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]]>In conjunction with the 2024 Texas Ceramics Symposium, Texas Tech University’s School of Visual Art’s Landmark Arts is hosting Belonging: Contemporary Native Ceramics from the Southern Plains, currently on view at Lubbock’s Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts. The exhibition, curated by Klinton Burgio-Ericson, a Texas Tech University Assistant Professor of Art History of the Americas, features the contemporary ceramic works of seven Native American artists. These artworks range from vessels to sculpture to installation, and include pieces by Karita Coffey (Comanche), Chase Kahwinhut Earles (Caddo), Anita Fields (Osage, Muscogee), Raven Halfmoon (Caddo, Choctaw, Delaware, Otoe), Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota), Jane Osti (Cherokee National Treasure), and Cortney Yellowhorse-Metzger (Osage).
The exhibition’s theme of belonging does not confine itself to identity, an often politicized concept that implies choice-making. Belonging, rather, is inherently relational and is tied to place, time, culture, and kinship. Belonging is an affirmative, Burgio-Ericson explains, a rich term signifying “mutual obligation and reciprocity.” Throughout the exhibit, there are markers of connectedness: to family, homeplace, geography, and community; even the medium of ceramic itself, encompassing the elements of water, land, and fire, holds properties of location/topography, of site-specificity. As Anita Fields described during the exhibition’s symposium keynote conversation on February 23, because clay is of the land, it has a memory, and “because clay has a memory, it allows me to give expression to my own memories.”
The role of interconnected place-community-memory in belonging is evident in Karita Coffey’s sculpture My First Memory, which conveys what she described as a “flashbulb” memory, or a first arrival of consciousness, at the age of eight months. The work depicts a prone baby whose body is in the form of a house — the home of Coffey’s grandfather — which is filled with people, convened for a prayer meeting of the Deyo Indian Baptist Mission. In her recollection, Coffey is swaddled in a blanket upon her mother’s lap. The piece interweaves her own dawning awareness of belonging, while also speaking to layers of themes from acculturation to community connectedness to land allotment policies and identification with place. Coffey asserts a recognition of her grandfather’s land as alive, thinking, and possessive of “blood memory,” explaining in the keynote conversation, “Because we inhabited that land, it’s Comanche.”
Other artists also invoke relational belonging through familial/cultural memory, as with Jane Osti’s Circles of Belonging, Chase Kahwinhut Earles’ Large Caddo Traditional Utilitarian Jar, and Anita Fields’ It’s a Bucket With a Lid On It. In these pieces, as well as others that adopt the familiar ceramic form of jars and vessels, there is an homage not just to tradition in general, but to specific family practices and lore. For example, through humor and biting satire, It’s a Bucket refers to an oft-shared story in Fields’ family, in which her grandmother — while considering the purchase of a large enamel pot in a store in Florida — turned to another family member and asked in Osage, “Hanontze,” or “How much is it?,” only to have the salesman move in closely to offer at a yell, “It’s a bucket with a lid on it!” Understanding that he thought she couldn’t recognize a bucket, Fields’ grandmother responded seamlessly in English, “I know it’s a bucket with a lid on it.” The artist points out that, by claiming this story as a humorous episode, shared again and again, the family “transformed a racist and dehumanizing moment into familial bonding, draining it of its venom.”
Cortney Yellowhorse-Metzger, in using her own fingerprints, likewise explores her connectedness to (intergenerational) family and friends, and their care for one another, through such installations as Tears of the Sky People and Tho-day-they (To Live in Friendship). The former consists of a meditative assemblage of tiny bowl-like fingerprints, the whorls of which are alternately obscured or defined by sky-blue glaze. Some of these delicate vessels are suspended in midair while others lay pooled on the floor, with each “tear”/bowl representing a part of a larger whole. The latter work, Tho-day-they, includes fingertip impressions that, petal-like, fill the interior of a shallow bowl form; slip-painted handprints fan outward from this nucleus, as symbols of caretaking, joy, and loving engagement with elders and community.
Perhaps inevitably, the theme of belonging also explores inclusion and exclusion, openness and aggression, resident and alien. Examples of these ideas occur in Cannupa Hanska Luger’s Rounds, Raven Halfmoon’s Cowgirl at Heart, and Anita Field’s Do Your Best. In such works as Sky People and The Scout, Chase Kahwinhut Earles adopts extraterrestrial motifs, such as UFOs and the Star Wars-inspired Imperial scout droid, to investigate issues of cultural belonging, colonialism, betrayal, and (loss of) autonomy. Referring to his work as Indigenous Futurisms, Earles points to science fiction’s “narratives of encounter and colonization; by reworking such images, [he] asserts agency over these present-day mythologies, and posits an alternative temporality.”
Part of a Texas Tech University initiative to expand its curriculum toward strengthening mutual relationships with the Native communities of the Southern Plains, the School of Visual Arts sees this Belonging exhibition as a launchpad for conversations to come. In this way, Belonging itself, with its extensive interpretive material and ties to the recent Texas Ceramics Symposium, acts as a dialogue, a reminder that we live in mutuality with one another. In the exhibition catalog’s essay, “Belonging: Then, Now and Always,” author Chelsea Herr (Choctaw) — Curator of Indigenous Art and Culture at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma — points out, “to live ethically in relation to one another, we must acknowledge that our existence affects and is affected by more than just ourselves. We must not only belong, but also extend belonging to others.”
Belonging: Contemporary Native Ceramics from the Southern Plains is on view at the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts in Lubbock through March 23, 2024.
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]]>The post Review: “Roberto Jackson Harrington: Mama’s Boy or an Inexplicable Reasoning” at La Mecha Contemporary, El Paso appeared first on Glasstire.
]]>In the way of a homecoming, Roberto Jackson Harrington returned to El Paso, Texas, for his solo exhibition Mama’s Boy or an Inexplicable Reasoning at La Mecha Contemporary. La Mecha is located in a cool, downtown-adjacent grassroots complex called The Falstaff, a “community art and culture space” consisting of a horseshoe-shaped series of buildings filled with winding galleries, a coffee shop, an outdoor bar, studios, and more. Opening night for Mama’s Boy was part of a “Last Thursdays” art crawl, and was a laid-back eclectic scene with powerhouse art.
Born and raised in El Paso, the now Austin-based Harrington creates sculptural, collage, and digital works founded on the idea of potential. Themes of sustainability, consumerism, collaboration, and useless systems abound in his seemingly piecemeal assemblages and collage.
However, for Mama’s Boy, a very personal thread comes through the artist’s work. In the exhibition statement, Harrington explains his mother’s journey from Zacatecas, Mexico to the United States, and reflects upon her journey from the lens of being a parent himself. According to the artist: “I understand and appreciate the immeasurable sacrifices, hard work and determination my mother exerted to provide those benefits to me and my siblings. Her determination and hope have afforded me these opportunities and have grown, in one generation, from a life of manual labor to one of immense privilege as an artist. In general, I see my work as a celebration and observance of my mother’s determination to improve life for herself and her generations to come.”
The nod to privilege, opportunities, and the arts industry in comparison to the sacrifices of an immigrant’s plight align with Harrington’s tongue-in-cheek, earnest work, which doesn’t take itself too seriously. Paradoxically, Mama’s Boy gnaws at heavy concerns: mass consumption (of both goods, ideas, and resources), the physical reality of the world, and the idea of a “self.”
Untitled collages of bulldozer-like vehicles are framed by grass-green and deep-blue squares of paint on the wall, with anthropomorphic, multi-object sculptures resting on faux fur and plywood platforms suspended off the wall by hardware and bungee cords; suspense is the key word for these installations. When discussing his use of alternative displays, such as the potentially-precarious plywood platforms or stacks of bottled sodas that function as pedestals, Harrington mused that, “if my sculpture degree at UTEP [The University of Texas at El Paso] taught me anything, it’s how to make things stand up!” The artist’s craftsmanship can’t be debated — many of the works in this show could almost be luxury objects, with a singularly specific, expensive use. His clean, sanitarily presented collage prints, hung in neat squares, read like a curated Instagram grid for the elite shopper.
Harrington’s (three of five), Leitmotiv Tagliere-LMT22-2022 resembles a rattlesnake, with primary yellow eraser caps jutting off silicone straws for fangs. The visuals in this entire body of work bite, with acidic colors punctuating throughout the exhibition space. It’s easy to imagine the artist haphazardly grabbing whatever mundane objects surround him, then playing around with them — building blocks of future artworks, born of everyday clutter. This reminds me of AI-generated art, in a way. In the age of artificial intelligence, our culture is rife with the detritus of both materialism and intellectualism. AI-created images, however, even when given innocuous prompts, will often turn out to be sexist, racist, or simply cliché. It seems the massive accumulation of our patterns, our consumption, and our visual world churns out our lowest impulses at worst, our most boring at best.
Unlike AI and its grossly blasé conglomerations, Harrington gathers what seem to be objects that are lying around any parent’s living room, garage, or stashed in the back of their family-friendly SUV. There is a seeming randomness to the materials he chooses. Also, there is a personal, bodily quality to each item: an earring that was lost between the bed and end table, toothbrushes that scrubbed the recesses of someone’s cheek, a keychain that was rubbed with unconscious thought, a bungee cord that was pulled tight over furniture in the truck bed, a guitar amp that was heard and relished. The body, while not depicted, is still hugely present in this work.
The sculptures, like Phloper, Leitmotiv Carattere-LMC24-2024, lend themselves to both man/machine biological reductionism and its critique. Rather than functioning as a “whole,” or just a sum of their parts, the brightly-colored, hyper-textural objects attack themes of labor, domesticity, and the fine arts; in this instance, all are tied up in a comical, bug-like package. Philosopher Julien Offray de La Mettrie rejected dualism, the idea of a separation between body and soul, in favor of the soul as material, a notion that contemporary philosopher Ta-Nehisi Coates emphasizes in his book Between the World and Me. In this way, Harrington easily bridges the self, community, and the world at large. The artist’s “silly” assemblages reassert materiality and cut with a philosophical knife’s edge. They are well-assembled piles of junk, yet they are jumping-off points for inquiry, imbued with both their former function, as well as their future possibility.
In the era of uncertain futures (though, fearing the unknown ahead may be the connective thread that ties us to all of human existence) it’s encouraging that thrown-away bits and lost or unsung ideas can be transformed into energetic, engaging outcomes. Within the materiality of each of Harrington’s gestural yet tightly-bound sculptures lies a pure essence of hope.
Mama’s Boy or an Inexplicable Reasoning is on view at La Mecha Contemporary in El Paso, Texas, through March 23, 2024.
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]]>The post Applause for Eye Candy: Recent Exhibitions in Dallas appeared first on Glasstire.
]]>The more things change, the more they stay the same. The mid-century, “Mad Men” style cartoon figures within Kris Pierce’s newest paintings echo his exhibition, Party Line, at the Galveston Arts Center in 2022-2023. In this show, phrases of self-confirmation are drawn from real world examples, such as a scented sticker pack which dates roughly to the 1980s, as Pierce continues to explore the notion that American culture is often mining itself for meaning. The artist reflects on the evolution of individualism and power in society, from the counterculture of the 1960s to today, using a mix of video, audio, and sculpture. One sculpture, Cosmic Rerun, is an affirmation machine resembling an arcade console that critiques the perpetuation of individualism and hierarchy in contemporary culture, while also exploring the connection between technology and the past.
Pierce’s exploration of American individualism resonates deeply within the conceptual framework of his paintings and sculptures. By delving into the complexities of the generational perpetuation of individualistic ideals, they invite viewers to contemplate the exhaustion of contemporary society. There are considerations of mechanical function through meticulous fabrication, as in the case of buttons attached to Cosmic Rerun. Though they are currently without any function, they are wired so that they may be programmed in the future. Pierce continues to provoke meditation on the nature of individualism and its impact on modern life.
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Julie Bozzi: Eye Candy at Talley Dunn Gallery, February 17–April 6, 2024
Julie Bozzi’s latest exhibition offers a delightful exploration of regional confectionery foods through impeccably rendered paintings and hand-painted accordion fold books. Reminiscent of visual dictionaries and encyclopedias, Bozzi’s work invites viewers on a delectable journey through sweet treats from around the world. The inclusion of panoramic landscapes explores a less saccharine palette, with muted greens and pink sunset hues creating a warm and inviting atmosphere. Bozzi’s dedication to style and format shines through in tightly clustered pages that capture the essence of her subject matter. Additionally, this show features Bozzi’s travels, including her 2006 series inspired by Mexican pastries. Tin-plated frames sourced from Oaxaca add authenticity to the pieces, while books of seasonal cookies and Japanese candies offer charming vignettes. Bozzi’s ability to draw from life, even during the pandemic era, reflects her commitment to capturing the beauty of everyday pleasures.
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Tiara Unique Francois: Learning to be T.U.F. at the Oak Cliff Cultural Center, February 24–March 29, 2024
This exhibition of emerging Dallas-based artist Tiara Unique Francois is rife with both loose and structurally rendered drawing and painting. I spoke with the exhibition’s curator, Ciara Elle Bryant, who assured me that virtually every work in the show is essentially a self-portrait, including the pieces in which notes pulled from the artist’s journal are prominent alongside the figuration or her own visage. Paint, ink, and charcoal are all applied with some variation of technique, such that I didn’t notice Francois is often the central figure in each piece. Instead, the artist’s adventurous use of line reveals skill and talent in the art of portraiture. During the opening reception, I asked Bryant to give her general impression of curating the exhibition:
“A lot of artists now are like, ‘I have to do this thing. I have to get it right.’ But she’s just playing sometimes. And it looks and feels good.”
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Jeff Gibbons: Beard Chewer at Conduit Gallery, February 24–April 6, 2024
Jeff Gibbons’ current exhibition with Conduit Gallery is the artist’s first in Dallas after relocating to Provincetown, Massachusetts, where he is a part of the 2023-2024 cohort at the Fine Arts Work Center. Gibbons progresses to painting, as compared to his previous exhibition with the gallery, which showcased dramatic and elegant sculptures; this time, there is more conceptual self-portraiture on view.
The largest painting explores interconnectedness through a mesmerizing landscape teeming with miniature portraits of the artist’s friends, who are adorned in whimsical costumes. Gibbons embarked on a creative journey to fill the expansive canvas, drawing inspiration from the unique landscape of Provincetown. The piece unfolds as a twisting landscape, reminiscent of a Mobius strip, where the sea and sky merge into a single entity, blurring the boundaries between land and space, reality and imagination. This surreal setting serves as the backdrop for the artist’s friends, whose identities are transformed, inviting viewers to contemplate the complexities of human connection. The title of the piece, Where’s Jeffrey, highlights the absence of the artist in the painting and emphasizes the importance of the individuals in shaping his identity. Through the use of recognizable pop culture references and timeless symbols, such as Batman and McDonald’s, the painting transcends individual relationships and resonates with universal themes of nostalgia and collective memory. Ultimately, the artwork serves as a poignant reflection on the interplay between personal identity, social constructs, and the enduring influence of shared experiences across time.
William Sarradet is the Assistant Editor for Glasstire.
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]]>The post ART214 Biennial Juried Exhibition Opens Across Five Dallas Venues in March and April appeared first on Glasstire.
]]>First launched in 2013, Dallas Arts Month is a city-wide celebration held each April. Originally, ART214 was an annual exhibition that served as a cornerstone of Dallas Arts Month programming. The event has transitioned into a biennial showcase and is a collaboration between cultural venues that are a part of the City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture, including the Latino Cultural Center, the Bath House Cultural Center, the Oak Cliff Cultural Center, Moody Performance Hall, and the South Dallas Cultural Center.
This year participating artists were selected by a panel of five art professionals from the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The panelists were Ashley Jordan, founder and Creative Program Director of Form Creatives; Mylan Nguyen, artist and co-founder of Strange Powers Press; Raymond Butler, artist and curator; Shawn Saumell, artist and art/photography professor; and Jose Vargas, artist and curator. Once the artwork was selected, Benjamin Muñoz, artist and co-founder of Familia Print Shop, curated the exhibition across multiple venues.
See the locations, exhibition dates, reception information, and viewing hours for each of the venues below. Find a full list of participating artists at the ART214 website.
Latino Cultural Center
2600 Live Oak St., Dallas, TX 75204
Exhibition Dates: March 16 – April 19, 2024
Reception: Saturday, March 16, 2024; 6 – 8 p.m.
Viewing Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
South Dallas Cultural Center
3400 S. Fitzhugh Ave, Dallas, TX 75210
Exhibition Dates: March 22 – April 27, 2024
Reception: Friday, March 22, 2024; 5 – 8 p.m.
Viewing Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Bath House Cultural Center
521 E. Lawther Dr., Dallas, TX 75218
Exhibition Dates: March 23 – April 27, 2024
Reception: Saturday, March 30, 2024; 6 – 8 p.m.
Viewing Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 12 – 6 p.m.; Open until 10 PM on nights with theater performances
Moody Performance Hall
2520 Flora Street, Dallas, Texas 75201
Exhibition Dates: April 1 – May 5, 2024
Reception: Tuesday, April 2, 2024; 5 – 7 p.m.
Viewing Hours: Open on days and nights with performances. Viewing is by appointment at other times.
Oak Cliff Cultural Center
223 W Jefferson Blvd, Dallas, TX 75208
Exhibition Dates: April 13 – May 24, 2024
Reception: Saturday, April 13, 2024; 6 – 8 p.m.
Viewing Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 12 – 6 p.m.
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]]>The post Reflecting on the Silent Struggles of Nature at “Bianca Bondi: A Preservation Method” at Dallas Contemporary appeared first on Glasstire.
]]>In many ways, it feels like there is a never-ending fight between humans and nature. Who is in control? This fight feels even more present, at the point of a crescendo, given the current wildfires that are devastating the Texas Panhandle. Bianca Bondi: A Preservation Method embodies a silent struggle. In this installation, Bondi uses the 1965 Highway Beautification Act, a law that limits billboards, advertising, and junk yards along interstate highways, as the origin of a micro-narrative. The narrative that helps us to narrow our lens to one small space to have a more intimate encounter with the struggles playing out between the human-made and the land.
The question at the heart of the exhibition is what unintended consequences we have on the land, even when we have the best of intentions. Bondi constructed a billboard, seemingly discarded along with other metal scraps, in a salt-filled junkyard. Salt is a signature element in Bondi’s multi-disciplinary style, which blends science and spiritual energy. Truly, the material creates a sense of magic in the space. Upon walking in, visitors note a difference in the air, a change that engages the nose and skin, effectively transporting and immersing them into a separate time and place. The salt also acts as a change agent upon the work, creating crystalline formations on the metal as it rapidly oxidizes. What is most beautiful about the installation is the role of nature. Throughout the space, visitors find wildflowers and plants standing tall through the salt and metal. Against the odds, nature persists and continues to fight back against the damage caused by humans.
The description of Bondi’s work as “future archaeology” is apt in capturing the feel of this installation. There is a blurring of past and potential, one that leaves visitors feeling as if they have journeyed into apocalyptic space. Yet, it does not veer into the cliché. There is an open-ended quality to the artist’s approach; an opening that is left for visitors to reflect. What future would we like to create? Could we persist and survive in the environments we are currently creating? Bondi plays with reflective materials in this exhibition, as she has in previous installations, including reflective salt-water pools. These mirrored elements reference the ancient practice of scrying, which involves looking into a reflective surface to see visions or guidance for the future. I encourage visitors to take a moment and face the reflection of the past, future, and present in this exhibition, to see what path they would like to follow. Perhaps we all will take a moment to pay more attention to the silent struggles facing the land, before the volume ratchets up louder than we can bear.
Bianca Bondi: A Preservation Method is on view at Dallas Contemporary through March 17, 2024.
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]]>The post Contemporary Art Month Opens Application for 2024 Microgrants appeared first on Glasstire.
]]>CAM is a nonprofit organization that promotes contemporary art in San Antonio by organizing an annual month-long city-wide celebration during March. This year Christopher Blay, curator at the Houston Museum of African American Culture, was the guest curator for the CAM Perennial, an annual exhibition that coincides with Contemporary Art Month.
The CAMGrant program was launched in 2022 and provides unrestricted funds to support local artists. In its first year, the granting program offered four $500 grants. Last year, to better support recipients, the organization increased the award amount to $1,000 and reduced the number of grantees to three artists. The 2023 awardees were Kim Bishop, Tanesha Sumerset Payne, and Ashleigh Valentine Garza. This year, while the award amount will still be $1,000, only two grants will be offered.
In a press release, Nina Hassele, CAM’s Executive Director, remarked, “This grant continues to be spearheaded by an incredible group of women, and I am really proud of that. It marks a major milestone for our organization and the community of artists whom we serve.”
San Antonio artists are encouraged to submit their applications for consideration. The application deadline is Wednesday, March 27, 2024, at 11:59 p.m. Winners will be announced via email on March 29, and a public announcement will be made at the CAMMIE Awards and CAM Closing Event on March 30.
Learn more about the CAMGrant and apply via the CAM website.
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]]>The post Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center Announces Winning Tejano Conjunto Festival Posters appeared first on Glasstire.
]]>The poster contest was open to middle school, high school, and college students, as well as arts professionals. San Antonio native Anna Arce was named the top winner. Ms. Arce holds a BFA in Graphic Design from Schreiner University in Kerrville, Texas, and is currently pursuing an MA in Art Therapy at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College in Indiana. Her poster will be used for the promotion and marketing of this year’s festival. Additionally, she has been awarded a prize of $2,000.
While Ms. Arce won the overall prize, winners were also named in the student categories. Annalise Solis, a student from Gregory Portland ISD in Portland, Texas won the middle school category; in the high school category, Anahi Barroza, a student at Churchill High School in San Antonio won first place, and Victoria Leal, a student from Northside ISD, received an honorable mention. Alejandro Rocha was the winner of the college category. In the open category, Roberto B. Sosa, who designed the 1983 Tejano Conjunto Festival poster, was named the winner.
Tickets are now on sale for the 42nd Annual Tejano Conjunto Festival, which will take place from May 17 to 19 at Rosedale Park. Additional events, including the Seniors Dance and Hall of Fame dance, will take place at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9186 on Wednesday, May 15 and Thursday, May 16.
See the full schedule of events and purchase tickets at the GCAC website.
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]]>The post Video: A Conversation with Rothko Chapel Executive Director David Leslie appeared first on Glasstire.
]]>This is the third entry in Glasstire’s series featuring extended interviews from the making of Michael Flanagan’s Breaking the Code, his 2023 documentary film on artist Vernon Fisher. This conversation with Rothko Chapel Executive Director David Leslie was recorded in 2021 inside the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas.
In the interview, Leslie discusses the correlation between Rothko’s color field paintings and Fisher’s early series of pulsating circular abstractions.
Titled 1.0080, after the atomic weight of hydrogen, Fisher originally created the series during the 1960s in an attempt to paint “those primary, singular energy sources that lie beneath the skin of everyday living.” Leslie’s family has serendipitously owned one of Fisher’s 1.0080 paintings since the two were acquaintances during the artist’s teaching stint at Austin College in Sherman, Texas, during the 1970s. Here, Leslie posits that both Fisher and Rothko invite the viewer to “meditate upon and think about” themes of meaning and mythology in a way that creates a conversation between the artist and viewer.
Breaking the Code will screen in the Lynn Wyatt Theatre at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston at 2 p.m. on March 17, 2024. After the film, the audience is invited to stay for a panel discussion with filmmaker Michael Flanagan and MFAH curator Alison de Lima Greene.
Visit breakingthecodefilm.com for more information on streaming and upcoming screenings.
Video Credits:
Produced and Edited by Michael Flanagan
Camera by Carlos Estrada
Sound by Michael Flanagan
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]]>The post Kerry Inman Buys Former Station Museum Building; Will Move Gallery appeared first on Glasstire.
]]>Inman Gallery opened in 1990 and moved into the Isabella Court building in 2004. It debuted its first show (also of works by Darren Waterston) in the 4,000-square-foot space, which was designed by architect John Blackmon and features a main exhibition space, a smaller back room space, an inventory/gallery space, and offices, in July of that year. Throughout the gallery’s time in Isabella Court, Ms. Inman’s program has focused largely on working with and fostering the careers of local and regional artists, many of whom she has represented for years.
Of her choice to move her gallery out of its longtime home, Ms. Inman told Glasstire, “1502 Alabama has an amazing history as the Station Museum, and we are excited to move there; it is a really great next step for Inman Gallery. We will only be four blocks away from our current location and imagine coordinating events with the Isabella businesses, hopefully amplifying the area’s cultural offerings.”
To help design the interior of the 1502 Alabama building, which is approximately 8,460 square feet and is located about half a mile east of the gallery’s current location, Ms. Inman has hired the Houston firm Dillon Kyle Architects. She says their minimal ideas for the building include “highlighting the assets of the space — the pitched ceiling and the beautiful wood floors, while increasing the natural light inside.”
This move will make Ms. Inman’s gallery one of the largest in Houston. She says that more than half of the space will ultimately be offices and storage, and that the significant square footage will allow the gallery to have all of its storage on site.
When asked how the new building will allow her gallery’s program to grow, and what she looks forward to about the space, Ms. Inman told Glasstire, “1502 Alabama will allow Inman Gallery to have all of our activities under one roof, on site parking, and a very visible location. I’m excited about the challenges that the new space offers us, and hope to be a new destination within Houston’s arts ecosystem. I also look forward to having morning coffee across the street, and a beer after work around the corner.”
The future of the 1502 Alabama building has been in question ever since the Station Museum, which was known for presenting wholly unique and sometimes controversial exhibitions, announced it would close until further notice in November of 2022. The building’s situation was made even more uncertain after the death of the Station’s co-founder (and the building’s co-owner), James Harithas, in March of 2023.
Ms. Inman’s purchase of the building was made possible by the recent sale of another Midtown property she had purchased in 2012, the 23,000-square-foot Bermac Arts Building at 4101 San Jacinto St., which for years housed artists’ studios and the Community Artists’ Collective. Though the terms of sale of the former Station Museum building are confidential, property records show that as of January 2023 it was valued at $1,378,370. By comparison, the January 2023 valuation of the Bermac property by the city is $2,765,046.
Given the trepidation surrounding the future of the 1502 Alabama building, many in the Houston arts community will likely be excited that it will remain an art space, though there will also be some sadness that the sale of the building would seem to be the final death knell of the Station Museum.
For her part, Ms. Inman will think fondly about her time at Isabella Court: “I have absolutely loved having Inman Gallery at Isabella Court for 20 years, it has been an amazing home! I’m happy to see galleries and artist studios starting to fill up the Isabella spaces again!” The gallery’s departure from the building will mean that the newly opened Throughline Collective will be one of the last art spaces in the building. It also, however, will leave a vacancy with potential: a fully built-out gallery space with address recognition and a storied history, that could be, in theory, move-in-ready for the right tenant.
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]]>The post Inaugural Rūng Film Festival to Highlight Pakistani Filmmakers in Houston appeared first on Glasstire.
]]>In an email to Glasstire, Sara S. Iqbal, Communication Director for IAC and Festival Director for RFF, spoke on the impetus for the festival:
The growing Pakistani diaspora in the U.S. faces a significant challenge of underrepresentation in art, film, TV, and mainstream media, which is the most influential medium of persuasion. This lack of representation leads to unfair misrepresentation and stereotyping of characters. Rūng Film Fest… aims to diversify the narrative in U.S. media and film by highlighting and showcasing original stories told through the lens of Pakistani filmmakers, in an annual film festival for underrepresented filmmakers.
Ms. Iqbal revealed that over sixty films were submitted to this first RFF. The lineup has not yet been announced, but will be revealed in the coming weeks on the IAC website here. The festival will be held at the Midtown Arts and Theater Center, 3400 Main St., on May 4 and 5 from 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. An awards ceremony will follow the screenings. There will also be panel discussions and Q&A sessions with, according to the website, “invaluable resources for indie filmmakers and related artistic disciplines.” Specific details have not yet been announced.
Accomplished figures of Pakistani American cinema, including actors Faran Tahir and Kamran Shaikh, filmmakers Sadia Uqaili and Hiba Said, and producer Fahad Shaikh, have lent their support to the festival. “Media shapes our perception… Our image matters, and it matters how people look at us. We can do that through storytelling and streaming these vibrant voices into the mainstream for everyone to see,” said Mr. Tahir, who serves on the RFF advisory committee, as quoted in the press release from IAC.
Ticketing information for the festival has not yet been released. For updates, follow IAC on Facebook or Instagram, or stay tuned to the RFF website.
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