Newswire

The Southwest Alternative Media Project has been helping aspiring Houston filmmakers for decades; now, with start-up money from an anonymous donor, SWAMP has announced a new funding opportunity, the Houston Short Film Fund, which will provide production funds of up to $5000 to individual, independent filmmakers living in the Houston area to produce films of up to 10 minutes in length, in any style.

It’s a teaching tool, as well: funding includes mandatory mentorship and peer discussion components, intended to help filmmakers strengthen their artistic skills as well as encourage creativity. The film’s production must take place over a six-month period, from May to October 2013, when the film will receive a public screening.

The Application fee: $10 SWAMP Members; $15 General Public, and applications are due Wednesday, may 15, 2013. Winners will be announced on May 31, 2013 with their projects due on October 7.

The Dallas Museum of Art’s splashy failed bid for Leonardo Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi last year has given the money tree a hearty shake; even though the orb-carrying savior won’t be drawing crowds to the DMA, a new $17 million endowment for the acquisition of pre-1700 European art might make it possible to buy a few very nice but not newsworthy runners-up, as if in fulfillment of my December, 2012 prophecy: “More likely, the Leonardo is a stalking horse: bait that will flush cash out of the bushes that can them be re-targeted for more sensible, but less showy, acquisitions.”

The museum announced the major gift from DMA trustee and past chairman Marguerite Steed Hoffman on Thursday. The gift creates a $13,600,000 restricted acquisitions endowment and a $3,400,000 operating endowment in support of pre-1700 European acquisitions, exhibitions, and programs. The new funds more than double the DMA’s acquisition endowment, and bring the amount the DMS has to spend on new art up to $50 million. (Even with the new cash, the Leonardo, with an asking price of $200 million, was pie in the sky.)

Marguerite and Robert Hoffman were already big donors. In February 2005, along with Cindy and Howard Rachofsky, and Deedie and Rusty Rose, they gifted a collection of modern and contemporary art to the DMA as incentive for the Centennial Campaign which they chaired, and which ultimately raised $185 million for the museum.

Fixing the Lawnmower, a GIF

Dallas art collective HOMECOMING! Committee wants your GIF. They’re collecting animated GIF files, those little jerky almost-movies beloved by the colony of retro-technologists and self styled “circuit benders” clustering in North Texas, for a contest and exhibition on April 20 from 7-11 p.m. Called “GIF the Fuck Out,” the show will collect the best of submitted .gifs and display them  at 2650B Main St. in Deep Ellum for audience voting, with background sounds provided by Marshall Thompson, DJG, and DJ DAUG.

GIF, (short for Graphics Interchange Format) can be pronounced with either a hard G, as in “I’ve got a little gif’ for you, honey” or with a soft G, like the peanut butter. It was developed by Compuserve in 1987, and is is one of the earliest color image formats.

Mollie Cannady died at her home in Houston on March 23, 2013. In the late 1960′s Cannady was director of Kiko’s Gallery in Houston and worked with Hooks-Epstein Gallery in Houston, assembling art collections for corporate clients including Methodist Hospitel and Northern Trust Bank and was herself an enthusiastic collector of contemporary art. A memorial gathering of friends and family took place yesterday in Houston.

Los Angeles Times’ architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne comes down hard on the showy new Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas in today’s paper, calling it one of the “pricey, preening old breed” of trophy buildings, and adding that the $185-million project, designed by Thom Mayne and Morphosis, is a “thoroughly cynical piece of work, a building that uses a frenzy of architectural forms to endorse the idea that architecture, in the end, is mere decoration.” Ouch.

In a low-profile acknowledgement of a de-facto situation, the Menil collection’s Board of Trustees has approved the de-accession of Art Guys Marry A Plant, the hapless live oak tree that became a focus of controversy in 2011 when its (then permanent) installation on the Menil grounds was interpreted by protesters as slap in the face to the issue of gay marriage.

The tree was physically removed from its original site in January, 2013, sparking criticism of the Menil in the press, which was muted by a public statement from Director Josef Helfenstein that “The Menil Collection wishes to make clear that it has not de-accessioned the work, nor has it taken any steps toward de-accessioning the work.”

The formal de-accession is in response to a request from the Art Guys, who demanded official acknowledgement of the removal on February 1.

Ryan Sarah Murphy, Agency, 2012

Liliana Bloch, former director of the McKinney Ave. Contemporary and later gallery director for Kirk Hopper Fine Art, has announced the opening of her own eponymous new gallery, Liliana Bloch, at  2919 Commerce Street, Suite C in Dallas, co-habiting a space with The Public Trust.

Credited with reinvigorating the MAC’s programming, Bloch exhibited the work of Kana Harada, Michelle Murillo, Mary Beth Edelson and Armando Romero and presided  over the Contemporary’s celebration of Mexico’s Bicentenario. As Gallery Director at Kirk Hopper Fine Art, Ms. Bloch developed, in the words of Peter Simek of D Magazine’s Front Row, “one of most interesting exhibition programs in Dallas”.

The gallery will represent emerging and mid-career, regional, national and international artists working in a variety of media. Her inaugural Exhibition: “Parameters” by New York based artist Ryan Sarah Murphy opens on Saturday, April 6 from 5-8 p.m.

After a month-long search, Bill Davenport has been named Texas Editor at Glasstire.com. Davenport has been serving as interim editor since the departure of award-winning former editor Kelly Klaasmeyer to pursue other projects in February.

Glasstire’s first contributor, Davenport has been writing about Texas art since he arrived in Houston as a CORE Fellow in 1990, contributing articles and reviews to Artlies, Artpapers, The Public News, and the Houston Chronicle and publishing the notorious Houston Artletter from 1995-1997. Since 2007, Davenport has been writing Glasstire’s daily Newswire column, and since 2011, managing Texas-wide events listings for the site.

“12 years ago, Bill was our first contributor, writing a weekly column he called Tire Iron. I am thrilled he is taking the editorial reins and look forward to this new phase at Glasstire,” said founder and director Rainey Knudson.

“I’m honored and humbled to take on this new responsibilty, and I look forward to making Glasstire a must-read for everyone interested in contemporary art in Texas,” said Davenport, adding, “this is going to be fun.”

RG Cubicle, Rice University Art Gallery’s new dedicated video-viewing space is now open. Located just around the corner and down the newly painted bright green hallway from the main space in Sewall Hall, the Cubicle is currently showing a rotating program of shirt video works related to their just-ended show, Gunilla Klingberg’s Wheel of Everyday Life.

Currently closed for installation, the gallery re-opens on April 11 with Soo Sunny Park’s Unwoven Light, a suspended, undulating structure made from shaped sections of chain link fencing and iridescent plastic.

In the meantime, their azaleas  are in bloom!

As part of their “Best of Everything Series” Culturemap got contributor Kendall Morgan to list the ten best contemporary art galleries in Dallas; despite having “recently returned to Texas after a decade working in marketing and advertising in New York,” Morgan’s list isn’t too bad: long-established commercial galleries, Barry Whistler, Conduit, Talley Dunn, and Marty Walker; a couple relative newcomers, Cris Worley and Oliver Francis; two nonprofits, 500X and CentralTrak; Karen Weiner’s Reading Room, somewhere in between; and only one odd choice, at the end of her list: Valley House Gallery.  Maybe it’s a Google thing: a search for “Best Gallery in Dallas” turns of Valley House at the top of the results.

Top search result, also featured ad, hmm . . .

If you count them as a galleries, rather than as artists (who can tell these days?!) I’d add fly-by night collective Homecoming Committee, and curator-artist-instigator Cynthia Mulcahy to the list, along with occasionally brilliant spaces like Kirk Hopper, Ro2 art in its various manifestations, Photographs Do Not Bend, The Dallas Contemporary (mind the plastic surgery!), El Centro College’s H. Paxton Moore Gallery, under the direction of Plush founder Randall Garrett, and others, but I guess the trick is limiting it to ten . . .

The Art League of Houston hosted a kickoff celebration for Studio Enertia’s Inaugural Residency featuring an artist talk, viewing and reception for Ghanaian painter Nii Narku, Studio Enertia’s first Artist in Residence, on Friday evening, March 22, 2013.

The new Studio Enertia Residency: Houston begins this Spring. Founder Lisa E. Harris has converted her studio apartment into an artist residency program for visiting artists interested in exploring Houston TX from a base in the historic Third Ward.

Harris plans to accommodate up to 6 individual artists or collectives per year for one-four week stays, during which they will create collaborative works aimed at “challenging conventional practices of the artist within a community.” In addition to creating work, artists are expected to share their creative process with the community through open rehearsals, jam sessions, workshops and artist talks.

Residents are chosen by a collective of “artists, academics, and community and cultural leaders across all disciplines.” Studio Enertia is linked with a network of DIY artists,  activists, and organizations including the Art League Houston and Project Row Houses, Shape Community Center, The (Be)Human Gallery, (Pittsburgh, PA), 36 Steps Gallery, JAM Gallery (Brookly, NY).

New Education Department Team at EPMA: Laura Zamarripa, Elisabeth Sommer, Brittny Bevel, Erica Saldaña

The El Paso Museum of Art has announced four new hires in its busy education department, which reaches an average of over 17,000 visitors every year, through lectures, family days, classes, workshops, guided tours, and public events.

Laura Zamarripa, a native El Pasoan, is EPMA’s new “Community Engagement Manager”, and head of the education department. Zamarripa returned to her hometown in 2009 after working in arts and cultural organizations in Austin, Dallas and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Laura received a Bachelor of Arts in Art History from The University of Texas at Austin, and a Master of Arts Management from Carnegie Mellon University.

Elisabeth Sommer, Ph.D. described by the museum as “a museum, history, and art geek” is EPMA’s new Education Curator; she will supervise tours, public education events, and the volunteer docent program. Her first museum job  was as a costumed interpreter at the restored town of Old Salem in North Carolina.

Brittny Bevel will be Museum School Coordinator, managing the studio art classes and a grant-funded program, Neighborhood Kids. With a recent MA in Art and Design Education from the Rhode Island School of Design, Bevel was an intern for two years at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.

Erica Saldaña, another El Pasoan, will be the museums full-time Education Assistant. Her other interests include her family, football, cheerleading and baking.

Together, they have a lot to do: EPMA offers over 70 studio art camps and classes throughout the year.

Imagine this as a bus.

The Orange Show and IKEA Houston have collaborated on the Orange Show Art Bus, a mobile art classroom to be dispatched to Houston-area schools with limited or no arts funding. Families are invited to Ikea Plaza on I-10 At Antoine to experience the new bus on Friday March 29from 11am – 4pm.

Originally a 1964 mobile X-ray unit, the 40-foot bus was painted by local artist Brian Zievert to mimic the Orange Show Monument, and has been rebuilt into a roving art classroom holding up to 30 students. IKEA Houston has supplied all of the art supplies, furniture, fabric, carpeting, and lighting. Curriculum for the Bus-Art program is being finalized, the bus will hit the road during the 2013-14 school year.

Houston’s Bayou City Art Festival spreads out through Memorial Park this weekend with hundreds of exhibitors, food, music, performers, and hopefully, good weather. Among the 300 professional artist booths, there will be the traditional emerging artist area, where high school students install temporary outdoor works. There is, ironically no public parking in Houston’s biggest public park, necessitating a ride on the free shuttle busses leaving from the Northwest Mall and the downtown theater district (where there is also limited parking!).

This will be the 42nd year for the event, which began in 1971 when Montrose business owners and residents started an arts and crafts festival to raise money to spruce up lower Westheimer Road. Their first street fair was popular, and the group started the Westheimer Colony Association (WCA), and by 1973 was producing two small art and crafts festivals each year with proceeds used to beautify the surrounding areas with esplanade plantings. In 1992 the festival moved out of Montrose to downtown, became a nonprofit, and continued to grow, eventually partnering with the Houston Parks and Recreation Department to host its current festivals, one in Memorial Park, another in Hermann Square and surrounding streets near City Hall.

The festival is open Friday-Sunday March 22 – 24, from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. daily. Admission for adults is $15, children 3-12, $3. Children Under 3 get in free.

Barbara Frey/Sara S. Morgan

The National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) will bestow is annual awards at a ceremony at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston on Friday, March 22 from 12-1 p.m. Among the honorees are Sara Morgan, co-founder and past president of the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC), and Barbara Frey, Ceramics Professor at Texas A&M University in Commerce.

Morgan will receive a Regional Award of Excellence for her contributions to the art community. Morgan serves on the board of HCCC, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Houston Grand Opera and the American Craft Council.  She is a past member of the boards of the Center for National Policy, Washington, D.C.; Anderson Ranch Arts Center of Snowmass, Colorado; the Children’s Museum of Houston; the Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City; Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey; and the Houston Grand Opera Endowment Board.

Frey will receive an Excellence in Teaching Award for her “exemplary dedication to and accomplishment as and educator in ceramic art.”

Other 2013 Awards recipients include: Artist and educator John Toki of Berkeley, CA; George Timock of Kansas City Art Institute; Paulus Berensohn of Penland, NC; and Victor Spinski of Newark, Delaware.

Photo by Jenny Antill

In June, Gwendolyn H. Goffe, Associate Director for Investment and Finance a the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, will retire after 25 years of behind-the-scenes leadership. Recruited by late MFAH Director Peter Marzio, Goffe steered the museum through decades of explosive growth, and served as Interim Director in 2011, after Marzio’s death.

Formidable and prudent, Goffe was Marzio’s trusted deputy, keeping a tight rein on the Museum’s endowment and operating expenses, balancing the budget during every year of her tenure. Amid the well-wishes, even her farewell quote contains numbers:”I am proud that the MFAH has grown from an endowment of $98 million in 1988 to more than $1 billion today. The operating budget has grown from $12 million to $57 million at the end of June 2012.”

Goffe will serve as a consultant to the MFAH as the museum continues discussions for a planned campus expansion.

The Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Museum has opened in the Harwood District in Dallas, displaying 60 of the hundreds of pieces of Japanese armor and weaponry collected by Dallas real estate developer Gabriel Barbier-Muller, his wife Ann, and their children. The new museum has also published a catalog, Art of Armor: Samurai Armor from the Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Collection, with an introduction by Morihiro Ogawa, an expert on Japanese Arms and Armor for The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY.

The Samurai Collection is located above the Saint Ann Restaurant & Bar at 2501 North Harwood St., and is open Tuesdays from 11-8 p.m., Wednesday-Saturday from 11-6 p.m., and Sunday from 11-5 p.m. Admission is free.

‘The Rejected Suitor’ by Francis William Edmonds

Los Angeles’ tabloid-celebrity Museum of Contemporary Art has had another breakup- Jori Finkel of the LA Times Culture Monster

column reports that the MOCA board has rejected offers from LACMA and others, and is determined to see the institution continue on an an independent entity. Stay tuned for the next episode in the seemingly endless unfolding soap-opera. No wonder arts coverage is in the entertainment section of the paper!

The fifth annual Dallas Art Fair will return to the Fashion Industry Gallery on April 11-14, 2013

This year’s fair will showcase over 80 galleries, and kicks off on Thursday, April 11, with a preview gala benefiting the Dallas Contemporary, the Nasher Sculpture Center, and the Dallas Museum of Art. Admission to the less exclusive portions of the three-day event is $25 per person, per day or $50 for the whole weekend.

In conjunction with the main fair, Caja Dallas, “a real working and functioning art fair inside a non-for-profit institution, investigating, yet blurring the boundaries of all known art world systems” will be held at the Dallas Contemporary. Caja Dallas is a collaboration between the Dallas Art Fair and SEVEN,  a collective project organized by galleries including BravinLee programs, Pierogi, P·P·O·W, Postmasters Gallery, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Catharine Clark, and Inman Gallery.

Baseball + art!

After a nationwide search, The City of El Paso has selected Ball-Nogues Studio of Los Angeles, Gaspar Enriquez of San Elizario, TX and Robert Davidoff of El Paso to design, fabricate, and install three artworks for its new %$50 million Triple-A Baseball Stadium. The art budget for the new projects is $850,000.

Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues’ Ball-Nogues Studio is an art-lite “integrated design and fabrication practice” operating in territory between architecture, art, and industrial design. They installed Rip Curl Canyon, a cardboard play sculpture, at Houston’s Rice University Art Gallery in 2006. The busy studio is currently working on public commissions for Los Angeles World Airports; the City of West Hollywood; Portland State University; Nashville Music City Center; and a piece underneath Houston’s Memorial Drive Viaduct along Buffalo Bayou.

Gaspar Enriquez, a self described “Chicano Texas artist” was born and raised in the south side of El Paso. He makes acrylic, air-brushed portraits of people who interest him, from former students to celebrities. He taught at El Paso’s Bowie High School for 34 years; since his retirement from teaching,  he is restoring an ancient adobe building to studio spaces in the 400-year-old presidio of San Elizario in El Paso’s Mission Valley.

Robert Davidoff is described in the city’s press release as “a local artist with more than 30 years of experience working with various art mediums. Much of his work is in the form of large metal installations with themes ranging from classical to contemporary,” but information about him isn’t easily found on the web.