CAM's formal call for entries to all artists over 21 and its team of international curators served to galvanize the art community. As a result, over 6,500 slides were submitted by artists who had not been given the opportunity to exhibit work in CAM's upstairs gallery for several years.
The curators, however, weren't satisfied with the response and went outside the original stated parameters of the exhibition, making studio visits to artists who didn't submit work. Later on, they invited artists into the exhibition who never submitted materials, but were chosen simply to round out the theme of the show and cover their bases. Tell me, after viewing thousands of slides, was death the overriding image? Or was the "gray area" so limiting that the curators had to disregard the original prospectus to find what they were really looking for all along? Doroshenko says that the theme became evident only after traveling thousands of miles and visiting hundreds of studios. After all this, they saw "something." Never mind that a fifth curator was added to the project mid-stream without so much as a press release.
And when did the show change from a juried to a curated exhibition? Notices were received piecemeal by artists, many of whom were left hanging as to whether they'd be lucky enough to receive a studio visit. Upon acceptance into "Between Two Worlds," some artists were given the option to create new work specifically for the show. As a result, one-third of the artists received partial subsidies from the CAM, clearly showcasing some artists over others (this brings up the thorny notion of curators as "set directors" who leave an imprint on a show, if not on the artist's esthetic development).
Moreover, twelve out of the 15 artists have some sort of Houston affiliation -- six live here and six are represented or shown at Houston galleries. Perhaps the five curators didn't need to leave the city to organize this show after all. Worse still, there's no catalog essay to state the process or clarify the theme. Missing too are the curators' statements regarding their interpretations of the art produced in Texas. (Doroshenko says they all went on vacation. He also says he feels that juror's statements are "hokey.") But those statements help us make sense of an exhibition and a specific period of time long after the work has been taken down and forgotten. Futhermore, the possibility that the show would travel to Canada and Mexico was supposedly nixed because of "logistics" and the strain on CAM's budget.
What we're presented with, then, is a show that manages to alienate the artists and community at large. At a cost of a couple of hundred thousand dollars (including the thousands spent on the curators' travel expenses and honoraria, installation, slick catalog and video "jukebox"), one of the country's major venues has brought together work that finally, after great labor, reinterprets nothing. And it seems to be a fluctuating show as we speak. While CAM tries to downplay the costs of the exhibition (repeated requests for a copy of the budget finally resulted in a document with many holes, while verbal inquiries resulted in vast discrepancies), Doroshenko changes the thematic variables. During a recent lecture at Lawndale, the curator clarified the theme of the exhibition from exploring gray areas to "death as the final frontier" and the "void between life and death," but with a nod toward Houston's "exploding computer business."
Of course, death is one of art's enduring themes, and the conventions in which it is cloaked tell us a great deal about a society's inner life. Art upsets us by exploding and extending human consciousness, revealing the emptiness of conventions by looking under the surface. Often it is dark under the surface, and unpleasant -- but art exposes reality with its conscious light. Well, given this loaded topic, I simply don't see it in the majority of works on view. When artists in this show do approach death, it is with an air of ironic detachment, tabloid sensationalism or unreflecting sentimentality.
As far as the sub-themes go, AIDS is treated here in strictly antiseptic terms. Doroshenko doesn't address how the disease has loosened up sex talk or renewed a dedicated caring between people. Why is AIDS an important topic in this show? Why are pills important? To further reveal their seductive nature? To get high? As toys? As cures? As anesthetics? What about suicide? Why is it funny? And what about the issues summoned forth by the actions of Dr. Kevorkian? But Doroshenko neither explains nor takes responsibility. The curators don't tell us anything. It's up to us to wade through this gray mush and figure it out. Essentially, the exhibition follows a scattershot thesis that makes Texas look like it's trying to keep up critically with L.A., New York or Berlin -- thereby making us look provincial, if sadly behind the times.
