El Anatsui has been a superstar in the art world ever since the 2007 Venice Biennale, where he received international acclaim for his large-scale sculptures made from thousands of discarded metal liquor bottle tops. In these pieces, the tops are flattened and stitched together with copper wire to form lush, shimmering canvases of intricate pattern [...]

This past weekend I went on a film binge and took in a documentary a day for Houston’s Cinema Arts Festival. The highlight for me was Chilean director, Patricio Guzman’s documentary, Nostalgia for the Light, and the accompanying question and answer session with Guzman himself at Rice University’s cinema. The explosion of do-it-yourself documentaries has [...]

Over October 26 – November 1, I visited New York to trudge through an early snowstorm (and the resulting slush and sludge) to see a round of recently opened gallery shows and ongoing museum exhibitions. Here’s a snapshot of my trip in pictures…            

In his site-specific installation Plexus No. 9, Gabriel Dawe layers a subtly shifting palette of rainbow-colored thread with mind-boggling precision. Stretched from floor to ceiling and nearly wall-to-wall in the gallery space, each color begins at a distinct point on the floor and then fans out in a series of lines to create overlapping, upside down triangles. Dawe loops the [...]