Over the years a few things happen when you write about local art— the most basic being that you become familiar with local work (and occasionally with the artists who make it).
The last time anyone thought about masculine stereotypes in the art world was when, inspired by the obtuse adjacencies of Time-Life magazine cut-outs on the floor, Richard Prince re-photographed pictures of male models in the late 1970s.
México Inside Out: Themes in Art Since 1990 is a tour de force of ambiguity. As a show with work by 23 artists connected to Mexico it runs the risk of being a politically-correct art-ghetto based on geographical stereotypes.
With 13 curators and about 70 artists, the TX 13 Group Survey Exhibition is a cacophony of sounds, images and styles that tries for the first time to jam all the artists selected in a statewide open call for the Texas Biennial into a single space — the Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum.
Some people say ideas are a dime a dozen.
The Idea Fund says they are $3,500 each and, with help from a special initiative of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, it is putting that money directly into the hands of Texas artists. As a result, some of the state's most provocative or otherwise unexpected imaginings are being made real.