Texas Tornados

Comunicato stampa

Classic movies have nicknamed it The Giant, because after Alaska is the largest of the United States. In the collective imagination, Texas is associated with cowboys and deserts. But for a number of years now, the state is also seen as the new frontier of American art. Private foundations have been formed, great architects have created remarkable buildings, collectors have multiplied, and the art scene is particularly lively, ranging through mainstream tastes, above all in the area of minimalism, but also alternative paths of research that reveal the region’s true spirit of curiosity.

We should remember, in fact, that American alternative culture stems from a very particular tradition that completely bypasses the European avant-gardes of the early 1900s, reinterpreting characteristic forms for which the new generations conduct interesting studies and investigations, starting from a simple question: how to combine styles and languages only marginally observed in official channels with the many forms of “outsider” culture of the present?

Much has been written today on the vitality of Texas. Austin is considered the capital of live music; one of the most important contemporary writers, Cormac McCarthy, who died a few months ago, set his most famous novels in Texas, like come All the Pretty Horses and No Country for Old Men. The literary scene has produced the explosive Joe Lansdale, and Philipp Meyer, author of the “new western” The Son. At the openings of exhibitions, it is normal to come across the actor Ethan Hawke, born in Austin, or Wes Anderson, who comes from Houston.

After having explored at length the art of the West Coast, the focus of Galleria Antonio Colombo shifts into the heart of America, with an exhibition titled Texas Tornados, referring to the supergroup active since 1989, which works on the modernization of the Tex-Mex style, contaminating country-rock rhythms with the so-called Norteño approach. Here lies the key of interpretation of this very lively relationship with the tradition of folk and outsider art of the 20th century, crossed with the usual world of cultural contaminations that has represented the gallery’s poetic signature over the years.

The artists participating in Texas Tornados are nearly all showing for their first time in Italy, or even in Europe.