The Guide: Dallas Morning News, August 11, 2000

FWAS' current show features two of the area's brightest young talents:Randall James Friedman, a New York City transplant who specializes in"interactive" installation art, and Johnny Robertson, a born-and-bred Texan best known in recent years for large monochromatic paintings meant as modern explorations of landscape.

HOW IT LOOKS: Mr. Friedman and Mr. Robertson have created the space's first two site-specific artworks, which complement themselves nicely despite being concerned with two differing subjects and requiring two levels of artistic thought.

Mr. Friedman's The Social involves near-antique electric hair dryers, some dating from the 1940s, mounted to thin pedestals made of welded copper tubing. Fourteen dryers hum and blow at each other, set at relative distances, directions and heights that resemble humans at a social function. Walking through the elegant, artificial gathering is encouraged, to add even more hot air to the scene.

Smog is the first word teased out of memory by Mr. Robertson's Los Angeles, a nine-panel series of bleary oils on canvas that cover the length of two walls. The metallic gunmetal blue base color proves attractive on its face but urbanely depressing as a whole. Subtle drips, ripples and other textures enhance the progression and suggest not only the West Coast concrete jungle but the eerie grey-blue beauty of the neighboring Pacific Ocean. Each roughly 4-by-61/2-foot panel is mounted at eye level and on a gradual slant away from the wall, which creates interesting shadowing effects from the gallery's spotlights.

Mike Daniel