Glasstire counts down the top five art events in Texas.
For last week’s picks, please go here.
Installation view of “Al Otro Lado / Going Across”
1. Javier Dragustinovis: Going Across/ Al Otro Lado
San Benito Cultural Heritage Museum
September 25 – November 3, 2023
From the San Benito Cultural Heritage Museum:
“The City of San Benito’s Cultural Arts Department (CAD) is pleased to announce its latest exhibition at the San Benito Cultural Heritage Museum: Al otro lado / Going Across. This exhibition showcases Mexican artist, Javier Dragustinovis’s most recent exploration of the nuances of migration and borders. This exhibition highlights the crossing of food, music, and memory. Dragustinovis makes use of everyday artifacts to show the movement of culture and its impact on cross-border communities. Foodstuffs, like avocado and corn, and common materials (glass and concrete) are transformed into a visual representation of this dynamic. Al otro lado / Going Across guides viewers into the parallels between this relationship and that of immigrants with borders. Both questioning and healing, Dragustinovis creates a space for the viewer to inquire about their relationship to cultural migration.
Sedrick Huckaby, “A Talk with Momma,” 2008, oil on canvas. Private Collection
2. Witness: Black Artists in Texas, Then and Now
The 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.”
“Mckay Otto: Ever Legacies Ever”
3. McKay Otto | Ever Legacies Ever
Rockport Center for the Arts
October 6 – November 19, 2023
From the Rockport Center for the Arts:
“Ever Legacies Ever, showcasing the mindbending painting and sculpture creations of Wimberley, Texas-based artist McKay Otto, is coming to Rockport Center for the Arts (RCA) Oct. 6–Nov. 19 in the H-E-B Gallery.
Known for his ethereal paintings that evoke lightboxes, Otto continues to investigate blending painting and sculpture processes using various acrylic materials, which led him to create a multi-dimensional translucent canvas that moves beyond the traditional flat two-dimensional surface with the illusion of movement and light.
The Ever Legacies Ever exhibition includes both the geometric works Otto is known for and a series of photo-like depictions of deceased, iconic South Texans including politician Frances “Sissy” Farenthold (Corpus Christi), artist Betty Mobley (Corpus Christi), artist Estelle Stair (Rockport), sculptor Jesús Bautista Moroles (Rockport), artist and philanthropist Ann Harithas (Houston), rancher Robert Hewitt (Victoria), artist Madeline O’Connor (Victoria), rancher Missi Thomas (Cuero), and philanthropist Jeanie Wyatt (San Antonio).”
Kris Pierce, “Interlude” (The Sleep of Reason)
4. The Sleep of Reason: The Fragmented Figure
The Silos at Sawyer Yards (Houston)
October 7 – December 2, 2023
From Sculpture Month Houston:
“Every time and period has its own special image of the human figure that responds to its social and cultural mantras. Cubism, at the outset of Modernism, radically and irrevocably changed the perception of the figure. The de-constructed, fragmented, and subsequently reconstructed figure became the ubiquitous symbol of the modern human condition.
What has the ‘fragmented figure’ endured in the 21st century? The sobriquet ‘disquiet man’ was coined to refer to the vexing complexities of modern life, its insecurity, and the feeling of solitude and anxiety. If one considers the looming challenges ahead, life in our century may be even more complex and anxiety producing.
The 18 artists in this exhibition provide the viewer with a wide spectrum of viewpoints as they try to formulate visual metaphors that make this new reality emotionally accessible. All artists are Houston and Texas based and the concept of the exhibition is not so much a methodical survey as an examination of trends and trajectories.”
Guadalupe Maravilla, “Mariposa Relámpago”
5. Guadalupe Maravilla: Mariposa Relámpago
Ballroom Marfa
November 4 2023 – March 16, 2024
From Ballroom Marfa:
“Mariposa Relámpago, a traveling installation created by the Salvadorian-born, New York-based transdisciplinary visual artist, choreographer, and healer Guadalupe Maravilla, makes its way across Texas in a series of exhibitions and sound activations presented by three leading institutions. Originally commissioned by the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston in May 2023, Guadalupe Maravilla: Mariposa Relámpago will open at Ballroom Marfa on November 4, 2023, before traveling to The Contemporary Austin’s Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park at Laguna Gloria in April 2024 and commencing at the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston in November 2024.
Known for his intricately layered paintings, large-scale sculptures, and sound ceremonies, Guadalupe Maravilla’s expansive practice draws from his personal history and Central American ancestry. Guadalupe Maravilla fled El Salvador’s civil war as an unaccompanied minor and made a perilous journey through Central America to reunite with family in the United States, becoming a citizen in 2006. Later in life, he was diagnosed with colon cancer, an illness he links to generational trauma, the stresses of his migration experience, and being undocumented. Throughout Maravilla’s recovery process, he learned ancient healing methods, including sound, a form of rehabilitation he feels has been abandoned by Western medicine. Maravilla continues to use these methods on others who have had similar experiences.”
