"Buildering: Misbehaving the City" "Buildering" describes overt acts of artistic expression with elements of rebellion against the establishment. It requires an unsanctioned, "in-your-face" attitude, and, more important, it's great fun. There are striking sculptures, exciting videos and photographs of some of the coups that mischievous practitioners have pulled off in the past. One such sculpture is El Barrio, consisting of a number of individual cardboard structures, like boxes, with openings for windows and doors, piled together. The effect is to reference a favela in Rio de Janeiro, or Habitat 67, the model community and housing complex created by Moshe Safdie for Montreal's Expo 1967. El Barrio was created by "Los Carpinteros," the name used by two Cuban artists who collaborate. Brasil, by Hector Zamora, shows an ordinary bicycle, but instead of a pedaler, the seat and indeed the entire bike are loaded with what seem to be terra-cotta bricks with see-through openings. The effect is of massive overload, suggesting industry and development occurring at the expense of the individual, and yet in itself providing an amusing and original sculpture that entertains through its unexpected uniqueness. I especially enjoyed two videos by Sebastian Stumpf in which he demonstrates possibly life-threatening activities. Underground Garage is a video of storefronts and garages, until a garage door starts to come down. At the last possible moment, with split-second timing, Stumpf sprints and throws himself underneath the closing garage door. The effect is exciting. Stumpf tops himself with Bridges, a video of him leaping off urban bridges into a river. This is dangerous and could be disastrous; I found it difficult to watch, though fascinating. Through December 6. Blaffer Art Museum, The University of Houston, 120 Fine Arts Building, 4173 Elgin, 713-743-9521, blafferartmuseum.org. — JJT
"Carole A. Feuerman Solo Exhibition" Hyperrealist art is intended to simulate reality so precisely that the art can easily be mistaken for the real thing, and prime examples are on view at the intimate Octavia Art Gallery. Christina is a life-size sculpture, painted resin, of an attractive, fit woman in a discreet one-piece white bathing suit with orange and yellow designs, and a helmet-style bathing cap. She is turning her face to the sun, which is adroitly simulated by gallery lighting. She wears silver strap-on open shoes with high heels. A few hairs are escaping from the bathing cap. So vivid is the impersonation that a viewer might imagine he had seen her at a pool. Miniature Balance is not life-size, though so real is the illusion that the brain automatically enlarges it. It shows a full-breasted woman in the yoga lotus position, clad in a pale-blue two-piece bikini. Her eyes are closed, her fingers arched gracefully, and there is a realistic wrinkle in the rear of the bathing suit. Butterfly Capri seems life-size, though it portrays just the torso and head. There is a hint of humor — her right hand is lifting the bottom edge of her bathing suit, perhaps because it was binding, or perhaps as an enticement. She is wearing a reflective bathing cap and a one-piece bathing suit. Her eyes are closed, but the work is filled with energy. I loved Miniature Serena, in which a woman wearing a glistening bathing cap clings gently to an inflated rubber inner tube, her eyes closed. She has graceful hands and well-cared-for nails, and seems perfectly at rest, savoring a quiet moment in a vacation that is going well. Through December 5. 3637 West Alabama, Suite 120, 713-877-1810, octaviaartgallery.com. — JJT
The Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden There is a hidden treasure tucked away next to a parking lot, a remarkable collection of majestic sculptures by internationally famed artists, on display behind attractive stone walls in an open-air park; it is the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston's Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden. It was designed and created by Isamu Noguchi, himself a world-famous sculptor, landscape architect and pioneer of modern interior design. The Cullen Sculpture Garden first opened to the public in 1986 — Noguchi had submitted his initial design in 1979, and refined it over the next five years. The garden covers more than one acre, and is carved into a series of outdoor pavilions, separated sometimes by walls, that permit semi-enclosures around some of the sculptures. The exhibition includes more than 25 works from the MFAH collection, as well as selected loans. The sculptures are deliberately eclectic, demonstrating a range of artistic approaches, so there is no theme, except diversity itself. I liked Alexander Calder's giant red metal The Crab, so filled with dynamic energy that, viewed from the right position, it seems it might be moving threateningly. It is just outside MFAH's main building, guarding the entrance. Raymond Duchamp-Villon's The Large Horse is semi-abstract, with some cubistic elements, and roars with its own energy. Frank Stella's Decanter is extremely complex, powerful yet playful, a combination of circles and planes, some jutting out to catch and demand attention. I was mystified by the title Bird (Oiseau) for Joan Miró's massive bronze, since I saw it as an adolescent rhinoceros about to go on a date, hormones aflame. It is witty and great fun. There is more, much more. Ongoing exhibition. 1001 Bissonnet, 713-639-7300, mfah.org. — JJT
"Monet and the Seine: Impressions of a River" As museum-goers, it seems, we can never get enough French Impressionist painting, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is giving us another opportunity to test that proposition with the exhibition "Monet and the Seine: Impressions of a River." The premise of the show is straightforward: Claude Monet (1840-1926), the artist who is perhaps the pre-eminent Impressionist, was born in Paris, through which flows the Seine; he grew up in the Normandy port city of Le Havre, at the mouth of the river; and for most of his life he lived and painted in one place or another along the river — including Giverny, made famous by his presence — taking the river and its banks as the subject of countless paintings, or at least the framework for them. This is the first exhibition to focus squarely at this aspect of his inspiration and output. It floats up and down the Seine through 50-plus beautiful paintings made over almost 40 years. Though in a literal sense Monet painted the river, he wasn't really interested in it as a river. Primarily he was striving to capture the effects of light and color as transformed by nature through days and seasons. There are masterpieces in the show — Argenteuil of 1875, with its two red boats front and center, and The Seine at Lavacourt of 1880, among them. And it reunites the largest number of paintings from the late great "Mornings on the Seine" series to have been brought together anywhere since first exhibited in 1898. Through February 1. 1001 Bissonnet, 713-639-7300, mfah.org — RT
"Postcards from the Trenches: Germans and Americans Visualize the Great War" This exhibition honoring the centennial of the onset of what we now call World War I owes much to the dedication, diligence and talents of the co-curators, Dr. Irene Guenther and Dr. Marion Deshmukh, who marshaled an army of resources to make it possible. The exhibit covers much more ground than simply the postcards. The German artists who served in the war were deeply affected by it, and many went on to portray its horrors in their work. One artist, Otto Dix, recorded his views in satiric and horrifying portraits in War Cripples, 1920, and Wounded Soldier — Autumn 1916. They are powerful indeed. One gifted German artist, Otto Schubert, created art on postcards on a regular basis, sending these home; many of the cards survived, and are included here. Schubert's Evening Mood at the Front captures the loneliness, desolation and deadliness of war in a compelling portrayal. Schubert sometimes wrote messages on the edges of his artistic drawings; one such is Argonne, Captured French, 1916. There are many more by Schubert — look for the jaunty Off to War and the depressing Building a Trench. On the American side, Jules Andre Smith matches Schubert in artistic talent. His Landscape with Soldiers and Trenches, near Thiaucourt, 1918, is frightening, as the trenches horrify with the primitive protection they offer. The title of his Tortured Earth, 1918, describes perfectly the horror of gouging the earth to create military redoubts. Smith captures a softer side in his Rest Area near Neufchateau, as Allied soldiers bathe in a river. The museum offers for $5 an illustrated catalogue prepared by the curators that is very useful. Through February 14. The Printing Museum, 1324 West Clay, 713-522-4652, printingmuseum.org. — JJT
"Raw Material (works by Mari Omori, Kia Neill, and Cassie Normandy White)" Mari Omori first captured my eye — and my imagination — as part of a brilliant two-person show at Total Plaza in July. She is Japan-born, now a Houston resident and educator, and she creates delicate, graceful, surprising art through the use of teabags. I quickly forgot the sheer novelty, as the results stand on their own as art. Here she shows a half-ruff, white, so elegant that it might be worn as a necklace to the opening of a world-famous opera. There is what might be an Australian aborigine's flattened kayak, brown, that looks like wood, but of course it's not. And a gossamer sail hung high that might easily carry Peter Pan to Neverland. Kia Neill shows a graceful, delicate watercolor of a tree, with a strong trunk to anchor it, titled Spore Study #14. She has two interesting still-life sculptures: One, Various Fragments of Fossilized Vessels, consists of delicate, broken shells of eggs, perhaps dinosaurs? The other, Opalized Coral, groups what might be small candlestick holders for tapers. Her small wall-hung Partial Skeleton I liked the least of her work, since it lacked grace and came close to repellent. Cassie Normandy White has a large collage, 88 inches by 60 inches, that is festive and exuberant, with colorful petals and flowers, and the bottom left square totally empty, an act of courage that pays off. She also is showing Populations, composed of 25 small individual works arrayed five across and five down. Each image is a double one, so it yields ten across, but I couldn't summon up enthusiasm for it. Through January 10. Hunter Gather Projects, 5320 Gulfton, Suite 15, 713-664-3302, huntergatherproject.com. — JJT
"Texas Visions of an Earlier Time: An Exhibition of Historic Texas Art" In this very large exhibition, there are two historical paintings. On Texas Waters: USS Constitution captures the wooden-hulled, three-masted frigate on its three-year tour from 1931 to 1934, painted by Paul R. Schumann as it appeared in Galveston Bay. The second is a 1936 portrait by Emma Richardson Cherry of her son-in-law, Major Reid. It shows him to be handsome, in uniform, and its warm tan tones here posit the glamor of war, ignoring for a moment the agony in the trenches. Robert Wood's Hill Country Landscape with Bluebonnets, 1940, is compelling, dominating the gallery's central room. The painting's sky is blue and white, with the field of bluebonnets in the foreground and grassy, rolling hills in the middle. There are strong trees, and the contrast between them and the placid, unassuming beauty of the bluebonnets is powerful. Fall Landscape, 1911, by Hale Bolton, is subdued but riveting. It shows largely bare trees, and long shadows from a sun close to setting. There's only a tiny glimpse of a sky, with the quiet, seductive trees generously spaced apart, leaving ample room for a leisurely ramble. Untitled Landscape (Turquoise Mine), by Ruth Pershing Uhler, is filled with rolling, curved black hills, a New Mexico setting, with one cascading over the other. There is a sliver of sky as well as a few subdued splashes of dark red that indicate houses. The raw power of nature here seems formidable in these black hills, perhaps even threatening, but the curves still entice, and the white mist rising from the valleys outlines the curves and may suggest a glimmer of hope. Through December 20. William Reaves Fine Art, 2143 Westheimer, 713-521-7500, reavesart.com. — JJT
