Return to Reliant

Janet Jackson's high-energy performance reflects what's good — and bad — aboutRodeoHouston

Photo by John M. Boni/CatchlightGroup.com
Janet Jackson
Photo by John M. Boni/CatchlightGroup.com
Photo by John M. Boni/CatchlightGroup.com
Photo by John M. Boni/CatchlightGroup.com

It's a Catch-22 that RodeoHouston continually runs into: The more it spreads its wings and brings unprecedented non-country superstars like Janet Jackson to the mobile Reliant Stadium stage, the more it gets exposed for how limited a rodeo performance can be when compared to a regular (i.e. non-rodeo) concert.

Friday night at RodeoHouston Janet Jackson's performance — perhaps more than any in the last decade —exposed all that is great about a superstar performance on this specialty platform... as well as all that is lost in an effort to make a complex, choreographed diva show work in the abbreviated time frame artists are allotted to perform.

Given the terrain, the criticism is as close to looking a gift horse in the mouth as possible. And with tickets for a performance of Jackson's caliber priced as low as $18, there is little room to quibble.

But it can't be denied that when RodeoHouston goes mainstream something is lost in the translation.

It should be noted that none of these objections are any fault of Jackson's. As the first member of the Jackson family to play RodeoHouston since the Jackson Five back in 1975, the girl who was once simply known as "Michael's kid sister" and turned herself into and R&B legend, did what she was asked with incredible professionalism, sensuality and premium entertainment value.

Opening with a personalized video greeting to the Houston crowd (but with no mention of her contrversial performance on the same field at the Super Bowl in 2004 when she experienced the infamous "wardrobe malfunction"), her hit showcase was a tour of both the public musical wisdom and not-so-private life experience she has developed over the last 25 years.

Even more, it was an admission that these two virtues not only dominate her life, but are dependent on each other.

Choosing older single mid-'80s singles like "The Pleasure Principle" and "Control" to introduce the show was a nod to the innocence we all associated with Jackson back when she first arrived as an actor on sitcoms like Good Times and Different Strokes. The skin-tight suit, bursting with cleavage and curves, was a juxtaposition she did not offer when these songs were new.

Ms. Jackson, if you're nasty indeed.

Her 70 minutes on stage wove through the obvious — "What Have You Done For Me Lately," "Miss You Much," "Alright" — all arranged with not only a large band but a crew of masked and fashion-forward dancers that looked plucked from a naughty art film like Tom Cruises' Eyes Wide Shut.

After sweating to her oldies, Jackson slowed it down for classic slow grooves like "Let's Wait Awhile," and "Come Back To Me," setting the mood for a big finale.

And at any other show Jackson would have been allowed to deliver the final kick. Unfortunately, at RodeoHouston, this was when when she was asked to wrap it up. Following, "Scream" an encore tribute to her iconic brother Michael, and the bass-beat blast of "Rhythm Nation," Jackson was loaded into a yellow convertible and driven away.

In the past the abbreviated RodeoHouston setlist was a theory, but the lighting and choreography and ensemble precision of Jackson's current Number Ones: Up Close and Personal World Tour require a setlist stability. A look at a setlist from a recent date on the tour in Indonesia last month compared to the setlist at RodeoHouston makes it clear that a significant middle chunk of her full show was missing. In addition to a medley of hits that included pop-pleasures "Escapade" and "Love Will Never Do (Without You)," past favorites like "That's The Way Love Goes" and "Black Cat," were also omitted for time.

For those not comparing notes from one show to another, this was historic night at RodeoHouston.

As someone who knows there should have been more, however, I can't help but feel the enthusiastic rodeo crowd was cheated.

It begs the question: If RodeoHouston is going to pay the big bucks to bring these stars in, why not let them perform their show in its entirety?

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Art on the Prairie

The roots of Lone Star art: William Reaves unearths the Texas modernistlandscape

Richard Stout, "Evenings Fall," 1967
David Adickes, "Three Men on a Beach," 1953
Jack Boynton, "Inland Lights," 1956
Emma Richardson Cherry, "Southern Morning," c. 1930

This month's editorial series, True Grit: Houston Style, has sought to answer to what extent Houston embraces its Texas roots. To investigate how Houston artists have come to terms with their state's landscape, we went to William Reaves Fine Art, a gallery whose mission is to define modernism in Texas.

"We opened the gallery to convey a story about the evolution of modernism in our state," says the gallery's owner, William Reaves. He pinpoints Houston as the "birthplace" of Texas modernism for the community's willingness to display abstract works in museums and support award-winning artists as early as the 1930s. Artist-teachers like Emma Richardson Cherry and Ella McNeil Davidson had means to travel internationally and cultivated a generation of informed local artists like Robert Preusser and Frank Dolejska in the 1920s and '30s via institutions like the Art League and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Reaves notes that much ink has been spilt chronicling the first half of the 20th century in Texas art, but it was not until after World War II that the region received the necessary influx of knowledgeable artists to create an enduring community. Several local artists who stayed in Europe after the war brought back global influences. Paris was briefly home to a creative Texan expat culture, inculcating such minds as Herb Meers and David Adickes, who studied under the lionized Cubist painter Fernand Léger.

"This sort of French-looking, Texas cubist school that they created when they returned was very different from the bluebonnets people were used to seeing," says Reaves.

As the 1950s progressed, Houston became a "hotbed" for non-representational art, led by figures like Jack Boynton and Richard Stout (whose work from the era will be on view in an exhibition opening Friday). "A lot of this stuff from the '50s is new again because it's been kind of squirreled away in closets for awhile," says Reaves. "It comes off as fresh because there's a kinship with contemporary artists."

No doubt that international currents increasingly flowed into the local art mix, but did Houston artists ever completely turn their back on the Texas landscape?

"My impression is that it's a blend," says the gallery owner, citing Richard Stout as an example of an artist who has studied under other masters and blended that style with an impression of the state. Explains Reaves,

He paints in an expressionist style and has been informed by a lot of different artists over time. In addition, he was an art professor at UH for 25 years, so he's very aware of what's going on internationally. But Richard is also from Beaumont and his work almost always sees a landscape influence — a lot of coastal plains and rich atmosphere. Yet it is painted in a way that is informed by a lot of important artists from the New York School."

Similarly, Boynton and McKie Trotter presented work at New York galleries, yet their respective reductive landscapes and abstract expressionist works evince a horizon line evocative of the wide skies and flatness of Texas.

In truth, the link between Houston artists and their Texas roots is not a black-and-white issue. But to some extent, the answer is embedded in the cadre of works on view at William Reaves Fine Art. More than simply display and distribute artworks, the gallery presents curated thematic exhibitions that are accompanied by robust physical and online catalogues derived from research conducted at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston's Hirsch Library.

"The gestalt of what we're trying to do," says Reaves, "is trace a history of Texas art that may have been overlooked, but at its zenith, there's this beautiful, vital modernism."

The exhibitions Lone Star Modernism: A Celebration of Mid-Century Texas Art and Richard Stout: The Early Years open Friday, with a reception April 9, 5 - 8 p.m. A gallery talk will be held April 30 from 2 - 4 p.m. Both exhibitions are on view through May 7.

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