269 Bleecker St. New York, NY 10014.

contact Samuel Kho @ 626.757.5600 for more information.

Texas Cannons member David Almaguer’s work will be featured in Denver from September 10, 2009 through January 11, 2010 at the Museo de las Americas.

The Power of Then highlights contemporary Latino/Chicano artists that utilize popular cultural artifacts and their associated memories to create grand visual statements. The Latino/Chicano experience is a myriad of perspectives that mix into a multi-dimensional scene. From the streets of San Antonio to the coastal areas of California, the Chicano/Latino imprint is so diverse that it cannot be labeled – though many have tried. There is a certain playfulness, a touch of crass, a deep pocket of traditions, countless layers of colors, a bit of revolution and, of course, many loving memories of family. It is seen in the trinkets bought at the mercado to the religious icons placed in home altars. When purchasing a Chicano artifact – a piñata for the birthday party, a fan for the hot days to come, a molcahete for the kitchen, a beaded saint bracelet for a new-hip look, one is buying a memory, a tradition, and a history. The Latino/Chicano artists in this exhibition understand the power of these ornaments and have carefully raised their power with new translations and contemporary practice. The results present windows into this vivid cultural past and a hard view into the new trans-cultural reality.

Curated by Patty Ortiz

ARTISTS
Ronaldo Briseno (SAT)
David Almaguer (SAT)
Alex Hernandez (DEN)
Franco Mondini
Linda Arreola (LA)

Production Company : Circus Tank

Photography by : Hello Dirty, high voltage photography ; photographer Fernando G.

Models : K. Day, April Joy, Morgan, Navia and Ashley

Rex Hausmann’s art messy, yet fascinating

Rex Hausmann once heard a strong calling to the ministry, but he professes that his faith resides mainly “in people.” Which is not to say he’s turned his back on the man upstairs.

“You know, Jesus, before he preached, he fed people,” he says.

The 25-year-old artist’s work, notably the installation “Revisitation” currently on view at the Blue Star Contemporary Art Center, is full of biblical references — actually, it’s full of Bibles. And in at least a couple of works, Hausmann wears his faith on his sleeve.

In just a decade, the San Antonio painter and sculptor has undergone a remarkable artistic transformation.

“Ten years ago, I didn’t even like abstract painting, because I didn’t understand it,” he says. “But as you can tell, my aesthetic now is not exactly tight and clean.”

Hausmann’s work has evolved from “Just Cruzn,” a realistically rendered view of his grandfather’s ‘53 Chevy pickup painted when he was 15 (his first sale) to abstract portraits of the Apostles to multimedia painting bristling with sculptural elements. “D’Antoni Project” in 2007 was an ambitious traveling circus that encompassed painting and sculpture and fashion and music. There was even a chess tournament.

“I’m trying to challenge the white box, the gallery space,” Hausmann says, referring not only to the physical space but the years invested in art programs to get there. “I mean, a gallery is a wonderful thing, but it’s a bit closed.”

Hausmann was a creative boy: “I was the kid who made cranes out of the foil at Taco Cabana.” He attended San Antonio Christian Academy and then obediently enrolled in the UTSA business school. Flunking algebra three times may have been his godsend.

He told his parents, owners of a small architectural millwork firm who expected their son to earn a living, that he was switching to the visual arts. Somewhat reluctantly, he says, they gave him their blessing.

After studying at UTSA but then transferring to the Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta to finish his degree, Hausmann is a rising star: His work is included in the 10th anniversary auction/exhibition at New York City’s White Box, which opened May 12, along with such established artists as Dennis Oppenheim and Yoko Ono.

On a muggy post-Fiesta evening in April, Hausmann gathered together about 20 fellow travelers, including artists and even a couple of kids and a dog, to fill a living room-sized space off the main gallery at Blue Star with the contents of his head.

“Revisitation” is like throwing open a door and discovering that really cool, creative people have been living in your attic. It’s at once familiar and foreign.

In a room scattered with everyday objects ranging from brooms to beer bottles to books, here is Kyle Martin’s tongue-in-cheek take on Texas iconography: Spray-painted stars, armadillo ornaments, iconic bluebonnets unceremoniously decorate a wall of pink insulation batting. The opposite wall floats in a sea of David Almaguer’s stenciled panels of “brass-knuckle crowns,” and the entrance is guarded by Patrick Winn’s imposing welded-steel “altar” with square modules holding personal objects. A back wall is graced by a quietly apocalyptic textural landscape by Russell Stephenson.

These are all members of an artistic collective known as Texas Cannons of Proportion, and Hausmann, a founder, invited them to participate in his “solo” exhibition. Perhaps this is one aspect of his “faith” in people.

Linking these seemingly disparate elements are the artist’s own works, such as “Antaeus,” a “self-portrait in a way” incorporating running shoes firmly grounded on a pair of Bibles, which has led to some spirited discussions with viewers. The Good Books are opened, not inconsequentially (everything in Hausmann’s work is a down payment on a larger meaning), to the books of Job and Second Corinthians.

An imposing painting on an opposing wall is from Hausmann’s ongoing series, “The History of Western Thought: Why We Think the Way We Do.” There are more Bibles, here, some painted blue, but also a big one opened to invite viewer participation and page-flipping, nestled in a painted wooden backdrop recalling Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.”

Again, all this among and amid magazines and paint rollers and all sorts of . . . stuff . . . strewn about haphazardly. Things that fall down stay where they lie. Space is made for new works, including a small collage Fed-Exed by a young friend studying at West Point.

Written over the entrance, in Hausmann’s creative spelling (he says he is dyslexic), is an explanation of sorts: “you can’t tell what is mine and yours . . . what is hear and what is there . . . where it ends and where it begins . . . and that’s the point.”

The centerpiece of this little world-within-a-world is a 3-foot-by-6-foot color photograph shot at Hausmann’s warehouse studio near San Antonio College, with all the participants gathered behind a long table, evoking “The Last Supper.”

Looking heavenward, Hausmann explains that it all comes down to his Italian grandmother’s bridge table, where she constantly entertained all sorts of people, and which is suspended from the ceiling.

Hausmann, in a well-worn navy Polo shirt, knee-length cargo shorts and tennis shoes with tongues flapping, talks rapid-fire about the inspiration behind “Revisitation” and the deep pool of brotherhood and sisterhood at its core.

“You walk in here, it’s fun,” he says. “It’s fun, until you really start looking at it. Much like life. Some of the subjects I deal with can be very dangerous.”

Over the next hour, he talks about everything from Kachina cosmology to the Medicis to the late contemporary artist James Lee Byars, who exhibited at London’s Tate Gallery a massive machine that made paper airplanes.

“He’s, like, my favorite right now,” Hausmann says.

Here’s what Hausmann believes: “The artist is a conglomeration of all these different people — mentors, influences, other artists, funders, collectors, dealers, family. And the individual tends to get all the credit. But I’m saying you can’t do anything without all these people and relationships.”

So is “Revisitation” art? Yes. Definitely. It is like an artistic landfill, with new objects of interest coming into focus wherever the eye comes to rest. It engages the mind as a visually stunning statement of beliefs and relationships held together by the faith of Rex Hausmann. Is it a mess? Oh, yes. Definitely. Much like life.

“Revisitation” remains on view at the Blue Star Contemporary Art Center in Southtown through June 14. Call 227-6960.

Fire In The Hole