Tell It to the Horses: Press Release
James Dean Pruner: Tell It to the Horses
April 1 - May 12, 2018
Core Program, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Satellite Venue: Bermac Arts, 4101 San Jacinto St., 2nd floor, Houston, TX 77004
Opening reception: 3–6 pm, Sunday, April 1, 2018
Exhibition on view: 12–6 pm Thursday through Saturday, and by appointment, 832-844-9278
"The prairie, in all its expressions, is a massive, subtle place, with a long history of contradiction and misunderstanding. But it is worth the effort at comprehension. It is, after all, at the center of our national identity."
—Wayne Fields, "Lost Horizon" (1988)
"Kansas is no mere geographical expression, but a 'state of mind,' a religion, and a philosophy in one."
—Carl Becker, "Kansas" (1910)
HOUSTON—March 23, 2018—On April 1, the Core Program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, presents James Dean Pruner: Tell It to the Horses, an exhibition organized by Laura August, PhD, a second-year Core critical studies fellow.
Kansas painter, printmaker, draftsman, zinemaker, sculptor, and poet James Dean Pruner (1951-1987/1988) was at the center of a vibrant artist community in Kansas in the 1970s and 1980s. After studying at Emporia State University, he moved to rural Stafford County, where he converted a Cincinnati city bus into his studio, and made work that explored the intertwining of humans, animals, and the land. His colleagues and friends—artists, activists, farmers, poets, and musicians—gathered there for April Fools' Day parties, for star-gazing, for music-making, and for conversations about land stewardship, art, and politics. Because of Pruner's geographical distance from other artistic centers, he maintained an active written correspondence with other artists; the resulting archive is a rich resource for understanding the artistic community of the Great Plains during the U.S. Farm Crisis.
The late 1970s and early 1980s in the Great Plains were turbulent years. In the early 1970s, Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz, urged farmers to "get big or get out," and pushed for food production to outpace the Soviet Union and China in an effort to control the international market. At an unprecedented level, food became a crucial weapon in the Cold War. In 1979, more than 900 tractors drove across the country and thousands of farmers arrived in Washington, D.C. to protest exploitative lending practices and national farm policy. The following year, President Jimmy Carter halted grain shipments to the Soviet Union in response to the invasion of Afghanistan and prices collapsed overnight. In many small towns, white crosses were placed in front of the town courthouses to mark the loss of family farms to agribusiness corporations. Pruner and his community, attuned to the shifts in farming policy and vocal about the resulting effects upon human contact with the land and with natural food production, predicted many of the effects upon American small town culture which continue to inform U.S. politics today. Further, Pruner's work describes an impending overreliance upon technology in the U.S. and a debilitating national culture of consumerism: he saw these crises as deeply interrelated. Featuring never-before exhibited works made between 1977 and 1987, Tell It to the Horses proposes that by looking at artistic production and politics in the Great Plains, we can more fully understand the "state of mind" that is Kansas and, by extension, reconsider the implications of a place that has been described as the "center of our national identity."
Tell It to the Horses is the first retrospective in 20 years of Pruner's work, and includes works on paper, paintings, objects, and archival documentation. It opens on April 1, 2018, in commemoration of Pruner's April Fools' Day parties, and to mark the 30th anniversary of his death. A book will accompany the exhibition, and will be available at the end of April. The exhibition is made possible through generous support from the Core Program at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and through loans from the collections of Pruner's family and friends. The exhibition will be open from 12 to 6 pm Thursday through Saturday, or by appointment, April 1 through May 12, 2018. Appointments may be made by calling 832-844-9278.
James Dean Pruner (1951-1987 or 1988) was an American painter, printmaker, draftsman, zinemaker, sculptor, and poet. Born in Lyons, Kansas, he also lived in Hays, Ellinwood, St. John, and in rural Stafford County, Kansas. His works include a diverse range of subjects and styles, but with several consistent themes, including human relationships, animals and the land, and problems he associated with modern life, nuclear warfare, and technology. He was an advocate for small-scale subsistence farming. Pruner received his BA and MA degrees in art at Emporia State University, and later produced a series of prints at The Lawrence Lithography Workshop in Lawrence, Kansas; one edition from this series is in the collection of The University of Kansas, Spencer Museum. Pruner produced several zines, including: One (1) Day Close to Hell; TV: Modern Man, Primitive Man; and Hard-Nosed Harry. Tell It to the Horses (2018) at Bermac Arts, for the Core Program at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is the first exhibition of his work in 20 years, and is made in conversation and with generous loans from Pruner's family and friends.
Laura August, PhD makes texts and exhibitions which find points of connection between our emotional lives and quotidian collaborations, and between our regional histories and landscapes. Her recent writing has been about mud and stones, about grief and politics. She is founding director of the Guatemala City project Yvonne (www.yvonne.soy) and a sometimes collaborator of Francine's (www.hellofrancine.org). Her recent exhibitions include Hellen Ascoli: Amanecí temprano para peinar el mundo at Proyectos Ultravioleta (2017), Jorge de León: En los prósperos días at Proyectos Ultravioleta (2017), Una piedra y la lluvia / One stone and the rain at Lawndale Art Center (2017), Lily Cox-Richard: If not an hongo / Si no es un mushroom at Yvonne (2017), Una historia de densidades y ficciones at Sol del Río (2016), Gustavo Artigas: Veneno at Yvonne (2016), and Acts of Aggression: An exhibition about community at Southern Methodist University's Pollock Gallery (2017). Her essays have appeared in numerous artist monographs and her art criticism has been published in Art Forum, Artishock, Art Lies, Art Review, and Pastelegram among others. She is a regular contributor to Arts + Culture Texas. August is a 2016-2018 critical studies fellow at the Core Program of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She holds a PhD in Art History, and is a recipient of The Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for her writing in Central America. In 2018, she is co-curating the Paiz Biennial. Her 2018 project Mud & Blue, considering the affective experience of artistic community in Houston post-Harvey, is supported by an IDEA Fund Stimulus Grant. She lives in Houston and Guatemala City.