host posted on December 11, 2011 17:14
Art Kaboom
By Catherine D. Anspon
December 12, 2011
Significantly, four in our story signify successful incarnations of spaces that had previously served as other (mostly art) walls; another represents the rebirth of a museum long dormant. We begin with the most important and influential: Devin Borden Gallery, whose arrival along the Isabella Court corridor — joining Inman Gallery, Bryan Miller, Art Palace and Kinzelman Art Consulting — creates critical mass and generates heat from its historic Spanish-styled storefront that once served as the HQ for design doyenne Evelyn Wilson. After an amicable split with his former business partner, the esteemed Hiram Butler, Borden has rapidly yet astutely established a stable of mid-career Texans and national talents that figure on many collectors’ wish lists: Laura Lark, Ted Kincaid, Hilary Wilder, Matthew Sontheimer, Darryl Lauster and Charles Wiese of the mathematical worlds combined with old-master sensibilities (November 5 – January 10). Borden also represents up-and-coming Houston painter Geoff Hippenstiel, who excels at impastoed abstractions, while the gallery’s inaugural show raided art history with a jewel-box presentation of the late Texan Ben Culwell, a favorite of Walter Hopps, whose intimate paintings and drawings document first-hand World War II from U.S. Navy battleships in the Pacific. Significantly, this newcomer’s Saturday-afternoon openings have revived the entire Isabella complex.
Two others in repurposed digs are D.M. Allison and Gallery Two1Four. The former is owned and directed by artist/printmaker Dan Mitchell Allison (whose other thriving space is Heights 11th Street nexus Nau-haus Gallery). This homespun gallerist has taken over a Colquitt-Gallery Row ranch-style casa that once was a residence. In place of home furnishings, DMA hangs under-recognized Texans such as Perry House, a seminal player in the history of Houston painting. Allison’s other contribution? Publishing engaging catalogs for shows at both his spaces, thus challenging other gallerists to do the same.
Then there’s new downtown destination Gallery Two1Four, whose moniker does not, contrary to that number, reflect Dallas associations. The name is actually taken from its 214 Travis Street address. Owned by dapper Houston/New York art advisor Beau Mann and directed by creative type Hal Kuehn, Two1Four brings an idiosyncratic vibe to the hallowed walls that were once home to the now-shuttered Doug Lawing Gallery. Its opening act? An exuberant reprisal of Houston designer Kelly Gale Amen’s furniture, complete with a floor carpeted with real grass, dramatically wilting roses and palm fronds sprouting everywhere. The outrageous display did not dim the fact that KGA’s forged-metal tables and benches are fabricated at one of the oldest ironworks in America and wrought with a skill and simplicity that rival the furnishings unearthed at Pompeii (through November 30)...
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