Brandon Zech, William Sarradet, Jessica Fuentes, and special guests talk about upcoming exhibitions in Texas, including Tsherin Sherpa: Spirits at the Asia Society Texas Center in Houston, Groundswell: Women in Land Art at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, The Long Lives of Very Old Books at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, and more.
Tsherin Sherpa, “Himalayan Spirits,” 2021, gold, acrylic, and ink on four canvases. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2022.74a-d
TSHERIN SHERPA: SPIRITS
Asia Society Texas (Houston)
September 21 – January 7, 2024
From Asia Society Texas Center:
“Asia Society Texas (AST) announces the opening of Tsherin Sherpa: Spirits, a stunning mid-career retrospective of today’s most visible, well-known, and accomplished contemporary artist from the Himalayan region. Focusing on Sherpa’s Spirits series, the exhibition features 33 pieces, including painting, sculpture, installation, and fiberwork that thoughtfully contemplate the power of transformation. Born and raised in Kathmandu, Nepal, Sherpa studied Tibetan Buddhist painting with his father from the age of 13. In his late 20s, he relocated to California, where he continued his traditional art practice before moving beyond its boundaries to establish his own artistic voice.
Tsherin Sherpa: Spirits tells the stories of loss, struggle, and empowerment. The exhibition traces the evolution of Sherpa’s Spirits series as it stretches, bends, reconfigures, and repurposes elements from traditional Tibetan art, merging them with modern imagery. Through these transformations, Sherpa contemplates the collisions of culture and identity that displaced people must negotiate. Dislocated from their homes — an experience familiar to the artist and communities all over the world — these figures move from grief and confusion to courage and self-assurance, to triumph and wisdom.”
Lita Albuquerque, “Spine of the Earth,” 1980, pigment, rocks, and wood sundials, El Mirage Lake, Mojave Desert, CA. Destroyed. Courtesy of the artist © Lita Albuquerque
Groundswell: Women of Land Art
Nasher Sculpture Center (Dallas)
September 23 – January 7, 2023
From the Nasher Sculpture Center:
“Using materials like earth, wind, water, fire, wood, salt, rocks, mirrors, and explosives, American artists of the 1960s began to move beyond the white cube gallery space to work directly in the land. With ties to Minimal and Conceptual art, these artists placed less emphasis on the discrete object and turned their attention to the experience of the artwork—however fleeting or permanent that might be—foregrounding natural materials and the site itself to create works that were large in scale and located outside of typical urban art world circuits.
Groundswell features 12 artists recognized for their sustained engagement with Land art: Lita Albuquerque (American, born 1946); Alice Aycock (American, born 1946); Beverly Buchanan (American, 1940–2015); Agnes Denes (American, born Hungary, 1931); Maren Hassinger (American, born 1947); Nancy Holt (American, 1938–2014); Patricia Johanson (American, born 1940); Ana Mendieta (American, born in Cuba, 1948–1985); Mary Miss (American, born 1944); Jody Pinto (American, born 1942); Michelle Stuart (American, born 1933); and Meg Webster (American, born 1944).”
Bound collection of nine sermon editions by Henry Smith, Harry Ransom Center Book Collection.
The Long Lives of Very Old Books
Harry Ransom Center (Austin)
August 19 – December 30, 2023
From the Harry Ransom Center:
“Explore the stories behind books published by Europeans between the mid-fifteenth and late-seventeenth centuries, tracing them from printing houses into the hands of generations of collectors and bookbinders and, ultimately, modern research libraries like the Ransom Center. Visitors will encounter a number of exceptional objects, including a Don Quixote that has been annotated by a class-conscious reader and all three of the Center’s copies of the Shakespeare First Folio, which celebrates its 400th anniversary this year. Other notable volumes among the more than 150 on display are a Bible that purportedly traveled to New England on the Mayflower, a geographical encyclopedia in Greek that made its way from the press of Aldus Manutius in Venice into the Islamic world, a group of playbooks implicated in a series of high-profile thefts, and a sixteenth-century book that a Harvard undergraduate started to use as his personal diary in the late 1960s.”
John Biggers, “How I Got Over,” 1987, acrylic and oil wash on panel. Private collection.”
Witness: Black Artists in Texas, Then and Now
Grace Museum (Abilene)
October 14, 2023 – February 3, 2024
From the Grace Museum:
“The Grace Museum presents art exhibitions curated to celebrate the significant contributions of Black artists in Texas, both past and present. The creative process of sharing personal experiences through the visual arts is a testament to the importance of documenting our cultural stories; marking the moment as witness. Each artist in this exhibition brings something authentic, unique, and valuable to the nascent conversation about race and culture. This long-overdue focus on important Texas-based Black artists provides a platform to create awareness of the many contributions Black artists have made to American art history.”
Installation view of the El Paso Museum of Art’s 4th Border Biennial
2024 Border Biennial / Bienal Fronteriza 2024
El Paso Museum of Art
December 15, 2023 – April 14, 2024
From the El Paso Museum of Art:
“The 2024 Border Biennial / Bienal Fronteriza 2024 will focus on the unique identity of the borderland, which includes a diversity of experiences. The exhibition will explore how the definition of “the border,” has helped shape artists’ artistic practice and make up who they are, including their history, gender, culture, race, sexuality, etc. Engaging programming and a publication capturing the show will accompany the exhibition. While the artworks in the Border Biennial focus on the United States / Mexico border, the exhibition provides an opportunity to reflect on borders and their conditions worldwide.
The 2024 Border Biennial is curated by Claudia S. Preza M.A., EPMA Assistant Curator, alongside curatorial advisors Edgar Picazo Merino and Jazmín Ontiveros Harvey.”
Isaac Julien, “Mazu, Turning (Ten Thousand Waves),” 2010. Linda Pace Foundation Collection, Ruby City, San Antonio, Texas, © Isaac Julien, courtesy Isaac Julien Studio, London.
Water Ways
Ruby City (San Antonio)
September 7, 2023 – July 28, 2024
From Ruby City:
“Comprised of drawings, installations, paintings, photographs, prints and sculpture, Water Ways includes over 50 works of art that underscore water’s many forms and associations. Serving as a powerful conduit, the theme of water enables artists to delve into its representation as well as its psychological, symbolic and cultural significance. The works on view are almost entirely drawn from the Linda Pace Foundation/Ruby City Collection and reveal yet another lens by which its holdings can be interpreted.”
Bonus Pick:
Samuel Fosso, “Self-Portrait (as Liberated American Woman of the ’70s),” 1997, printed 2003, chromogenic print. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase funded by Nina and Michael Zilkha, 2004.809. © Samuel Fosso, Courtesy Jean Marc Patras Galerie, Paris
Afro-Atlantic Histories
Dallas Museum of Art
October 22, 2023 – February 11, 2024
From the Dallas Museum of Art:
“See the show that the New Yorker called ‘visionary’ in the final destination of its U.S. tour. The DMA is proud to present Afro-Atlantic Histories, an ambitious exhibition that charts the transatlantic slave trade and its legacies in the African Diaspora.
Composed of around 100 works of art and documents produced in Africa, the Americas, the Caribbean, and Europe from the 17th century to today, this exhibition engages visitors in a series of dialogues that reexamine histories and stories of enslavement, resilience, and the struggle for liberation from a global perspective.”
2 comments
I am so excited about getting to see Tsherin Sherpa’s work in person, I have been using his images in my Intro to Visual Arts Class for years! Thank you for letting us know!
Thank you for sharing! I’m an emerging artist who’s about to relocate to Austin and this is such a fabulous resource and review. I’m especially excited to see Tsherin Sherpa’s work in person!!