Articulations

If somebody - let's say an artist - owed you some money - let's say a lot of money - and seemed not to notice that you were waiting for him to pay you back, how far would you go to get his attention? Harassing phone calls? Standing on his lawn and shouting at him with a bullhorn? How about sending a truckload full of constables to a major public exhibition of his work and making a big show of seizing a bunch of it and carting it away? That's what one local man did. Arthur Kren, a dealer and consultant for the Austin Art Consortium, had a slew of officers from the Harris County Constable's Office go to Houston's prestigious Menil Collection and remove 15 works of art from a just-opened major retrospective of work by native Texan Robert Rauschenberg. It seems Rauschenberg owes Kren $5.5 million from a dispute involving a sale of some of Rauschenberg's work to a collector, California businessman Donald Hess. At least that's what Kren claims, and he has the judgment of a state district court to back him up. The way the story goes is Kren was brokering a deal between Rauschenberg and Hess when he was told that he needed to work with another dealer, Jamilah Weber. Kren felt he was treated unfairly and in April of last year filed a lawsuit against Rauschenberg, his business manager Darryl Pottorf, and Weber, seeking $1.8 million in unpaid commissions and another $3.7 million in punitive damages for defamatory remarks made by the artist and his manager. Rauschenberg apparently failed to respond to the suit, and a judge ruled that he owed Kren the $5.5 million. As a means of enforcing the ruling, the judge authorized Texas counties to seize any property belonging to Rauschenberg, Pottorf, or Webber that was within the state. Now, that ruling came down last September, but it looks like it took Kren a few months to find anything belonging to any of those three men anywhere within the state's borders. Supposedly, Kren didn't want to disrupt this exhibition, but the fact that the seizure took place right on the opening day of this gargantuan exhibition - 300 works, including a 1,000-foot work in progress, displayed in three of Houston's museums - makes it a little hard for that protest to pass the sniff test. Naturally, Rauschenberg's side is crying foul, saying it was never properly notified of the suit and feels the seizure was an extreme measure that shouldn't have been taken. And Kren's side is claiming it did only what it had to in order to secure once and for all the artist's attention. Well, if nothing else, the move did that. But it's also safe to say that it moved a private dispute into a public arena, causing a major arts institution to suffer considerable embarrassment and not a few Lone Star art fans some unnecessary dismay. With or without the seized art, "Robert Rauschenberg: A Retrospective" continues at the Menil, the Contemporary Arts Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, through May 17. For more info, call the Menil at 713/525-9400.

Off the Desk

Austin Access Arts is sponsoring another of its popular Audio Described Performances for a production this weekend. AAA trained volunteers will be broadcasting descriptions of the stage setting and action to patrons wearing headsets at the evening performance of the Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein musical Carousel on Saturday, February 21, 8pm, at the Paramount Theatre. For more info, call 454-9912.