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' / building fills the background. The dark presence in the lower half of one photo- angles of the Penn/.oil towers energize the graph. But when you look closer and see image. Hester's silver-gelatin prints are a faint pattern of menorah shapes cover- cool and clean, enhancing the imperson- ing the image, it seems too heavy-handed. ality of the grids formed by a myriad of Gertsman is at his best when he finds his building windows. The open door of a images rather than builds them. tiny white car on the asphalt below is the The show's works weren't lim- only hint of life. ited to the architectural phenomena of The show reminds you that, for Houston—there's more Philip Johnson, better or worse, Philip Johnson has this time from New Canaan, Connecticut. a tremendous presence in Houston. Paul Hester presents a montage, melding Another of I tester's photographs captures .in image ol countryside with an interior the Johnson-designed Gerald I). Hines shot of Johnson's Glass House. Ghostly College of Architecture building at the trees underlie the living room furniture University of 1 louston. The image was and the roof has dissolved to reveal taken at night—all of the windows are branches and sky. Thanklully, tins tactic aglow, and the building is undoubtedly is an anomaly in Hester's work. He too filled with students pulling all-nighters. is much more successful when he doesn't The mini-Parthenon on the roof is manipulate his images. illuminated. It sits like a tiny, silly post- Hester's also got a shot of the cav- modern party hat plopped squarely on ernous interior of Momentum Place in the head of an exceptionally squat and Dallas. (Only Dallas would call something

Slice! Between Pennzoil rime nnrf RepubkBank Center ttom Above. 1999. Paul Hester. humorless man. "Momentum Place," though it has since Valentin (iertsman is the photogra been renamed Bank One Center) Open pher who subjugates architecture to his floors are packed with desks, and cubicles artistic will, with close crops that isolate look very crowded. It was designed by— The Machines in the Swamp colorful geometric forms. There is a well, you know who. dynamic, constructivist sensibility to his Looking at many of the Houston work, possibly related to the artist's biog- images in the show you see the bold, new, Architecture Through Photography: raphy: The 79-year-old artist is an emigre dynamic face that our city, with varying Three Views from the former Soviet Union. degrees of success, seeks to present to the De Santos Gallery Gertsman's dramatic cropping of the world. Houston is all about the new; we May 8-June 19,2004 George R. Brown Convention Center really, really like to bulldoze the old. leaves ,i grant) ing abstract composition: But there are images here that stray Reviewed by Kelly Klaasmcyer a grid of white panels cut by a shadow, from the confidently modern, like Clay angled against an ultramarine-blue sky. Harmon's shot ot the back of an aban- Water smoothly cascades over angular, image. The stark, stolid form i outd be Circular red air ducts peer over the edge. doned Galveston building. The windows blocky forms, which in Clay Harmon's an understudy for the monolith in 2001: The mirrored glass blocks ot tin.- are boarded up, and two snaking lire photograph look like natural features A Splice Odyssey, but it's backed by the Glassel! School of Art are the close-in escapes run down each side with rusty from an alien planet. Maybe that's gothick-y retro '20s-skyscraper profile of focus ol another image. The grid segments symmetry. The fronds of a palm peek appropriate. The photo was taken at Philip Johnson's RepublicBank Building and distorts reflections of the building's around the edge of the building, and a Houston's Tranquility Park, the public (now Hank of America). Harmon's pal- surroundings: A figure on a bench stretches small tree grows out of the corner of space designed by Charles Tapley in 1979 ladium printing gives the photograph a ,u n iss sevi i il squares—a section ol an concrete steps. The feeling of decay to commemorate the tenth anniversary dark, warm tone and a burnished texture arm here, a section there. A man walking is palpable. of the first lunar landing. It seems pretty that feels vintage. The image calls to across ilie courtyard has three levitating It's an image that illustrates the futil- optimistic to call anything in downtown mind the antique futuristic visions of I'ritz heads. An unexpected touch of the surreal ity of all our grand aspirations. We may Houston "tranquil," but the park was tang's Metropolis. interrupts the geometric regularity. build dramatic edifices, but our humid, named after the moon's Sea of Tranquility. Harmon's eye and choice of printing And then it's Philip Johnson—again. verdant, subtropical environment is ready, In Harmon's photograph it looks about as process work well together, liven when This time pop sculptor Claes Oldenburg's willing, and able to retake anything we inviting as a lunar landscape. he photographs the concrete columns bold circular mouse ears frame the archi- abandon. Houston will always he the Harmon's work, along with that of a parking garage, he imparts a static tect's RepublicBank tower. The red steel progeny of an Allen brothers' swampland • it \ ih nun (iiTisnun and Paul I lester, graviras to the forms. Hut Harmon is also mouse pops against the rich blue sky in the real estate scam. ! cave downtown unai was a part of "Architecture Through slipping in a hint of irony by presenting large-scale image, showing Gertsman's deft tended for a couple of years, and it'll be Photography: Three Views" at De Santos the contemporary structures in such a self- hand with color as well as composition. completely covered in vines, an Angkor Gallery. The photographers in the show consciously stately manner. Other works by Gertsman are com- Wat on the bayou. • are primarily drawn to the formal quali- Cite photographer Paul I lester seeks a posites. His image of a shiny red wall ties of architecture, the modern structures sort of architectural portraiture that pres- shoots for a Malevich-esque Supremarism, of Houston's downtown in particular. ents buildings as functioning machines. but others lean toward the gimmicky, with One of the goofy steel cylinders that I lis camera peers down the steep chasm buildings mirroring themselves or overlaid sprouts from Tranquility Park and serves between the towers of Philip Johnson's with other forms. The curved tower of the as a fountain dominates another Harmon Pcnnzoil Place; Johnson's RepublicBank Holocaust Museum has a mute, weighty