he new Nasher Sculpture Center collection in their high-techy downtown space is semi-spectacular, but darned few local or Texas artists are represented.

Luckily, we've seen a variety of intended and unintended responses to the Nasher and its ubiquitous publicity.

Of those, Angstrom's is by far the best and most varied. Unlike the big deal in Dallas' so-called Arts District, Angstrom's Another Sculpture Show, is small, smart, subtle and witty.

Unfortunately, if the Nasher has a sense of humor, it doesn't show.

 

Matt Johnson - Life's a Beach, 2003
resin, sand and fiberglass, 21 x 27 x 32 inches

 

Facing Angstrom's front door, Bill Davenport's 30-inch high Hazard promises this will not be your Uncle Ray's Sculpture show. It is a wood post with nails hamered in, rotten and other natural textures, all painted light blue, creating a simple and less than subtle statement about how simple sculpture can be.

The crow looks like it comprises variously bent crow bars, and the zebra behind it so barely inches off the flat of the wall, the gallery doesn't even list that dimension.

The sand castle is disheveling on the back side and reminds us not only that many people make art, but that the stuff doesn't necessarily last.

Bill Davenport's Bat Man is in barely recognizable meltdown, while around the galleries, various toys in various states of dis and re repair, and a rickety metal cart full of multicolored umbrellas all iterate and reiterate the message that sculpture need not be a difficult medium to create or understand, but that it can be fun trying.

Speaking of which, Alan Reid's Capsized Model (near top) is simultaneously laugh out loud funny, shocking, tragic, dismaying, realistic, human scale and not at all.

 

As odd duckly spectacular as that was, the piece that kept me tuned in and circling the longest was Erik Swenson's entrancingly enigmatic and gravity defying, little white dog counterbalancing a large, red flocked lined, swirling dark cape on his right hind leg.

 

 

expected more from the Dallas Center for Contemporary Art, although I wasn't too surprised to find their show full of out-of-towners, overly adulatory and kinda empty. Not counting the trailer out front, the most complex piece was a streamlined projection device playing very ordinary scenes from the Nasher.

 

Parked up against the outside of the gallery space was the same Airstream trailer we explored at Dunn & Brown Contemporary (that word again) last year. Nice to get anothe chance to shoot its interior(above), but it's essentially old news.

 

The show inside, except for the futuristic projector and John Calaway's also old-news deja views, fabric topped square frame with four openable doors (bottom of page), was best served as a large, conceptually sculpture, nearly empty space (below). That show continues through December 20

 

 

ater, when I wasn't really looking for art — busy instead, escaping the visicitudes of real life, I wandered into familiar territory across town, stumbling onto Dallas artist Marla Ziegler's elegant shapes floating on and exploding across the walls at Craighead-Green.

 

Left, just inside the front door, was this site-specific installation of big, reverberating, short-waves, blue sunlight on the out (left) side, red tungston light on the in (right) side and mudlike, shadowy reflections feeding back and forth from nearby pieces in the middle. I thought of waterfalls and pasta with wiggling, dripping shadows.

On top of this page and just to the right, coming in Craighead-Green, was a 3 x 3-unit matrix of dark, rounded, relief shapes — Shadow Musesl. Intriguing textures in dimensionally shallow but sculpturally deep space.

At any art show, I tend to think about my favorites, sometimes an impossible task. But here, in this fantasy calliope of horn shapes splayed across this bright corner, each belts out a different sound in a a bright, circus blast of harmonic noise.

I tried to photograph the 65 x 30 x 7.5 inch explosion of alternating texture-topped and plain color topped bowls on the right wall inside the C-G office, called Strix. But my flash destroyed the subtle shadows and the natural light fall off into darkness at the top and bottom. Guess you'll just have to go see it.

 

Marla Ziegler - Black Tie - 15.5 x 28 x 2.25 inches

 

I also struggled with the big mix of indoor and outdoor light in this parallel play of black, textured, seedlike shapes, whose color is jet black and dimensional textures are more subtle than shown here. Marla's show continues through November 29

 

 

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