Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1498289
Traveller's Club, London "I just never imagined it would be inside a car wash." Taking as its inspiration Manhattan's legendary 50-year-old alternative space The Kitchen, Ham and Kazilas have rolled out an impressive exhibition program in the 450-square- foot crisply painted white cube of the gas station's decommissioned car wash. (For the collector crowd, it doesn't hurt that The Car Wash adjoins BCN restaurant, and above The Car Wash is the buzzed- about new cocktail lounge, Echoes.) The Car Wash's opening act was Houston artist Tom Bandage's totemic trio of metal sculpture with an implied kinetic component that owes a debt to cubism. Priced at $25,000 each, the works established an unlikely conversation between precision and industry, the precious and the everyday. Can art only be seen and valued in a museum or collector's home? Who gets to decide? Or does a work have more power and conviction when taken into the real world. Up next, The Car Wash presents a tongue-in-cheek work by Menil preparator/artist Chris Henry: a blowup version of the Rothko Chapel's Broken Obelisk by Barnett Newman, rendered in half scale — approximately 12 ½ feet tall, Ham says. Its opening, "Hopium," Friday, May 26, 5 to 8 pm (through July 7), promises to be a happening, with art-goers flocking upstairs to Echoes afterwards for quaffs, musical riffs, and Greek-inspired cuisine. Catch The Car Wash, too, during regular Saturday hours, noon to 4 pm or by appointment by emailing Ham at london@sitenon. site. Andrew Durham Gallery, 1821 W. Alabama, andrewdurhamgallery.com. The Car Wash, 900 Richmond Ave. Montrose Rising: The backroom at Andrew Durham Gallery M A T T C A M R O N . C O M Antique Malayer size 8'2" x 11'7"