COMING TO AMERICA
Robert Frank’s 1950s at the MFAH The new exhibition, American Made: 250 Years of American Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston opens next weekend. The show will feature an extremely wide variety of both fine art and decorative works from the museum’s collection, made between the 18th and 20th centuries. They’re boasting an [...]
Benini Sculpture Ranch for Sale
The 142-acre Benini Sculpture Ranch in the Hill Country west of Austin is for sale. The property, once owned by Lyndon Johnson, was purchased by sculptor Benini and his wife in 1999 as an outdoor art venue and studio, and has been hosting exhibitions ans installations of very large objects ever since. The asking price [...]
Schimmel Latest in Series of Staff Losses at LA-MOCA
With the artworld in almost unanimous head-shaking mode over LA-MOCA’s firing (?) of respected curator Paul Schimmel, the LA Times puts the episode in context of a series of staff losses since the arrival of art-dealer-turned-museum-director Jeffrey Deitch. Chief curator Paul Schimmel is only the latest of many being shown the door at Jeffrey Deitch’s [...]
Stir at Gallery M Squared
Stir is a visually cohesive, materially investigative group show at M Squared Gallery as part of Print Matters. Rabéa Ballin, Lovie Olivia, Delita Martin and Ann Johnson also showed together last year with The Roux at the Houston Museum of African American Culture. This year, the catalog sold out right away so hopefully what this [...]
Art Fugitive: Menil Vandalism Suspect Crit on Artinfo, Discussed in Wall Street Journal
The Menil Picasso vandalism story is working its way up the media ladder: the Wall Street Journal‘s Eric Felten pokes at the art/crime knot without unraveling it, referring to a tongue-in-cheek “portfolio review” of Landeros’ rambling, immature symbolist paintings, on ArtInfo.com, based on pictures posted on Landeros’ Facebook page. Not really getting the humor, (admittedly [...]
Paul Schimmel Fired from LA MOCA
Paul Schimmel, highly respected chief curator at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art for 22 years, was fired by the museum’s board, over disagreements about the museum’s direction. Billionaire philanthropist, and virtual museum-owner Eli Broad delivered the chop Wednesday, much to the dismay of the artworld.
Texas Arts Resources: TALA
Need a lawyer to look over a contract before you sign it? Are you planning on starting a nonprofit organization and need assistance with filing the paperwork? Can’t afford litigation and you need mediation services? Do you have questions about copyright issues? Need some help with Quickbooks? While not the most glamorous aspects of [...]
“Omer Fast: 5000 Feet is the Best” at the Dallas Museum of Art
5000 Feet is the Best, on view at the Dallas Museum of Art, is a film based on two conversations that artist Omer Fast conducted in the fall of 2010 with a former Predator Drone aerial vehicle operator-turned Las Vegas casino security guard. The interviews are the seedbed from which Fast has pulled themes of [...]
R.I.P. Artnet
Artnet magazine, the 16-year old online art magazine, ceased publication Monday. The widely-read magazine, which carried the words of Charlie Finch and republished Jerry Salz, was closed by Artnet, whose business is art market tracking, because it was not, and had never been profitable. A statement from editor Walter Robinson said, “This difficult decision is [...]
Bilbao Boom: For Arts Institutions, Thinking Big Can Be Suicidal in NY Times
The New York Times today reported on a new study on over-zealous building campaigns at cultural institutions which mentioned the Chicago Art Institue’s Modern Wing, Dallas’ Winspear Opera House and the Long Center for Performing Arts in Austin as exemplars of institutional wishful thinking gone awry. The study, titled “Set in Stone” by the Cultural [...]
Jessica McDonald to be New Ransom Center Photo Curator
Jessica S. McDonald has been appointed as the Chief Curator of Photography at UT’s Harry Ransom Center. McDonald, a curator of photography at SFMOMA, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, will oversee the Ransom center’s collection of over five million prints and negatives beginning in September.
CAMH’s Newly-Extended Hours Offer Seven Days of Icy Contemporary Art Bliss
Beginning July 3, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston has new extended hours: 10-7 Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, open late Thursdays until 9pm, Saturdays 10-6, and Sundays 12-6. That’s all seven days, or an extra 14 hours per week of icy art-viewing bliss!
Nobuo Sekine at the DMA
In a little carved out space of the Hoffman Galleries at the DMA, there are three pieces by Japanese artist Nobuo Sekine, founder of the Mono-ha Movement (mono-ha translates to “school of things”) that are wonderful, on view through September 2. I had heard that the Rachofskys were amassing work by post-war Japanese artists, and here’s a bit [...]
The Cost of Turnover, or how museums could pay more and spend less
There’s been a lot of management turnover within top tier Texas museums over the past year. [Quick recap: Just 13 months ago, Simone Wicha replaced Ned Rifkin as Director of the Blanton Museum of Art after Rifkin had spent only two years in the post. Five months later, Maxwell Anderson became the new Director of [...]
Local Revolutionaries: Living Room Art with Voices Breaking Boundaries
The revolution begins at home. More specifically, the revolution begins in your living room. Since 2006, Houston’s bold and unapologetic Voices Breaking Boundaries has been taking art to the masses one neighborhood at a time via the popular and extremely personal Living Room Art (LRA) program. Under the direction of artist and writer, Sehba Sarwar, [...]
Suspected Menil Picasso Vandal on the Run: $5000 Reward for Houston Artist Uriel Landeros
Culturemap reports that Crime Stoppers has offered a $5000 reward for Houston artist Uriel Landeros, suspected of vandalizing Picasso’s Woman in a Red Armchair at the Menil Collection last week. Although Landeros’ name accompanied the original YouTube video documenting the art attack, police have apparently (hopefully?) uncovered more substantial evidence: Landeros was charged by the [...]
Rice Gallery: The App Needs You
The Rice Gallery is celebrating Rice University’s Centennial with a new iPad app, the university’s first, cataloging the many installations that have transformed the Rice Gallery space, and like every other digital media venture, they’re looking for user generated content: email your experiences with your favorite Rice Gallery installations to ricegalleryipad@gmail.com; an edited selection will [...]
Orange Show Unveils Dedicated Art Car Parade Website
What better use for some of that Houston Art Alliance hotel tax money than to promote one of the city’s only real claims to fame, the Houston Art Car Parade? Well, The Orange Show foundation’s got a new website devoted to the spectacle and splendor of Houston Art Car Parades, past and present. In addition [...]
Watching Paint Dry with Gerhard Richter
Recently, I went to a screening of the documentary Gerhard Richter Painting at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Going into the film, I was downright scared that I would have a repeat experience of being completely bored out of my mind, which unfortunately was my experience with another recent documentary about Anselm Kiefer, a [...]
DMA Gets $300,000 to Develop Digital Media Projects
The Dallas Museum of Art has received $300,000 to support the creation of a Laboratory for Museum Innovation, which will produce digital media for museum visitors.Actually, it’s three gifts, from AT&T, the Texas Instruments Foundation, and Forrest and Cynthia Miller. The new media lab will be headed by Robert Stein, developer of ArtBabble.org, TAP, and [...]
