The Blanton Museum in Austin has announced the online launch of a massive digitization project: 17,000 images and attendant info about objects in their permanent collection are now accessible through the museum’s soon-to-be-redesigned website. In addition to free range browsing, the Blanton has organized their pics into 122 “portfolios” some grouped by place of origin and chronology, others by exhibition, and a few oddballs like “Plaster Casts” and “Cowboys, etc.”
Jeff West, ubiquitous Dallas Arts consultant and advocate, has died suddenly at age 54. West served as Executive Director of the Shakespeare Festival of Dallas, Managing Director of the Dallas Theater Center and was the Executive Director of The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza from 1994-2004.
In addition to his ongoing jobs, West worked as consultant for many cultural nonprofits, he developed a comprehensive marketing action plan for Fair Park, did strategic planning for the Old Trinity Trail. He also consulted on the Trammell & Margaret Crow Museum of Asian Art; the Origins of the Southwest Museum; the Dallas Architectural Forum; the National Endowment of the Humanities and the Texas Commission on the Arts. West taught the popular inter-disciplinary undergraduate course entitled Mythologizing Kennedy at UTD from 2001-2004.
Year-old Galveston gallery Avis Frank is moving to Houston, reanimating the sprawling collection of architectural improvisations that once house neighborhood landmark bar King Biscuit, perched on the edge of White Oak Bayou in Houston’s Woodland Heights. True to their contrarian marketing strategy (Avis Frank opened last April in Galveston, in a spirit of defiance of the seaside city’s limited audience for contemporary art), the relocated gallery will host its Grand Opening on June 9 just as other galleries are shutting down for the summer, featuring Houston master refabricator Patrick Renner, who will be making memento sculptures out of the salvaged bar and interior trim.
Culturemap Austin has the lowdown on N-Space, Co-Lab’ new downtown venture in association with architects Nelsen Partners. The first show at the new space opened last weekend, in conjunction with the inaugural West Austin Studio Tour with a show of combine paintings by Mark Johnson, who, in his other role as Operations Manager at AMOA-Arthouse, who “works his ass off for this art community,” according to Co-Lab co-director Chris Whiteburch.
The joint venture, and the whole WEST event ((as it is called) is seen as part of a new effort to involve downtown Austin in the boisterous, largely artist-driven creative ferment that has so far defined Austin’s scene. The Austin Chronicle’s Robert Faires offered a guide to the sprawling multi-venue effort on Friday.
Deborah Martin reports on the “museum growth spurt” in San Antonio in the Express-News today: May 26 is the Grand Opening of the The Witte Museum’s Robert J. and Helen C. Kleberg South Texas Heritage Center, Martin makes the case for an emerging “cultural expansion” in the town, further evinced by the McNay’s Jane and Arthur Stieren Center for Exhibitions; the San Antonio Children’s Museum’s new building, and the long awaited opening of the Briscoe Western Art Museum next year.
Our Town Southeast Houston, a project of the UH and the National Endowment for the Arts is inviting residents to make their diverse community a more interesting, healthier, and prosperous place” by participating in FOOD|FAMILY|FUN today Saturday, May 19 from 9am-2pm at the resurgent Palm Center at 5330 Griggs Road, one of the earliest shopping centers in America. Visitors are supposed to bring a family heirloom: a family photo, handicraft, favorite recipe, etc. to show off.
The event is part of an NEA Our Town grant initiative spearheded by Carroll Parrott Blue, whose interactive multimedia works include the Third Ward Story Mapping Project. NEA Our Town grants support “creative placemaking projects that contribute toward the livability of communities and help transform them into lively, beautiful, and sustainable places with the arts at their core.”
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), has given the 2012 Meredith J. Long Core Program Award to Gabriel Martinez. The $10,000 prize, presented at the Glassell School of Art Benefit and Auction Friday, May 11, was inaugurated in 2008 and is given annually to a second-year Core artist-in-residence in recognition of exceptional artistic merit.
Winners of the Video Association of Dallas’ 11th Annual 24-Hour Video Race were announced on May 14 to a packed theater at the Angelika Film Center in Dallas and can be seen online. Fifteen winners completed a five-minute film in 24 hours, beginning Friday, May 4 at 11:59 p.m. and ending Saturday May 5 at midnight, in a competition sponsored by the Video Association of Dallas. A total of 62 teams started the Race, and 54 teams finished on time.
Three finalists were chosen in each of several divisions and were awarded first, second and third places, some with serious prizes: The Hollywood Division winner receives $5000 worth of equipment rental from Panavision.
detail view of Tension and Compression (Evans Rd. Quarry/Alamo Cement Co.), 2011, 120 x 120 x 104 inches
Congratulations to Austin-based artist Jeff Williams, winner of this year’s $30,000 Texas Prize!! Statewide audiences will perhaps be most familiar with Jeff’s dust-encrusted sculptures from a few years ago (as seen at Okay Mountain and LA><ART), or more recently with his stressed concrete sculpture from his 2011 Artpace residency. For more on Jeff, see his interview from … might be good. (Congrats are also due to AMOA-Arthouse, in the midst of a major transition period after merging last year, for pulling off the TX Prize at all this year; and also to finalists Jamal Cyrus and Will Henry.)
The Grady Spikes Memorial Tiger, a 13-foot bronze cat in front of Conroe High School in the north of Houston suburb was painted a brilliant blue overnight in what is thought to be a prank (professionals would have stolen the tiger for the valuable bronze?). Conroe ISD Police are investigating and hope to have suspects in custody soon. Pending cleanup, the tiger has been swathed in a packing blanket to prevent its blueness from corrupting the youth.
No, it’s not your new browser plug-in, or a sluggish ISP, or hidden malware running in the background! Glasstire, like Houston, was buggy yesterday. So much fabulous commentary, fascinating video and so many gorgeous pictures were uploaded it was hard for our web server to digest, and for several hours yesterday, much of the site’s content was unavailable. For those who had to postpone their Texas Art fix, we apologize.
Currently on view at the gallery, La Muerte de la Paz by Javier Piñón
This just in: after a 5-year run which saw the introduction of some great artists to Houston, the much-loved Bryan Miller gallery in Houston is closing. The current group show, CTRL Group Two, will close Saturday. We’re sorry to lose this space, which has been a wonderful addition to the Houston gallery scene.
Since my last “glass box” rant, Lake Flato/ Studio Red Architects have posted new, more comprehensive renderings of the current design for Houston’s Independent Arts Collaborative building on Facebook, with a call for comments: “As we wrap up the schematic design phase of the project there is much to share and discuss. While many elements are still in flux – elements presented here may not make it into the final design while other elements might be added. With that said, things are becoming solidified enough to have a conversation, so let’s have one.”
The new 59,000 square foot building is now actually two buildings, with an enormous breezeway/lobby between them, a city-block sized complex containing a multiplicity of uses: four dedicated theater spaces, two rehearsal spaces/classrooms and several gallery spaces along with back-of-house, support and office space. In terms of style, the architects justify cheap industrial materials as expressing avant-garde edginess: “The exposed steel structure and perforated metal panels of the breezeway lobby are visible along with exposed tilt-up concrete panels of the theater boxes and the corrugated metal panel of the back-of-house and office/rehearsal buildings. In addition to being inexpensive, these materials give the facility a rough, industrial edge appropriate to the groups who will call this facility home.” Ironically, it is the roughness of repurposed industrial spaces like Diverseworks and Barnevelder that the IAC is designed to help performance groups escape!
The ten drawings haven’t elicited many comments yet, but Elizabeth Cencini puts her finger on one shortcoming from the visual arts point of view: “Is the space catering more to the theater arts and dance or will you share it with visual arts and how?” she asks, to which Seán Patrick Judge, in another comment replies, “The green color represents the gallery spaces, four of which also act as entries for the theaters.” The idea is that glass-fronted “gallery lobbies act as welcoming lanterns during evening performances.” The fifth, and largest gallery space is an entryway to the practice rooms.
At least there will be no attempt to air-condition the breezeway, the major space for gallery openings, intermissions and socializing. Make a note to hold all events after dark during the Summer.
The Amon Carter Museum in Fort worth has been awarded a $75,000 grant from the National Endowmwnt for the Humanities. The grant will allow the museum to put 22,000 photographic prints and 200,000 negatives online, by eight prominent American photographers of the 20th century: Carlotta Corpron (1901–1988), Nell Dorr (1893–1988), Laura Gilpin (1891–1979), Eliot Porter (1901–1990), Helen Post (1907–1979), Clara Sipprell (1885–1975), Erwin E. Smith (1886–1947) and Karl Struss (1886–1981). The project is expected to take about two years.
Carol Robbins, The Ellen and Harry S. Parker III Curator of the Arts of the Americas and the Pacific is retiring after forty-seven years of service to the Dallas Museum of Art. In appreciation of her nearly fifty years of Museum work, and of her renowned curatorial expertise in ethnographic textiles, Robbins has been appointed Curator Emerita.
Robbins joined the Museum in 1965 as the Secretary to the Director under Merrill Rueppel. She became a curatorial assistant in 1970, and subsequently served on staff within the DMA’s curatorial department, including the positions of Curator of Textiles and Curator of New World and Pacific Cultures, through her appointment as The Ellen and Harry S. Parker III Curator of the Arts of the Americas and the Pacific in 2006. She has been responsible for the Museum’s collections of ancient American and Indonesian art, which are of international significance, as well as the DMA’s Native American art collection. In particular, the DMA is one of the few museums in the country with a permanent collection of the regional art of Indonesia and Sarawak.
In 2010, nonprofit grant making org United States Artists launched its own online fundraising platform, USA Projects. Kira Shewfelt, Artist Relations Specialist and Education Coordinator for USA will be giving a free talk about the new venture on May 17 at the Glassell School of Art in Houston. RSVP by emailing amccloud@mfah.org.
Like Kickstarter, the micro-philanthropy website solicits small contributions from individuals to fund artists’ projects, with a couple important differences: being a charity, donations are tax deductible (Kickstarter is a for-profit business); and participating artists must have already been recognized by one or more of a long and growing list of arts organizations (anyone can start a Kickstarter project, and it’s not limited to arts projects) USA Projects They also boasts a75% a success rate, half again Kickstarter’s 45%.
From the user’s point of view, the two crowd-funding systems are similar, but the mechanisms behind them are fundamentally different. Kickstarter is a business with the free-for-all energy (and stupidities) of the marketplace; USA Projects is a charity, with a top-down interest in funneling money to projects and artist with demonstrated (if predictable) value. Rather than giving money to artists directly, donors give money to USA Projects, with a recommendation for their chosen project; if enough donors recommend a project, USA funds it; if not, the donations are used for other projects or overhead. On Kickstarter, a project must reach its funding goal before time runs out or no money changes hands.
Overhead costs for the two crowd-finding models are much the same. In their terms of use agreement, USA Projects says that 19% of donations are retained by USA for “furthering the general charitable, educational and artistic purposes of USA Projects” and overhead, of which 9% is reinvested in direct funding to artists, leaving 10% for administrative costs. Kickstarter takes 5-10% for itself.
A quarter century of Art Car parades is over, and Mark “Scrapdaddy” Bradford is still holding the lead, earning this year’s Mayor’s Choice Trophy (and $2000 in prize money) for his amazing walking-car sculpture “Mr. Green”. David Braithwaite’s “Big Banana”, “Low-Rider from Corpus Christie” by The Leal Brothers, “Earth, Wind, and Fire… and Water” by Jefferson Davis High School under the direction of Rebecca Bass, and “The Gold Digger” by John Avanzini each won $1500 first place awards. The rest of the lengthy list of winners in 15 categories (everyone’s really a winner, but only in the skater category does everyone get an award), many of who also got some cash is on the new dedicated Art Car Parade Website.
The Orange Show’s “television partner”, CW39, has spent the past few months creating short segments on the cars and artists which you can view on their website, an hour long special will air next Sunday, May 20 at 6pm on CW39.
This year’s recipients of Dallas Museum of Arts grants have been announced: ten artists received awards in one of three categories: the Clare Hart DeGolyer Memorial Fund (for regional artists between 15 and 25 years of age), the Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund (for Texas artists under 30), and the Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Grant.
The Four DeGolyer Memorial Fund Award recipients are: Rusty Chapman, who will build a tabletop city out of meat and other food products and photograph the “city” to create a virtual Google-Earth style interactive map; Oscar Mejia, a B.F.A. candidate at SMU, who will create a series of site-specific performance paintings; Brandon Nichols will buy equipment for his large format photographs of shopping mall signage; Jake Theriot, a B.F.A. candidate at SMU,will buy supplies for his color-field paintings.
The four 2012 Kimbrough Fund recipients are Desiree Espada, who will participate in a four-day summer workshop at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, Colorado; TJ Hunt who will reinterpret Land and Minimal Art of the 1960s and 1970s in roadside sculptures; Benjamin Terry, an M.F.A. candidate at UNT, who plans to create life-sized figurative sculptures for his forthcoming M.F.A. thesis exhibition in 2013; and Katherine Colin, an M.F.A. candidate at the University of Dallas, who will keep on painting.
Two Austin artists got the travel grants: Mike Osborne will will visit the setting of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, Fordlandia, and Manaus in the travel to the Brazilian and Peruvian Amazon. Erin Curtis will travel throughout Guatemala photographing textiles and ancient architecture.
Recipients of the 2012 awards will discuss their work during the Awards to Artists talk on Thursday, May 24, at 6:30 p.m. A reception with the artists will follow the discussion in the DMA’s C3 Theater.
Cindy Graff Cohen is the new arts and culture columnist for El Paso Inc., writes Wendy White Polk, editor of the local news and lifestyle paper. Cohen, who began writing about the arts in 1982 for Horizon, spent four years traveling the country for Antique Monthly and a decade or so editing textbooks.
Arts columnist in El Paso is at best a part time job, but with degrees in English and industrial patternmaking, Cohen displays the versatility to eke out a niche in the desert of hinterland art journalism: her most recent contribution is a feature about dressage, or “horse ballet.” She’s also runs Noche Nightwear, a business to “produce and market sophisticated pajamas, nightgowns, robes and bed jackets for discerning women over 40.” Cohen replaces longtime columnist Betty Ligon, who, “finally decided that, having reached 90 years of age, she should slow down a bit,” according to Polk.
Anti-corporate pranksters affiliated with The Yes Men briefly interrupted a gala at the 12th round of talks hammering out the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement in Dallas on Friday. U.S.Trade Representative and former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk nearly accepted a faked “Corporate Power Tool Award” from Dallas puppeteer/activist David Goodwin, as a crowd of thirsty negotiators gave a round of reflexive applause. Of course, they had the video running!
Twenty-two Houston artists recently received individual artist grants from the Houston Arts Alliance: Regina Agu; Kristine Mills Borisewitz; Teresa Chapman; Jade Cooper; Rebecca French; Ashley Horn; Charlotte Kennedy; Alex Luster; Ayanna Jolivet McCloud; Jerry D. Ochoa; John Pluecker; Britt Ragsdale; Robin Reagler; Erin Reck; Andre Sam-Sin; Carrie Schneider; Soody Sharifi; Emily Sloan; Kelly Switzer; Patrick Turk; Michelle Yom and Gwendolyn Zepeda.
Funded by hotel occupantcy taxes, the artists will recieve either $5000 or $10,000 (up from $3000 and $7500 in 2011) to produce works that are available to the public as performances, exhibitions and objects that (the theory goes) help make Houston a tourist destination, filling the hotels that foot the bill. By a happy coincidence, the grants indirectly support a vital community of working artists to surprise, inform, amuse and infuriate us; something every half-decent city needs.
