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66 Art NOTES By Catherine D. Anspon Photography + Controversy: One of the most talked-about shows of the fall in our Texas scene is Dallas Contemporary's presentation of "Chivas Clem: Shirttail Kin." Not since Larry Clark's "Tulsa" series has an American artist/photographer turned his camera upon his hometown's inhabitants in such an unflinching and personal manner. First, about Clem: The artist, a staple of Erin Cluley's respected stable, returned to Paris, Texas after a brilliant and buzzy career in NYC — one that was jump-started by being admitted in 1996 to the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program. Post-Whitney, Clem hung out with a band of other emerging decade-defining NYC talents including Nate Lowman and Dan Colen, while founding The Fifth International art space in New York, an edgy incubator of that era. His solo for the Dallas Contemporary, "Shirttail Kin," was organized by the museum's New York- and Warsaw-based adjunct curator Alison M. Gingeras and reveals the artist's loose assembly of drifters and transient men who passed through Paris, Texas, often taking up impromptu residence at his Victorian-era home, where the artist offered them meals, shelter, and a sense of community. Shown are images spanning a decade, both uplifting and shocking, revealing a new take on masculinity as gentle and vulnerable as it is unsettling (October 17 – January 12). Femme-Focused Fair: The ladies are in the limelight when the fall edition of Vignette Art Fair unveils Thursday through Saturday, October 17 through 19, at Dallas Market Hall. The Dallas-founded fair, like the one recently organized by Daisha Board Gallery, gives back all proceeds to the artists, who in this case are all female-identifying. The Dallas Museum of Art's Lupe Murchison Curator of Contemporary Art Dr. Vivian Li culled 86 works by 37 artists from 206 entries and will organize the fair installation. (Intriguingly, of the talents from around the state represented in Vignette, only three were already on our radar — at least so far.) The Guerrilla Girls would give a thumbs up. Think there's gender parity today in the art world? In the decade between 2008 and 2019, women artists represented a paltry 2 percent of the $196 billion global art auction market, so Vignette's concept is intensely relevant (VIP Preview Benefit, Thursday, October 17, $45; fair days Saturday and Sunday, October 18 and 19, gratis; artists lineup and info, texasvignette.org). Pompeii Calling: Romanophiles, take note. The Meadows Museum, SMU, delves into the alluring archaeology and extraordinary treasures from Pompeii — a victim of Mount Vesuvius' volcanic eruption, A.D. 79. Blockbuster shows on this topic are usually, like Egyptian exhibitions, the province of encyclopedic museums such as The Met or even the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. But the Spanish- focused Meadows' exhibition is spun around the Bourbon King of Naples, Charles VII, who would go on to rule Spain, and early expeditions he commissioned that first unearthed the rich relics of the tony Roman hamlet and its sister city, Herculaneum. "The Legacy of Vesuvius: Bourbon Discoveries on the Bay of Naples" explores the Age of Enlightenment's discoveries from these fabled ancient towns (from frescoes to a gladiator helmet and sistrum used in the rites of Isis), which sparked the craze for Pompeii and soon spilled over into the era's fine and decorative arts, especially painting, porcelain, and prints (through January 5, 2025). Left: Chivas Clem's A Drifter on My Bed, 2018, at Dallas Contemporary. Georgie Miller's Jeff's Game Night, 2024, at Vignette Art Fair.