***Press***



2000-08-18





 Metal Works,
Gallery Lombardi, through Sep 2
From inside Gallery Lombardi, you can watch trains crawl by and catch glimpses of the Colorado River churning along in the distance beyond the trees. A few feet down the hill and to the east, the City of Austin Power Plant sits like a piece of public art from another era. On a nice day, the garage door which serves as the front wall of the space is lifted to let in natural light. But for all its bucolic peacefulness, GL actually is housed in a converted warehouse tucked away behind the glorious new Office Max at Fifth and Lamar on the edge of downtown; the exhibition space and artists' studios that occupy the building are very nearly at the epicenter of this city's new growth. Gallery Lombardi manages to combine old-Austin warmth and anonymous, urban industrial cool with great results.

The gallery's new exhibition, "Metal Works," reflects this fusion of a town in transition in a bunch of ways. Andy Coolquitt's 18 Cans Found Flattened, for instance, is a witty little piece of contemporary sculptural experiment both homemade and worthy of a real art city. The group of cans, pleasantly and reverently arranged across the wall at eye level, come with a list of their place of origin: There is puncture sealant from California, discovered in 1992; there is Wu Chung from New York, circa 1998; there is Mexlub from Morelia and Tlacquepacque and Huehuetenango and Urapan in Mexico. There is a silliness to this vision of the crumpled junk that litters our lives which neatly reveals the dated designs and cheesy logos of another era. And also a note of ugly seriousness in the specimens of industrial waste filling up our world.

There are stories here as well: The Schlitz can from Marfa, a redneck symbol standing in for a legendary West Texas town, hints at something more personal and also makes an oblique comment about the the art scene there.

Other works are more overtly beautiful though not neccesarily more conventional: Sun McColgin's large, stained abstract sculptures are a gorgeous blend of raw and refined. The two long, metal tubes of his Stress/Fracture hang in the air somewhere between floating movement and weighty stillness, their rough surfaces polished to a gleaming finish. The screw-head/mushroom-cap of Chasing the Ruby Satellite would make perfect corporate artwork for a building entrance if it didn't assert itself so strongly and grab your attention.

The pieces by the other artists in the show -- birds by Colly Kreidler, wall-mounted abstracts by John Gist, and hair sculptures May Burnette -- try on a lot of hats but exude a similar blend of do-it-yourself independence and do-it-well professionalism. Gallery Lombardi has survived the bust with shows like this one. Here's to hoping it can survive the boom. "Metal Works" runs through Sep 2. 910 W. Third. Hours: Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm, Sat 11am-4pm. 481-1088.www.gallerylombardi.com.

-- Ben Willcott