“WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY” at the MFAH: All But Death, can be Adjusted…
Draped in camouflage, bunting, or shroud, war’s singular product is death. In face after face of WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, nothing is more abundantly clear than the awful intimacy of war and death. The exhibition begs the question, is our greatest modern efficiency murder? [...]
QUAY films at the MFAH
This Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston is showcasing the artistry of filmmakers Stephen and Timothy Quay with a special series including six films spanning 25 years– from their early puppet animation masterpiece Street of Crocodiles to the Houston premiere of their latest film, Through The Weeping Glass. I remember–back before [...]
DAISIES
“Everything is being spoiled in this world. …Know what? When everything is being spoiled, we’ll be spoiled too!” So proclaim two teenage girls–both named Marie–before embarking on a romp of epic consumption and gleeful havok-wreaking. There is no film on the planet like Vera Chytilová’s 1966 Daisies. An explosive concoction of New Wave cinema, Dadaist [...]
Dragons; beauty at the MFAH
Can I admit that I get a major kick out of this image? That I am thankful for it? Can I say this without losing a significant portion of the readership? I hope so. Yes, it is a racist caricature, and I implore you to believe me when I tell you that my thrill is [...]
MFAH Gets $100K Silver Polishing Grant from IMLS; UT Dress Conservators Get the Lead Out
The Museum of Fine Arts Houston will get seventeen new airtight, sulfur-free cabinets to store it’s 898-piece collection of silver alloy items, taking them out of their tissue paper and plastic bags and allowing them to be viewed more often, all paid for by a $102,811 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. [...]
No Ketchup On the Cragg! MFAH Sculpture Garden to Host Outdoor Eats
Cafe Express is no longer the only food option! Beginning March 12, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston has arranged for a different food truck to park alongside their under-used sculpture garden from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. seven days a week in a new initiative they’re calling “Fine Art + Food Trucks.” A roster of seven [...]
Abstraction Triumvirate: Richard Serra, Joel Shapiro, Jules Olitski
When Richard Serra’s drawing retrospective opened at the Menil Collection, it was SERRAPALOOZA. Throngs of people congregated at the Menil, many of us on the outside lawn in festival fashion, to hear Serra in conversation with the Menil’s Michelle White, one of the exhibition’s curators. Having just spent the last few months working with the [...]
Abstraction Packed
There is a proliferation of exhibitions featuring abstract painting in Houston right now. Gallery Sonja Roesch, Sicardi Gallery, and Hiram Butler Gallery have group exhibitions featuring abstract painters, and there are several galleries featuring solo exhibitions by painters– Zachariah Rieke at Wade Wilson Art, Michael Kennaugh at Moody Gallery, Geoff Hippenstiel at Devin Borden Gallery, [...]
Google of Doodles at MFAH
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston will be supporting the the 2012 “Doodle 4 Google” contest by exhibiting the Texas state finalists’ drawings this summer. The annual competition invites students across the United States to create their own customized versions of the ever-changing logo featured on the mega corporation’s ubiquitous website- the selected best of [...]
MFAH Chooses Steven Holl as Architect for New New Art Building
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, has selected Steven Holl Architects to develop plans for their highly anticipated new building art after 1900. Holl was selected from among thre finalists, Steven Holl Architects, Snøhetta and Morphosis, who prepared concepts for the project. The building (and parking structure) will occupy the two-acre parking lot across the [...]
MFAH’s Combative Ramiréz in Wall St. Journal, calls Frida Kahlo Overappreciated Drama Queen
Blogger Judith Dobrzynski interviews the MFAH’s Mari Carmen Ramírez for today’s Wall St. Journal on the eve of the launch of the museum’s vast digital archive of Latin American art source materials. The first 2,500 documents from Argentina, Mexico and the American Midwest go online on Thursday, gathered and scanned under the museum’s International Center [...]
See Art! Get Inspired! Write Poems! (Oh, But No Plagiarism, Use 14 Point Times New Roman and Please Be Appropriate)
There’s a new contest for Texas writers called ARTlines: An Ekphrastic Poetry Competition, sponsored by a new reading series in Houston called Public Poetry in conjunction with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. When I first read about the contest, I was excited; I want to support any opportunity for cross-fertilization between writing and visual [...]
The Man Who Fell to Earth at MFAH
The best movie to see alone and/or stoned this Thanksgiving weekend is Nicolas Roeg’s 1976 existential Sci-Fi oddity, The Man Who Fell To Earth. A new film print of the original cut is screening Friday-Sunday at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. The movie is based on a 1963 novel by Walter Tevis, who called [...]
MFAH’s Benevolent Ancestors Gift $1.2 Million in Art at One Great Night Event
Given the lack of couture to comment on, Culturemap society reporter Shelby Hodge details the bentleys, cigars, and the art purchased at the MFAH’s all-male “One Great Night in November” fundraiser, which took place Saturday night. Though unflattering in flash-lit photography, all those tuxedos had deep pockets: the guests reached in and went on a [...]
Your Ultimate Holiday Shopping Guide: TX Museum Gift Shop Edition
Wherever we go in Texas, we always make time for the museum gift shops. Our museum shops reliably have some of the most fun, unique and affordable gifts (for yourself and others) to be found. We’ve rounded up some of the best of them this year. For more shopping delight, be sure to check our [...]
MFAH-curated War Photo Show to Travel to LA, DC, NY
War/Photography: Photographs of Armed Conflict and its Aftermath the much anticipated mega-show that is scheduled to open next November (2012) in Houston, has announced a touring itinerary, making it one of the very few shows to originate here, rather than just passing through. Organized by a curatorial team consisting of Anne Wilkes Tucker, Gus and [...]
World on a Wire: A new/old film by R. W. Fassbinder comes to Texas screens.
Phillip K. Dick meets Jean-Luc Godard in the fever dream of a vintage collector! OK, that was my quick attempt at a simple and catchy, hyperbolic hook for Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s mostly unknown 1973 film, World on a Wire. Maybe not the best tagline, but not completely off the mark either. This brilliant oddity was [...]
MFAH Buys Big Yellow Stella Painting, Different From Menil’s Big Yellow De Maria Painting.
Big yellow minimalism is in- The Museum of Fine Arts has announced the acquisition of Frank Stella’s Palmito Ranch (1961), which they got at a discount from the artist, who gave them a break in honor of the MFAH’s late director Peter Marzio. “Peter Marzio was everything you would want from the director of a [...]