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Fresh Paint will be in the Cullinan Hall and Andrews Galleiy until April 7.
Critics rule Houston isn’t ‘school of art’
By PATTI FLINT
StaffWriter
“Operating on the Outer
Perimeter” might be a more
accurate name for the open
ing of the self-proclaimed
Houston school of art, as
controversy surrounds the
first major exhibition of
paintings by Houston art
ists.
Last weekend’s Shartle
Symposium at the Museum
of Fine Arts, Houston
brought together critics, au
thors and museum directors
to discuss a new definition
of regionalism.
Robert Hughes, senior art
editor of Time magazine
and author of “Shock of the
New,” opened the sympo
sium, explaining the begin
nings of a cultural center.
In ancient cities of Italy,
centers conveyed to the visi
tor a cultural wholeness,
Hughes said. When the pa
pal states declined, the cen
ters lost their papal patron
age and thus their authority,
he said.
About 200 years later, Pa
ris became the world's cen
ter of art and thought, he
said. The division between
Paris and the provinces be
came more acute with in
dustrialization, Hughes
said, increasing the superi
ority of the center over the
peripheiy.
Since then, New York
City, more specifically Man
hattan, has become a cultu
ral center, but he says it is
now receding.
“This idea of the center
has been seen as Utopia,”
Hughes said. “The periph
eiy, quite simply, is where
culture is not, or where cul
ture is not interesting.”
The peripheiy and the
center, though, are not geo
graphic regions, but a state
of mind for the visual arts
— the peripheiy is provin
cial, he said. It’s regionalism
without self-confidence, he
said. They experience what
Hughes calls the cultural
cringe: the hope of favorable
judgement from the center.
When thinking of artists
in the- peripheiy, Hughes
said artists in the center
think of “hayseeds and
swamp hogs or of nice,
tailed artists. They think re
gional art is quaint, nostal
gic, folksy.”
He compared the art
world of his native Australia
to artists in the periphery in
America. He said they are
afraid to claim their own
qualities fearing criticism
from others and themselves.
“For fear of feeling unso
phisticated, we keep asking
‘Is this up to international
standards?’” Hughes said.
Hughes said artists are no
longer faced with the sche
matic choice between the
center and the peripheiy.
Artists live away from the
center, but have access to it.
“The ancient model of the
center and the peripheiy no
longer holds,” he said. “Use
it, but don’t allow yourself
to be used to make a market
homogenity.”
Lucy Lippard, art critic,
author and political activist,
concurred with what
Hughes said about the
relationship between the
center and the outer regions.
Lippard said that regional
art is rooted in the place
where it’s made. The artists
look around at the place
where they’ve landed and
are challenged bv their sur
roundings. She said regiona
lism is often a progressive
culture where the artist
turns to the local past to
look at the broader present.
“Art needs both roots and
reach,” she said.
Lippard favors a
movement toward “cultural
democracy,” against the
melting down of multi-ra
cial, multi-cultural differ
ences which she sees in the
cities. She aaxcP ifrwould en
courage people to speak for
themselves, but wouldn’t
dictate taste from above to
counter mainstream ho
mogenity — visible muzak.
Lippard, like the other
speakers, doesn’t believe
that Houston is a school of
art, which is generally de
fined as a group of artists
that are under the same in
fluence, producing similar
work.
“I’m not really big on ei
ther rules or schools,” Lip
pard said. “I’d probably call
it (the exhibit) ‘Looking
Around’ or maybe ‘Cowboys
and Astronauts.’ Something
is lost if the artist loses
touch with his or her audi
ences.
She said regional art is
better when it’s innocent,
when it’s not reacting to
current marketing trends,
but ignoring them.
“Rules made by the com
munity feel better than
those imposed by above,”
she said. “Art tends to be
stronger when it controls its
own destiny.”
Marsha Tucker, director
of the New Museum of Con-
temporaiy Art, New York,
said, “narration and figura
tion, which are the mains
tream in New York now
came out of the south, come
out of Texas.”
Tucker is a strong propo
nent of regional art.
“I believe that we are, at
the moment, at a time of
broadening, so that New
York is not the only place
where art is being made,”
she said. “The worst thing
you can do to an artist is
identify the work by geog
raphy.”
Hughes made the same
point.
“Regionalism has become
political, therefore it will be
used for promotion,” he
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