This October marks the return of Sculpture Month Houston, a biennial event focused on celebrating sculpture in Houston, Texas. Originally established in 2016, Sculpture Month aimed to be more than just a city-wide celebration. Its organizers — Volker Eisele and Antarctica Black of Houston’s Rudolph Blume Fine Art / ArtScan Gallery and artist and curator Tommy Gregory — envisioned that Sculpture Month would be added to the list of top-tier festivals Houston is recognized for, like FotoFest and CounterCurrent, and continue conversations that are prevalent in the art world at large.
To this end, the main draw of 2016’s festival was From Space to Field, a large-scale group exhibition in a defunct Success Rice grain silo building, which featured site-specific works, sculptures, and other installations by numerous Texas-based and national artists.
Houston’s Success Rice grain silo building
Even though Sculpture Month Houston is technically a biennial event, with multiple offsite shows and participating spaces programming sculptural works, the festival does have rather consistent programming. For example, in 2017, it opened another silo group show, Tensile Strength, that was discussed on Glasstire by Christina Rees and Rainey Knudson. About the show, which was her first experience in the silo building, Rees said:
“I think some of the artists did an outstanding job of using these incredibly weird, difficult, monolithic cylindrical rooms. Certainly some of the work was strong enough to pull me from my silos-are-cool reverie to get me focused on the art.”
Inside Houston’s Success Rice grain silo building
This year, Sculpture Month Houston returns with related programming at more than 40 spaces across the city, including museums, commercial galleries, non-profit art spaces, and special Sculpture Month-organized shows. One of the main draws again is an exhibition in the Houston silos. Titled Peak Shift, the show explores how sculpture has evolved. And although the show features fewer artists than past iterations, this is the first year that some of the selected artists were given multiple silos for their projects. At the opening of Peak Shift, on October 13, 2018 from 6-9PM, artist Hills Snyder will be performing his piece Misery Repair Shoppe.
Two additional highlights of Sculpture Month Houston 2018 include Wild blue yonder, an exhibition at the 1940 Air Terminal Museum near Hobby Airport, and Trapping time, an installation by Houston artist Jo Ann Fleischhauer in a defunct air-traffic control tower at George Bush Intercontinental Airport.
See below for more information about Peak Shift and Sculpture Month Houston’s other exhibitions and participating spaces.
Commencement Celebration at the Houston Police Officer’s Memorial
11AM-12:30PM on October 11, 2018
A kickoff event for the 2018 Sculpture Month Houston festival.
Peak Shift
October 13 – December 1, 2018
Peak Shift is Sculpture Month Houston’s exhibition at SITE Gallery Houston, inside the old rice silos at Sawyer Yards. Artists in the show include: Hillerbrand + Magsamen (Houston), Liss LaFleur (Houston), Frances Bagley (Dallas), Alicia Eggert & Charlie Hoey (Denton), Hills Snyder (San Antonio), James Canales (San Antonio), Jeff Williams (Austin), Kamila Szczesna (Galveston), Ann Wood (Galveston), Leticia Bajuyo (Corpus Christi), Jessica Stockholder (Chicago), and James Talambas (Fort Worth).
Wild blue yonder
1940 Air Terminal Museum
October 20 – December 1, 2018
A group show organized and curated by Sculpture Month Houston. Artists in the show include: Nick Barbee (Galveston), Shane and Peter Allbritton (Houston), Julie De Vries (Houston), Thomas Glassford (Mexico City), Christy Karll (Houston), David Medina (Houston), and Pablo Gimenez Zapiloa (Houston).
Jo Ann Fleischhauer: Trapping time
Bush Intercontinental Airport Control Tower
November 1, 2018 – January 1, 2019
For this Sculpture Month Houston show, Houston artist Jo Ann Fleischhauer has created an installation in the defunct control tower at Bush Intercontinental Airport. This tower was originally designed by architect I.M.Pei.
Sculpture Month Houston 2018 participating spaces include:
Art Spaces
Blaffer Art Museum
City Hall Rotunda
George Bush Intercontinental Airport
Glassell School of Art
Havel Ruck Projects
Houston Center of Contemporary Craft
Houston Community College
Houston Heights Association
Houston Police Officers’ Memorial
Meek Studio and Gallery
MotherDogStudios
Splendora Gardens
Station Museum of Contemporary Art
Sculptures at Art Alley
University of Houston
William P. Hobby Airport
Commercial Galleries
Anya Tish Gallery
Barbara Davis Gallery
Cindy Lisica Gallery
Clarke and Associates
Devin Borden Gallery
Gray Contemporary
McClain Gallery
Moody Gallery
Nicole Longnecker Gallery
Gallery Sonja Roesch
guerrero-projects
Redbud Gallery
Sicardi Gallery
Vaughan Mason Fine Arts
Non-Profit Institutions
Art League Houston
DiverseWorks
Galveston Arts Center
Lawndale Art Center
SMH Curated Spaces
SITE Gallery Houston
1940 Air Terminal Museum
The Tower at IAH
Orton Gallery at Glassell School of Art
Rudolph Blume Fine Art / ArtScan Gallery
