Who's on first: Artist (left) and analyst at CentralTrak

Last Saturday night, I swept my eyes from left to right, then back again, over photographer Denise Prince's four pieces at CentralTrak as if I was flipping through pages in a magazine. On another wall, there was a bigger neon display, its bold blues and pinks distracting you from the bigger picture: In one corner, there is an impossibly polished model, and in the other, you are looking at a dead woman.

Over the last few years, Prince, who grew up in Dallas, has been recreating images from a 2009 Missoni ad campaign, called Replication and Breakdown of the Missoni Estate Line Catalog. She assigned the model roles to women and men who'd experienced physical trauma or deformity. In the above case, she photographed a recently deceased woman in India and juxtaposed her with the ad's original model.

The pieces were part of CentralTrak's current That Mortal Coil exhibit, which focuses on more radical depictions of the body and contemporary beauty and fashion. Her models were there among Ari Richter's heavily contested "Wolf Dong," R.E. Cox's architecturally precarious prosthetic leg sculptures, and Nina Schwanse's "Squirting" video series. It was a lot to take in.

Which is why I was so excited to know Prince's work would be psychoanalyzed by Dr. Charles Merward, her L.A.-based shrink, at CentralTrak a few days later, during a talk called "Not on Speaking Terms."

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"Billowing Beauties" by Anne Ferrer

These inflatable sculptures will fill Red Arrow Contemporary on Saturday

Dallas' sprawl is often seen as a weakness, especially when it comes to creating community. But sometimes a little distance is useful. It allows for distinctive pockets of artistic personalities to emerge, and when those pieces click together, as should happen on Saturday, our city's many influences become visible, tangible and, at times, interactive.

To witness that panoramic view, break away from your usual stomping grounds, update your mapping app and pack your car with friends. Also, bring snacks. If you want the complete tour of Dallas art this Saturday, you'll need to maintain for 12 hours straight.

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"Wolf Dong," by Ari Richter

"Lately it feels like something's come between us."

There's a lot going on in That Mortal Coil (Rebuking the Ideal in Contemporary Figurative Art), CentralTrak's newest group show, curated by Heyd Fontenot. The exhibition is a search for beauty in unconventional bodily spaces, and a retaliation to how the human figure is perceived in terms of physical perfection.

Also? There's a dildo covered in dog hair.

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All photos by Javier Valadez

A man stands alone in the first-floor hallway of the Fairmont Hotel in downtown Dallas. His lanky arms hang behind his back, hands clasped. His fedora sits low between his eyes, obscuring his unflinching gaze at the glass encasement filled with large-scale, Renaissance-style oil paintings.

Tony Bennet, the hotel doorman, hurries by, stopping to pat the young man's back: "Hey there, young buck."

The artist, 24 and burning with energy, turns to give the man a dap, then returns his gaze to the art, and the words on the glass wall, "Riley Holloway: Artist in Residence." He smiles and trudges down the stairs to his studio.

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The art collective In Cooperation With Muscle Nation thought of a great idea: Combine the identities of each individual member to create a single work of art.

Their approach was to gather 20 objects from each member, photograph each of those objects individually, then cover Oak Cliff's Davis Foundry Gallery with the photos. There is no notation as to which photographed object belongs to which member; therefore, the space would become a self-portrait of the collective, rather than each member.

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WWF legend The Ultimate Warrior stands in front of a U.W. branded background, shirtless and in full guise. His chest is wet with sweat, muscles flexed to full suspension and nipples sharp enough to gouge the canvas mat. What was probably a reactionary response to an interviewer's mention of arch-nemesis The Undertaker, the GIF has captured our warrior in a fit of testosterone-fueled rage, head-banging, mouth ajar, eyes-squinted.

We'll never know the cause or effect. But to Bradly Brown, whose HOMECOMING! Committee recently exhibited a collection of GIFs, that's the point.

"It's a very coded language, like a bunch on inside jokes," he says. "A lot of people don't get it, but I think that's the idea, that's part of it"

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UTD's CentralTrak artist residency occasionally pulls out the chairs to talk about art.

Last week's Not Waiting For Permission, the 2nd Annual State of the Emerging Arts at UTD's CentralTrak, continued the out-in-the-open conversation that's forcing people to take notice, and perhaps sides, in their support of local art.

For too long it seemed the conversations dictating the fate of independent galleries and outside-the-gallery work were taking place around kitchen tables in the homes of supporters of the scene. The motif that's formed lately has been to break off the table's legs and heave the damn thing through the window, allowing everyone outside to climb through.

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Tiles by Cassandra Emswiler

We indulge the word memory in a utilitarian way, as though it were a physical space, crammed full of ancient locker combinations and emotional residue, a kind of messy junk drawer full of neural sparks that you'll sort through, someday.

In Cassandra Emswiler's new solo show Canticles of Praise, on display at the Safe Room, a new gallery within Texas Theatre, we see the opposite. Her memory is an aired-out series of encounters and archival family history. Here, we're given visual storytelling as lovingly arranged by Emswiler's focused mind.

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Controlled viewing of Dixie Friend Gay's North Texas Sunrise (2013).

The most visually stimulating thing at the new Love Field terminal is the Cinnabon sign.

There's been a lot of hoohah this week over seven new commissioned "public" artworks at the terminal. Dixie Friend Gay's "North Texas Sunrise" (2013) is a wall of mosaic tile at the entrance. It's a lovely piece depicting our wildflowers, composed of solid color fragments of tile no bigger than your palm, but unless you get close, it looks like a painting. No one was getting close except for the odd security guard eyeballing the lines. The layout of the space is about airport security, not art appreciation, so Gay's efforts are reduced to decoration. But at least I could find it.

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We've raised some questions about the mayor's #DallasArtWeek, but we also made sure to check out the annual Dallas Art Fair at the Fashion Industry Gallery, where artists and galleries displayed their work in one easy-to-peruse space. There was a lot of thoughtful gazing going on over the weekend, and Mike Brooks was there to capture it.

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