CultureMap 10-13-12 When Paintings Perform

I pressed a button and a painting performed for me.

Gregorio Vardanega’s painting Espaces Chromatiques Carrées en Spirale, part of the Constructed Dialogues: Concrete, Geometric, and Kinetic Art from the Latin American Art Collection, is on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston until Jan. 6.

It doesn’t take much to mix the disciplines. Too many artists over blend, leaving a hodgepodge of layering that ends up feeling like a ball of gray Play-Doh. Even the word “multidisciplinary” makes me yawn. Been there, done that, enough already.

I prefer subtler concoctions, where an event crosses a fine line to become something else. My home is in the performing arts, so I tend to turn everything into a performance.

As a byproduct of my dance training, I come equipped with motion detector. As an experimental theater lover, I look for the smallest whiff of theatricality. And, as someone continually perplexed by performance art, I seek every opportunity to understand its history and lineage.

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