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Thursday, September 6, 2012

Visual Art First Thursday Art Walk Is Here

Posted by Jen Graves on Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 12:30 PM

At SOIL, it's Beyond the Western Lands: "The queer artists in Beyond the Western Lands reimagine the intersection of man, nature and mythology in the fictive 'West,' typically characterized as a place of wilderness outside the constraints of law and civilization. The title also references the name ancient Egyptians had for where the dead reside."

They do mean "man," not "humanity"—all four of the show's artists are dudes. In the back gallery, however, there's a pointed counterpoint in the colorful, semi-abstract landscapes of Susanna Bluhm, based on the Song of Songs and dedicated/inspired to/by her wife and son. Bluhm admits it cracks her up that you have to walk by a big image of bull balls in order to get to her three paintings.

A SNAPSHOT OF THE BULL BALLS PIECE Brian Britigan is the artist, and the text and style in this piece refers to a quote from the American regionalist Thomas Hart Benton in which hes railing against the homosexual agenda thats taken over East Coast arts institutions. The Midwest, he says, is immune to such degradations: The people of the West are highly intolerant of aberration. In the smaller cities, there are no isolating walls of busy indifference where odd manners and cults can reach positions of eminence and power.

Courtesy of the artist
A SNAPSHOT OF THE BULL BALLS PIECE Brian Britigan is the artist, and the text and style in this piece refers to a quote from the American regionalist Thomas Hart Benton in which he's railing against the "homosexual agenda" that's taken over East Coast arts institutions. The Midwest, he says, is immune to such "degradations": "The people of the West are highly intolerant of aberration. In the smaller cities, there are no isolating walls of busy indifference where odd manners and cults can reach positions of eminence and power."

And here's Bluhm's painting I slept, but my heart was awake, from a segment of the Song of Songs in which "the narrator has woken up from the nightmare she had where she lost her love. She is back in a beautiful state of life and love, which now includes bits of PTSD leftover from her nightmare. I based these paintings on photos I took in Berlin, which to me is a landscape manifestation of pulsating life coming out of gashes and wounds."

Susanna Bluhm, I slept, but my heart was awake, oil and acrylic on canvas, 84 by 103 inches, 2012

Courtesy the artist
Susanna Bluhm, I slept, but my heart was awake, oil and acrylic on canvas, 84 by 103 inches, 2012

Other shows I'd check out: Dan Webb and Daniel Carillo at Greg Kucera; Ty Ennis and Chris Buening at Prole Drift; Alexander Kroll and Sol Hashemi at James Harris; Hector Acebes and Canh Nguyen at G. Gibson.

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HONEY BEAR!!!

Posted by Jubilation T. Cornball on September 6, 2012 at 2:32 PM

The BULL BALLS PIECE reminds me of driving through Utah, and wondering what their highway signs were trying to say about the expected homogeneity and uniformity of the social order there (and also wondering about the closeted bees that quietly rock the bees nest behind closed doors (cells) in that beautiful yet desolate, unwelcoming part of the earth).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/auvet/61311…

Posted by weegorilla on September 6, 2012 at 3:34 PM