Robert Boyd
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I know where I'm going the next time I visit New Orleans. I'm always suspicious when some boosterish persons decides that this or that neighborhood is an "arts district." That said, the artscene along St. Claude Ave. seems like a real, organically-formed thing. Last time I went to New Orleans to look at art, I wasn't all that sure where to go (not that it kept me from seeing some excellent art). Now, thanks to New Orleans design firm/art blog Constance, I have a map.
I'm not sure where to go the next time I visit San Antonio. After all, the gallery scene seems to have been decimated there in 2012, according to Art Magazine, an online magazine covering art in San Antonio and the region. First in April, several galleries in the Blue Star Arts Complex closed when Blue Star started charging market rate rents. Then David Shelton moved his gallery to Houston. Art Magazine tried its best to put a positive spin on things, and not all art news from San Antonio in 2012 was bad. But San Antonio's collector base is apparently either too small or doesn't buy locally, and that makes running a gallery there a risky venture. ["2012: What changed?", Haydeé Muñoz De la Rocha, Art Magazine. Hat-tip to Glasstire]
FPH has a suggestion on which gallery not to visit in Houston. Art Writers grant recipient Harbeer Sandhu pulled no punches in his pieces for the FPH's "Worst of Houston" feature. His choice for worst art gallery? War'Hous, the gallery located on Main near Lawndale and the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.
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I know where I'm going the next time I visit New Orleans. I'm always suspicious when some boosterish persons decides that this or that neighborhood is an "arts district." That said, the artscene along St. Claude Ave. seems like a real, organically-formed thing. Last time I went to New Orleans to look at art, I wasn't all that sure where to go (not that it kept me from seeing some excellent art). Now, thanks to New Orleans design firm/art blog Constance, I have a map.
I'm not sure where to go the next time I visit San Antonio. After all, the gallery scene seems to have been decimated there in 2012, according to Art Magazine, an online magazine covering art in San Antonio and the region. First in April, several galleries in the Blue Star Arts Complex closed when Blue Star started charging market rate rents. Then David Shelton moved his gallery to Houston. Art Magazine tried its best to put a positive spin on things, and not all art news from San Antonio in 2012 was bad. But San Antonio's collector base is apparently either too small or doesn't buy locally, and that makes running a gallery there a risky venture. ["2012: What changed?", Haydeé Muñoz De la Rocha, Art Magazine. Hat-tip to Glasstire]
FPH has a suggestion on which gallery not to visit in Houston. Art Writers grant recipient Harbeer Sandhu pulled no punches in his pieces for the FPH's "Worst of Houston" feature. His choice for worst art gallery? War'Hous, the gallery located on Main near Lawndale and the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.
If you like your art easy (both in execution and in content), decorative, vapid, and shallow, then this is the place for you. Nothing here will challenge you–nothing will make you think or feel in ways you’d never expected to; nothing will make you feel uncomfortable; nothing will challenge your preconceived notions. This is where beautiful people go to pose beside paintings of beautiful people. [...]
Dandee Warhol, the gallery’s proprietor, whose name is a rip-off of a lame ‘90s band whose name is a play on the name of a truly great conceptual artist, was voted “Houston’s Best Artist” by readers of Houston Press in 2011. All that proves is the lameness of Houston Press readers. ["The Worst of Houston: 2012 Edition", FPH, January 7, 2013]If this is the kind of vitriolic rant we can expect from Sandhu's proposed blog, then I say right on!
