YOU WERE BEAUTIFUL WHEN I LOST YOU curated by Jonatan Lopez

Houston Artist Jonatan Lopez recently put together a really fabulous show featuring some of Houston's finest performance artists. I asked him to put a little blog post together documenting the show, CHECK IT!!

You Were Beautiful When I Lost You, an experimental show about loss & love, is on view at HCC Northline Gallery through January 2011. Curator Jonatan Lopez allowed artists to freely experiment within the concept of loss related to non-human life, this led to some controversial works. The show featured performance, video, film, installation, sculpture and 2d works.



One of the highlights of the show was Brent Koehn's performance entitled "Banality." Brent's performers wore life vests and lined up to crawl up on a ladder, make eye contact with the audience then jump into a mattress repeatedly. The eerie action called to mind Lemmings jumping into the ocean.

Naz Fall stole the show with her installation/experiment entitled "Blacksheep." Fall created a living environment inside a vitrine in which gold fish were meant to become food for a larger killer fish (The Blacksheep) during the 2 month duration of the exhibit, but due to a request from the curator to change the water before the reception started, the gold fish died during the reception. The incident sparked intense dialogue between the attendees. However, the curator regrets to have lost these beautiful fish so abruptly.

In the performance "Blind, Poultry....Production," Ryan Hawk addressed factory farming in the US by capturing beauty and significance within Ritual Sacrifice. His performance video has been released, CLICK HERE TO WATCH, but be warned, it contains graphic images.

For the performance "Love is Forever," Boby Kalloor slept in his own bed with his own stuffed cat inside the dark room of the gallery during the two hour reception. A hidden video camera recorded audience interaction.

Stephanie Saint Sanchez put a twist on the issue at hand in her film The Talented Mr.Kitty. "Do we really know what lies in store for us when we open our homes and hopeful hearts to our feline friends? DO WE? Sure they are cute but so was Ted Bundy" says the artist. The Talented Mr. Kitty (based on a true story) reveals who really runs the house. CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT THE TRAILER.

Tina Kotrla and Jonatan Lopez collaborated in "Boogie," an interactive installation that presented Boogie, Kotrla's pit-bull as pet activist with an extensive agenda. Boogie curated a show within the show entitled "Artist To Watch" for which he invited students to donate their animal themed drawings to raise funds for his favorite no kill shelter: www.spindletoppitbullrefuge.org/ He also collected signatures for Prop. Paw 1, No Chaining Dogs in Houston, so far around 200 signatures have been collected.

Seven videos pieces were made by the curator to promote the show, you can watch them HERE (click click!).

The show also feaured the works of Aisen Caro Chacin, Emily Sloan, Daniel Adame, Nancy Douthey, Angel Quesada, Alex tu, Rebecca Novak, James Ciosek, Carrie Schneider, Kimi Hernsberger, Heath Greshman, Hilarry Scullane and Janie Guardiola.

Check out this slideshow featuring these art pieces:

Through Honeyed Eyes Came Prophecy, Rebecca Novak.
Tobacco Neuron, James Ciosek
Straffordshire, Emily Sloan (In homage to Scrappy)
Temporary Animals, Angel Quesada
I Think I Can, Janie Guardiola
Repair/Destroy, Jonatan Lopez



Gallery Hours: Mon- Thurs. 9:30am-10pm, Through Jan. 28th 2011
HCC Northline Gallery 77022

(Alas, Performances are OVER, but you can still check out the visualz til JANUARY 28TH!!)

All pictures in this blog are courtesy of Rebecca Burwell except for Ryan Hawk's image, courtesy of the artist.