Glasstire counts down the top five art events in Texas.
For last week’s picks, please go here.
Antonio Lechuga, “St. Christopher, Patron Saint of Travelers Guiding River Crossers,” 2024, applique textile, cobija (fleece blanket), thread, 14 1/2 x 7 1/2 feet
1. 2024 Texas Biennial: The Last Sky
Blaffer Art Museum (Houston)
September 27, 2024 – March 9, 2025
Opening September 27, 6-8 p.m.
From the Blaffer Museum:
“Texas is constructed territory, therefore unstable borders and occupations shape communities and their participants. Systems and structures rise and fall. The collapse produces dust and dirt, yielding material histories written in detritus and debris. In its eighth iteration, the 2024 Texas Biennial, The Last Sky, looks to the still-lingering dust to ask: What happens after the last line in the sand is drawn?
Through a collaborative and non-hierarchical approach, Erika Mei Chua Holum, Ashley DeHoyos Sauder, and Coka Treviño co-organized the eighth iteration of the Texas Biennial through friendship, reciprocity, and mutual support. With trifold dreams and visions, the co-curators selected works and artist projects through the 2024 Texas Biennial Open Call.”
Eileen Maxson, “Parent Trap,” three-channel video installation
2. Eileen Maxson: Parent Trap
Keijsers Koning (Dallas)
August 24 – September 28, 2024
From Keijsers Koning:
“Parent Trap is a three-channel video installation where Maxson puts her parents through a polygraph exam. Blurring the lines between experimental documentary, family banter, and the American Zeitgeist, in this unscripted, anti-avoiding-the-topic-family-stress test, Maxson and her parents use the absurdity of the situation to engage in serious dialogue across generational, political, and ideological divides. The installation, presented on three distinct screens, each dedicated to one true-life character, immerses the viewer in the dynamic of this table conversation.”
Moll Brau, “Mid-Air,” 2024, acrylic on linen, 60 x 48 inches
3. Moll Brau’s: Solo exhibition Deliverance
Martha’s Contemporary (Austin)
September 14 – October 5, 2024
From Martha’s:
“What does it mean to be delivered? One may be delivered by a god, delivered by a mother. It seems to entail a springing forth from nothing — as Athena did from Zeus’ head — but the delivery in childbirth happens at the end of pregnancy, not the beginning, an emergence that occurs after forty long weeks of gestation, the mother, delivered too — from pregnancy — in the process.
In her solo show Deliverance, Moll Brau exhibits work related to the gestation and birth of her daughter, showing images that came to her during her pregnancy — her first. The visions and imagined landscapes evoke Brau’s feelings of transition, liberation, dread, and salvation.”
A work from Sarah Fox’s “The Woman Under the Water”
4. Sarah Fox: The Woman Under the Water
Mercury Project (San Antonio)
September 6 – 28, 2024
From Mercury Project:
“Artist Statement: This body of work explores fairy tales, ecology, and healing. Humans have lost our connection to the Earth we are a part of, a Mother that has valuable knowledge to share with us.
My studio practice for the last few years has started with almost daily walks along the San Antonio River. I found myself getting to know her, her cycles, the wildness she displayed before a rainstorm, the hum of new bugs in the spring, her sparse silence on cold days… I could hear her screaming during last summer’s 110 degree days. Yet, she continues — her long hair strung with trash and algae after a heavy rain. Those that feel her irritation, endlessly comb out the bottles, cigarette butts and Styrofoam trying to comfort her.”
A work by Miki Rodriguez
5. Miki Rodriguez: Transitions
Laredo Center for the Arts
September 6 – November 1, 2024
From Laredo Center for the Arts:
“I am drawn to discarded materials, throw-ways, and unnecessary one-use objects. They are telling of human life. I consider who these materials belonged to and why they were discarded. These materials reflect human identities. A glimpse of someone’s private story is reflected in a broken key that used to open a door, a piece of costume jewelry is reminiscent of someone’s mother, and a torn child’s t-shirt that has an image of SpongeBob SquarePants speaks of innocence. I am striving for the exclusive use of materials and objects that reflect humanity’s existence. I look for the story because within this story is mine and yours.”
