The first Rene Raul Gonzalez exhibit I saw was in 2011 at the Caroline Collective, a long-extinct venue that hold a place in my heart because it was where I first attended Zine Fest, back when Shane Patrick Boyle was running it. I was impressed by his work then—it had a very different feel from other art I was seeing in Houston. It felt earthier, more street-level, more working class. Over the past year, I find I have been revisiting artists whose work I’ve been following since I started writing The Great God Pan is Dead. In 2023, I reviewed exhibits by such artists as Christopher Cascio, Patrick Renner, JooYoung Choi, and Sarah Welch, and a freaking novel by Lane Hagood. I am either indulging in art nostalgia or I am observing the artistic growth these artists have experienced. I think it is a combination of the two.
Gonzalez’s exhibit at Box 13 is titled So Many Styles, I Am a Group Show. When I was younger, it was considered a bad career move for artists to work in multiple styles. Yuo picked your “thing” and spent your working life exploring it and making variations of it. No one wanted to see, for example, a naturalistic portrait by Ellsworth Kelly, for example. Weirdly enough, this custom had an exception—old artists were permitted to try something different before they died. Matisse, a great painter. wants to make cut papr collages—we love them Henri! I think this habit of requiring stylistic consistency by an artist has run its course. If Gerhard Richter wants to stop painting black and white paintings related to history and switch to very colorful abstractions, we (the art public) have collectively decided that it is A-OK for him to utterly change his painting style.
In 2012, Gonzalez moved to San Antonio to get an MFA. He has, by all accountds, embedded himself in the San Antonio art scene. So Many Styles, I Am a Group Show is a good way for Houston to reacquaint itself with a native son.
Block Party features an image of an orange and white plastic traffic drum. Gonzalez has been drawing these common street objects since 2010. Some were included in the exhibit mentioned above. To me, these traffic drums bring associations with maintenance and construction workers. Some of the most ordinary images of labor we see in this bourgeois world are workers out in the street, protected by traffic drums. The concrete block on which Block Party is painted adds to this proletarian feel.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Great God Pan Is Dead to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.