Vernon Fisher, Bikini, 1987

December Texas Museum Happenings

Vernon Fisher sitting in a stuffed-animal chair designed by the Campana brothers with one leg of the chair in Texas, Mexico, Arizona and New Mexico–this is the Texas museum scene this month.

The perfect mash-up of the Texas museum scene this month is: Vernon Fisher sitting in a stuffed-animal chair designed by the Campana brothers with one leg of the chair in Texas, Mexico, Arizona and New Mexico. I realize that this is impossible, but let me explain. Several exhibitions in Texas museums, happening in December into early 2011, oddly unite under the theme of eclecticism.

Fluctuating from the psychedelic, gooey lines of the sixties to contemporaneous movements such as minimalism, design from the 1960s to present proves florid. The Dallas Museum of Art opens Form/Unformed: Design from 1960 to the Present in the Tower Gallery on December 19th, 2010. Streamlining with Richard Loewy, young, Danish designer Louise Campbell, Donald Judd and others showcases the DMAs impressive, quintessential design objects from the collection.

Multidao Chair

Multidao Chair

Tracing history through the products that we use””Coca Cola machines, automobiles, teapots, and chairs””provides a popular perspective on aesthetic trends. Brazilian brothers Fernando and Humberto Campana, famous for chairs like “Multidao chair” (a compilation of tradition hand-made dolls), will be a highlight of the exhibition!

The El Paso Museum of Art is brining a compilation of artists together this month, as well””young artists for Border Art Biennial ““ Bienal Fronteriza de Arte 2010. The Border Art Biennial will be on display through February 9th, 2011. Jurors for this years biennial were Rita Gonzalez, Assistant Curator in the Department of Contemporary Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Itala Schmelz, Director at the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil in Mexico City. Forty-three artists from Chihuahua, California, Texas, Nuevo Leon, New Mexico, Baja California Norte, and Arizona. The Border Art Biennial focuses on similarities that citizens of the Southwest share, rather than border struggles.

Artist from the South/Southwest region, Vernon Fisher, exhibits this month at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in K-Mart Conceptualism. Fisher, admittedly interested in a variety of subject matter, says, “I have an attraction to subject matter featuring Dairy Queens, grocery stores, Laundromats, third-rate hotels.” This assorted subject matter finds its way into Fishers work, along with words.

Vernon Fisher

Vernon Fisher stands with one of his recent works in his studio north of downtown Fort Worth, Texas, on Tuesday, July 31, 2007. (Ron T. Ennis/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/MCT)

Fishers work explores the “issue between seeing and reading,” mentions Auping. Fishers academic background began with literature, and then moved to painting. Curator of the exhibition, Michael Auping, points out that the artist began his craft in a generation of painters who started with abstract imagery, and did not necessarily consider figuration. (See an interview with the curator and Fisher here.) K-Mart Conceptualism closes January 2, 2011.

So, whether you are in a Dairy Queen in the Southwest, or drinking tea made with an Aldo Rossi kettle: creativity begets creativity, which is fueled in part by our heterogeneous environs.

(top photo: Vernon Fisher, Bikini, 1987. Acrylic on canvas, 11 ½ x 18 ½. Collection of the Krannert Art Museum. Courtesy UT Press.)