Contemporary Austin, a very dedicated effort was made to ensure that Laguna Gloria be advanced in the newly created organization. The scope of its development grows out of the knowledge that its landscape is not just enjoyed at weddings and events, but is a constant fixture of serenity, escape and unity with nature. “What we did learn in my research is that the grounds are used by the birding community, by the naturalists who enjoy hiking, and by those who just seek a place to get away from

the pace of urban life,” says Louis Grachos, the Ernest and Sarah Butler Executive Director of The Contemporary Austin. “We’re not that far from downtown Austin. People forget that. It becomes almost like a sanctuary for art-in-nature.”

The sensory and visceral experience of visiting Laguna Gloria entails being overcome by its natural beauty and luxuriating in elements that don’t feel forced or formal in design. We are now at a special moment in Laguna Gloria’s history when it is evolving to take advantage of this beauty by creating The Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park. The development is a destined manifestation of the property’s inherent character. “It’s an opportunity to find a way to really make it work better for a 21st Century community and also make an effort to really engage some of the best artists, the strongest artists in the world, to come and do projects, whether they’re temporary or permanent,” says Grachos. The Sculpture Park will enhance the ability of Laguna Gloria’s visitors to feel a connection to nature, to discover and appreciate a landscape

aether 29

that’s truly unique to Texas, and to discover the Art School in a way that makes it feel interesting to create art and to learn about art. These elements work together to offer a distinctive experience.

This deepening of Laguna Gloria’s identity and the revelation of the intrinsic character of the Austin art stage define an art movement toward natural settings. “There’s such an exciting moment in art today where, more and more, almost every artist I respect and follow gets very motivated by projects that would relate to nature, that would be in the outdoors,” observes Grachos. Projects in nature pose a different kind of challenge for artists, and this makes their work exciting, adventurous and innovative. When art interacts with outdoor spaces, whether it’s in an urban setting or in a natural setting that has great physical beauty like Laguna Gloria, the art is more accessible to the broader community. This can have the symbiotic effect of making the community feel more open, accepting and often appreciative of the art. The Sculpture Park includes projects that are both site-specific

and previously imagined, that are sometimes temporary and sometimes permanent. As time goes on and the program is conceptualized long-term, the Park will undergo a metamorphosis based on what is learned about how visitors discover art in a way that’s completely in sync with the landscape, rather than having areas of sculpture that exist in a more formal way.

Grachos’ great challenge is to always be able to connect or complement the art in the Sculpture Park at Laguna Gloria with the art downtown at The Jones Center. Part of The Contemporary Austin staff’s curatorial process is also to seek out artists who they think can make an important contribution to the community. “As we’re thinking about our curatorial texture and vision as we move forward, there are two challenges,” Grachos explains. “One is: How do we learn to use these two very different facilities to create one museum? And: Which artists do we think will have the most impact in our community and have the capacity to take on the project, to develop a project at the

The Contemporary Austin – Laguna Gloria, Austin, Texas. Courtesy The Contemporary Austin.

Jones Center while doing something significant at Laguna Gloria?” A major goal is to enable the community to discover sculptural art forms that are completely unexpected. To achieve this, they’re working with artists who are innovators and will bring new materials and new ideas to Austin, and they’re encouraging these artists to flex their skills and do some different work.

Through Grachos’ research, he realized that The Blanton Museum of Art, The Harry Ransom Center and The Bob Bullock Museum are institutions designed to develop collections in a very encyclopedic way in all mediums. Finding no contemporary art program in Austin, Grachos sought to create something like the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego or the Contemporary Museum in Houston. “We really are interested in collaborating with our community and in dovetailing with what already exists, not trying to overlap into those areas. It became clear to me to have a contemporary program in the uniqueness

of having a more traditional art space downtown, versus Laguna Gloria, which is obviously designed to have artists do their work in nature.”

As nature at Laguna Gloria becomes the setting for the art, it also becomes a major character in the presentation of the art. Thus, nature becomes a work of art itself. As such, nature must also be curated, edited, sculpted and designed, just like the artwork it contains. The land stewardship program is therefore as much of a priority as the selection of the artists and their works. One of the first things Grachos did when joining The Contemporary Austin was to commission a master plan for the landscape and initiate an exhaustive search for a landscape architecture firm. Because of the importance of grooming Laguna Gloria’s grounds, Grachos and his staff decided to proceed with the master plan before the architecture firm was selected. “We found it necessary to start working on that right away, so you’ll be seeing parts of the lakes and the lagoon that you probably wouldn’t have been able to see even six months ago because

aether 31

ae

of the removal of invasive species,” Grachos says. “So it’s going to be an on-going process. One thing I’m learning about the stewardship of this property is that you have to be dedicated year-round to taking care of it.” Grachos’ land stewardship program will bring forth the beauty, charms and accessibility of Laguna Gloria’s environs as never before, perfectly complementing the works in the Sculpture Park and forever intertwining art and nature – as nature becomes art, and art becomes nature.

This is an art moment. The Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park is the conduit by which Laguna Gloria fulfills its destiny as a true outdoor art venue, and also by which Laguna Gloria fulfills the natural identity of the Austin art stage. The Sculpture Park is a beacon that signifies an evolution and advancement for the direction of Austin art that will enrich the perspectives of patrons for years to come. It is a beautiful sanctuary where not only art enthusiasts and nature enthusiasts align, but where anyone who appreciates the transcendental can take a breath of fresh air and enjoy the view.

In September 2013, the Edward and Betty Marcus Foundation granted $9 million to The Contemporary Austin. $5 million of the grant will fund the commissioning and acquisition of sculpture and site-specific installations to be shown outdoors at Laguna Gloria at the Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park. Another $2 million will be dedicated to an endowment for the permanent maintenance and conservation of the works in the Sculpture Park, and the remaining $2 million will fund a series of commissions, exhibitions and public engagements for The Contemporary Austin's program there.

Images (L to R): Orly Genger, Current, 2014. Lobster rope and latex paint. Dimensions variable. Installation view, The Contemporary Austin – Laguna Gloria, Austin. Courtesy the artist. Photograph by Brian Fitzsimmons/ Marianne Vitale, Common Crossings, 2013. Steel, nine pieces, approximately 120 x 24 x 8 inches each. Installation view, The Contemporary Austin – Laguna Gloria, Austin. Courtesy of the artist and Zach Feuer Gallery. Photograph by Dave Mead/ Jim Lambie, Secret Affair (Gold), 2007. Stainless steel. Installation view, A Secret Affair: Selections from the Fuhrman Family Collection, The Contemporary Austin – Laguna Gloria, Austin, 2014. Courtesy the Fuhrman Family Collection/ Liam Gillick, Raised Laguna Discussion Platform (Job #1073), 2013. Painted steel, 120 x 160 x 431 ¾ inches. Installation view, The Contemporary Austin – Laguna Gloria, Austin. Courtesy of the artist and Casey Kaplan. Photograph by Dave Mead.

w w w.thecontemporar yaust in.org

Waller Wallby ERIKA HUDDLESTON

Waller Creek’s Peripatetic Image

Waller Wall, an installation piece displayed during Spring 2014 SXSW Interactive Create, is the exciting first commission of the new Creek Show arts-based programming of the Waller Creek Conservancy. The Waller Creek Conservancy is a private non-profit working in partnership with the City of Austin to steward the transformation coming to the section of Waller Creek between Waterloo Park and Lady Bird Lake. Creek Show will erect temporary art pieces over the next few years as fundraising and public awareness build for the civic landscape architecture project. Creek Show co-chair Hope Hasbrouck says, “Creek Show proposes to transform Austin’s Waller Creek into an active venue for art, architecture, and landscape architecture. A series of temporary installations will appear along the 1.5-mile site in an attempt to surprise and delight the community.”

Waller Wall came about through the efforts of Waller Creek Conservancy President, Melba Whatley, who instigated the idea of forming a public art initiative for Waller Creek. Whatley called Architectural Record Contributing Editor, Ingrid Spencer, and UT Landscape Architecture professor, Hope Hasbrouck, to develop Creek

Show. As co-chairs, Spencer and Hasbrouck invited Murray Legge, Austin architect and a current professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture, to create the first Creek Show installation. Legge’s Fall 2013 Design 5 undergraduate studio took on the art piece as a semester long research and design and fabrication project. Fifteen students, Ben Goldberg, Charlotte Friedley, Kara Turner, Yingqian Zhuang, Cheryl McGiffin, Pearlene Cheah, Kathe Meyers, Philipp Hufschmid, Ariana Hallenbeck, Jose Ricky Zendejas, Raveena Bhalara, Claire Fonaine, Aubrey Werner, Ricardo Soto, and Kaitlyn Guerner, designed the project under Legge’s instruction and created Waller Wall.

Materially, the 200 sq ft piece is assembled out of a set of parts. It flat packs into a truck and then is erected as jointed modules that can be deconstructed and rebuilt again and again with templates. The wall exists as a moveable piece to be sited anywhere rather than as a site-specific installation interacting with the particular location of Waller Creek. The piece’s indeterminate physical siting is in many ways relevant to its meaning. With its flexible portability, Waller Wall may be erected near or far

aether 33

from the creek in any space or non-space and all the while is successfully placemaking for Waller Creek. “If you give people a platform with which to develop a relationship with a place, they will do so very quickly because they did something fun and creative there,” says Danya Sherman, master’s student in urban planning at MIT, and previous Director of Public Programs, Education, and Community Engagement at the High Line. Waller Wall sets up a place wherever it is and with art’s pixie dust, gives Waller Creek the magical ability to materialize throughout the city of Austin at large to meet people and engage.

Visitors walking up to Waller Wall first see one side of the piece which is shear and orthogonal and then they walk around to see the reverse side, which is an undulating, organic form. Legge says of the design: “The two-sided structure comes from the creek running along the city edge’s straight orthographic geometry. The creek meanders and carves itself through the city-- a fundamental duality between the more natural carved erosion of the creek against the city grid.” The design process began with the

students diagramming Waller Creek’s creek bank morphology, which they then translated into data sets and a 3D model in Rhino. The students designed a hand-built stacked construction method evoking the geological sedimentation of the creek bed limestone. Horizontal sheets of plywood alternate vertically with rows of pine 2x4 boards until a “wall” is layered up onsite—a mimesis of the natural processes itself. And, when people crowd around the wall, the metaphor carries on as the swarms appear to be like the flowing creek water-- nearly acting as agents on the carved wood of the piece. The 2x4 boards or “louvers” are arrayed within the layered plywood as if moving with the flow of water in the creek. The boards are stained on one side in translucent hues of watery royal blue, turquoise, and indigo and are flipped in sections so that the pale cream unstained raw wood contrasts as a ribbon against the blue stained boards.

Two protrusions that function as shelf/seat/table extend from the undulating side and become worktables where spray paint and stencils sit placed for visitors to use. All ages can participate as there

aether 35

is a lower paint shelf for children and a taller shelf for adults. Small wood “takeaway” blocks inside the layered design of Waller Wall provide the design’s planned visitor interaction. These wood blocks were designed by Legge and his class to be removed over time, spray painted with stencils as mini art pieces, and then taken home as keepsakes by visitors in a dynamic erosion of the wall. Legge says that “unexpectedly, many people reinserted the blocks into the piece. We were excited by that.” Over time, the controlled design of the wall became inhabited with brightly colored reinserted blocks and overspray marks of people decorating and embellishing. Whether the blocks are removed or left behind, Waller Wall allows the individual takeaway blocks to fluidly come and go within the structural wood framework—just as the future park will embrace a multitude of open-ended activities within its bounds. This invitation to the community to come and play, investigate, make art, and enjoy changing the art piece, invokes, perhaps coincidentally, the iconic community wall visited by pilgrims in Jerusalem. At the Wailing Wall, too, viewers are participants who leave written prayers in the rocky limestone crevices.

Public art sited outdoors enters the context of landscape architecture. Creek Show co-chair Ingrid Spencer says of outdoor artworks, “You don’t have to enter a building to find something beautiful or delightful. You don’t have to pay a fee. Outdoors anyone can chance upon it. It’s not as precious." Recently, an array of compelling public art pieces sited in the landscape invite viewers to interact as participants conceptually just as Waller Wall does. Examples include artist Erica Felicella’s (un)burden in Dallas parks where visitors walk up to talk to the artist sitting on a platform. Or Rachel Feinstein’s newly opened Summer 2014 installation for Mad Sq Art at Madison Square Park in New York City where Feinstein plans for her three built theater stage follies to be climbed by parkgoers whom she envisions as Commedia dell’Arte actors. If the 2004 Chicago art piece Crown Fountain by Jaume Plensa in Millennium Park were designed today, just ten years later it would very likely have the viewers’ own faces instantly projected onto the falling water as they stand and face the artwork. The crowd-drawing ability of interactive outdoor public art can be a microcosm of the energy and activity to come in a future public park project. It is

So, when you give us $50 it’s awesome. When you give us $50,000, it is a parade.” Waller Wall is part of a wave of public art that values engagement over monument. It sounds simple, but gathering us in a place in real-time to share and talk might define the most influential public art and landscape architecture projects of our time.

Waller Wall will return! It will be re-erected onsite at Waller Creek in November along with Creek Show’s next art installations including pieces by Jason Sowell, Design Workshop, Baldridge Architects, Thoughtbarn, and Legge Lewis Legge.

Photos courtesy of Murray Legge.

ae

w w w . w a l l e r c r e e k . o r g

tempting to mentally populate the fabulous design renderings of Van Valkenburgh and Associates for Waller Creek with the energy and life Waller Wall brought to the Long Center Terrace in March.

Perhaps, with public art in the landscape, the act of gathering people together is really the art itself. Murray Legge and his students created Waller Wall to be not a static installation but to be a dynamic platform for interaction with visitors. The extraordinary craft, creativity, and sculptural impact of the art piece define its initial value but as it draws people in through its visuals, it retains people through the interactive component of the takeaway blocks. The result is a successful engagement tool on behalf of the Waller Creek Conservancy. “Art can be created at a small or crazy scale, its effects can be limitless. Marry that to a super pragmatic, bureaucratic process in a larger discussion about improving the built environment and we have much more to discuss," says John Arroyo who worked on public art projects in conjunction with the LA River and is now a PhD at the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning. “And, artists are nimble! We can do so much with $15.

aether 37

Andy Dixon Deferential + Def iantby ELIZABETH TIGAR

“I would rather be on fire” read the speech bubble on a painting I first saw at Wally Workman Gallery. The painting was by Andy Dixon, a young Canadian painter, a new artist for the gallery last year. The speaker was a woman. Her leg in the foreground, she was reclined over a sofa–bright pink–with her head on a brightly patterned pillow. Striped robe askew exposing one bare breast, face turned to one side, large bouquet of flowers behind her, she was the perfect image of affluent malaise. In the lap of luxury, her sentiment: how boring.

Walking into Wally Workman Gallery this month for Dixon’s solo show, you would be anything but bored. It is a bit like walking into the Musée D’Orsay, if you were wearing technicolor goggles. Large canvases, featuring classical elements and traditional 19th century subject

38 aether

aether 45

matter–a noble woman atop a horse, posed portrait style paintings of various men, a classically situated nude–but rather than softly muted tones you would find in the halls of the Paris museum, these images are rendered in vibrant shades, some bordering on neon. The painting style is loose, expressionistic in places, using different combinations of colors to model features and depth: the face of a woman in Red Opera is made up of no fewer than nine different hues. Fine patterns of fabric and foliage are conveyed with lines of oil pastel, layered on top of the paint. You might think this experience would be chaotic, but, remarkably, it is not. All disparate elements and colors come crashing together, and it is a beautiful collision. Harmonious and energetic.

It is also a careful twist (sometimes a jab-twist) on exactly those classic paintings and styles. A riff, as Mr. Dixon might put it. His career has straddled music, design, and art. After a time of soul-searching, and sound advice from his father, Lea, Andy is now dedicated to a life as a painter.

The metaphors he uses in speaking about his art, however, are more likely to reference musical styles than art history.

“The way I look at it, because of my limited education with fine art, is through music metaphors. I see what I do as ‘sampling' - something I used to do a lot of in my musical period. For instance, when Kanye West samples Otis Redding it is primarily an homage to musical history, but it also a playful re-contextualization of the original song and the meaning of the initial sounds.”

On the subject of Kanye West: one of his most iconic albums is titled My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The tracks are a departure from the kind of textbook, made-to-be-a-Billboard-Top-100, hip-hop tracks on some of his previous albums ("Gold Digger," anyone?). They are more historically driven, both personal and cultural. They also speak to West’s catastrophically large ego. But it makes for an interesting comparison. The sampling of tracks,

(above) The Romantic, acrylic and oil pastel on canvas, 58x40 inches(previous page) Red Opera, acrylic and oil pastel on canvas, 60x60 inches

aether 41

Duchess on Horse (After Velázquez), acrylic and oil pastel on canvas, 64x54 inches

Dixon draws from classical sources, from imagery to composition, but his filter, the way he renders and expresses this inspiration, makes his work entirely fresh. It is a carefully composed balance of deference and defiance. This is evident not just in each painting, but the relationship the paintings have to one another. In the Wally Workman Gallery show, for example, there are canvasses such as the above, portraits, still lives, nudes and nobility. Then, there is a toucan. It is beautiful. And twisted in some places. You cannot help but chuckle, and it is clear that Dixon is doing the same, all the while paying homage to the things from which he draws his inspiration.

Andy Dixon's solo show "Pleasure Studies II" is on exhibit at Wally Workman Gallery through May 31st.

ae

from Michael Jackson to Otis Redding, that West uses are the core of what, in my opinion, makes his music so successful. It is about the conversation. And then about the conversion. Hip-hop post-modernism. Dixon has no such ego (I don’t see him interrupting Taylor Swift, or marrying a Kardashian any time in the future), but his art is a great example of a contemporary painter effectively conversing in the post-modern vocabulary.

Post-modernism, at its core, is about precisely that: taking elements of the classical and reinventing them–or subverting them–into something that is completely different. The success of the movement, I would argue, and why it is still a strong thematic vein of contemporary art is because of the foundation of the language artists are using in making their work. The forms and content are often things that are familiar, “tried and true” even. The manifestation of those are where the transformation happens. And where the artist (or architect) is able to put a different lens on how those are experienced.

Purple Bouquetacrylic and oil pastel on canvas, 52x39 inches

w w w.wal ly workmangal ler y.com42 aether

aether 29

RE-INTERPRET.

When I started teaching Art History at Austin Community College I was surprised at the lack of exhibition space for students and faculty. Having come from Arthouse (now The Contemporary Austin), which had a longstanding statewide art touring program, I knew there were community colleges throughout the state that were big enough to accommodate decent-sized group shows.

Inquiring about the absence of a college gallery, I learned that ACC did have some areas designated to the exhibition of student artwork, such as the occasional campus display case, small allotments of library walls, and a large corridor at the administration building, Highland Business Center.

Acquiring a permanent gallery location had eluded the Art Department, despite efforts reaching back decades. Department members’ attitudes on the subject varied. Some sounded defeated; others remarkably resolute, depending on when you spoke with them. Around five years ago the gallery conversation heated up again. Then ACC Exhibition Specialist (now full-time faculty) Brent Baggett, compiled a report listing community colleges throughout the state with their own galleries, along with the square footage of those galleries and the

student population served by each space.

Results only underscored our dearth. For example, the data showed that nearly 43 Texas community colleges from Corsicana to Victoria; Midland to Laredo; had their own art galleries. Square footage ranged from 400 (Wharton Junior College, Tyler Junior College) to 56,000 (Northwest Vista College, San Antonio; Gallery and Sculpture Garden nearly 7000 square feet). Many spaces hovered in the 800-1500 square-foot-region. Of course, most of these schools served significantly fewer people than ACC.

As the second largest institution of higher learning in Central Texas with ten campuses and eight learning centers spread across eight counties, ACC serves approximately 43,000 students, anywhere from five to 20 times as many students as the schools in Baggett’s report. In a college of our size and stature it is imperative that we have a gallery.

To review the incredibly vital role of a college art gallery, consider the approximately 2300 students enrolled in art and art history courses at ACC. Studio students need to learn about the process and benefits of exhibiting their artwork. They need a place to discuss each other’s work, see entirely

Call for Austin Community College Art Gallery

by ERIN KEEVER

aether 45

new artwork by outside artists, study and become inspired. Many of our art history students admit they have never stepped into an art museum or gallery. When they are assigned a standard formal analysis paper, they are required to visit The Blanton Museum on The University of Texas’ campus, where they often express amazement and later remark that it’s their favorite part of the class. Imagine if they could visit their own institution’s gallery. Exhibits could be tailored to complement assignments. Interdisciplinary projects could bring new meaning to philosophical, literary, even scientific ideas.

Having a centrally located gallery would feed Austin’s thriving art scene and creative class. Citizens and tourists would enjoy a centrally located ACC gallery as part of the downtown cultural landscape. With in-demand event spaces, gallery rental could be a plus. And with campuses covering a 7000-mile stretch; a physical focal point would help define a strong identity for ACC’s art students, faculty, exhibitions, events and programs. Art needs to be viewed in person and experienced up close to truly be understood. Only then can initiates become comfortable looking at, responding to, and in effect living with art.

"A college art department without a fully functioning gallery is like a

drama department without a theater.-Gary Webernick, Art Department Chair

Around the same time the report was completed, in 2009, there was a letter writing campaign where I, along with many of my fellow faculty wrote (then) President Kinslow urging him to re-focus his energies on an ACC Art Gallery. Alas, it was not until 2011 that we carved out an actual room on the ground floor of the newly remodeled Building 3000 at 1218 West Avenue, which some Austinites may know of as the Old Austin High gymnasium. It was small (350 square feet), but it was ours and duly named Kramer Gallery after the ceramicist and former Art Department Chair, Steven Kramer (d. 2003), who lobbied for better department facilities

and funding. Already Kramer Gallery has held a number of impressive exhibitions, including 2012’s Steve Brudniak: Back from Samara, an exhibition of Doug Jacque’s painting, along with a student show of outstanding figurative work. Through May 20, Kramer Gallery is hosting Independent Visions: Former Faculty: Work by Madelon Umlauf, Ward Walker and Carmen Clements in conjunction with the West Austin Studio Tour (WEST). Together with these events, the ACC Arts and Humanities Division and the Art Department will host a student art sale, an interactive painting project, clay demonstrations and other on site activities.

Central, located on 605 West 13th Street, just across the street from the Rio Grande Campus. (Some may know it as an old Co-op building.) A 1900-square foot space already owned by ACC, the property has a modern looking exterior with horizontal proportions, a broad roofline and distinctive parapet, perfectly suited for an urban contemporary gallery. An assessment was completed this spring, and just to renovate the first floor, the estimate came to $250,000. Another feasibility study is in the works and should give an even clearer idea of what kind of money this would involve. The Gallery Central site is so desirable

aether 47

Another initiative that shows ACC’s critical need for exhibition space is our recent appropriation and build-out of a window spot on 12th Street. Christened Outta Space this is a 64- square-foot storefront with 8 feet of linear wall space. Due to zoning restrictions and issues with the sidewalk, it cannot be entered, but rather only appreciated from outside. Especially well suited for installation or sculptural work, ACC staff sees it as a 24/7 satellite to the Kramer Gallery, which has more restrictive hours. Expectations are that it will open in the fall of 2014.

The most recent effort is a proposal made for Gallery

Illustration from Proposal for Gallery Central, 605 West 13th St., Austin

Highland. There would be a digital media center, a new auditorium, studios and at least one gallery, maybe more. There is a bond election coming up in the fall, but most anticipate that if it passes, the bulk of the money will go to ACC’s Highland Mall project. It would be great if the City of Austin could help support making Gallery Central a reality as well.

Webernick sums up ACC’s need well, saying, “A gallery is extremely important to the department, the college and the community. It provides a place to exhibit student and faculty art, as well as invited professional artists’ work. It is a necessary ingredient in fulfilling the process of making art and is the final stage of the process, showing the art. A college art department without a fully functioning gallery is like a drama department without a theater. The final portion of their process would be missing, the viewing portion of the process.” ae

and has so much potential as a venue that the department is considering pursuing some private fundraising. An exhibition venue in this location could function as an essential organ in the anatomy of downtown Austin, without a doubt.

The Highland Mall purchase occurred in August 2012. ACC currently owns the entire building. Phase I of the Highland Mall construction project began in 2013 and is now well underway. This phase involves remodeling the former J.C. Penney building, which will accommodate a huge open learning lab, student commons, faculty offices, and instructional and tutoring spaces. This portion of the Highland development is estimated to open in the fall of 2014.

Phase II planning and considerations are in progress. The Art Department is hoping to be a big part of Phase II. Assistant Chair, Roberta Weston tells me, “The Art Department has provided the architects and planners with a detailed list of our needs for various studios, galleries, offices and art history classrooms.” Hopes are that all of the arts including visual arts, drama, and dance could be located at

w w w.aust incc .edu/ar t48 aether

RESPOND.

SIDE by SIDE

Sara and Shane Scribner share a studio in Enid, Oklahoma and work side by side every day. It’s only natural, as they met on Sara’s first day in the fine art department at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. After living in the Bay Area for a couple of years, they made their way to Oklahoma and bought a building downtown where they live and work. With a studio downstairs and a loft above, the Scribners paint 7 days a week. Side by side. They hire models and share photo shoots. They constantly push each other to improve technique and explore new concepts.

While their work does have similarities, each has a decidedly different voice. Shane’s work explores the figure and its purity of gesture while Sara plays with symbolism, ornamentation and a more whimsical nature. For their July show at Wally Workman Gallery, Shane built a 900 gallon water tank where he captured the models’ gestures suspended in weightlessness, while Sara utilized their large costume closet full of Victorian and Edwardian clothing.

Sara and Shane Scribner

aether 51

Sara's portraits honor classical figurative painting techniques, but have a fantastical narrative that allows the viewer to weave a story around the sitter. "Traveling the world through books, sifting through stories, I find myths and folktales that use flora and fauna in their allegories. When combined with realism, the results are contemporary paintings that speak a language that has been used by painters and poets for centuries. Translating these stories and making them my own is where my creativity thrives."

Shane's portraits put a modern twist on classical subjects. His current body of work uses water as a symbol of entering into a different state of consciousness, a dream world. Underwater, the figures' movements have a quiet grace and a sense of wonderment. By utilizing the diptych, these subjects mirror each other and an out-of-body scene emerges.

Playing, creating, inspiring, loving—the Scribners create a world where art thrives and imagination becomes reality.

Sara Scribner, Their Song Greeted the Dawn, 36 x 24 inches, oil on panel

aether 53

Shane Scribner, Reflective, 24 x 22 inches, oil on panel

w w w.wal ly workmangal ler y.com

Diverse in medium and direction, the current work by Mr. Saladino and Ms. Hawkins stands in contrast yet creates an integrated presentation of the intersection of form and movement. The exhibition will feature large scale abstracted paintings and monotypes by Saladino alongside sculptural installations created from decommissioned books by Karen Hawkins.

datebook

MAY

May 16 through JuneTONY SALADINO + KAREN HAWKINSGallery Shoal Creek

through June 7TIME & WEATHERInstallation and Prints by Judy YoungbloodFlatbed Press and Gallery

May 6 through October 19 MARGO SAWYERUmlauf Sculpture Garden

May 10-11 & May 17-18WEST AUSTIN STUDIO TOURBig Medium is proud to present the 3rd Annual West Austin Studio Tour! WEST is a free, self-guided tour that champions the abundance of talent within Austin’s large and wildly diverse creative community. The public is invited to discover new artistic talent, see working studios, learn about artists' tools, techniques, and inspirations, and support the arts community by building their personal art collections with the work of local artists.

Youngblood's work explores the tensions between the daily repetition and sudden changes of human life. The flexibility, layering, repetition, and possible alterations inherent in printmaking are integral to the making of her work and to her creative process.

Four new indoor & outdoor site specific installations by Margo Sawyer. For the first time in UMLAUF history, the indoor installation will be created for the gallery.Reflect subtly relates to the bricks on the floor, the garden, the changing light- even our visitors-while echoing our Lawrence Speck-designed Museum.

May 24 through June 21YEAR OF THE SALAMANDERArt.Science.Gallery

Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (PARC) has designated 2014 the “Year of the Salamander” to bring awareness to conservation issues surrounding these amazing amphibians. As an official partner of PARC, Art.Science.Gallery. is pleased to announce our group exhibition of salamander-inspired artworks by 22 local and international artists.

aether 55

July 8 through August 29TEXAS SOIL: Kevin Greenblat and Shelly WoodPhoto Méthode Gallery

Texas Soil combines the talents of Austin Photographers Kevin Greenblat and Shelley Wood in an exhibition featuring the immutable symbiosis of man, land and creature. Greenblat conveys a dialogue between subject and lens, while Wood offers insight into ranching lifestyle with its unique challenges and opportunities. Together they create a visual journey, as big as the Texas terrain.

JUNE JULY

June 14 through June 28SUSURRUSThe Contemporary AustinPart radio play, part stroll in the park, part lesson in bird dissection, part musical recital: Susurrus, by Scottish site-specific artist David Leddy, is a play without actors or a stage and with an audience of one—you. Customized for the Laguna Gloria site, Susurrus is a sensual reinterpretation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with a contemporary edge. After critical acclaim and sell-out audiences around the world, Susurrus comes to Laguna Gloria for a limited time only.

June 22 through September 21IN THE COMPANY OF CATS AND DOGSThe Blanton Museum of Art

In the Company of Cats and Dogs provides a multifaceted look at our relationship with felines and canines through the ages. The exhibition features over 160 works by masters such as Albrecht Dürer, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, William Blake, Francisco Goya, Paul Gauguin, Takahashi (Shotei) Hiroaki, Pablo Picasso, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Edward Hopper, Louise Bourgeois, and others.

June 7 through August 30ALL SUMMER LONGDavis Gallery

From June through August Davis Gallery will be filled with the finest work that our gallery artists have to offer. This exciting show will create a high energy art fair atmosphere in the gallery without having to leave the city.

July 12 through August 2A PLACE BEYOND: Sara and Shane ScribnerWally Workman Gallery

The Scribners’ figurative work invites the viewer to a place that is just out of reach from their current consciousness. A time and space that is a bit surreal and a bit magical.

next issueFall/Winter 2014

aether (Greek αἰθήρ aithēr[1]) n. 1 the material that fills the region of the universe above the terrestrial sphere 2 a medium that in the wave theory of light permeates all space and transmits transverse waves 3 personification of the sky or upper air breathed by the Olympians.

ae