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The Sunday Express-News, San Antonio, July 23, 1989     Page 5-H

Exhibits detail everyday street life

Continued from 1-H

Arte Moderno has shown several of his paintings in the past, but this retrospective on display through Aug, 20 presents practically Casas' entire output from 1965 to the present. 

On canvases as big as movie screens, Casas combines American pop art with Mexican colors. In the early 1970s, Casas was a leader of the Chicano artists' group Con Safo, which did touring multimedia shows for Cesar Chavez's farmworkers. But his work is not so overly political now, although he continues to question society's values. With both visual and verbal puns, his paintings are filled with layers of meanings. 

His earliest paintings can be seen at Arte Moderno, which has moved from 203 N. Presa St. around the corner to the former location of Brock's Books, 312 E. Commerce St. Black and white images of mini skirted girls from the '60s and scenes of drive-in romance fill most of these paintings. Some of these works are painted on his trademark 6-by-8 foot canvases, but this work is obviously more concerned with earthly, erotic themes than the word games that would take over his style in the early 1970s. 

Words and images

Some clues into his thinking about words and images can be seen in his art boxes, constructions that combine physical objects with their names in glass boxes. For example, an American flag is sealed in a box called "Hermetic Patriotism." Teeth, plaster models actually, full up one called "Chatter Box." Packets of bluebonnet seeds are stuffed into "Seeds of the Future."

These boxes point the way toward Casas' distinctive paintings which usually incorporate stenciled titles contained in a thick black border at the bottom of each painting. The titles define the paintings as "signs" filled with important symbols. Like giant TVs, the paintings have well-defined picture planes filled with symbols from the real world. The words and pictures reflect different levels of meaning in his on-going series called "Humanscapes."

Casas' mature work can be seen in an exceptionally handsome exhibit at the Institute of Mexican Culture in HemisFair Park. Filling up two floors of the institute plus the nearby annex in the Convention Center, this is probably the largest one-person exhibit by a local artist in the city's history. 

Though I don't think it was intentional, Casas' work is neatly divided into different subject categories within the three galleries. His most political work, from the early 1970s, is mostly contained in the annex. His elaborate art historical commentary can be seen in the first floor gallery of the Mexican Institute, while his more accessible Tex-Mex inages can be seen on the second floor. 

Dating from his days with Con Safo, the political paintings in the annex are alive with the progressive spirit of the 1960s. "Brownies of the Southwest" mixes images of Girl Scouts with Indians and Hispanics. "Remember Left is Loose/Right is Tight" protests a political frame of mind that only seems that much tighter in the 1980's. "Ellsberg: The Pentagon's Mockingbird" deals with Daniel Ellsberg's Pentagon Papers revelations about Vietnam with a reference to the popular movie and book, "To Kill a Mockingbird." The "Anatomy of a White Dog" is perhaps his most pointed protest of mindless racism. 

But other images are more lighthearted and rooted in pop art. "A Mickey Mouse Painting" is filled with the visage of the the Disney superstar while "Lichtenstein in a Comic Spot" spoofs the art of Roy Lichtenstein. These art historical puns and jokes began to dominate his work in the late 1970s and early 1980s. 

The Mexican Institute has been criticized for an apparent "typo" in its invitation that reproduces Casas' "A Matissee Alterpiece." But this is an altered piece of familiar Matisse imagery and the wordplay also refers to the sacred status of Matisse's work. In "Deux Champ Stripped Bare by His Art," Casas pokes fun at the groundbreaking masterpiece by Marcel Duchamp. 

"Art Lures" is a witty painting of fishing lures, while the "ABC's of Art" and "$$$ Aesthetics" is about how easy and complicated art can be. 

Southwest landscapes

Upstairs, in some of his most recent work, Casas returns to the familiar Southwest landscape and is trying to come to terms with his native environment. in "Alamo," Texas' most famous shrine becomes a symbol of immense power, an unpopular symbol of Angle dominance for many Hispanics. The "Bluebonnet Plague" sums up his this regional cliche has been warped into an unpleasant symbol of socially powerful amateurism in the local art community. 

But many of his most recent paintings celebrate more carefree symbols of life in San Antonio such as "Cascaron," "Ojo de Dios." "Guacamole," "Pico de Gallo" and ".2 Mexican Plate."

Born near the boarder in El Paso, Casas has been mapping the invisible borders that divide us by age, race, sex, political and religious beliefs for nearly three decades. The Casas retrospective is overwhelming in terms of both quantity and quality. 

"Mel Casas Retrospective: 1965-1989" continues through Aug. 20 at both Arte Moderno Gallery, 312 E. Commerce St, and the Institute of Mexican Cultures in HemisFair Park. Arte Moderno is open noon-6 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays. The Mexican Institute is open 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays and noon-6 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays. For more information, call the gallery at 222-8620 or the institute at 227-0123.

In addition to the Mel Casas retrospective, the Mexican Cultural Institute also has a small exhibit by Mexican artist Adriana Cerecero, who uses art markers and ink to create work she calls "Alcoholor."

These small, intimate paintings mostly depict familiar street scenes from Mexico, lingering on the fine texture of the straw baskets, the vivid displays of the open-air market and the ancient atmosphere of the narrow streets.

The luminous colors of the markers add extra texture to the finely detailed drawings. There's a three-dimensional quality to these paintings that resemble hand-colored photographs. The colors emphasize specific details and the most important elements of each paining. 

Currently head of the graphic design department at the Universidad Autonoma de Coahuila, Cerecero has also taught at the Universidad Autonoma del Noreste Saltillo and she is one of the founders of "Deccer," the Institute of Interior Decoration in Saltillo. 

Adriana Cerecero's "Alcoholor" continues through July 30 at the Mexican Cultural Institute in HemisFair Park. 

[[image - photograph of a painting]] 
PHOTO SPECIAL TO THE EXPRESS-NEWS
Gloria Hart's 'Vida y Redes' is part of her series on fishermen in Mexico on display at UNAM]]  

Next door to the Mexican Cultural Institute, the Universided Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) is sponsoring an exhibit of lithographs and etchings by San Antonio artists Gloria Hart and Kent Rush. 

Very much in the tradition of Taller de Grafica Popular, these prints feature strong, graphic compositions dealing with the everyday artifacts of Mexican life. 

Educated at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende and the University of Guadalajara, Hart is fairly new to San Antonio although her work has been exhibited extensively in Mexico. This is her first exhibit in the United States.

Particularly compelling is her series on the life and death of fisherman. In richly detailed prints, she depicts the fishermen as symbols of life lived close to nature. The fine mesh of the nets surround the figures of the fishermen with strong backs and highly stylized features. The image of the men pulling on a net takes on a ritualistic quality, like some ancient ceremony of a lost religion. 

Hart’s figures are graceful and lyrical, especially in the images of mothers and babies. Simple, small and intimate, Hart’s domestic scenes are filled with the kinds of gentle emotions that are probably most closely associated with the American impressionist Mary Cassatt. But the a bold slashes of Hart’s drawing style is purely Mexican. 

Kent Rush is a University of Texas at San Antonia teacher who is mostly known for his quasi-abstract studies of highway overpasses. But he found much more appealing subject matter during a recent trip to Oaxaca 

Working with Bonifacio Garcia Juan at the Taller de Artes Plasticas in Oaxaca, Rush has created a series of 12 prints called “Hecht in Mexico” that depicts various object he found in Oaxaca.
 
A child’s top, a hair comb, the arms of a milagro and other small, everyday objects are subjects of some of Rush’s most sentimental work. Outlined by minutely textured abstract backgrounds, these simple objects become a subject for meditation and wonder. Rush is a much better draftsman than I suspected.   

The Gloria Hart and Kent Rush exhibit continues through Aug. 3 at UNAM In HemisFair Park. Hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays-Fridays. For information, call 227-0311. 

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