The annual 500X Open Show is one of my favorites in all
of Dallas art history. Over the years, this one show has introduced
many fine and terrible young and old artists. Anybody with the
entrance fee can exhibit here, and it's always a great opportunity
and an odd mix of quality.
Quantity is up this year,
which means 500X will be better off than in some years past and
might be willing to take more risks over the next year, which
would be good for the whole Dallas art scene. It also means it
takes longer to find the better stuff. But there's lots to see
in this amazing show.
There is, for example,
a giant ramming, red-tipped phallus, complete with heavy-equipment
operator's chair and controls built into the small end. It's
crude, not entirely rude and takes up a lot of room, but it doesn't
advance any standards of quality for art or this show. In fact,
it fits right in.
A work in a similar vein
that does push the envelope while manifesting remarkable quality
is a too-small, but superbly executed digital collage, Flesh Bonnet by Ken
Shaddock that hangs
on the brick wall outside the small, enclosed, special projects
gallery, near the front stairs.
Comprising recognizable,
porn-like elements into a classic, architectural composition,
it balances gender appreciation for body parts with an almost
prim propriety that manages -- especially in an environment splattered
with the above image -- not to overtly offend.
There's also the usual
assortment of naked females, but this is, by no means, any more
a sex-obsessed exhibition than any of the others listed in this
calendar.
The special project room
has become quite the room for open show photographs, forming
over the last couple of years, a mini exhibition in the tradition
of the old Allen Street Gallery, just up the street. The Open
Show has neither the stellar heights nor abysmal lowths of bygone
eras at the Big X, but it still offers a great cross-section
of art in Dallas.
One
of my favorite works here is Linda D Stoke's Sacred Heart of Che acrylic ( Left ), which combines the disparate clichés of
the fatigue uniformed Ernesto
Che Guevara, his
red-starred beret, and that exposed, crimson, muscular organ
whose name we apply to so many divergent emotions. We usually
only see exposed organs like this in religious art depicting
Jesus or the BVM. Hardly subtle, but oddly effective.
This martyred Che's exposed,
multi- veined and arteried pumper is, in turn, intersticed with
Cupid -- or some other assassin -- maybe the CIA's -- arrow.
An amazing amalgum of intersecting icons in vivid red and green.
Is there maybe a little
of Elvis in there, too? It wouldn't be his first entry at the
X's Open. At least I didn't see any drippy Michael Jacksons or
sanctified Martin Luther Kings, whose previous, semi-precious
portraits have been this historical exhibition's most purloined
paintings...
Another favorite is this ( right ) subtly-toned photogram by Marie Van Arsdale. Inexplicably titled The Ghost of the Cavalry, this impossibly large, camera-less
photograph is mysterious and elegant, in a room full of intriguing
photographic art.
My own theory is that the
better works are hung downstairs may be historically accurate
or it may just be my opinion. Years ago the X crew admitted they
hung the really awful stuff up the back stairway, but that space
is empty now.
Things are grimmer upstairs.
But then, this show has never been known for its overall finesse
or subtleties. It's an individualist's show, with lots of shining
gems and lots of dreck. But probably no two of us would agree
which are which. - JRC
