AMOA@Laguna Gloria,
through August 10
Mexic-Arte Museum, through July 5
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self-examination, self-definition, and the search for our own kind. Certainly this seems to be
what drives artists who formulate ways to express the personal, and then
contextualize that expression by associating and exhibiting with like-minded individuals.
Women & Their Work provides a forum for women, Mexic-Arte for Hispanics, and
now, through its current exhibition at Laguna Gloria, the Austin Museum of Art explores
the diversity of expression within the Latino/Latina community.
Personally, I am not always engaged by the resulting politically correct
dialogue with its seemingly endless variations, but the combined force of Mexic-Arte’s
exhibition “Young Latino Artists” and AMOA’s “Tres Proyectos
Latinos” at Laguna Gloria has grabbed my attention and won’t let go. Press releases from
both institutions arrived in the same envelope, physical evidence that the
dynamics between Mexic-Arte and AMOA have changed substantially since the old days. Sylvia
Orozco, director of Mexic-Arte, says that these exhibitions were planned
independently of each other, but the net result provides an excellent opportunity for
Austinites to explore thematic and stylistic similarities and differences among emerging
and established Latino/Latina artists.
AMOA asked four curators to assemble three projects. Kathy Vargas, artist
and director of the visual arts program at San Antonio’s Guadalupe Cultural Arts
Center, curated an installation which, like her own manipulated photographs, deals
with layered, figurative images. Her artistic and curatorial points of view intersect.
The same can be said of Benito Huerta’s portion of the exhibit. His
salon-style installation mirrors his patterned paintings. Huerta clusters together
paintings, prints, and constructions by Latino artists (including Luis Jimenez, Cesar
Martinez, Celia Mu�oz, and others) in opposition to the singular presentation of
work by Jasper Johns and Robert Henri. He suggests that museums lack the
commitment to purchase Latino artists’ work, even though they may be featured in their
galleries. His point is lost in Austin, however, where AMOA owns hardly any work of
significance, minority or mainstream, and the University’s new contemporary curator,
Annette Carlozzi, has made clear that institution’s commitment to broadening the Michener
collection, its primary cache of contemporary paintings.
Victor Zamudio Taylor, art historian from UT, and Henry Canales Estrada,
MA candidate in curatorial studies at Bard College, present conceptual work. In keeping
with contemporary art historical trends, you may need an art critic or art historian by your
side to comprehend the more subtle aspects of their offerings. Locating a specific
Latino/Latina point of view may be even more difficult. During the Curators’ Dialogue at
the opening reception, these three diverse points of view (and the passion they arouse)
became quickly evident. Heated words were exchanged.
Mexic-Arte’s show (co-curated by Henry Estrada and Albert Jesus Chavarria,
art history student at UT) showcases young Latino artists but mirrors exactly the
diversity found in the AMOA show. We see paintings that are political (David Godoy’s
Lady Immigrant), graffiti-style hip (Rene Alvarado and Roy Carrillo), and
culturally based (Flor Gaitan Stumbo). Bobby Dixon’s diptych and Joshua Rios’ acrylic
drawings on paper, on the other hand, appear more personal in content, more universal
in appeal. There are a number of conceptual works, such as Loud and Large, a work
in progress which features the ongoing participation of young people from the
Dove Springs area of Austin.
As with all survey shows, it’s hard to see where each individual artist is
going. And although much of it shows promise, the work is indeed “young.”
Still, I was happy to be privy to this particularly vibrant dialogue. As Henry
Estrada writes in his curator’s statement, “`Young Latino Artists’ at Mexic-Arte and
`Tres Proyectos Latinos’ at AMOA collectively expand our awareness of the richness
and cultural diversity that exists in Latino art and strengthens the bonds of our
community.”
Also at Mexic-Arte is a solo exhibition of work by Rosemary Meza, part of
the museum’s ongoing Diversity & Emergence Series. Her cavorting cut-out
figures bear some resemblance to Luis Jimenez’s dance hall cast, except Meza’s are
half dressed (if at all) and somewhat disassembled. Never have pinking sheers, canvas, and
paint been handled with such enthusiasm. — Rebecca S. Cohen
Into The Woods: Which Way?
McCullough Theatre, UT campus
through July 6
Running time: 2 hrs, 45 min
The woods are thick with symbols, almost as many as there are trees. There
is the symbol of mystery: the woods as a place where phenomena flourish, wonders
beyond nature. There is the symbol of danger: the woods as a dwelling place of
predators, evil wolves and witches. There is the symbol of freedom: the woods as a place
where society’s restrictions may be broken, where a serving girl may hold a prince
or forbidden lover’s kiss. The woods hold symbols of temptation, of transgression, of
penitence, symbols of time lost and found, of death and resurrection, and so much
more.
Around this concept Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine crafted their
musical entwining the lives of several familiar fairy tale figures. They give us Red Riding
Hood and Cinderella and Jack (of the Beanstalk story) and a pair of Prince Charmings
and cast these characters’ movements into and out of the woods — going to
Grandmother’s, taking a cow to market, attending a royal festival, visiting a prisoner in a
doorless tower — in terms of the characters’ dreams and desires, their emotional and
spiritual states, with the woods an emblem of their wishes pursued, fulfilled, or
denied. The authors audaciously draw together more than a dozen archetypes and strands of
folklore and stitch them into one tale — a musical, no less! — that sounds all of
the original’s symbolism. It is, to put it mildly, a complex work.
If it does nothing else, this staging by UT Opera Theatre reflects the
play’s complexity. Leilah Stewart’s scenic design features a series of receding
prosceniums, frames within frames that suggest the layers of meaning within fairy tales.
Costumer Molly Reynolds and director Greg Fuller add their own layers of symbolism, he
with overt theatrical moves — using braided electrical cords for Rapunzel’s hair,
covering the witch’s exits with smoke blown by a stagehand with a fire extinguisher —
she with costumes drawn from the 1940s and `50s — white dinner jackets, leopard
print capes, two-tone Oxfords. Everything onstage seems to be a symbol, every
surface representing something other than what it is.
While these aspects of the production are visually appealing, the layers
of meaning they add don’t always illuminate the work on which they’ve been set. Why all
the post-war wear? Is it to characterize the late Forties and Fifties as a
fairy-tale era, in which Americans falsely imagined they were living “happily ever
after”? I’m not sure, but I spent two-thirds of the performance puzzling over it, as
I did several design choices. Except for Shannon January’s lights, which back the
action with vibrant colors and dapple the floor with richly hued shadows, I found
most of the visual elements to be competing with the story instead of enhancing it. I
felt pulled in several different directions, much of the time unsure which way the
production wanted me to go.
The trail of bread crumbs that I followed through this thicket of visual
symbols came from the performers. Linda Nenno provides a compelling witch, a flinty
figure with a will of stone and a calloused spirit; Nenno makes her pain palpable.
Dale Smith’s Baker is at first a prickly character, impatient and sharp, but when
he winds up on the stage alone, Smith makes him achingly poignant. As his wife, Erica
Turrell contributes her own lovely ache; she projects honesty and a steadfastness of
heart that, when tested, falls into a bittersweet shadow. William Adams’ prince is
partly responsible for that shadow, and his regal bearing and slight aloofness are
apt and well played. Several others, including Joe Crabtree, David Ellis, Jean Grace,
Sabrina C. Guerrero, and the indomitable Jess Walters contribute affecting work that
guides us through this wood. They help to keep the humor and feeling and lyricism of
Lapine and Sondheim’s work in view. And they make you wish that it weren’t always so
hard to see their Woods for the trees. — Robert Faires
This article appears in July 4 • 1997 and July 4 • 1997 (Cover).