Capsule Reviews

A picture of our opinions on local exhibitions

Comments (0) By Kelly Klaasmeyer Thursday, Nov 10 2005

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"William Wegman: New Paintings" Everyone knows William Wegman's dog pictures, those witty photographs he stages with his Weimaraners. But Wegman also makes paintings, and his humor runs through this work as well. On view at Texas Gallery, his paintings are built around an assortment of kitschy postcards. Wegman glues them to the canvas and then extends their images with paint, working the disparate collection of images together into compositions. Blue Bays(2004) pieces together a landscape. There's a postcard from some goofily named place in Finland -- oh, wait, they all have goofy names -- and images of the London Bridge, Del Ray Beach, Mount Fuji, the Rockies...Meanwhile, Museum(2005) builds galleries around a bunch of artwork postcards with oddball inserts such as an image of two 1960s-looking women operating massive punch-card machines. Wegman has a great eye for kitsch, and while it can be entertaining to play "find the hidden picture" with the paintings, overall, they aren't successful. Wegman just doesn't do a good job of composing the works around the postcards, and the majority of the paintings feel too awkwardly pieced together. It's not a bad idea, he just doesn't execute it well enough. Through November 12. 2012 Peden, 713-524-1593.