UPDATED!!!! This Week's Events: Bach Contata Progect, Expert Perspective with Annette, and B scene

Tuesday, October 30
Noon
Bach Cantata Project
The Bach Cantata Project is a joint venture of the UT School of Music Choral Program and the Blanton Museum of Art. Enjoy an introduction by the conductor before the performance and connection to a work in the Museum’s galleries after. Free with admission, for Museum members and for the UT community. BWV 21 Ich hatte viel Bekummernis (I had much distress in my heart), a perfectly spooky theme for the Halloween season!
Location: Rapoport Atrium

Thursday, November 1
12:30 pm
Expert Perspective
Annette Carlozzi, Curator of American and Contemporary Art, discusses the exhibition Mike’s World: Michael Smith & Joshua White (and other collaborators).
Location: Exhibition Galleries

B scene
Friday, November 2, 6-11 PM

Art is adventure.

Go West! Join the Blanton for an evening of Americana at B scene, the museum’s monthly art party. Hit the trail and explore art of the American West from the collection with tours and art activities. Plus enjoy music by the Unfortunate Heads and DJ Spooky Texas, cash bar, light refreshments, and more. Cost: $5 members/$10 non-members

Ongoing

DJ Spooky Texas plays a mix of your favorite country classics and Western Swing in the Rapoport Atrium all night.

Enjoy wine, beer, and Blantinis at the cash bar and free hors d'oeuvres in the Atrium. (Drink tickets available for purchase at each bar. Drinks will not be served after 10:30 PM.)

6:30, 7:00, 7:30, 8:00 and 8:30 PM
Art Briefs tours highlight art of the American West in the Blanton’s collection. Look for free tickets at the Art Briefs sign near the Visitor Services Desk (space is limited).

9:30
Austin's own Unfortunate Heads perform their special blend of melodious alt country and folk rock.

Join us on December 7 for a Winter Formal and groove to smooth sounds of the ‘70s with DJ Honeycomb and all your favorite Journey songs as performed by Odyssey, featuring John Erler of the Alamo Drafthouse’s Master Pancake Theater.

UPDATED!!!
Sunday, November 4
2 pm
Panel Discussion: “Mirror, Mirror: Creative Self-Invention in a Televisual
World”
Join Annette Carlozzi, Curator of American and Contemporary Art, as she
discusses the exhibition Mike's World: Michael Smith & Joshua White (and
other collaborators) with David Joselit, Professor and Chair, History of
Art, Yale University and Maud Lavin, Chair, Visual and Critical Studies, and
Professor, Visual and Critical Studies and Art History, Theory and
Criticism, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Each panelist will
discuss the exhibition in relation to their areas of writing and research
and will welcome lively reflections and opinions from the audience. Dr.
Joselit is the author of Feedback: Television Against Democracy (Cambridge:
The MIT Press, 2007) and Dr. Lavin is editor of the forthcoming The Oldest
We've Ever Been: Seven True Stories of Midlife Transitions (Tucson: U. of
Arizona Press, spring '08).
Location: ACES Bldg, AVAYA Auditorium

Balloon Ocean in the Atrium!

Dear Readers,

You've been asking for it, and now there is something to look at in the Atrium! On Saturday, James and crew assisted the artist Jason Hackenwerth in installing a new, temporary work of art in the atrium. It is quite delightful and I hope you all have the chance to come over and see it soon.

Jason is a trained artist with an MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design. As a young boy and throughout his adolescence, he assisted his mother in her work as a clown (yes, who made balloon art!). His work has been shown in art venues throughout the U.S. and Europe, most often as a temporary project or "event." This project can be described as "ephemeral art" or as an "event." in any case, it does a beautiful job of enlivening the atrium space while we await the installation of Catherine Lee's ceramic work in December.

War: Artists Respond

War-Artists Respond

Sixty artists from Austin and as far afield as New Zealand and Vermont will be showing thought provoking work in the War: Artists Respond exhibition that opens this coming Friday at the Dougherty Cultural Arts Center.

In addition, there will be poetry, music, and Butoh dancing.

War: Artists Respond
November 2-27
Dougherty Cultural Arts Center
1110 Barton Springs Rd
Reception: Nov. 2, 6 - 9 p.m.

UT Home Game Saturday October 27th: Ride Your Bike, Save Some Cash

Dear Readers,

As you know it is nearly impossible to park around here on a Saturday when the UT Football team is playing a home game. That's a total shame because Home Game Saturday's are the best days to be here: you get the whole museum to yourself!

So my trusty partner Jason and I are offering a deal on Saturday October 27th to anybody who braves Austin traffic on their bike or uses Cap Metro.

Just mention this Blog promotion (or MySpace), show us your helmet or bus receipt, and we'll give you 1/2 off the admission price in any category!

So, come have the museum to yourself! Hang out with like-minded environmentally friendly people!

(Park your bike in front of Jester Dorm and ignore the unfriendly signs that say your bike will get impounded. It won't!)

See you Saturday!

DAM Good Friends

I just visited the Denver Art Museum for the first time and was blown away by this truly world-class art museum. The most interesting attraction is the new Hamilton Building, opened in 2006 (shown here). The gallery walls inside are sloped and angled just as the exterior walls are, creating non-traditional, dynamic spaces to install artwork. With art squeezed, hidden, and sprawling throughout these unique spaces, I always felt like I was exploring and discovering. The top, 4th floor with the contemporary installations was especially captivating. Jennifer Steinkamp's video installation, Rock Formation, of what looked like cascading silk blankets was mesmerizing, and I pondered at length the installation process of Damien Hirst's giant sized ashtray, Party Time, filled with thousands of real cigarette butts. Between the two building and 9 floors of art, this place had something for everyone--textile, Oceanic, Asian, contemporary African, pre-Columbian, and more. The American Indian was my favorite with contemporary pieces interspersed with traditional works, which drew attention to the evolution of public conceptions of the American Indian, issues of authenticity, and the challenge American Indians have in defining themselves as a culture in America even today. Interestingly, the DAM also has its own collection of Spanish Colonial Art with virtually a whole floor dedicated to art of the Spanish Viceroyalties of South America, an exhibition of which the Blanton will be hosting this coming spring (The Virgin, Saints, and Angels). If you wanna break from skiing, mountain climbing, or touring breweries, this is definitely a worthwhile destination.

lots o' photos from Jonathan Marshall at Art Palace

Bye!! We'll miss you!

Good Luck to Anabella and Leslie

All the Ladies in the House

Dear Readers,

According to the map above, there 20,000 more single men in Austin than single women!

If that's the case, then why in the world are all the single, well-dressed, 20 something women attending Blanton Member openings and B scene in groups of 2's and 3's, and why aren't the men coming in to say hi to them?

Seriously guys, the good ones aren't at Beerland, they're at the Blanton.

This Weekend: Bands at Okay Mountain, Jonathan Marshall at Art Palace

Dear Readers,

There are couple of art events going on this weekend (that I know about, and I don't know much). So you should attend them or think about attending them.

Friday, a bunch of bands are playing the Okay Mountain:
Friday, October 19
@ Okay Mountain Gallery (1312 E. Cesar Chavez)
8pm, $5

The Weird Weeds
Cryptacize (San Francisco, CA)
Chris Cogburn/Corey Fogel duo
Smoke Detector

Ongoing at the Okay is Jason Villegas' show "Impish Animal." His work is a strange mixture of kachina dolls, Big Trouble in Little China, and Kujo.

Then Saturday, Jonathan Marshall has a solo show at Art Palace. This art is going to be super dope. The work follows the post-apocalyptic adventurer "Lenny" as he navigates his new environment.

The show includes large drawings, narrative sculpture, and video art. Trust me, you will be spirited away.

This Week's Events: Transactions talk, Durer Lecture, Transactions Lecture

Dear Readers,

We've got a big crop of delicious event coming up this week, and when I say delicious I mean they are about Transactions and Durer. Please remember that the Thursday Durer Lecture is in the Art Building and the Sunday Transactions Lecture is in the ACES building! Go there, not the BMA for those events!

Here's the sched:

On Thursday, October 18 at 12:30 pm
Kelly Baum, Assistant Curator of American and Contemporary Art, will conduct
a gallery talk of the exhibitions Transactions.
Location: Blanton Museum

Also on Thursday, October 18 at 4 pm
Thomas Schauerte, University of Trier
The Madrid 'Christ Among the Doctors': a Dürer Patchwork and Its Sources.
Co-sponsored by the Blanton Museum of Art and the Department of Art and Art
History
Location: ART 1.120

This Sunday, October 21 at 2 pm
Grant Kester, associate professor of art history at the University of
California, San Diego, will take a look at recent collaborative art projects
and the critical debates they spark in relation to the exhibition
Transactions.
Location: AVAYA Auditorium ACES Building, room 2.302.

the trappings of "bling".

Dear Readers,

It's that time of year again when our fearless tech crew gets out the ladders and the hammers and the hangers and the wires and they put up a bunch of new stuff in the Contemporary Gallery. Remember last year how the huge Sterenfall by Anselm Kiefer magically appeared up there? That was awesome, right?!

Well, now there is a bunch more stuff, not least of which is a wooden GTO by Transaction artist Conrad Bakker.

My favorite of the new works is " Le Roi de la Chasse" by Kahinde Wiley. At first I didn't like it because I found the grandiose pomposity heavy handed, but then Christopher Savage, aka Christafudge, gallery assistant at large, pointed out to me that it is pure and unadulterated upper-class portraiture. And you know what, it is technically superb. So, I'm liking it tons.

If you can stomach the pedantic pandering of the Today Show, check out this interview.

Also of note, the last line of the label copy: "the trappings of 'bling.'" Only at the Blanton, folks. Only here.

Marilyn Minter blows my mind!

Okay,

So this amazing painting shows up a few months ago at the Blanton. Marilyn Minter’s “Crystal Swallow”. It was installed last week in the contemporary gallery. I got to looking at it closer and......she painted it with her fingertips! I confirmed this with a little research on the web. Whaaat? This thing looks like a photograph.

This fact changed the whole painting for me. At first it seemed that she was just exposing the Male gaze that is forced on women everyday by enlarging it and having the viewer confronted with it directly. Many of her paintings are almost the definition of Pornography, where extreme sexual desires are attached to isolated parts of the human body with no emotion, just carnal obsessions. In this particular painting we have sweat, glitter, ecstasy, an oral cavity, jewels, etc. The signs and signifiers are dripping sex. But, I was flipping my stuff when I saw the finger prints. Not only was she exposing the male gaze but she was physically confronting it. Meticulously caressing these issues literally. The hours spent painting full of contemplation of the unwanted stare from the opposite sex. Look at this guys!
Wow!

Mike's World Mad Libs!

Hey Readers,

Don't forget to pick up your Mike's World Mad Libs when you get to the Museum this weekend. And remember, don't copy my award winning answers (shown above, click on image to cheat!). Use your own imagination!

25 Most Popular Museums

Dear Readers,

That mike smith performance was mad dope! If you missed, you missed it, son. Mike did the thing where he wears a funnie hat and a suroung made of camel fur and he dances and sings and stomps and belts out these crazy songs you only learn in middle school. Then he put on a diaper and did the best infant impression I've eva seen. Well, if you didn't see it, too bad for you because I don't have pictures. And all the hip art crowd was there. You know the gallerists and the painterist and the lenserists and the clayerists that are in the know. Tooooo bad because I told ya about it!

On a related note, the Forbes has a listing of the 25 most attended museums. I kinda feel bad linking to this because most of it's ads, but, what the whatever. Money makes the world go round.

The article says there are surprises, most notably the Ellis Island Museum, which drew 1.67 million visitors. I don't know about you, but this doesn't surprise me at all. The everyday walking and talking American wants to know more about her personal history than she wants to know about Monet (and that's saying something!). History museums took the #1 and #2 slots before the National Gallery took #3. I would also like to point out that the #1, #2, and #3 museums (The Smithsonian Natural History Museum and the Air and Space Museum) are all free! The Met, at #4, has a $20 admission fee. That's 4.5 million people willing to pay for their dose of cultural enlightenment.

Your Weekly Schedule: Don't Miss This Week!!!

This week you have a couple of opportunities to hear from Art & Art History's own Michael Smith about his exhibition Mike's World: Michael Smith & Joshua White (and other collaborators).

On Thursday, October 4 at 12:30, Michael will do a gallery talk of the exhibition which will last about 30-45 minutes.

That evening at 6 pm, he will grace the museum with a very rare performance (with material not suitable for children), followed by a brief reception and book signing for the catalogue (with Annette), his current book, Drawings: Simple, Obscure and Obtuse, and the comic book The Seduction of Mike. Not to be missed!

Also, Friday night is B scene with DJ Mel and a special, guerrilla dance performance by Yellow Tape Construction Co., tours and art-making activities highlighting Transactions.