Part Two

The second new-to-me museum I visited on Museum Day was the Lawndale Art Center. It’s a good thing I took that opportunity, because the gallery is currently closed until October 18 so they can set up a new installation. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss the art I saw there.

First up was Math of the Afterwrath by Boozefox. Boozefox is “an Austin based collective collection consortium” and the program states that this is their most cherished artifact. The legend is that it is a giant head collected from inside a crater in the Gulf of Mexico and is being consumed from the inside out by a virus. Actually, it’s a huge work of art composed of repurposed materials including wood, cardboard, packing tape, televisions, slinkys, a fog machine, a garage door opener, and allegedly, Smirnoff Ice. It filled the entire room, so I didn’t shoot it, but if you visit KUHF you can see a little photo and hear an interview with the artists that explains it all.

Next up was Potential Modulations by artist Robert Jackson Harrington. These seven mixed media pieces are meant to convey the concept of potential: what the artist describes as “false narratives…that do nothing, they merely act as a stimulus or catalyst.” I was able to shoot a couple of low-quality photos; Harrington’s web site has much better shots.

I somehow missed Logan Beck’s installation Following Huck Finn. However, I direct you to a web site, where you can see the fascinating blog of two Houston artists (one a photographer, one a musician) as they document a bicycle/road trip from New Orleans to Mark Twain’s hometown, Hannibal, Missouri. The trip culminated with the eighteen diptychs Beck showed at Lawndale.

I finished off my visit on a high note: the mixed media needle felt sculptures of Tobiah Mundt. The series is called Being, and as the artist describes it, the objects “mimic human or animal forms…to communicate ‘story,’ but to limit the amount of information conveyed such that each viewer must ‘fill in the blanks.’ No two viewers will see the same thing or take away the same meaning.” I couldn’t have said it better myself about the best fiction, and I had so much fun looking at these sculptures.

I think this one was my absolute favorite.

After visiting both Lawndale and the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, I’ve promised myself regular museum and gallery dates so I can explore more of Houston’s art. And of course, there’s always art sneaking its way onto our everyday surfaces.

Sidewalk chalk drawing that connects the era of Moby Dick to the Twitter age.