Meet the Artist at the AcA

 

Reflection on the past? Prelude to a new beginning? A mid-career retrospective can be daunting for the artist, for the visitor too, often exposed to lengthy wall texts and a line up of works deemed relevant to the artist's career, displayed chronologically. None of this for Stephanie Patton: Comfort Zone 1993 - 2021, a lively, fun show, radiating the multi-talented artist's warm and caring personality. Born in New Orleans, she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and moved North to receive a Master of Fine Arts in photography from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She then spent some time in New York City and studied vocal and comedic performance at the New School, Upright Citizens Brigade and Gotham Writers' Workshop. In 2001 Patton's Southern roots brought her back to Lafayette where she is teaching and pursuing her international career. The exhibition curated by Jaik Faulk at the Acadiana Center for the Arts reflects the artist's eclectic background and includes sculptures, paintings, iconic wall pieces, photographs, videos and installations. 

A pair of bronzed shoes set on a mirrored pedestal stands out in the middle of the vast main gallery partitioned for the show. The grandmother's empty shoes transformed into a keepsake like baby booties, allude to the process of reversion to infancy in old age. We can even look at ourselves while contemplating the piece! Like a memento mori, it also reminds us of the inevitability of death. Bronzed SAS Shoes, 2008, leads to two intimate spaces where, going back in time, we can get acquainted with the artist's alter ego, Renella Rose Champagne. A kitschy installation, a video of the artist performing as a (struggling country) singer, a photograph of Olympia-Patton (fully clothed) or disguised as a clown, are among a collection of items aligned along the walls. Advertisements for purses, shoes, compact discs, undergarments, magnets for refrigerators... Renella embraces pop. Like the girl next door she dreams of a traditional wedding and revels in the month-long preparations, documents lists of guests, collects newspaper clips and photographs. Boisterous, exuberant, bubbly, describe the creative energy of the artist, and the selected pieces exude her self-deprecatory humor which leaves us smiling. 

What better transition to Patton's next period than Toasty Warm Inside, 2008, a full-length luminous self-portrait? It seems that about ten years ago her career took a turn with new conceptual works. The spacious display allows to contemplate meditative pieces, monochrome white landscapes made of vinyl filled with batting like Revolve, 2019. Quilting evokes a domestic life, love being a required ingredient to perform the labor intensive task. Fluffy like clouds, soft like blankets, the soothing pieces are an invitation to rest and heal our minds. Another "series" involves mattress as a media for calligraphically perfect designs of interjections found throughout the show: Us, 2021, Join, 2020, You (Blue), 2020, can be interpreted according to context or mood. "You" can evoke a tender whisper in one's ear or an outburst of anger.

Mostly inspired by idioms found in her grandmother's mail catalog, Patton's videos complete the review of thirty years of her career. Making lemonade from lemons in Heal, 2011, walking on eggshells for Diffuse, 2008, or ripping off band-aids from her face in Conquer, 2013, Patton manages to interpret popular maxims through conceptual ideas, with a twist of humor. The flawless videos confirm the artist's attention to detail and her talent as a performer.

Dream, 2011, a video about "memory, death and the afterlife" in which the artist sings the famous song "Dream a Little Dream of Me" and a bird view of the show from the mezzanine complete the visit. 

Comfort zone filled with wit and loving care.

 Photograph by the author

Action at the AcA

 

Slammed!! Sensationalism and Culture in the Squared Circle is a catchy title for an exhibition. The punchy word refers to the art of wrestling and the squared circle to the ring in which it takes place. Set at the Acadiana Center for the Arts, the group show co-curated by Jaik Faulk, visual arts director of the AcA and Ben Hickey, curator of the Hilliard University Art Museum, assembles the works from more than thirty artists who answered an open call. The selected works are displayed in the main gallery of the venue and include paintings, drawings, videos, photographs and installations.

Back to the seventies, the world of wrestling is in full swing, so are motorcycle gangs. Streetfighters: Ninjas, 2016, a video from Generic Arts Solution is a great introduction to the show with two mechanized centaurs (the artists) disappearing in a cloud of fiery smoke accompanied by a soundtrack  of engines, screeching tires and brakes. The machine, two conjoined motorcycles, is also displayed close by. The main gallery is a wide open space filled with a lavish display of art works related to the theme of the exhibition, each artist represented by several carefully selected works. The four oils on canvas from John Isiah Walton made in 2018, especially relevant to the topic, appear to have been inspired by the show's title and vice-versa. The paintings feature colorful wrestlers in a ring surrounded by a black background. This is a short description of the narrative pieces. Their titles provide a cue to the depicted scenes like Super Dome F5 which, according to the artist, is about "The Undertaker's shocking defeat at the hands of Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania XXX", or The Perfect Plex, for Suplex an offensive move with several variations. The visual recording of  these famous moments provide a way to build a collective memory of the sport and create a bond among the fans. I have to confess I am not one of them. Clueless about the art of wrestling, I look at the works from another angle. Catching the free fall of a blond haired wrestler in Wrestle Mania 2k or a scream of victory in Sharp Shooter, the artist offers the best view with his close-ups allowing to seize the pinnacle of the move, the fleeting moment that makes history. The contrast between white mats, fighters underlined by the blue halo from the spotlights and a dark invisible crowd, brings a spiritual dimension to the competition. Colors become a tool to express the tense atmosphere, underlying the loneliness of the fighters and their status as heroes in the squared circle, surrounded by unseen spectators but so present in the shadows that we can imagine hearing their cheers and jeers. Beyond figurative, the artist's technique with his vigorous brush and vivid colors, translates the physicality of the encounter. 

Walton assimilates all the attributes of neo-expressionism for his inimitable style and proceeds to apply it to render raw, brut scenes about a "world of power and display" best seen through his eyes. 

 

photographs by the author:

"Sharp Shooter"

"Wrestle Mania 2k"

Myths Up To Date

Greek mythology is a boundless source of inspiration for poets, musicians, playwrights and visual artists with its tales of love, tragedies, deceits, rapes and other monstrosities about the deeply entwined lives of gods and mortals. In Gorgo at the Acadiana Center for the Arts in Lafayette, Lala Raščić revisits the story of three tragic female characters in the context of feminism. Born in Sarajevo, the artist is dividing her time between Zagreb, where she attended the Academy of Fine Arts, and New Orleans. She is known for her performances, installations, videos, sculpture-artifacts, drawings and held previous shows at Good Children Gallery in New Orleans. The solo exhibition fills the Center's main gallery with three videos, a reflective glass installation, sculptural objects, drawings and photographs.
Blinded by the local sunshine, it takes a few minutes to accommodate to the darkness of the windowless space. A floor installation made of drawings on glass projects shadows of masks and other artifacts on two opposite walls through a play of lights. Paintings, sculptures, drawings and photographs are scattered throughout the vast space divided by temporary partitions.
The stories of Arachne, Electra and Medusa provide a loose plot for the scripts of the three videos projected on large screens. EE-O, 2018, features Arachne (Raščić) the victim, weaving her way into a science fiction heroine. The slow and monotonous monologue gives emphasis to the spoken words also available in a brochure laying on the bench facing the screen. The images are hypnotic and the artist's performance flawless. The Eumenides, 2014, a piece in three acts based on Jean Paul Sartre's famous play The Flies, starts with a close-up of the lone artist looking straight at the camera to address the viewer. Reversing the traditional use of male actors to play female roles, she is Orestes the "king without a kingdom". In contrast, act two featuring the Furies is a fast paced succession of multicolored masks grimacing while rapping. The third act is about Electra, the winner. Wearing a cloak elegantly draped like an antique sculpture, her head crowned by a delicate crocheted headband,  she represents status and power. From the stage, she is haranguing an invisible crowd, sharing her wisdom. Energized by her exhortations to resistance, the cheers of the chorus build up chanting "Elect Electra". The third video in color is about Gorgo, a made-up character by the artist who resurrects Medusa with a new body. Wearing breastplate, mask, shield, she is also connected to sensors. Triggered by her body and armor, they generate sounds reverberating in the gallery. The cyborg adopts warrior-like poses and stares defiantly behind the mask, fearless. I chose to conclude my visit on this lasting image.
Filled with references to mythology, Ovid's Metamorphoses, modern plays, the Xenofeminist Manifesto, ..., the exhibition is challenging and requires some brushing up before the visit to fully appreciate it. A flyer is available at the entrance to refresh our memory and provide clues about the show which takes time to absorb. Two of the videos are about thirty minutes long and can be viewed regardless of their chronological order. The solo show is supported by a number of contributors: a Bosnian poet, a Serbian academic for texts and scripts, the only Bosnian female blacksmith for props, and three local artists for punctual performances.
The multi-talented artist, who also performed live in previous venues reaches a wide audience as she rejuvenates the myths we grew up with in light of the Me Too Movement.
In doing so, Raščić appears fearless like her heroins.

photographs by the author

Back Home: Tina Girouard at the Acadiana Center for the Arts

Tina Girouard was born in DeQuincy, Louisiana, in 1946 and graduated with a BFA from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 1968. She then left for New York City and became part of a group of post-modernist artists, among them Keith Sonnier, Lynda Benglis, Dickie Landry who shared her Southern roots. She was involved in films, videos, installations, performances, and her creativity was mainly aimed at "out of the gallery" projects focused on the artists' community like 112 Greene Street, FOOD or PS1. Following the destruction of her studio by fire, she moved back to Louisiana in the eighties. While pursuing her activism, she joined the Pattern and Decoration movement. In the early nineties, she traveled to Haiti and established a studio in Port-au-Prince. She describes her deep connection to her second home in a short statement: "I lost my head and my heart in Haiti."

Parts Known and Unknown curated by Brian Guidry and Mary Beyt at the Acadiana Center for the Arts focuses on the twenty years that followed Girouard's return to the South and features acrylics on canvas and sequins works.

At the start of the show, two black and white video recordings of Girouard's performances at NOMA in 1977 and Graz, Austria, in 1978, accompanied by a short wall text summing up the artist's contribution before the eighties, emphasize the radical turn of her practice following her move back to the South. Stepping further in the gallery, the visitor discovers her paintings and sequins works intermingled along the walls. The dozen acrylics made in the eighties are mostly about Louisiana. Weightless objects represented by stenciled images appear to drift on monochrome backgrounds, resulting in lively compositions like Saturday Night Special, c.1980, a medley of accordions (for the music), shoes (for the dance) and ...guns (for the brawl!), Louisiana on Parade, c.1980, with giant ants, lizards, saws, saxophones,... or Road Kill, c.1980. A subtle humor emanates from most. On a serious note, "OK, I Hope", 1982, refers to space exploration and "Louisiana: Through the Windshield", c.1980, (hung in the hall) the oil industry. It seems that Girouard's Pattern and Decoration period ends abruptly at the start of the next decade. InTools 1992, 1992, she applies her new skills to represent her pop imagery with sequins, but the result appears contrived and dull compared to her lively compositions of flora, fauna, tropical paradise, including a risqué love scene. Her "lwa series" reaches mythical dimensions. Fifteen pieces hung next to each other shimmer in the light with their delicate highly symbolic designs. Each tells a story described in a short wall text. This represents Girouard's tribute to her masters, the flag-makers from Haiti who she also honors in her book "Sequin Artists of Haiti".

The exhibition includes a center piece Lie-No, 1972, which, with the two grainy videos, reminds of the artist's pioneering work. Early on in the seventies, surrounded by the male crowd of the New York art scene, she participated in projects that have now become part of art history but her name is too often omitted. "We were all activists, we were just expressing our ideas and our beliefs with whatever materials we could." And she never ceased to be an activist along her career. The display by mixing two periods, each lasting a decade, avoids monotony and underlines her very personal quest. It also focuses on the artist, whose work is often featured in group shows like "The Five from Louisiana" in 1977 and "Robert Rauschenberg and the Five from Louisiana" in 2015 at NOMA or "Patterns and Prototypes" in 2011 at the Contemporary Art Center.
Thanks to the solo show, Tina Girouard is back home: "I wandered away from the art world over the past twenty years to the Louisiana swamps and Vodoo societies in Haiti."

photographs by the author:
Vodou Drapeau Series "Toussaint All Saints", c.1990
"Louisiana on Parade", c.1980

Back to the Future

The threatened land of South Louisiana is one of the entities where the frailty of our environment can be physically felt and where Dawn Dedeaux found inspiration for her series MotherShip, a reflection on our planet earth and our future.
Following Aboard the MotherShip part 1: Postulations of Myth and Math which took place at the Centre for the Living Arts in Mobile, AL, the latest exhibition at the Acadiana Center for the Arts, MotherShip 2: Dreaming of a Future Past is displayed in a large space, allowing DeDeaux's work to take its full breath. At first sight, the somber colors give a sense of the prevailing bleak mood. The display can be viewed as a whole installation built from stories told in different media, each occupying a dedicated area like Test Tubes, 2010, related to water contamination and its effect on species, Chimes: Burnt Timber, 2005-2013, made with pieces of burned wood from Dedeaux's own studio or Step Home, 2007, a glowing minimalist sculpture symbol of Katrina's aftermath followed by Falling Junk Space with Shoes, 2013 and Back Pack, 2013, relating to recent terrorist activities carried out through everyday objects. If we feel somewhat touched by the allusions to events that concern all of us, our emotions are stirred by Souvenirs of Earth, 2014, a collection of worn out dusty objects which have lost their function but have gained a symbolic value. An old violin case, a broken toy, damaged photographs, the accumulation of  "things" filled with memories evoke abandonment and loss, allowing melancholy to seep in. Should they be left behind? Should they be part of our future? Questions we had to answer too many times following the Katrina disaster.
Hovering above abandoned farm equipment, rings of metal refer to the now defunct airships Zeppelins. In response to the drought and the subsequent food shortage, MotherShips offer an escape to a few so are the fragile ladders made of charred wood or clear glass spread throughout the exhibition. Wall pieces include figurative portraits like Guardian at the Levee Gate or landscapes like Evangeline, dark digital drawings on metal which heighten the eerie atmosphere reinforced by a few splashes of red, color of fire and drama adding to the apocalyptic vision offered by DeDeaux. Comments along the works help the visitor decipher the symbols: rings for the alliance of man and technology, ladders to reach higher consciousness, horse signaling the end of earthly time and triumph over evil... Our gaze is drawn to the centerpiece, a towering life-size sculpture of a horse perched on a high pedestal, vigorous, dynamic and free. A kind of a conclusion to a stirring exhibition which can be seen from a bird view point looking through the glassed mezzanine.
At the present rate of growth the earth will need to sustain nine billion inhabitants in 2045. DeDeaux brings a sense of urgency, an anxiety born from the numbers and the threat of cataclysms looming over our planet. Future Past resounds like a warning, we already have lost control over our future and there is a sense of inevitability in the artist's gloomy premonitions. Confronted to our powerlessness, her answer is a scenario of escape and abandonment.
A century ago, Futurism was a cry for change, action, filled with enthusiasm as opposed to the recent  statement from the philosopher Félix Guattari: "The future has lost its zest and people have lost all trust in it: the future no longer appears as a choice or a collective conscious action, but is a kind of unavoidable catastrophe that we cannot oppose in anyway."
Is there any hope according to DeDeaux? Is the artist describing realities we choose not to see?

photographs by the author:
Views of the exhibition at the ACA

Home in Louisiana

A visit in Lafayette, the Cajun capital, can start at the Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum or the Acadiana Center for the Arts, downtown.
Two Louisiana artists who gained notoriety in the Big Apple and beyond, are home and will be sharing the "University of Louisiana at Lafayette's College of the Arts' 2013 Spark Lifetime Achievement Award" in March.
Known internationally for his neon pieces started in the 60's, Keith Sonnier, born in Mamou, Louisiana, made his way to New York City and became a figure of its blossoming cultural life. Labelled as    Process and Environmental art, his works have been exhibited at the Leo Castelli, Mary Boone and Pace, three famous galleries. Two iconic pieces are on display at the University Art Museum, a work from the Media Series (1992) and Dauralde Abri (2000), a ladder underlined by two green neon tubes leading to a plastic shelter fit for a small non claustrophobic human, curled in a fetal position. Perched on an elevated support, the small cabin made me think of Absalon's cells, a Louisiana version for a swampy ecosystem. In his Media Series piece, antennas, satellite dishes, numbers, words, drawn and painted, fill the nylon stretched on the metal frame of a camping bed. Circles, ellipses, lines, intersect, overlap, interconnect and obscure the void space, a view of the sky or the universe. A unique artist in sync with our time.
Half of the museum's first floor is dedicated to Richard Landry for Dickie Landry's New York: 1969-1979. Born in Cecilia, Louisiana, and currently living in Lafayette, the musician worked in NYC and collaborated with other artists including painters, choreographers, writers, actors. For this exhibition, Landry did print personal photographs of well-known artists he interacted with casually in the course of diverse projects, and provides unique black and white shots of William Burroughs, Richard Serra, Bruce Nauman, Gordon Matta-Clark in his Soho restaurant, Robert Rauschenberg in his Captiva Island studio in Florida or a first hand view of the Philip Glass Ensemble performing in Einstein on the Beach or Dressed Like an Egg. An hypnotic video 1.2.3.4 (1969) experiments with the source of sounds, showing hands, lips and instruments. Two paintings representing Landry's geometric abstract style and a videotaped interview of the artist complete the show, an enlightening exhibition about a multi-talented artist bringing a breath of NYC to the deep South.

The Acadiana Center's guest, Luis Cruz Azaceta, migrated from Cuba at age 18, lived in New York City, fell in love with Louisiana and made it home. The title of his exposition Louisiana Mon Amour tells it all. It is also the title of a new installation. The exhibition starts with known works from his Shifting States Series, 2011. Red, black compact shapes surrounded by white fumes for Iraq and the oldest color, violet, for Egypt, both are oppressive paintings of anonymous, empty, phantom worlds. His newest works keep up with disasters closer to home with Sandy Hook Shooting, 2012 and Boston Bombing 3, 2013. A narrative representation of the events with a caricatural expressionistic rendition of the unfortunate actors for the former and in the latter, an explosion of human pieces enclosed in a magma-like substance with the two shooters isolated in a corner, present a summary of the tragedies.
It seems that Azaceta's world is getting darker and we are reminded of this while looking at a few of his earlier pieces like Transit, 2005, Museum Plan for Edison, 2006 or at the entrance City Painter of Walls, 2009, clashing with their bright colors. Two installations complete the exhibition. Evacuation Highway, 2005, created in the aftermath of the Katrina disaster, shows highways jammed with cars, going nowhere. The highlight  is of course Louisiana Mon Amour, a gathering of recuperated, patched objects, glamorized with punchy, Caribbean colors, a reflection on Louisiana's recovery and a tribute to its
resilient and resourceful inhabitants. Over the years, Azaceta, a member of the Cuban diaspora, has become a Southern artist, preoccupied by the land and its people.

photographs by the author:

"Longhorn Study", 2006, Keith Sonnier (at Octavia Gallery in New Orleans, no photographs allowed at Hilliard Museum)

view of the exhibition "Louisiana Mon Amour", Luis Cruz Azaceta at the Acadiana Center for the Arts

Romanticism in Lafayette

John Hathorn: A Retrospective at the Acadiana Center for the Arts assembles forty works from the 80's till the present and reflects the period during which the artist, born in 1954 in Oxford Mississippi, lived in Louisiana. At first glance, the dominant colors, red and black, hint a romantic flavor to the show.

The installation inspired by the well-known Raft of the Medusa from  Géricault and Shakespeare's play The Tempest takes over the first room. An assemblage of pulleys hanging from the ceiling holds the raft, a wooden plank covered with scattered paintings, sketches, notes, a book, oil can and diverse objects. One can imagine a lonely artist tossed on a sea of emotions, a very romantic theme featuring the heroic individual who transforms his emotions in aesthetic experiences.
Following a tour around the Raft (2012), the paintings on the walls reflect Hathorn's interest with the color red. Among them, A Note on Red, 2000, a blood red thick impasto with a colored sample (the artist's blood?) in a vial hanging from a thread attached to the canvas or Suspension in Red,1985, a red composition interrupted by a dark vertical side with a pencil (the artist's tool?) hanging from a thread. Later in the exhibition, a new series of eleven works, The Cardinalis Sketches, is represented by On Rilke's Fifth Elegy, 2012. Hathorn statement about this series "the color red serves as a point of departure both formally and conceptually" is a testimony of his ongoing fascination with red.
 The Baudelaire Sketches series (2009-2012), The Grammar of Water series from 2006, have the same flavor of Abstract Expressionism and a muddy brown color provides the background of the stormy compositions.
The First Word of a Poem (on Rilke), 2012, The Desire to Paint (on Baudelaire), 1998 and other paintings allude to Hathorn's interest for poetry and his search for correspondence in art. The titles are poetry on their own: The Silence of the Void, The Benefits of the Moon..., some compositions include written lines of poetry.
Looking at the paintings brings the visitor to a second large room centered around a complement to the raft: the artist's work table covered with vials, filled with colored potions, bits and pieces, including a waste basket full of used tubes of paint. The artist shares his most private moments (the act of creation) and gives a sanctified view of the artist in front of his altar.
In the same area, Cardinal, 1996, includes an ironing table covered with oil paints of different colors next to the canvas hung on the wall. Like the writer's notebook filled with scratched, erased, revised words, the painter's gigantic palette is the colored testimony of his labor.
In the same vein, two palette sculptures (1994-1996) covered with a thick impasto (several inches) become tormented landscapes sculpted with a knife.
The search for "the poetry of light", "the sanctity of light" like in Large Bather, 1997, inspired by Rembrandt and Vermeer has been haunting the artist.

The repetitive themes and uniformity of colors generate some boredom as over the years, Hathorn's message and technique have stayed consistent and his lengthy comments next to the works leave no place for humor.

Introduction and conclusion to the show, the raft sums up the retrospective as the word romanticism sums up its content.

(My visit was on the exhibition's last day)

photographs by the author:

Raft, 2012
The Grammar of Water (Twelfth State), 2006
Suspension in Red, 1985
View of the second room