November 3 - December 15, 2018

Opening Reception: November 3rd, 6-8pm

Gallery Walk-Through with Volker Eisele & Artist Talk with Patrick Turk: November 17th, starting at 12pm

Closing Reception: December 15th, 3-5pm

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This exhibition is a part of the citywide festival Sculpture Month Houston.

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Outta Space II is one of six exhibitions sponsored by Sculpture Month Houston during its 2018 Biennial. It is also part of a larger dialogue that is currently winding its way through the national and international art world. The subject of these discussions is the breathtaking re-definition of sculpture and space, its expansion into virtual space, social space, kinetic space and an entire cast of newly minted definitions.

It is the journey from the classical, singular sculpture like Rodin’s Thinker or Giacometti’s slender figures into the realm of multi-sensorial installation work as one can see at the current SITE Gallery Houston show at the “Silos” titled Peak Shift. The title “Outta Space” for this exhibition is taken from another space exploration - this time the virtual antics of a space crew hurling into outer space in a Van Halen song from 2012. They are sporting a bumper sticker on their rocket saying: ”The Earth is Full”. Outta Space.

The artists in this exhibition have their own ideas about the malleability of space and their visions couldn’t be more different. Alicia Eggert, who teaches Sculpture at the University of North Texas in Denton, uses kinetic neon signs, often in a synthesis with selected environments as site-specific installations. Her lenticular prints, too, convey the kinetic fluidity of her larger installations. Liss LaFleur teaches New Media at UNT Denton and her immersive installations often combine visual prompts with performance and video. She is interested in exploring identity as it relates to pop, queerness, and Future Feminism.

We are privileged to have John Salvest exhibiting at our gallery again as he has done many times in the past, while we watched his work grow into a nationally acclaimed presence. His installations are always surprising and unanticipated, as is this one, albeit with a slight dystopian tilt. His installation at last year’s Sculpture Month event was very popular and provided, literally, a “knock-out punch”. Patrick Turk’s installation Uncle Roscoe is in many ways reminiscent of a claustrophobic - and often grotesque - Ed Kienholz tableau. Yet this artist’s meticulously crafted figure, which is set in a funky, psychedelic urban home environment, provides a light-hearted approach to the serious business of re-defining spatial concepts.