"Nathan Green: Fill the Sky" Art Palace is one of our favorite galleries, but we just don't get Nathan Green's current show "Fill the Sky." Some of the 25 abstract, mixed-media works score on their own, like Gradients, a conglomeration of black-and-white cylindrical forms that has a real sense of action in its composition, and Migration, a similar grouping of shapes with frenetic energy. But taken together, it feels like too much is on display. Abstract works can veer into embarrassing, this-is-bullshit territory, and some of the stuff here unfortunately does. It should have been edited. One wall is cluttered with paintings of various sizes with no discernible method or structure in its installation. Another entire gallery wall has been painted in columns of gradient green and blue stripes with a few paintings hung to it. It looks good, and it's a puzzling technique, but there's a messiness to it (as well as in several other works) that gives off a slapdash, kindergarten-chic vibe. It's a strange hybrid of a conceptual installation and an everything-must-go blowout sale. Through July 2. 3913 Main, 281-501-2964. — TS
"Voodoo Pop: Mary Hayslip and Trey Speegle" This retrospective exhibition embodies three decades of Trey Speegle and Mary Hayslip's friendship, featuring items from their personal collections, paintings, collage, textile works, bits of correspondence and photos. After bonding with Hayslip in late-'70s Houston, Speegle relocated to NYC in 1980, but he and Hayslip remained friends for over 30 years while continuing their art careers. Speegle's work dominates the show, especially selections of his poppy paint-by-numbers pieces, which re-purpose vintage paint-by-numbers canvases to imagine hidden messages embedded within them — like You Who (self portrait), an image of a clown with the title text spelled in the exposed numbered outlines of the painting's surface. Other standout work includes Gold Carolyn, a portrait of Carolyn Farb from a 1981 Speegle show called "RePOP," which was a kind of Warholian take on Houston celebs including Marvin Zindler, Lynn Wyatt and Dominique de Menil; Hayslip's laminated magazine-paper flowers; and a display case with postcards, small sculptures, jewelry and photos of the two artists during the '80s. It's a sweet selection of artifacts from a friendship in art. Through June 24. Art League Houston, 1953 Montrose, 713-523-9530. — TS
"Wendy Wagner: Once Uponse a Time in the Land of O-Poppida" 2008 Hunting Prize winner Wendy Wagner makes fantasy-world imagery from the childlike realm of puppy dogs and cartoons. In early 2008, she presented her animated short The Eternity of a Second in DiverseWorks' "Flicker Fusion" video exhibit. That video (and others), as well as framed still images from Eternity and sculpture based on its content, appears in this show alongside a series of recent mixed-media paintings depicting children and animals. Sgt. Rock is a portrait of the artist's stepson posing with a Gatorade squirt bottle, binoculars hanging around his neck, wearing sunglasses with a large blue-glass bowl over his head like a helmet. It's as if he's prepared to hike the apple-green mountain range in the background. Me-and-ma Brownie Bling is another humorous portrait. A little blond girl in Brownie uniform smiles for her picture, revealing a gold front tooth. As in Sgt. Rock and Wagner's other child portraits on display, her subjects are surrounded by a rusticated comic-book-style border, adding a heightened mythical quality to the imagery. Through June 9. Darke Gallery, 320 Detering, 713-542-3802. — TS
"The Whole World Was Watching: Civil Rights-Era Photographs" This selection of photography from a collection given to the Menil by Edmund Carpenter and Adelaide de Menil documents the civil rights struggles of the late '50s and early '60s, when the exhibit's title phrase, "The Whole World Was Watching," was adopted by activists and political groups as a rallying cry for change. It refers, of course, to the advent of television and the ability for wide dissemination of images depicting racial injustice in the southern United States. The exhibit documents the signs of segregation, the presence of the KKK, battles with law enforcement and the cruel practice of blasting protesters with water from high-pressure fire hoses, and it also displays the nonviolent marches, moments of solidarity and other images that embody the race relations of the times, as seen through the lenses of six photographers. Bruce L. Davidson's Woman being held by two policemen captures a protester being detained in front of a movie theater whose marquee adds intriguing commentary to the image. A young African-American man in whiteface, with the word "vote" written across his forehead, marches in another photo by Davidson. And Martin Luther King Jr. happily shakes hands with women from his car in Leonard Freed's image Maryland. They're just a few of the extraordinary images on display. Through September 25. Menil Collection, 1515 Sul Ross, 713-525-9400. — TS
