Arthouse’s Texas Prize: Beating a Dead Horse

A better finale for the Texas Prize would be almost impossible. Last Sunday, Bill Davenport, as a graceful catharsis for losing (such an ugly term, really) to Katrina Moorehead, invited the Austin community to beat the crap (or in this case, $500 in dimes, lots of half-melted Hershey’s Kisses and red glitter) out of his Stealth Fighter Piñata.

One of the most fascinating things to me about the event was how in destroying the sculpture I was finally able to understand it. It was so impenetrable before, a big black mass like the monolith in 2001, except fuzzy. If you had asked me what I thought it was “about,” I would have said “Bill’s ego.” I wouldn’t have skipped a single beat. But seeing the intense joy in everyone’s face while a cornucopia of tools (a rake, a shovel, a hockey stick, a mop, a golf club, a hoe) gutted the black exterior and revealed the pink foam and chicken wire and covered the concrete floors with the silver of dimes and Kisses an the red glitter while an organist banged along on a farfisa completely changed my mind. Suddenly the “stealth” in the title described the “piñata” part. Suddenly I heard the bomber’s muteness as a declaration. “Shhh! I’m secretly a lot of fun! But don’t tell anyone yet!”

Watching a grinning Bill run around his creation like a little kid was quite a sight. And the remains were fucking beautiful.

A special shout out goes out to the guy in the orange baseball hat who shamelessly, greedily and vulgarly pocketed vast amounts of dimes, creeping a lot of us out and interfering with all the children’s fun.

Now going back a bit to the night of the ceremony: If any concerned citizens were thinking of forming an Austin arts community temperance league after the almost grotesque (in the best possible sense of the word) and utterly fun Texas Prize awards ceremony bacchanalia at Stubb’s, look no further for a case study: here’s a funny little story about what Katrina Moorehead did after she won.

And finally, I really want to commend Arthouse for the online content they uploaded to go along with the show. Both the podcasts and the Interactive Educational Website are fantastic. I REALLY hope they keep doing this.