Amita Bhatt's "Desire, Motives, Assassins," 2014, at Deborah Colton Gallery
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Amita Bhatt's "Where Joy Forever Dwells. Hail Horrors. Hail Infernal World (John Milton in Paradise Lost)," 2014, at Deborah Colton Gallery
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Amita Bhatt's "Counterfeit Realities," 2014, at Deborah Colton Gallery
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Amita Bhatt's "A Fantastic Collision of the Three Worlds V," 2009, at Deborah Colton Gallery
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Amita Bhatt's "A Fantastic Collision of the Three Worlds XXIX," (detail), 2017, at Deborah Colton Gallery
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Amita Bhatt's "A Fantastic Collision of the Three Worlds XX," (detail), 2013, at Deborah Colton Gallery
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Gallerist Deborah Colton, artist Amita Bhatt at opening night of "Between Light and Shadow." (Photo by CDA)
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8,000 paper plates comprise Abhidnya Ghuge's site-specific installation for "Site Lines: Artists Working in Texas," at Asia Society Texas Center. (Photo by Paul Hester)
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Installation view of Prince Varughese Thomas' works for "Site Lines: Artists Working in Texas," at Asia Society Texas Center. (Photo by CDA)
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A wall of Beili Liu's nature-informed work at Asia Society Texas Center. (Photo by CDA)
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Museum-goers take in work by Abhidnya Ghuge at the opening reception for Asia Society Texas Center's "Site Lines: Artists Working in Texas." (Courtesy Asia Society Texas Center)
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Installation view of Prince Varughese Thomas at "Site Lines: Artists Working in Texas" at Asia Society Texas Center (Photo by Paul Hester)
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Abhidnya Ghuge's "Sunsets of the Wise," 2018, at Asia Society Texas Center (Courtesy the artist)
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Ambreen Butt's "Abdul Wasit (17)," 2018, at Asia Society Texas Center (Courtesy the artist)
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Beili Liu's "Affine/Fragment #1-3 (Triptyc)," 2012, at Asia Society Texas Center (Courtesy the artist)
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Still from Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba's "The Master and the Slave: Inujima Monogatari," 2013, at Asia Society Texas Center (Courtesy the artist and Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo)
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Dallas-based duo Chuck & George solo at Galveston Arts Center. (Courtesy the artists)
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Chuck & George's "Beware the Melting Parfait of Flattery III," 1970, at Galveston Arts Center
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Chuck & George's "Feline Epidermis," 2019, at Galveston Arts Center
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Chuck & George's "Catbutt Parfait Props" at Galveston Arts Center
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Chuck & George's droll installation at Galveston Arts Center, "C & G Situation," 2013. (Photo by CDA)
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The opening wall of Chuck & George's "Cat Butt Parfait" certainly makes a statement at Galveston Arts Center. (Photo by CDA)
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A witty sculpture with a feline theme by Chuck & George at Galveston Arts Center. (Photo by CDA)
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Checking out the Chuck & George action at Galveston Arts Center. (Photo by CDA)
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Chuck & George's "Epidermis Tondo," 2019, at Galveston Arts Center. (Photo by CDA)
Amita Bhatt's "Desire, Motives, Assassins," 2014, at Deborah Colton Gallery
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Amita Bhatt's "Where Joy Forever Dwells. Hail Horrors. Hail Infernal World (John Milton in Paradise Lost)," 2014, at Deborah Colton Gallery
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Amita Bhatt's "Counterfeit Realities," 2014, at Deborah Colton Gallery
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Amita Bhatt's "A Fantastic Collision of the Three Worlds V," 2009, at Deborah Colton Gallery
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Amita Bhatt's "A Fantastic Collision of the Three Worlds XXIX," (detail), 2017, at Deborah Colton Gallery
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Amita Bhatt's "A Fantastic Collision of the Three Worlds XX," (detail), 2013, at Deborah Colton Gallery
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Gallerist Deborah Colton, artist Amita Bhatt at opening night of "Between Light and Shadow." (Photo by CDA)
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8,000 paper plates comprise Abhidnya Ghuge's site-specific installation for "Site Lines: Artists Working in Texas," at Asia Society Texas Center. (Photo by Paul Hester)
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Installation view of Prince Varughese Thomas' works for "Site Lines: Artists Working in Texas," at Asia Society Texas Center. (Photo by CDA)
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A wall of Beili Liu's nature-informed work at Asia Society Texas Center. (Photo by CDA)
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Museum-goers take in work by Abhidnya Ghuge at the opening reception for Asia Society Texas Center's "Site Lines: Artists Working in Texas." (Courtesy Asia Society Texas Center)
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Installation view of Prince Varughese Thomas at "Site Lines: Artists Working in Texas" at Asia Society Texas Center (Photo by Paul Hester)
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Abhidnya Ghuge's "Sunsets of the Wise," 2018, at Asia Society Texas Center (Courtesy the artist)
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Ambreen Butt's "Abdul Wasit (17)," 2018, at Asia Society Texas Center (Courtesy the artist)
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Beili Liu's "Affine/Fragment #1-3 (Triptyc)," 2012, at Asia Society Texas Center (Courtesy the artist)
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Still from Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba's "The Master and the Slave: Inujima Monogatari," 2013, at Asia Society Texas Center (Courtesy the artist and Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo)
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Dallas-based duo Chuck & George solo at Galveston Arts Center. (Courtesy the artists)
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Chuck & George's "Beware the Melting Parfait of Flattery III," 1970, at Galveston Arts Center
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Chuck & George's "Feline Epidermis," 2019, at Galveston Arts Center
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Chuck & George's "Catbutt Parfait Props" at Galveston Arts Center
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Chuck & George's droll installation at Galveston Arts Center, "C & G Situation," 2013. (Photo by CDA)
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The opening wall of Chuck & George's "Cat Butt Parfait" certainly makes a statement at Galveston Arts Center. (Photo by CDA)
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A witty sculpture with a feline theme by Chuck & George at Galveston Arts Center. (Photo by CDA)
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Checking out the Chuck & George action at Galveston Arts Center. (Photo by CDA)
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Chuck & George's "Epidermis Tondo," 2019, at Galveston Arts Center. (Photo by CDA)
Those in Houston this summer have been rewarded with dual exhibitions that challenge art norms via the interweaving of beauty and activism. Both exhibits feature artists with connections to the Asian continent.
A third combines a sense of the grotesque, ridiculous, and surreal — alongside one of the most popular subjects in the entire art world, and on social media. Read on.
Asia Calling
Talk about timeliness, and a respite — and a response — to the current climate of xenophobia.
A museum and a gallery both spin stories of diversity around artists of Asian descent who are connected to our community and state.
At Asia Society Texas Center, “Site Lines: Artists Working in Texas,” curated by the museum’s Bridget Bray, culls five visual talents from China, India, Japan, Pakistan and Vietnam who incorporate varied media, practices and materials to address immigration, identity, and sociopolitical and cultural concerns.
As the title indicates, this quintet all make their respective homes in Texas.
Easter Tabletop
Swipe
The two takeaways in the pristine space of the Asia Society are serene, commanding installations, both with hidden depths. One references Iraqi deaths in the ongoing war, and the other, a personal relationship evidencing the fragility of life.
Houston-based Prince Varughese Thomas and Tyler-based Abhidnya Ghuge respectively employed 195,000 copper pennies and 8,000 paper plates — their scene-stealers were created with the help of a dozen local volunteers.
The resulting artworks by Thomas and Ghuge would be the talk of any town, including even jaded Manhattan — and underscore Asia Society’s new commitment to becoming a destination for contemporary art in the Houston museum mix. For “Site Lines” is the rare show that is a match to Asia Society’s Yoshio Taniguchi gem of a building.
Installation view of Prince Varughese Thomas at “Site Lines: Artists Working in Texas” at Asia Society Texas Center (Photo by Paul Hester)
Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba, an international filmmaker residing in Houston who’s a veteran of many biennials, uses baseball as a metaphor to tell the history of the art-centric Japanese island of Inujima.
Rounding out the exhibition are complex, instinctual collages by Austin-area Ambreen Butt and nuanced hand-cut paper and graphite drawings by UT Austin professor Beili Liu that pulse with quiet energy.
Wondrous Wall Works
In the gallery world, former Texas painter Amita Bhatt returns from her native India to exhibit canvases featuring her signature mythology informed by the Indian subcontinent in “Between Light and Shadow” at Deborah Colton Gallery.
Amita Bhatt’s “A Fantastic Collision of the Three Worlds V,” 2009, at Deborah Colton Gallery
The whip-like lines of the drawings within Bhatt’s paintings, rendered against simple backgrounds, conjure beings within a world.
While her paintings are very good indeed — displaying mythological creatures and deities rendered in the rich, lapidary tones of the Indian subcontinent — it’s the drawings that linger in the consciousness. Made with charcoal and oil stick on what appears to be un-primed canvas, they are fantastical at every turn, evidencing an intuitive grasp of the concept of horror vacui spun into its most anthropomorphic conclusion.
Titillating Title
What do you say about an exhibition whose title alone stops us in our tracks.
That’s certainly the case at Galveston Arts Center, where curator Dennis Nance brings the Dallas duo Chuck & George — aka Brian K. Jones and Brian K. Scott — to town for their Houston debut.
At Galveston Arts Center, Chuck & George’s very strange installation made for some startling social media. (Photo by CDA)
For this grand solo, “Cat Butt Parfait,” the collaborators and real-life partners invoke painting, sculpture, drawing, ceramics, furniture and installation vignettes, including a participatory photo backdrop of the oddest nature, to offer an ode to “the ecosystem of domestic feline digestion.”
There’s also a message about gay rights manifested here.
The unforgettable parfait that is “Cat Butt Parfait” signals one of the most captivating exhibitions in a string of strong shows that Nance has curated since picking up the scepter from former GAC talent scout, the iconic Clint Willour, almost three years ago.