Matto is open!

Look!

Summer Film Series at the Blanton-
Beginning Thursday June 18th at 7pm the Blanton and the Austin Film Festival will be presenting five films in the auditorium.
For more information go here!

Listen!

KUT's Julie Moody interviews the new Blanton Director Ned Rifkin:
http://kut.org/items/show/16953

Julius Shulman Film Screening

Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman is being screened this Saturday night at 7pm, in the Blanton's auditorium. The museum is staying open until 8pm, but if you can't get here early enough to see the exhibition AND the movie, then bring your receipt with you on Sunday for admission to the exhibition on it's last day in Austin.

Click here to watch the trailer: http://www.juliusshulmanfilm.com/trailer-gallery/

Big News!!

Ned Rifkin Appointed Director Of The Blanton Museum of Art

Landmarks

This is a great video from OnCampus Multimedia showing some of the installation of the Landmark sculptures on UT campus. You may recognize a couple familiar faces, including our very own Matt Winters...

http://www.utexas.edu/oncampus/2009/04/06/landmarks/


Mark di Suvero's Clock Knot













image by Ben Aqua

We're Cool

USA TODAY's Spring art roundup: Top museum shows across the USA

The Next Third Thursday is on May 21!

Join us for Third Thursday, a monthly themed event that features extended hours and multiple programs.

6:00pm Artistic License: WorkSpace artist Lisi Raskin will give a special gallery talk.
6:30pm Yoga in the Galleries
7:00pm Blanton Book Club: The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean
7 & 8pm Art Brief Tour: Art & Memory
More Info

Don't miss a special "Birth of the Cool" film series sponsored by the Alamo Drafthouse and Austin Film Society. In celebration of the Blanton exhibition, the Alamo Ritz downtown will screen unique films from the 1950s West Coast.

Time:	7-9 p.m.
Description:	Third in the film series is "Visual Acoustics," a 2008 study of the architectural photography of Julius Shulman. 83 min. followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Eric Bricker.
Location:	Alamo Drafthouse, The Ritz, 320 E Sixth St.
Admission:	More about this event... $8.50, $6.25 for students

Birth of the Cool Film Series
Wednesdays, March 25, April 1, April 8, and April 15, 7 PM
Sponsored by the Alamo Drafthouse and the Austin Film Society, the series features unique films from this period. On March 25 enjoy "Designing the Cool," a series of shorts by designers/filmmakers Charles and Ray Eames, along with a film on title designer, Saul Bass. All shows will take place at the Alamo Ritz downtown begin at 7 PM. For ticket information and upcoming film titles, click here.

Birth of the Cool Jazz Series at the Elephant Room
Saturday, March 28, 9:30 PM
Featuring Kat Edmonson
Visit Austin's premier jazz club for a special series highlighting music from the 1950s West Coast. For a list of upcoming shows click here. The Elephant Room is located at 315 Congress Ave., $5 cover

Congrats Mike!!

You may know Mike Castillo, one of our tech crew, from the Blanton rack card 'Our perspective' or you may just know him :)

Tell him congratulations on grandbaby #5!
sweet Kayla Elizabeth, 15in 14 oz, was born during Obama's inauguration.

ahh... Birth of the Cool

Besides being wildly popular, there are a plethora of events around town in conjunction with the exhibit. Some of which are located at Austin's famous Elephant Room.

Next up- Kat Edmonson 3/28 9:30pm
http://www.myspace.com/katedmonson
http://www.elephantroom.com/

A great video from Sam Sanford-

'Walkthrough of Lisi Raskin's installation at the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas, with behind-the-scenes footage and audio from an interview with the artist.'

Special Talk by Blanton WorkSpace Artist, Lisi Raskin

Date: Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Time: 5:00 PM
Location: Art 1.102
Free Admission

In 2008, artist Lisi Raskin took a road trip to various nuclear test sites across the country. This trip inspired and generated a series of artistic projects, one of which will be on display at the Blanton Museum of Art this spring as part of the museum’s WorkSpace series (March 6 – June 21). In this free lecture, Lisi will discuss her work, which investigates zones of power, such as military defense systems and residual Cold War anxieties, which resonate with our current cultural and political climate.

Born in Miami, Florida in 1974, Raskin received her MFA from Columbia University, New York in 2003. She has exhibited internationally in solo and group exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, Glasgow, Milan and Stockholm, and Luxembourg.

John Mark Sager Show at Hooks-Epstein

One of our tech crew members currently has an amazing exhibit up in Houston-
The Bookeeper on display through Feb 14.
There is a gallery talk with John on Saturday, January 31, 2009 at 12:30 pm.
Hooks-Epstein Galleries

John also participated in The Texas Chair Project on display at Austin Museum of Art until Feb 8

check it

http://kut.org/items/show/15386

tem·po·rar·y -1. lasting, existing, serving, or effective for a time only; not permanent:

Don't miss out, they're leaving soon!
Our current temporary exhibits Reimagining Space and The New York Graphic Workshop: 1964-1970 are closing on January 18th.

Here are some press we've had recently on the shows:
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/review?oid=oid%3A721403
http://www.e-flux.com/shows/view/6235




...and in other news
For those of you missing Dan Boehl's awesome blogging skills, as we all are, you can find him now writing for "...might be good"
where we can keep up with his Austin art scene insights:
http://www.fluentcollab.org/mbg/index.php/reviews/review/109/79

Oy!

We've been so neglectful of the Blanton Blog, but we have a decent excuse (sort of). For those of you not around Austin to hear the hubbub, the Edward A. Smith building is now open.
Complete with a glorious new museum shop, yummy cafe, and room for all sorts of fun.

Here are some images from the opening:
http://www.austin360.com/arts/mediahub/media/slideshow/index.jsp?tId=130810

Triple Duh.

Yesterday I posted the daily entry for my blog on the Blanton's blog. Embarrassing, for real. You are all going, Home Shopping... wha? When is B Scene!?

Well, these things happen. I am a beginner. If you like to watch amateurs check out:

http://jillpangallo.blogspot.com/

It is art related after all... the blog's main function is to be a personal sounding board while I am developing a solo performance project to be shown next Spring.

Anyways, pardon. And a big shout out to Dan Boehl. Who makes blogging look like blinking. No big deal. In a good way, no big deal.

Ciao for now.
jillp

Out Out

Dear Readers,

I will be leaving the Blanton Museum as of Monday to pursue other facets of my non-profit/art-administration career. As a result, I will no longer be posting on Inside the Box. I haven't always been the best poster, often missing weeks on end, but I enjoyed posting here, and I hope you took a little pleasure in what I wrote.

The "Dear Readers" address started as a joke. I never thought anyone would read this Blog. Now I think there are a couple of you out there. At least Kate Watson is out there reading (and Bob Anderson), and maybe some others.

Anyway, thanks for reading.

Sincerely,

Dan Boehl

Art Writing in Austin

Dear Readers,

It was only yesterday I was hanging out at Okay Mountain while my wife was taking pictures of her show there, when Josh Rios started expressing his concern over the lack of critical writing in Austin. It seems that just a few months ago there were more writers reviewing art in Austin. Now there are hardly any at all.

For example, my wife, Anna Krachey, was featured in 3 shows in Austin this summer and not a single review was written about any of them.

I won't give you a litany of my concerns over the state of art writing. I won't name any names, though you can see part of the problem when you leaf the unending movie reviews in the Thursday Rag. Are movie reviews more important than the art community?

Okay, so the reason that I am writing this post is because Ivan Lozano wrote on the Glass Tire Blog about his frustration with the Austinist. Check it out. He also gives a nice little shout out to the Blanton's own Brady Dyer.

Check out the comments. What the comments step around but don't directly address is that 1) Ivan is very active in writing and posting about art (also showing and being a part of various artists collectives (he is doing his best folks)) 2) there are not enough paid art writing gigs in town 3) the writers who are writing are lacking in a certain amount of intellectual rigor 4) critical coverage of shows is spotty at best, nonexistent at worst, and no one seems to be doing anything about it.

Final note, during that conversation I had with Josh last night, he pointed out that it was pointed out to him that rigorous art criticism is a byproduct of a healthy scene, is the last thing to arise, and , like in every market, you get what you pay for.

$4 gas, nude descending a staircase, a poem, and 100 years of art

Dear Readers,

I was standing up in the eLounge today, gazing over the majestic view that separates the Blanton, the Texas State History Museum, and the Texas Capitol, and I was struck by how much a gold and silver RV driving down Martin Luther King looked like "A Nude Descending a Staircase". The RV was even pulling one of those little SUV-like cars that people like, the Dodge "Ugly" in the very same color pattern of the famous Duchamp mentioned above.

I was not only flabbergasted by the brazen consumption embodied by this vehicle, I was also struck with breathless awe. Can you imagine how rich this retiree must be to be able to cruise this thing down MLK (from Alabama no less)? An RV gets 10 mpg at the most! 6 if it is pulling that SUV-like Dodge "Ugly".

Me being a literary man, I thought to put such a brilliant metaphor in a poem, but alas I already used the "Nude Descending a Staircase" in a poem, likening the swaying clothing on Dry Cleaning racks to the nude her/his self. It went a little like this:

Proper Hero of Chinese Laundry

I went to the all night dry cleaners
to get my shirt for the divorce.
Ching-Ying behind the counter,
a man cursed with beautiful daughters,
asked me the meaning of life.
He took my ticket. When he spun the automatic rack
the clothes wobbled though the air like ghosts
or a recurring dream of ghosts that blended together
like a nude descending a staircase.
“To keep going,” I said, though I didn’t mean it.
He opened his fat forearms in a Buddha pose
as I buttoned the starched front
beneath the plastic. He said,
“Life too short to play free bird.”

Well, there is an economics professor from the University of Chicago who ranked the 25 greatest works of 20th century art by counting how many times their images appeared in text books. Remember those old art history textbooks that reproduced images in black and white? Now students watch power point presentations.

Also, the Olympics are beginning Friday, and there is still too much pollution in the Beijing air. You surprised? I guess what depresses me, is that once the Olympics are over, China will go back to business as usual.

We're All in Love with Dying and We're Doing it in Texas

Dear Readers,

Another little thing to do tonight is to check out the photographs, yes photographs (in Austin?) of Jesse Butcher at the Mass Gallery. Be sure to bring your self-refrigerating flipflops, because it is hotter than devil snot in that place!

Press Release

Butcher's works examine the repercussions of modern masculinity in the male psyche. The artifacts and images are tangible reflections of physical, emotional or metaphoric wounds. The iconography acts as a catalyst for the modern males "walkabout" to discover a more substantial sense of meaning and purpose. Combining a modern males' apotheosis for the Southern Gothic and the psychologically violent climate of America, the personal mythologies explore the psychological hinterland at the core of a fear based culture where instability, exploitation and violence are ever present.

Jesse Butcher
b. 1982 Memphis, TN
B.F.A. Rhode Island School of Design 2005

Justin Goldwater at Domy Books

Dear Readers,

Austin arthead Justin Goldwater is blowing town so he can attend grad school. Just another in a long line of doers and shakers we've lost to the ivory tower in the last few months.

Come out tonight and say goodbye to ol'Goldwater at Domy books. You'll be glad you did!