Electric Mud

Blaffer Gallery is pleased to present Electric Mud, guest-curated by David Pagel, art critic for the Los Angeles Times and associate professor of art theory and history at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California. Featuring the work of Brian Calvin, Anna Sew Hoy, Ron Nagle, Michael Reafsnyder, James Richards, and Patrick Wilson, the exhibition focuses on the physical similarities of clay and paint. By exploring the basics of each medium, Electric Mud works in the gaps between media, confounding the boundaries between the two. The works in the exhibition question differences between art and craft, painting and ceramics, form and function, leisure and labor, and still life and real life. The six artists, all based in California, strive to make their materials “misbehave." Electric Mud is organized for Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston, by David Pagel, Associate Professor of Art Theory and History at Claremont Graduate University. The exhibition and publication are made possible, in part, by The Cecil Amelia Blaffer von Furstenberg Endowment for Exhibitions and Programs and Houston Endowment, Inc.