7 December – 26 January, 2002
reception Saturday December 7, 4 – 7 PM

Gallery Sonja Roesch / 2309 Caroline Street / Houston, TX 77004 / (713) 659 5424
Tuesday – Saturday 11 – 6 /

Yesferatu, a new collection of work from Hills Snyder, draws upon an array of image and reference both obvious and obscure. The clean lines and spare placement stand in contrast to the murky associations of the source material. Perhaps tapping into what Greil Marcus has termed “the old, weird America,” Snyder’s derivations on duplicitous historical figures such as Henry Ford and Walt Disney suggest a bifurcated take on the American character.

Titled for F.W. Murnau’s 1922 film of supernatural love, Nosferatu, Snyder’s project promises to woo the viewer into disturbing territory, all the more troublesome for its reliance on a color drenched, whimsical appearance.

Private Sector, an image of Henry Ford’s mid-twenties Model T divided into six parts, utilizes corporate language and antique imagery to suggest cultural duplicity. Like Disney, Ford is known for his contribution to 20th century technological innovation, yet he, again like Uncle Walt, has been associated with unsavory political maneuvers.

With Crosscut the word play continues. Titled for the R. G. Ford blues standard of sexual innuendo made famous by Albert King, Crosscut Saw, the wall-sized image of a lumberjack’s two-man saw, cut into a black and blue wall, cuts itself, implicating associations with cultural co-optation. Private Sector and Crosscut, are also peripherally linked by way of a whispered association with Mississippi blues man T-Model Ford. He, like King, was born in the twenties just as Murnau’s film was being shown for the first time.

Snyder’s thread-like linking of disparate information is evocative of the slippery hold we have on reality. The formal appearance of the work only heightens the impact of the underlying content, as with a musical chord missing its third, which the listener hears anyway. This suppressed narrative calls upon historical events as well as hearsay, such as the famous quote attributed to Henry Ford, “You can paint it any color, so long as it's black.” This language, like the artist’s work, also folds back on itself, simultaneously calling to mind early 20th Century mass production and post-war ab-ex / pop culture associations to Ad Reinhart and the Rolling Stones.

The racial pun buried in Ford’s statement about car paint, is extended in Snyder’s piece, Bald Piebald, in which a black and white minstrelsy smiley face is topped by a pink dome indicative of the color of the Binnie & Smith crayola, which was labeled “flesh” until the civil rights movement caught up with it in 1962. A related work, Wild Bill (Nostrodamus ‘n’ Andy), attempts to loop language and image in a Gordian knot, with rope courtesy famous psychics such as Jingles from the Wild Bill Hickock show, not to mention Tonto, Tinkerbell, and of course, Count Orlock’s Knock or Dracula’s more famous Renfield.

Other works in the show include When You Say That, which conflates a smiley face and the rainbow stripes of the gay pride banner and Everybody Has One, in which an Ichabod Crane style smiley is surmounted by Snow White’s poison apple, Pinocchio’s nose and Dumbo’s over-sized ears.

The combined impact of these works is at once a good-humored festival of visual flair and a disturbing meditation on histrionic subjectivity careening into an ecstatic paranoia.

Steam
Shores Space - St. Annenstraat 28 hs – NL-1012 E Amsterdam
OPENING: FRIDAY 22 NOVEMBER 8-10pm
open Friday & Saturday 2 - 6 pm
November 22 - December 22 / tel. +31 (0) 6 – 4456 8605

Hills Snyder’s Steam draws upon a visit to Amsterdam in June of 2001, when he spent three weeks walking the streets within the semi-circular area defined by the Singelgracht, picking up discarded bicycle parts while simultaneously recording ambient sound.

By linking these dual sampling activities, the case is made for the notion that we habitually discard our opportunities to be present; that we float in a sea of association, drifting from one thought to the next; that the moment can be taken for granted in the same way that sensory awareness can be assumed. The objects in our view, in this case, broken bits of bicycles, are overlooked, just as the rich audio swirl within which we move is often filtered out by internal noise.

Admittedly, in the scheme of things, most of us have no need to notice rubbish in the streets or the random cacophony of the city, but the metaphorical effect is indicative of a choice we don’t choose to make. The bicycle parts and gathered sounds serve as examples of the experiential field, surrogates for any number of other overlooked or forgotten aspects of experience.

This work utilizes replicated versions of 35 pieces selected from the dozens of bicycle parts collected. Each will be represented in profile by wood templates mounted with photographs of sampled sky laminated to Plexiglas. These components will populate or punctuate the rooms of Shores in a way that celebrates the eccentricities of that space, enlivening our experience of common interior features such as doors, ledges, corners, etc.

A sound montage created by layering and looping gathered audio material accompanies the visual installation, connecting both in a new context of experience, which retrieves lost sound just as it salvages pieces of particular human past. The sounds, formerly experienced once and than left behind, form a topography which can be revisited like a familiar landscape, while the blue-gray bits of atmosphere, captured by the camera and viewed through a lens of human refuse, point to a kind of Chicken-Little-in-reverse scenario in which the singular piece of junk is recast as individual perception falling up, under the dome of sky.

Steam, and all the walking the artist did to gather it, is a tribute to Amsterdam’s commitment to the bicycle, a technology still ahead of its’ time.

Hills Snyder lives in the woods outside San Antonio, Texas.

This project has received support from ArtPace, a foundation for contemporary art, San Antonio and The Banff Centre for the Arts, Banff, Alberta.

Born in Lubbock, Texas.
Lives in Helotes, Texas.
2002 New Works Residency, Banff Centre for the Arts, Banff, Canada
2001 ArtPace Travel Grant
1998 Alternate, International Artist in Residence Program, ArtPace
1996 Art Matters, Inc. Individual Fellowship (also 1990)
1995 Mid-America/NEA Fellowship, Sculpture
1994 MFA, University of Texas, San Antonio
1988 Montana Arts Council Residency (also 1986, 1987)
1988 Patrick Media Group Billboard Project, Austin, Texas
1984 Ucross Foundation Residency, Ucross, Wyoming

2002 Yesferatu, Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, TX

2002 Steam, Shores Space, Amsterdam

2001 Green Glasses, Angstrom Gallery, Dallas, Texas

2000 Jack, James Gallery, Houston, Texas

2000 Tea for One, Three Walls, San Antonio, Texas

2000 The Wind Cries Mary, Project Space, Angstrom Gallery, Dallas, Texas

2000 Mercury Poisoning, Finesilver Gallery, San Antonio, Texas

1999 The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Project Room, San Antonio, Texas

1998 Gloville, Casino Luxembourg, Forum d’Art Contemporain, Luxembourg

1998 Suede Sandbox, DiverseWorks subspace, Houston, Texas

1998 Neil Diamond’s Greatest Hits, Sala Diaz, San Antonio, Texas

1997 Representative Material, Rrose Amarillo, San Antonio, Texas

1996 Hand Not Hand, The Hudson (Show) Room, ArtPace, San Antonio, Texas;

1996 Austin Museum of Art, Laguna Gloria, Austin, Texas

1992 Without Time or Might, Nicolaysen Art Museum, Casper, Wyoming

1989 Yellowstone Art Center, Billings, Montana

1987 June Rise Ramble, Custer County Art Center, Miles City, Montana

1987 Garage Optimism, Patrick Gallery, Austin, Texas

1985 Hills Snyder: Constructions and Drawings, Tyler Museum of Art, Tyler, Texas

2001 Cropduster: Chris Sauter and Hills Snyder, James Gallery, Houston, Texas
2001 Dunk, collaborative installation/performance, Hills Snyder and Rev. Ethan Acres, The former Primera Iglesia Buatista Mexicana, San Antonio, Texas
2001 Ruby, Pearl, London, England
2001 Outline, The Hudson (Show) Room, ArtPace, San Antonio, Texas
2001 Once There Was a Spot, Locust projects, Miami, Florida
2001 Paris, Texas, Purple Orchid, Dallas, Texas
2000 Thrifting, Lombard-Freid Fine Arts, New York
2000 hanging , Angstrom Gallery, Dallas, Texas
2000 Works On Paper, d berman Gallery, Austin, Texas
2000 Frame, Lawndale Art Center, Houston, Texas
2000 New and Recent Acquisitions, Microsoft, Mountainview, California
2000 Blaze, Purple Orchid, Dallas, Texas
2000 Embracing Grandeur: Collective Resurrection, Seven Oaks Resort, San Antonio, Texas
2000 Art Chicago 2000, Chicago, Illinois
1999 Blurring The Line, UTSA Satellite Space, San Antonio, Texas
1999 Future Days: New Technology In Art, City Gallery at Wells Fargo Plaza, Houston, Texas
1999 El Centro de Arte Ego, Blue Star Art Space, San Antonio, Texas
1999 dada You dada Hou, Art Scan, Houston, Texas
1999 San Antonio Collects, Blue Star Art Space, San Antonio, Texas
1999 eXquisite Corpse eXtra Large, Lawndale Art Center, Houston, Texas
1998 Chromaform: Color in Sculpture, University of Texas, San Antonio, Texas; University of 1998 North Texas, Denton, Texas; Nevada Institute of Contemporary Art, Las Vegas, Nevada; 1998 New Mexico State University, Las, Cruces, New Mexico; Sonoma State University, Sonoma, 1998 California; Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, Santa Barbara, California;
1998 Visual Arts Center, University of California, Fullerton, California; Mount Holyoke Art
1998 Museum, South Hadley, Massachusettes; Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas
1998 Millenium Fever, DiverseWorks subspace, Houston, Texas
1997 Space, Arlington Museum of Art, Arlington, Texas
1997 GlamourSculpture, Houston Community College, Houston, Texas
1996 Double Trouble: Mirrors/Pairs/Twins/Lovers, Blue Star Art Space, San Antonio, Texas
1995 The Home Show, University of Texas, San Antonio, Texas
1994 Exquisite Corpse, McKinney Avenue Contemporary, Dallas, Texas
1993 Texas Biennial, Dallas, Texas
1993 Before There Were Borders: Beyond Imaginary Lines, Gallery At The Rep, Santa Fe, New Mexico
1991 Lubbock Or Leave It, Austin, Texas
1990 Some Recent Sculpture, Space, Los Angeles, California
1990 Stars Over Texas: Frank Tolbert, Hills Snyder, James Pace, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas
1990 Generic/Obscure, 201 East First, Austin, Texas
1990 Counter Signals, Hickory Street Annex, Dallas, Texas
1989 A Century Of Sculpture In Texas, 1889-1989, Archer M. Huntington Gallery,
1989 University Of Texas, Austin, Texas; Amarillo Art Center, Amarillo, Texas;
1989 San Angelo Museum of Art, San Angelo, Texas; El Paso Museum of Art,
1989 El Paso, Texas; Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, Texas
1988 West Texas Homecoming, Lubbock Fine Arts Center, Lubbock, Texas
1988 Small Sculpture, Robischon Gallery, Denver, Colorado
1988 Beyond Sculpture: Constructions by Texas Artists, Abilene Fine Arts Museum, Abilene, Texas
1987 Third Coast Review: A Look At Art In Texas, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, Colorado; niversity of Colorado Art Galleries, Boulder, Colorado; Power Plant Visual Arts Center, Ft. Collins, Colorado; Blue Star Art Space, San Antonio, Texas
1987 Crossovers: Steve Marsh, Guy Juke, Laurie Freelove, Hills Snyder, Butch Hancock, 1501 W 5th, Austin, Texas
1987 Resources: Plenty and Plundered, Brunswick Contemporary Art Center, Missoula, Montana
1986 Transpositions/Collaborations, San Antonio Art Institute, San Antonio, Texas
1985 John Hernandez, Hills Snyder, Randy Twaddle, Patrick Gallery, Austin, Texas
1984 New Works by Austin Artists, Laguna Gloria Art Museum, Austin, Texas
1984 Constructed Image/Constructed Object, Alternative Museum, New York, New York
1984 Four Texas Artists, Galveston Arts Center, Galveston, Texas
1983 Visual Short Stories: Five From Austin, The Art Center, Waco, Texas
1983 Sculpture On the Wall, San Antonio Art Institute, San Antonio, Texas
1983 Gordon McVay, Susan Maye, Hills Snyder (with Lizards on a half watt), L.A. Heights Alternate Space, San Antonio, Texas
1982 Masks and Fetishes, Sebastian-Moore Gallery, Denver, Colorado
1982 New Visions, Patrick Gallery, Austin, Texas
1982 Founder’s Exhibition, L.A. Heights Alternate Space, San Antonio, Texas
1981 Mythmakers and Storytellers, Patrick Gallery, Austin, Texas
1981 Austin Local No. 5, California Hotel, Austin, Texas
1980 Night Journeys, Lubbock Lights, Lubbock, Texas
1980 Zip Code Ground Zero, Roscoe-Louie Gallery, Seattle, Washington
1979 Miniatures, Lawndale Annex, University of Houston, Houston, Texas
1978 Why American Men Wear Veils, InterArtWorks, Austin, Texas
1977 Three At Trinity, Trinity House Gallery, Austin, Texas

Browne, Jenny. “Two - timing at the Seven Oaks,” San Antonio Current, July 27 - August 2, 2000, pp. 12, 15.
Budge, Susan. “Hills Snyder,” in Chromaform: Color in Sculpture, University of Texas San Antonio, 1998.
Carlozzi, Annette Dimeo. Third Coast Review: A Look At Art In Texas, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, Colorado, September 1987.
Carlozzi, Annette Dimeo. New Works By Austin Artists, Laguna Gloria Art Museum exhibition catalog, October 1984.
Choi, W. Christine. ART unsenseored, SENSE Houston, May 18, 2001.
Cohen, Rebecca S. “Hand Not Hand,” Austin Chronicle, October 25, 1996, p. 36.
Collins, Bernice. “ ‘Storytellers’ weaves symbolic visual myths,” Daily Texan, November 5, 1981, Images section.
Colpitt, Frances. “The Road To Gloville,” inGloville, Casino Luxembourg, 1998.
Colpitt, Frances. “SPACE>WORK>SPACE,” in Space, Arlington Museum of Art, 1997.
Colpitt, Frances. “Hills Snyder at The Austin Museum of Art,” Art In America, February 1997, p. 109.
Colpitt, Frances. The Home Show, University of Texas, San Antonio, 1995.
Davenport, Bill. “Cropduster: Hills Snyder / Chris Sauter,” Glasstire, Texas Visual Arts Online, January 2001.
Dewan, Shaila. “The Shows of Summer,” Houston Press, July 29 – August 4, 1999.
Duncan, Michael. “Report from San Antonio,” Artnet Magazine, August 2000.
Engelstein, Sharon. “Sala Diaz,” Artl!es #26, 2000, pp. 16-18.
Ewing, John. “We’re Only In It for The Art,” San Antonio Current, April 19 – 25, 2001.
Ewing, John. “Representative Material,” Voices of Art, July - August, 1997, pp. 14 - 17.
Friis-Hansen, Dana. Double Trouble: Mirrors/Pairs/Twins/Lovers, Blue Star Art Space, 1996.
Gerst, David. “If I Ran The Whitney...,” Canvas: Visual Life In Texas, Spring 2000., pp. 19 - 23.
Gilliam, Jacqueline. “Introduction: Drawn From Memory,” in Gloville, Casino Luxembourg, 1998, pp. 8 - 10.
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Goddard, Dan R. “ New challenges,” San Antonio Express-News, February 16, 1997, p. 7F.
Goddard, Dan R. “Snyder deconstructs pop icons with wit,” San Antonio Express-News, August 11, 1996, p. 7F.
Goddard, Dan R. “Double Trouble,” San Antonio Express News, July 14, 1996, p. 7G.
Goddard, Dan R. “Art from the home front,” San Antonio Express-News, July 23, 1995, pp. 1G, 5G.
Greenberg, Mike. “Local museums attract impressive exhibits,” San Antonio Express-News, December 29, 1996, p. 9F.
Irvine, Madeline. “Snyder’s treasure hunt of art,” Austin American-Statesman, October 22, 1996, p. E3.
Keane, Terence. Hills Snyder: Constructions and Drawings , Tyler Museum of Art, 1985.
Klassmeyer, Kelly. “Southern Living,” Houston Press, February 15 - 21, 2001, p. 63.
Klassmeyer, Kelly. “Art: The Third Dimension,” Houston Press, June 1 - 7, 2000, pp. 57 - 58.
Knudsen, Rainey. “San Antonio,” Canvas: Visual Life In Texas, Fall 2000, PP. 18 - 19.
Kremer, Boris. “Gloville, ville ouverte,” d’Letzeburger Land, February 20, 1998.
Kutner, Janet. “ ‘SPACE’ show allows artists to really take off,” Dallas Morning News, December 7, 1997.
Kutner, Janet. “Hills Snyder,” ARTnews, November 1985, p. 132
Lennie, Janaki. “Ultralounge / Suede Sandbox,” Artl!es #19, 1998, p. 43.
Lunghi, Enrico. “Forward,” in Gloville, Casino Luxembourg, 1998, pp. 5 - 7.
McCabe, Bret. “Sean Slattery and Hills Snyder,” Glasstire, Texas Visual Arts Online, May 2001.
McConnell, Gordon. “Worlds Within Worlds: The Art of Hills Snyder,” in June Rise Ramble, Custer County Art Center, 1987.
McFarland, John. “Outrageous,” New Art Examiner, Vol. 10, #10, Summer 1983, p. 19.
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Merry, Bejou. “psychedelic artesia,” Austin Chronicle, October 29, 1982.
Odom, Michael. “Paris, Texas,” Art Papers, September – October, 2001, p. 51.
Ohlin, Alex. “San Antonio Art: Down-Home and World Famous,” The Texas Observer, July 20, 2001.
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Rufe, Laurie J. “Of Thieves, Kings and Wanderers,” in June Rise Ramble, Custer County Art Center, Miles City, 1987.
Sanders, Gail. “Works On Paper,” Artl!es #27, 2000, p. 51.
Sirmans, Franklin. “Cityscape: San Antonio,” Flash Art, Summer 1998.
Slattery, Sean. “Paris, Texas @ Purple Orchid,” Coagula, Summer 2001. P. 54.
Storr, Robert. “Texas Shuffle,” in New American Talent, Texas Fine Arts Association, Austin, Texas, 1997.
Torregrossa, Bernice. “Spellbinding spaces,” Austin-American Statesman, August 8, 1985, p. G1.
Welch, Roger. “Not Set in Stone,” San Antonio Express-News, October 9, 1998, p. 3G.
Zwartjes, Arend. “Hills Snyder,” Art Papers, January-February 2001, p. 49.
Zwartjes, Arend. “Hills Snyder,” Artl!es #26, 2000, p.82.
Zwartjes, Arend. “Chromaform,” Artl!es #20, 1998, p. 50.

Austin Museum of Art, Austin
Casino Luxembourg, Forum d’Art Contemporain, Luxembourg
The Microsoft Collection, Redmond, Washington
Montana Arts Council, Helena, Montana
Nicolaysen Art Museum, Casper, Wyoming
University of Texas, El Paso
David Cadwallader, Dallas
Colleen Casey, San Antonio
Nancy Davidson, Paris
Joe Diaz, San Antonio
Suzette Kinder, San Antonio
Gunnar and Beverly Kopp, Houston/Mexico City
June Mattingly, Dallas
Laurence Miller, Austin
Salina and George Muellich, San Antonio
Bill Munday, Chicago
Linda Pace, San Antonio
Dick and Marylou Patrick, Baltimore
Whitley and Anne Strieber, San Antonio
Cynthia Toles, Houston/San Antonio

“A Brief History of Time,” Glasstire, Texas Visual arts Online, July 2001.
“Everybody Has One,” Meg Langhorne text, Finesilver Gallery, San Antonio, 2001.
“Dust,” Chris Sauter review, Houston, Artl!es #25, 2000.
“This Is This,” in Curating Degree Zero, Verlag für moderne Kunst, Nürnberg, Germany, 1999.
“Love Is The Drug,” The Art Guys review, Houston, Artl!es #23, 1999.
“Heaven Can Waste,” Anya Gallaccio review, Houston, Artl!ies #22, 1999.
“Slowly I Turn,” Cornelia Parker review, Houston, Artl!es #21, 1998.
“Body and Site,” in Preis f ür Skulptur, Objectkunst und verwandte Medien, H.W.J. Hector-Kunstpreis, der Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany, 1997.
“Body and Site,” in Leni Hoffmann Ubik, Cantz, Osfildern-Ruit, Germany, 1997.
“Predicaments: Elizabeth McGrath,” in Elizabeth McGrath, Installations, Eugene Binder Gallery, Long Island City, New York, 1997.
“Body and Site,” Leni Hoffmann exhibition catalog, ArtPace, San Antonio, 1996.
“Trajectory: How Am I?,” May Sun exhibition catalog, ArtPace, San Antonio, 1996.
“Evidence of Play,” Elizabeth McGrath exhibition catalog, ArtPace, San Antonio, 1996.

2001 Sala Diaz, San Antonio, Texas: Anne Wallace; Nate Cassie; Michele Monseau; Pink Filth; Francesca Fuchs and Aaron Parazette; Mark Flood; Elizabeth McGrath and Sue Scott
2000 Sala Diaz, San Antonio, Texas: Sharon Engelstein; Todd Brandt; Ethel Shipton; The Art Guys; Chris Sauter and Charles La Belle; Callida Borgnino and Constance Lowe
1999 Sala Diaz, San Antonio, Texas: Yunhee Min; John Hernandez; Carlos Mollura; Meg Langhorne
1999 James Gallery, Houston, Texas: Temporary Things
1998 Sala Diaz, San Antonio, Texas: Bill Davenport; James Hayward
1997 The Hudson (Show) Room, ArtPace, San Antonio, Texas: Art Matters
1995 UTSA Satellite Space, San Antonio, Texas: Joseph Havel
1990 The Pilot Hole, San Antonio, Texas: Mark Hansen; John Hernandez; Precious and Grace
1989 The Pilot Hole, San Antonio, Texas: Couples
1986 Patrick Gallery, Austin, Texas: Artists of The Western Stairstep
1984 L.A. Heights Alternate Space, San Antonio, Texas: Austin Arms
1979 Laundry Lounge, Austin, Texas: Life at Laundry Lounge

Train Kept A Rollin’, Modern Art Museum of Ft. Worth, 2001
Redefining Community, Texas Association of Museums, San Antonio, Texas, 2001
Gloville, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, 1998
Curating Degree Zero, Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen, Germany, 1998
SPACE, Akademie Der Bildenden Kunst, Nürnberg, Germany, 1997
Hand Not Hand, ArtPace, San Antonio, Texas, 1996

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