Residents of Keller take note. The suburbs awaken from their (winter) slumber! Adventure awaits!

You make your home in the 7th best place to live in the United States, as ranked by CNN Money Magazine. You welcomed your first commercial art gallery – art251 – in September 2008. Now, you are home to a superb new restaurant. City Hall officially opened its doors on March 22, 2010. It’s located in the Arthouse development in Keller Town Center and is only a 2 minute stroll from art251.

So, what’s so special about City Hall?  Two things. First, the restaurant has first class ambiance and service and an original chef-driven menu led by nationally recognized Chef Otto Borsich. Second, the restaurant is adorned with original art from art251. The walls feature abstracts by Dana Blanchard, Fil Booth and Michael Longhofer.

City Hall is an upscale contemporary American fare restaurant. It’s the first restaurant in Arthouse, a mixed-use community that features multifamily apartments and an eclectic mixture of retail tenants, including art251. The restaurant has a sophisticated urban feel complete with an open kitchen, rich woods, leather booths and contemporary lighting. The space also has a friendly bar and a private dining room, and thoroughly attentive service.

And, then there’s the menu. Real food in the ‘burbs: Maple Brined Pork Tenderloin Wild Mushroom Risotto Cake; Cedar Scented Grilled Salmon, Herbal Orzo; Pan Seared Sea Scallops, Leek & Potato Risotto style, Orange Reduction; Lobster Ravioli with a Light Fennel-Vanilla Cream Sauce. Fresh, original, artfully prepared, mouthwatering – just like art251’s art.

Yes, you read all of this correctly, you’re in the suburbs, surrounded by the culinary wastelands of the mega-chain, processed “food” franchises, and now you have access to lobster, scallops, risotto, and art all in the same evening, and all in your neighborhood!

City Hall images courtesy of City Hall Restaurant. Featured paintings: Teratogenesis by Dana Blanchard, Urban Energy, Hunting Art Prize 2009 finalist, Michael Longhofer.

Artist Caleb Larsen seems to have the right idea. Rather than relying on the subjective wants and needs of galleries and the dubious nature of the secondary art market (and some equally dubious auctioneers) his art sells itself.

His work, entitled “A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter”, is an 8-inch opaque, black acrylic cube. But while the exterior may be simplicity itself, the interior holds a fascinating premise. The cube is connected to the internet. In fact, it’s connected to eBay, where through some hidden hardware and custom programming it constantly auctions itself.

As Caleb Larsen describes,

Combining Robert Morris’ Box With the Sound of Its Own Making with Baudrillard’s writing on the art auction this sculpture exists in eternal transactional flux. It is a physical sculpture that is perptually attempting to auction itself on eBay.

Every ten minutes the black box pings a server on the internet via the ethernet connection to check if it is for sale on the ebay. If its auction has ended or it has sold, it automatically creates a new auction of itself.

If a person buys it on eBay, the current owner is required to send it to the new owner. The new owner must then plug it into ethernet, and the cycle repeats itself.

The purchase agreement on eBay is quite rigorous, including stipulations such as: the buyer must keep the artwork connected to the interent at all times with disconnections allowed only for the transportation; upon purchase the artwork must be reauctioned; failure to follow all terms of the agreement forfeits the status of the artwork as a genuine work of art.

The artist was also smart enough to gain a slice of the secondary market, by requiring each buyer to return to the artist 15 percent of the appreciated value from each sale. Christie’s and Sotheby’s eat your hearts out.

Besides trying to put auctioneers out of work, the artist has broader intentions in mind, particularly when viewed alongside his larger body of work. The piece goes to the heart of the “how” and the “why” of the art market. By placing the artwork in a constant state of transactional fluidity – it’s never permanently in the hands of its new owner – it forces us to question the nature of art in relation to its market and the nature of collecting. The work can never without question be owned and collected since it is always possible that someone else will come along, enter the auction and win. Though, the first “owner” of the piece states that this was part of the appeal. Terence Spies, a California collector attests,

I had a really strong reaction right after I won the auction. I have this thing, and I really want to keep it, but the reason I want to keep it is that it might leave… The process of the piece really gets to some of the reasons why you might be collecting art in the first place.

Now of course, owning anything is transient. The Egyptian pharaohs tried taking their possessions into the “afterlife” but even to this day are being constantly thwarted by tomb-raiders and archeologists. Perhaps to some the chase, the process of collecting, is the goal, rather than owning the art itself. As I believe Caleb Larsen intended, he’s really given me something to ponder. How different, really, is it to own this self-selling art versus wandering through the world’s museums and galleries to “own” a Picasso or Warhol or Monet for 5 minutes? Ironically, our works live on, and it is we who are transient. So I think Caleb Larsen’s title for the work should be taken tongue in cheek, for it is we who are deceiving ourselves.

I am constantly reminded of the unceasing creativity of artists, both those that adorn our gallery walls with their art and those who I admire from a distance. I’m also reminded of the level of ingenuity of many artists as they seek, probe and push alternate media and different forms of expression. I’ve lost count of the types of visual art and media that I have seen – encaustics, scratchboard, oil on glass, glass on panel, horsehair in ceramic, engravings on copper, photographs on metal, watercolors on masa paper, sculptures on manhole covers, polychromic polymer clay, fiber on fabric, to name but a few.

Interestingly, I’ve been recently seeing more artworks based on recycled materials. In fact, making art from, with and on recycled materials and media is more popular than ever thanks to our growing ecological sensitivity, and perhaps increasing thriftiness. So, what a beautiful surprise it is to see art appearing on one of nature’s most ubiquitous substrates – portraits carved into fallen leaves.

The intricate process of carving leaves seems to have begun in China and is spreading across the globe. There is even a Leaf Carving Art association in California. Apparently, the best leaves for this endeavor come from the Oriental Plane tree, which is native to much of Asia. The leaves are first dried, cured and prepared in a complex process. Then, the artist carefully removes the outermost skin of the leaf to reveal the inner translucent layer. Slowly and skillfully the artist scrapes away selected areas of the leaf revealing the final work of art within. The entire process is lengthy and intricate, but the results, as you can see here, are exquisite. Some artists even take commissions. Perhaps these leaf portraits of Marilyn and Mao will one day be as valuable as their Warholian counterparts.

Images courtesy of Daily Telegraph. Dean Prator, President of Leaf Carving Art in California.