A recent press release from the University of Houston sets the record straight: UH installed Double Physichromie, a large piece by Carlos Cruz-Diez outside the Welcome Center on the main campus in February, nearly four months before the MFAH’s Cruz-Diez crosswalks! The piece, a serpentine op-art wall set UH back about $200,000 including artist fees, fabrication and shipping, and according to Michael Guidry, curator of the UH collection, was the Paris-based Venezuelan artist’s first US commission. So there!
Cruz control
3 comments
True, and props to UH for the commission, but the record wasn’t crooked. The MFAH’s Cruz-Diez crosswalks ARE his first U.S. street installation, as the post you link to noted. ‘Double Physichromie’ is a sculpture, and it’s not in the street, as you can see from the photos I posted last week:
http://blogs.chron.com/artsinhouston/2009/06/another_outdoor_carlos_cruzdie.html
Yes, one’s in the street, another on the grass, but apparently the important thing, if you’re commissioning a Cruz-Diez, is to get your name in the paper as doing so before some johnny-come-lately art institution steals your thunder. I intended the “so there” to mean “so there MFAH”, not “so there, Douglas Britt.” Apologies.
The funny thing is, I never got the UH press release when it came out — I’m not sure where they sent it — which is too bad, because I would have gladly made a fuss in the paper when the piece was first installed. Maybe they figured I’d read about it in the alumni newsletter. I tried slipping in a reference to ‘Double Physichromie’ in the dead-tree version of the crosswalks story, but it ended up on the cutting-room floor.